Story ties together the other games nicely; KH3D is the “bow” of the present leading up to KHIII. Flashbacks and between-worlds cutscenes fit well and don’t seem intrusive.
Drop system works well, adding another dimension of urgency to gameplay (ex. Fighting Char Clawbster to the last 10 seconds helped me get into the game)
Reality Shifts are varied in style, and though break the flow of combat, work better as a battle finisher than mashing Triangle, a la KHII.
Flowmotion takes some getting used to, but adds a healthy alternative to “Command Mashing”. Often gives me a feeling of flinging oneself across the map I haven’t felt since Infamous.
Dream Eaters are incredibly varied and colorful, at 50 different types, and raising them is so enjoyable, it pained me whenever I created a higher-level Dream Eater and had to switch.
Basic combat – hampered slightly by the reverse positions of the analog slider and D-Pad in comparison to that of the PSP; requires the player to stop moving in order to choose a Deck Command.
Birth by Sleep’s tried-and-true combat system works greatly on the 3DS.
KH3D is visually stunning; Graphics are an improvement from Birth by Sleep, and loading times are severely decreased. 3D effects are not intrusive and feel natural; used for looking into the screen, rather than having things pop out.
Par with the course of the series, the worlds are mainly devoid of their native residents.
Flick Rush works as a great application of KH COM’s card-based battle system, though it could have benefitted with the inclusion of deck customization
Comments
I'm currently going through Prankster's Paradice with both Sora and Riku. While I do appreciate Monstro returning, I question why the name "Prankster's Paradice" was kept for Riku's side of the story, since it's entirely inside of Monstro. Then again, they do have to open the 7 keyholes in the same worlds...
I've beaten the Grid. The third world. I must say, Sora's side of the The Grid was awesome. I'm playing this game in proud mode and I beat Rinzler on my first try. Why do people complain about him? :I He was easy.
On the other hand...Riku's side...it was horrible. Everything sounded fake. When I hear CLU's voice during Riku's side, I'm wonder if this is the same guy who played as CLU in Tron: Legacy. In Sora's story, though, CLU sounded exactly like himself. And the scene from the ending of Tron: Legacy didn't have enough emotion to make you feel sad, knowing that Sam will never see his father again.
The concept of death is introduced in the series (finally). Frollo and Flynn die at the end of their respective worlds. Young Xehanort even mentions that Follo's story has ended, which means he died.
In Traverse Town, I love it. I love everything about it. The new areas. The old ones. The remixed version of the field music, and that addicting battle music. KH3D gets a 1000/100 (no typo) on the music, in my opinion.
I like the concept of raising your dream eaters. It reminds me of pokemon. You can name them, give them treats, and play with them. In return they give you awesome abilities or commands like Curaga, or Once More. It's great that they are diverse and that there are many to choose from. :3 A great way to gain LP (Link Points) is to play Flick Rush, which is a fun game since it borrows Chain of Memories' battle system. 02:58, 8 August 2012 (UTC)Keyblade0
Neumannz — Looks like I'm gonna have to jump...! TALK — I work alone! Except when I work with Xion...which is all the time.
— 04:33, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
I can only comment in good faith on the story.
The initial premise of KH3D is rather delightful (and it cleverly solves the recurring problem of "Why is Sora at Level 1 again?"), and the incorporation of story elements from previous instalments of the series is nicely done in most cases. The Chronicle feature helps in putting all the previous games in perspective with respect to KH3D, especially in the manner in which they are made available to the player.
In addition, the individual world stories are fairly well preserved and incorporated into the main story. The Symphony of Sorcery plotline is very interesting, especially considering it is almost completely original. The split between Sora and Riku's progression adds an additional element that keeps the player engaged as the story continues.
However, the major plot twist revealed late in the game, along with most of the last chapter of the story, seems overly convoluted and even a little forced, nearly to the degree of a daytime soap opera. While it sets up the next chapter—Kingdom Hearts III, hopefully—it seems to rely heavily on the goodwill and open-mindedness of the fans in order to pass scrutiny.
Luckily, the final stretch of the story lets the game end on a high note, combining an creative final battle scenario with a number of well-placed callbacks to previous games, going back to the first Kingdom Hearts.
Overall, the story stays interesting and, for the most part, well-balanced, and as long as the player is willing to exercise a bit of suspension of belief, it will keep them drawn into the progression of the series as it continues forward.
Eternal Nothingness XIII - You have to be strong. Strength of heart will carry you through the hardest of trials. TALK - What I do, I do for friendship. — 04:40, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
Okay, my review:
Nice to see a true sequel to Kingdom Hearts II (Re:coded was the biggest disgrace ever).
Tired of playing as young Sora and Riku. What's with Riku's random haircut? Bring back Kingdom Hearts II-style Sora already!
Felt the game was too short. Only seven worlds...
Felt some of the bosses were overpowered (Anti Black Coat; 2nd Ansem battle) considering most players aren't above lv. 50 when they reach the end of the game (or at least I wasn't; you shouldn't want to throw the 3DS out the window because you can't beat a boss).
