Continuing my playthrough of the Kingdom Hearts games I played Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, the game I never really heard much about beyond having one of the worst bosses in gaming history. I didn't have many expectations or idea of what to expect going into this game because I never really saw/sought out anyone talk about it till I started playing it but I have to say I was pretty impressed with what I played.

Birth By Sleep is a prequel to the Kingdom Hearts series that takes place ten years before the first game and follows Terra, Ventus, and Aqua, three keyblade wielders as they get sent out from their homes on various quests in order to find each other and stop a great evil from destroying all the worlds.The game's story is split between three stories, one following each member of the trio. I found this approach really neat and it allowed you time to really get to know the characters and figure them out while also getting a handle on their gameplay, instead of switching back and forth between all of them constantly throughout the game like I kind of assumed would be the case when I did the prologue of this game. I was also genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed the story of this game getting into it, since I wasn't really expecting anything else in the series to reach Kingdom hearts 2's level of story considering the reputation of a lot of the other games.

So the way the story is told has you playing a character's journey from start to finish with certain points where the stories intersect during each campaign. I found this really interesting and while it did make it very clear what was going to happen at some points given the fact that I had already seen a few things twice by the last playthrough, I found the way they wove all these stories together and also added context to one story through the other stories really worked for me. I think it helped that all three members of the main cast were really strong characters in my opinion that I enjoyed my time with. Friendship and the unbreakable bonds of those you care about were a central theme of this game and you could really feel that through the brief moments of interaction with all of the main cast together. It also helped that the supporting cast such as Master Eraqus, Xehanort, and Mickey Mouse also help to round out the main cast and add a lot of great interactions to the game.

This giving context as to how Xehanort came to be who he is by the time the flashbacks in Kingdom Hearts 2 happened is really interesting and has a lot of implications for what happens in between this game and Kingdom Hearts one that lead to the main plot of the series kicking off the way that it did. I'm generally not a fan of prequel media but this game's story did a good job of convincing me that its not only justified but also adds a lot of really unique concepts of its own that I feel will probably be explored later on such as the keyblade war and Ventus's fate. Really solid story overall and I won't spoil more of it than I have already but I definitely think the tale being told here was pretty good and is underrated from what I've seen of this game being talked about. Though I think, like with Kingdom Hearts 2, the gameplay is where this game really shines in my opinion.

The game mostly follow Kingdom Hearts 2's gameplay style with one major change, that being the command deck. Instead of using ability points to set up different abilities, attacks, and movement options you can use almost everything is relegated to the command deck, which is a rotating deck of attacks you can swap between and use at will in order to attack. Once you use an attack the attack is then set on a recharge timer until you can do it again. I really enjoy this system for a few reasons. The first being that the system did make me actually use magic and more unique abilities than in previous games since it was easier to access than trying to navigate a menu mid fight like in Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. I experimented more and tried a lot of different aspects of magic and special attacks that I probably would not have had it been locked behind trying to navigate a lot of menus like in Kingdom Hearts 2. The second thing that I found really cool about this system was how it made you really think about what you have equipt and weigh the options of what commands you want to have in the deck instead of just equipping all the spells/commands at once. It's like a more streamlined version of Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2's AP system.

I also really enjoyed how you unlocked new commands, which was normally through either finding them or the melding system. After you hit a certain level on each command it would then become usable as a material to mix with another command and make an even stronger command from it. Sometimes while doing this your melded ability can also transform into a much stronger random ability. It is honestly really cool when this happens since you get a free really strong attack you weren't expecting. Another neat aspect of this game's melding system is that by adding gems to the commands when mixing them you can unlock unique abilities such as recharging commands faster, being able to do more combos, and more that stay with you if you get the command to max. It's a neat system in my opinion that I hope sticks around because I really enjoyed how it it gave you permanent buffs for experimenting with the system.

