It took ten years and a move to handhelds to get me to care about Kingdom Hearts again.
Just in case you've been living under a rock for the last decade, Kingdom Hearts was a weird Square spin-off series that combined original characters with Final Fantasy and Disney. While there were some flaws, like a finicky camera and stale combat, Kingdom Hearts ended up being a surprisingly great game that was a lot of fun to play.
Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance separates itself from
other handheld entries in the series by not being a prequel or
interquel--it's actually the set-up game for the upcoming,
still-not-actually-announced Kingdom Hearts III. This allows the game to go off on its own instead of making sure players are on the up-and-up with KH's
hilariously convoluted story, showing Sora and Riku protecting parallel
worlds while completing their Mark of Mastery exam, in the hopes of
becoming full-fledged Keyblade Masters.
I'm wondering just what a "Keyblade Master" can do, since Dream Drop Distance
has some of the fastest and most dynamic combat the series has yet
seen. While Sora and Riku only have a few animations each (it's unfair
to expect this game to be Bayonetta or Arkham City),
each of the characters is agile enough to evade most attacks and control
easily in combat. The new Flowmotion combat system lets you use scenery
fixtures like lampposts and stairway rails for flashy, hard-hitting
attacks to quickly clear crowds of enemies.
KH3D is basically this generation's equivalent to Chain of Memories--whenever Kingdom Hearts III does come out, you can
simply jump right into it and play, but certain characters and
situations will seem alien to you if you're not caught up. Unlike Chain of Memories,
though, this is a straight action-RPG like the rest of the series, with
some pet raising and training elements in the form of Dream Eaters.
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