Appreciated the Secret Portals that let you refight the bosses.
Nomura promised us entirely new worlds...I was disappointed that in reality, they were still the same in terms of either characters or locations. For example, Riku's Prankster's Paradise should have just been labeled "Monstro".
Love how the Deck Command system returned and enjoyed seeing all the commands in action. The animation for each attack is beautiful.
The game NEEDS the 3D at full blast to be enjoyed at its maximum potential (with the 3D, everything from gameplay to cutscenes is breathtaking). Otherwise, it's just another bland, flat world of bland, flat, characters and locations.
I personally hate Disney Castle/Disney Town-style worlds, so to have to endure two of them in a row and technically end the majority of the game with them was a real shame and verged on torture. At least they should have been spaced out more.
Loved the interactivity presented through Flowmotion. Kingdom Hearts always benefits from more cool attacks. It got in the way of dodging at times, which is annoying, but otherwise, it's the best part of the game gameplay-wise.
Reality Shift is rather useless, and I often neglected it. Hated the battles that made using it mandatory.
Because of their overly exaggerated designs and color patterns, the Dream Eaters look like they belong in something other than Kingdom Hearts. Compared to the Heartless, Nobodies, and Unversed designed by Nomura, they just don't fit in and take a while to get used to.
The localized names of the Dream Eaters are a complete fail. While I appreciate the puns such as "Meowjesty" and "Halbird", I feel Square was lazy when it came to localizing certain other names, such as "Tatsu Steed" and "Lord Kyroo". Some, like "Zolephant" simply made no sense whatsoever. Either make an effort to localize the names or leave them as they are in the Japanese version.
I miss having characters for allies. The Dream Eaters were okay as allies overall, but after playing Final Fantasy XIII-2, the whole "recruit monsters rather than fight alongside other characters" seemed a bit too convenient and unoriginal. A spot where Square was lazy during development.
The World Ends With You should NOT have been implemented into Kingdom Hearts. It's just too late in the series to incorporate yet another cross-over. I approached Neku and the others with an open mind, but I was disappointed, yet not surprised, when I didn't have the emotional connection I did when I saw characters like Cloud and Sephiroth in earlier games. This is mainly because I've never played The World Ends With You and had no idea who characters like Neku and Shiki were.
Compared to Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, the soundtrack is a tremendous let-down. Recylced tracks, I feel, were poorly implemented (why were we randomly hearing the Olympus Coliseum theme in Country of the Musketeers?). World field and battle themes all sounded relatively the same, or sometimes they simply didn't fit the mood of a scene or area. A majority of the soundtrack was also remixes of remixes, and while some were okay like "L'Impeto Oscuro", others, such as "Xehanort - The Early Years" were a complete fail and made the soundtrack rather boring to listen to. The only thing Yoko Shimomura did right in this game music-wise I wish she'd do more often with other world music was take the themes that played in Symphony of Sorcery straight from Fantasia, rather than destroy these masterpieces by trying to orchestrate them her own way. There was a noticeable difference, however, in the quality of this music versus the rest of the game's, so it stuck out like a sore thumb.
Compared to other games like Kingdom Hearts II and even Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, voice acting wasn't up to par. You can hear the strain in Haley Joel Osment's voice as he tries to match his more mature vocals to 14-year-old Sora's body, and I'm sick of hearing Jesse McCartney's higher-pitched voice (I miss the Kingdom Hearts II Roxas voice). David Gallagher was great as usual as Riku, but compared to Kingdom Hearts II, some of his battle cries were a bit annoying and pathetic-sounding (same goes for Sora). Quinton Flynn, James Patrick Stuart, and Paul St. Peter did a great job maintaining the feel and sound of their voices from past games. Richard Epcar wasn't as good as he has been in the past, and after watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars for the past four years, I'm sick of Corey Burton's Christopher Lee impression (especially since it sounds exactly like his Yen Sid voice) and wish Square would get Lee back to play Ansem the Wise if the character appears again. Considering his return was disputed for some time, I was overjoyed when Leonard Nimoy returned as Master Xehanort. Ben Diskin, however, was a terrible choice for Young Xehanort in my opinion. Letting David Gallagher voice the character as he did in Birth by Sleep would have been a better choice not only to create a sense of irony story-wise, but also because he doesn't sound like he has a cold whenever he talks as Diskin does. Voice acting is another area where Square neglected the Disney characters, and while the essential character voices made a comeback, I missed hearing actors like Tom Hulce as Quasimodo and Kevin Kline as Phoebus. Some voices, such as Tony Jay's as Frollo are irreplaceable in my opinion, so I'd rather Square had used archived dialogue rather than find the rather dull-sounding replacement that they did. In the end, I was just sick of listening to sub-convincing impressions. If Square ever wants to impress me again voice-wise, they'll ensure Kingdom Hearts III is on-par with Kingdom Hearts II.