The other new aspect of the command deck system are the command styles. Command styles work as a meter above the command deck that builds up the more damage you do from commands and once you hit the max you enter a new style that changes your gameplay and builts to a command finisher that does massive damage. It's a really neat system that isn't used perfectly throughout the game, since some characters work better with it than others, but its a fun inclusion and something that I hope shows up in future games because I had a lot of fun with it personally. Being able to chain between command styles depending on what command you switch to while using another command feels incredible nice and lets you continue to build up massive damage against crowds and bosses once you fully get the hang of it.

Another new addition to the player's arsenal this time around are shotlocks, which effectively act as ultimate moves that you can use once one of your meters is fully filled. I felt like these were a nice addition to the core gameplay and felt really satisfying to use as a start to a combo. To use them you have to lock on to the target multiple times/the same target multiple times, so its not exactly possible to use it as an endcap to a combo unfortunately but leading into a combo by firing one off and then dashing in afterwards is just as effect and felt really effective and nice to pull off personally.

The final new mechanic they added are calle D-links, which are effectively supposed to be summon replacements but don't quite hit the mark in my opinion. You unlock and can use D links with characters you connect with throughout the game and gain access to sets of their moves and abilities when you go into these forms. They're a really interesting idea but I never actually really needed to use them much throughout the game besides for a quick heal every now and then. It's not a bad system and I'm sure I'd probably have gotten into it more if I started doing a lot of the side content and superbosses, but for me durin the main game this system was really negligible to me personally; which is a shame because I can see this kind of system being super cool if done differently to make them more meaningful.

One aspect of the game that I didn't really vibe with in any way however were the minigames. Though they were not around too much and some were very easily avoidable like the command board I did not enjoy them in the slightest. The biggest offender of this was in the Disney Town world, which on top of having the worst music in the game is basically all minigames that are mandatory to do and which all kind of suck in their own way. Terra's racing minigame is just bad Mario kart with no weight to the car, Ven's is an extremely barebones rhythm game, and Aqua is a one vs multiple others volleyball game that doesn't quite feel balanced around this idea. These are all really short sequences of the game but they all stuck out as kind of frustrating to do. Not a big issue just something that I thought was worth mentioning before getting into how each individual character played and controlled.

The first of the trio that I played was Terra, and I'm kind of glad I started off with him because his gameplay is easily the worst of the three, so I only was able to go up from here. Terra's gameplay is more about moving slower but hitting for bigger damage with normal attacks and physical commands. This type of playstyle is not something I particularly enjoy and it was pretty difficult to get a hang of right off the heels of how fast paced and frantic Kingdom Hearts 2's gameplay was. Not to mention that for some bizarre reason Terra has less invincibility frames on his dodge/roll than the other two for some reason. This made things a bit more difficult than I would have preferred, since I'd watch myself dodge something and still take damage at times which got frustrating later on in Terra's story. This was partially fixed by some commands such as thunder surge and the one that heals you on block but it still felt unnecessary and made things more frustrating at times than I felt like they should have been. Regardless I still had fun playing as Terra despite this but I can easily say that his slow speed and weird lack of invincibility frames easily makes him the least fun of the main trio.

Following Terra I played Ventus next, which felt more like what I was familiar with from the past few games gameplay wise. Ventus plays and moves a lot like how Sora does and it was a welcome return to form after playing Terra. Though that being said, due to how the game is structured Ventus does feel like a watered down version of Sora in a sense. Like without certain abilities that are locked to Terra and Aqua it just makes Ventus feel like midgame KH2 Sora by the end of his route. However, given the scope of the game and what its ultimately going for I can easily look past this, especially since Midgame KH2 Sora still felt strong and fun to use. I will say Ventus probably has my favorite shotlock of the bunch, doing a ton of damage and also working as a quick AoE in a pinch. Ventus also gets som really fun commands exclusive to him such as Tornado, which is such a funny command to watch because it can just pick up and throw around almost any enemy in the game minus a boss or two.

