Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance - The Game Collection Review!
221In this Dream Drop Distance review, SuperDerek takes look at the HD release of KH3D on PlayStation 4! This is one of the last games featured in The Story So Far!
Welcome back to The Game Collection! I am SuperDerek and this is Dream Drop Distance!
Dream Drop Distance was originally released on the Nintendo 3DS, and included in the Kingdom Hearts 2.8 remaster for PlayStation 4, which is how I played this game. "Dream Drop Distance" is not only a tongue-twister of a title, but also a clever way of sneaking 3D into the title whilst simultaneously making me groan every time I think about it. As such I'll just refer to it as Kingdom Hearts 3D from this point forward.
Kingdom Hearts 3D advances the series story forward from where Kingdom Hearts 2 left off. Sora and Riku while relaxing on the Destiny Islands received a message in a bottle from Yen Sid. Cut to a younger-looking version of the duo setting off on a raft into the ocean only to encounter Ursula, who dashes their vessel to pieces, sending them to the murky depths below. Upon waking in Traverse Town, Sora and Riku find themselves separated from each other, in alternate-but-parallel realities.
At a later point it is revealed that Sora and Riku were sent out by Yen Sid to complete their Mark of Mastery, a sort of coming-of-age test and ritual performed by Keyblade wielders of yore to test their mettle and solidify them as bona fide Keyblade Masters. Kingdom Hearts 3D follows both Sora and Riku on their examinations, and the interventions of competing forces to spoil their chances.
The story of Kingdom Hearts 3D feels like the fever-dream of the series. And while I would have expected this to have led to a lot of confusion during my play through, most of the questions this series raises seem to get answered by the end of the title, more or less, making this the second game in the series to actually feel like I knew exactly what transpired by the time the credits scrolled. The decision to follow the Mark of Mastery exam of Riku and Sora felt like a solid choice, on the heels of Birth by Sleep, as it draws upon the lore established in the previous title to help give this exam more weight.
There was a trippy head-turning plot twist, which almost felt like a fan-fic mashup of the who's who of Kingdom Hearts villainy. But while I feel the Kingdom Hearts writers of days past would have just left us hanging, the writers of 3D have our backs, and gave us a proper explanation. Kingdom Hearts 3D is probably the best storytelling within a Kingdom Hearts game so far, after Birth By Sleep, that is. That said, without the context of previous games it would be a lot harder to follow, as opposed to Birth by Sleep which was far more self-contained.
Some of the mechanics from Birth by Sleep make a return in KH3D, though in my opinion, not enough of them. Spells with cool-down-timers instead of MP are back, the command deck is back, and so are abilities. Sort of. Sadly, abilities have been nerfed. In Birth by Sleep if commands with abilities were sufficiently leveled, those abilities became permanent enhancements of your hero. Not so in this game, where instead abilities are tied to... Dream Eaters. These sometimes adorable and usually annoying companions are like if Pokémon were limited to neon color pallets. They're like if Donald and Goofy had an "Intimacy Mode". Actually that just sounds wrong. It'd be like if you used your Nintendogs to fight other dogs? Uh... Point is, you pet these animals to increase their morale and get them to like you more, and that in-turn makes them more powerful when fighting other dream eaters by your side.
Anyway, putting a Dream Eater in your party to fight along-side Sora or Riku allows those Dream Eaters to gain levels and Link Points, which can be expended to unlock abilities. However, if you decide to switch out Dream Eaters, the new companions will have no abilities from the start, requiring leveling up to become useful. This dis-incentivizes the use of many dream eaters because doing so puts you at a pretty start disadvantage while you wait for your newly assembled Dream Eater to get good. Certain kinds of abilities do stick with you permanently, but these are uncommon and the exceptions to the rule.