Raising Dream Eaters is a nice gameplay element when the player wants to blow off steam for a bit, but I despised how so much of Sora and Riku's own growth is limited to them. You're only allowed three Dream Eaters in the party and can only have certain abilities or stats if the Dream Eater you unlocked them via is on the team? When it came to obtaining commands, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep did a better job.
I appreciated Flick Rush. At last, I had a mini-game I could do and do well. It was a nice change of pace being battle-style, and I appreciated the Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories reference in terms of the cards and such.
The Drop System is a clever means of progressing through the story, albeit it makes things hard to follow unless you possess the insight needed to understand how it influences the plot. It makes gameplay fast-paced and exciting, though it's not something I would miss. I appreciate how Drops can be executed manually at any time.
The Dive System presents an interesting challenge and new way of travelling from world-to-world, and I enjoyed the differences between Sora's Dives and Riku's.
There is a glaring lack of things to do, as in all Kingdom Hearts games, post-story aside from wander around aimlessly trying to improve Dive scores, go back for missed treasure, or defeat the same Special/Secret Portal enemies over and over again. It's nice to see a Disney secret boss like Julius, but once he's out of the picture, the game seems smaller in terms of post-story play.
I appreciated the way tutorials were executed in this game. Hands-on experience and the ability to revisit them is a huge plus to the new player.
This game is one better-off experienced at least after the player has beaten Kingdom Hearts II and especially Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. Even so, it does a great job helping non-series veterans get up to speed on things through the Chronicle system and establishing a clear objective for the game itself.
Flashbacks are a great way to expand the plot, but I wish they'd just play as a normal cutscene. The notification that a flashback was obtained and asking the player if he or she would like to "view it now" really interrupts the game's flow.
Where this game falls shortest is plot. For a story where the antagonists technically win, I feel characters such as Xemnas and Young Xehanort didn't get nearly enough time on-screen. Because of this, by the time Master Xehanort was revived, I was basically just saying "Who cares?". The plot doesn't do a good job explaining itself and often tries to shove too much down your throat at once in my opinion, and I quite despise how Nomura is basically renovating the entire series to connect to Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. Sacrificing the "Nobodies don't have hearts" thing just so the "thirteen darknesses" thing could happen is the worst choice he could have made in my opinion. The story was over as soon as it began, and I was saddened to see so much wasted potential; I feel Nomura took the easy way out a lot of the time. The plot also lost its focus a lot of the time thanks to the Dive System, and I feel the stories that unfolded in the Disney worlds didn't due their original films justice and missed a lot of key elements, thus the worlds just felt like they were included to fill in space rather than have story relevance. The most disappointing thing about the plot is it didn't leave me anticipating Kingdom Hearts III.
I appreciated Square's attention to detail this time around. In terms of this attention in Japan, I appreciated the muting of Sora and Riku's battle cries in Symophony of Sorcery to stay true to the nature of Fantasia and the insertion of musical sounds when their Keyblades made contact with enemies. In terms of the localization, I really appreciated how the characters' mouth movements matched the words spoken on-screen. Considering games like Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories had simply been recorded over the Japanese animation, this was a welcome sight.
Overall, I felt the localized version of the game featured a well-written script that stayed true most of the time to the original Japanese version's. While I found some of the dialogue predictable, I appreciated how natural it sounded. There were times when dialogue clashed and ruined the mood of a scene by making it laughable, such as when Xion asks Riku what he wishes and he answers with "More questions..." rather than a more appropriate respopnse like "More questions?", but this was only a minor annoyance. What I both liked and disliked, however, was the unoriginality when it came to the scripts of the Disney worlds. I appreciated the inclusion of Kevin Flynn's line on the true nature of "perfection", but the transition of Frollo's words to Quasimodo about being a monster from song to dialogue was too awkward to be appropriate.
While not technically about the game itself, I had many complaints about the BradyGames guide. While it was a huge improvement over the Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep strategy guide, I feel it fell short of the mark for numerous reasons compared to a guidebook such as the one written for Kingdom Hearts II. For one thing, it only tells you what ingredients make a Dream Eater, but not where to find said ingredients. It tells you how to obtain the game's extra Keyblades not obtained through story progression, but it doesn't give all the information (obtaining Sweet Dreams from "beating Flick Rush" is a lot different than "Obtain the gold trophy in every Flick Rush tournament"). I appreciated the list of commands and abilities presented in the back of the book, but again, it lacked where to find or how to obtain said commands and abilities, so for a majority of the game, I found myself playing blind and forced to struggle until I got lucky and developed my own strategies. There is also a noticeable lack of attention to post-story content. No leads or suggestions on how to beat Julius, for example, was a huge let-down, as was the lack of lists of Dream Eater Ability Links. I could tell from the first time I saw the guidebook's length that it would lack crucial material. I simply had no idea how much. I thought the book would be thicker with more in-depth info akin to that listed in the guidebooks for Final Fantasy XIII or Final Fantasy XIII-2, and it annoyed me that yet again it seemed as if the authors cared more about making it look pretty than contain the necessary information.
Keyblade0