Finally, Aqua's gameplay felt pretty unique compared to the standard Kingdom Hearts style while managing to make her the most fun to play out of the trio. Aqua's whole combat style revolves around using magic to quickly build up the command gauge and quickly switch between styles based on these different types of magic. This style of gameplay almost instantly clicked with me and while it isn't quite Kingdom Hearts 2's level of great combat this is definitely up there as some of the most fun I've had with action combat in a game. Something about the magic (something I have generally ignored up to this point as I mentioned earlier) being directly tied to her gameplay and how quickly you can snowball into doing something absolutely busted by chaining spells and other commands together just feels right to me. The one criticism I have of Aqua's gameplay is that her shotlock feels a bit lack luster compared to the other two's, but ultimately that is a very minor criticism. Aqua's gameplay feels like the most fully realized of the trio and uses almost all the game's systems to their fullest in my opinion; which is really good in my opinion since she's the character you play as the longest if you go for the secret ending of the game.


Like Kingdom Hearts 2 this game's soundtrack is incredible. So many great songs in this game like Rage Awakened, Unbreakable Chains, Another Side, and dismiss. I'm not sure how this series manages to consistently have incredible songs, but I'm glad it does because man are these soundtracks just legitimately great pieces of music. Like I said with Kingdom Hearts 2, even if you don't end up playing this game listen to this soundtrack, a lot of really great songs can be found throughout it. Minus Disney Town's clown music of course.


Overall, I really like this game. It's not perfect but I think its a great prequel to the series that did a lot of really cool things both story and gameplay wise. I also have to say, that while I played the HD remaster of this game I'm kind of impressed that this was originally a PSP game, since it felt like any other Kingdom Hearts game that I've played up to this point. Ultimately I'd say give this game a shot, its not the peak of the series or anything but its a great time in my opinion.

9/10

Continuing my playthrough of the Kingdom Hearts series I played through Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. Now this game was remade as a movie that I could have watched in order to gleam the story from it, but I was told it was outright the worst way to experience the game's story and I didn't want to try tracking down the manga version of the game so I found myself a ds copy of it. I have to say, while it was worth it to experience the incredible story this game tells the gameplay is probably the worst feeling traditional style Kingdom hearts gameplay so far. That being said I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is an interquel game that takes place between Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 that follows Roxas from the day he first is inducted into Organization 13 to the day that he leaves it and starts the events of Kingdom Hearts 2. Over the course of the game you get insight into what Roxas was up to during this time, what eventually lead to him leaving the Organization, and how deep his friendship runs with the characters Axel and Xion. I really enjoyed the story set up for this game (and the story in general, but we'll talk about that later) but that being said the story is just about the only part of the game that I would actually call completely good.

358/2 Days was a game made for the Nintendo DS and within the first few missions that is very apparent. They tried making an approximation of the general gameplay feel of Playstation 2 games on the DS, which already feels like a recipe for disaster considering the pure disparity between the hardware and the controls available for both. The keyblade combat is more or less a completely dumbed down version of Kingdom hearts 1's gameplay to where you just do the same combo every time with no variance other than sometimes being able to press Y for your third hit and doing a different move that you can't continue off of. It may just be because I played this immediately after Kingdom Hearts 2 and Birth By Sleep, but this felt insanely mind numbing to play due to how repetitive and boring the core action felt. I imagine it was probably hard to add a lot of different kinds of combo paths and ways to chain things together because of the console 358/2 was designed around, but removing that really killed the experience for me personally. That being said, at least the core gameplay is more intact than the magic system is.

Magic is a weird thing in Kingdom Hearts games for me because I didn't use it much in the other games before the command deck just due to the general quickness of combat, but in this game I actively tried to use magic and it felt like I was punished for that decision. Due to how leveling up and ability allocation works in this game (which is really cool actually and is a highlight of the game that I'll talk about in a bit) you have limited magic charges per spell, and once those charges run out in a mission you're completely out of those spells until the next mission unless you equipped an ether. Think of them essentially as spell slots from Dungeons and Dragons if you have an familiarity with that game. I don't think that really works for a game like Kingdom hearts where you have a continuous series of battles throughout an area since this actively discourages the player from using spells out of fear of not having enough if a surprise boss or tough enemy shows up. It feels like a completely needless restriction that just holds the gameplay back in my opinion. Having a mana bar or or a cool down style system would have felt much nicer and made it so magic could have been a more useful and integral part of your combat kit instead of making it something you only bust out on rare occasions.

While on the topic of magic, I also am not a fan of how they handled designing improved versions of spells in this game. Using the healing spell "Cure" as an example, followed by its upgrades "Cura" and "Curaga", cure starts out functioning like the normal cure you would expect from the series where you jab your keyblade into the air and recovery a good chunk of health. Cura and curaga however, don't function like this. In the case of cura you slowly replenish small chunks of health over time instead of giving yourself a full bar and with curaga you create a small area of effect that you have to stand in in order to regain health. I take problems with both of these because it actively changes how healing via your already limited spell slots works and in both cases they function actively worse than if you had just made them heal as normal. With Cura since you don't get any health immediately and have to wait a second or two repeatedly to get any sort of substantial health back the player is essentially forced to keep running away from enemies without being able to do anything about it while you slowly wait for your health bar to refill from these small chunks of health you get every few seconds. Curaga has the other problem where you're almost forced to stand still in order to regain health; which is a problem in itself because you generally have to keep moving around the battlefield in order to not get hit, especially in boss fights. These changes are indicative of the main problem with magic in this game in my opinion, where it felt like they were trying to experiment with new styles of using old spells without understanding why those old spells worked.

Being a bit more positive here for a second, I did really enjoy the game's level up/ability selection system here. The game gives you a grid not unlike the Resident Evil 4 briefcase inventory that you slot blocks for level ups, spells, items, abilities, weapon upgrades, and armor onto. I really liked this system because it felt like a challenge in itself to see how much you could fit into the system and what you could shift around to make everything you wanted slot into each other without having to give up something. Another interesting aspect of this were doublers and amplifiers, which are blocks that have areas around them that you can slot certain blocks into to make them stronger. For example you get various level up nodes that double or triple the amount of levels you get from one level block, so you can vastly increase your level quickly if you already have the level blocks. Same games with magic, but for magic you also get the amplifier nodes that allow you to use stronger versions of whatever spell you slot in without using the next named upgrade of the spell (this was incredibly helpful in dealing with the problems with the cure line of spells). This is probably my favorite aspect of the gameplay from 358/2 Days, but at the same time I'm not surprised by this since fun inventory management is something I'm generally drawn too.

Something that sets 358/2 Days apart from other games in the series with this traditional gameplay style is how it handles worlds and going through each area. Instead of putting you down into a world and having you linearly go through its story here you are given missions that you accomplish in a world, leave, and then come back later for more missions. There were several types of missions possible to get which usually boiled down to defeat a ton of heartless, defeat a big heartless (usually a boss), investigate the area, or stealth through something. At first I really liked this system since they were all pretty quick get in get out types of missions so even the gameplay types I really detested like the investigation and stealth sections were at least over soon enough. Then, as the game went on the missions kept getting longer and longer. I don't inherently have an issue with a game that has clear levels having each level get longer as you go on and are more familiar with the game, far from it, but the short levels at first were a strength of this game I felt. Even when an activity wasn't the most enjoyable you would be done with it soon enough, or it wouldn't take too much time so if you're playing on the go due to the system you were playing on you could quickly play a mission, put it down, and then play another when you pick it up again. This becomes increasingly harder to do once you hit the halfway point of the game as each mission becomes around 20-30 minutes long as it tried to recapture the feel of the console Kingdom Hearts games. I feel like if they were going to introduce the mission system they should have stuck to it personally instead of trying to emulate the feel of the main games later in the game after already setting the precedent of the mission system.

One thing that I think would have really benefited this game is the command deck from Birth By Sleep and Dream Drop Distance, the two other traditionally styled Kingdom Hearts games for handhelds. The system was made specifically to make it easier to cycle through abilities make them more manageable on more restricted consoles and it feels really off that the handheld game with the most traditional gameplay, that is also on the weakest hardware of the games mentioned, is the only one to not use the system designed around mobile experiences. With all that being said about the gameplay, I do have to say this game is really saved in my mind by the story.

Just a forewarning I will be going partially into spoiler territory, especially regarding the ending, after this so if you have an interest in playing, watching, or reading the story of 358/2 Days I recommend skipping this next part.

Getting to explore who Roxas is and how they came to be the character we see by the time Kingdom Hearts 2 rolls around is great and it blew me away how much fun I had with the character interactions between Roxas, Axel, Xion, and the rest of the cast. Seeing the three of them slowly form bonds and become friends over the course of the 358 days that Roxas was in Organization 13 was great and made the ending stretch of the game where everything falls apart surprisingly heart wrenching in a way that I was not expecting from I game that I felt had really unimpressive gameplay. A stand out character for me that I wasn't expecting much from before playing this was Xion; who I only knew about vaguely from the cover of the game and from her briefly showing up in a cutscene in Birth By Sleep. Watching her come into her own, leave the organization, and actively try to be better than what the organization expects of her really resonated with me and it made her getting brainwashed and forced to fight her old friend before dying all the more impactful to me.

In a similar vein, seeing Roxas become more and more of his own person over the course of the game was something I really enjoyed. Something present throughout the series in regards to the Nobodies like Roxas, people who are the remnants of a strong person who has lost their heart to darkness, is that they retain their memories and personalities of who they were before they became a nobody. Since Roxas is Sora's nobody he would normally retain Sora's memories, but since Sora regained his heart through different means than normal in Kingdom Hearts 1 Roxas has no memories from Sora. This lets Roxas grow into his own person entirely based on trying to decide who he is and who he wants to be, and I think it works out really well personally into making him a deep and complex character for someone who shouldn't have emotions.

Small tangent before I wrap this up, but I am not a fan of prequel/Interquel stories because usually they don't line up incredibly well with what they're supposed to come before and due to this they usually lack any sort of importance to them for me personally. That's not the case here, since this story makes sense as both something that makes Roxas who he is by the time we meet him in Kingdom Hearts 2 as well as having a bearing on future events and not just being left alone based on Xion being shown in Birth By Sleep's ending cutscene. So I'm hopeful this means that the events of this game will be followed up on in a game that feels better to play.

Overall, despite how much I complained about the gameplay, I liked Kingdom Hearts 358/2. Not a lot, because man the gameplay drags it down astronomically, but I loved the story so much that it almost makes up for how much distaste I have for the gameplay. I wish this game would get remade with gameplay that more closely matches the other handheld games, but considering how they opted to just make it a movie instead I unfortunately do not see that happening anytime soon. I'd say this is definitely an interesting experience that you should check out if you really want to, but I would probably recommend checking out the manga if you can find it over this since that is reportedly the best way to experience the story outside of playing the game, which might be hard to tolerate for some.

6.5/10

Going into this game I fully expected to hate it considering how hated this game is within the circles I run in, but honestly I enjoyed thKingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance a lot. I can kind of see why people dislike this game but for me personally I just vibed with it a lot more than I expected too and I'd consider it as good, if not slightly a bit better than Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep.

To give a bit of context Dream Drop Distance, sometimes known as Kingdom Hearts 3D due to its title and also the fact that it was released originally on the 3ds, Follows the events of Kingdom Hearts 2 and ReCoded that sees Sora and Riku taking their Mark of Mastery exam to become keyblade masters. In order to achieve this they must travel to worlds that are stuck sleeping in their memories from before they were swallowed by the darkness and open their keyholes in order to restore the worlds to what they once were. Personally I don't have a problem with this set up and I think the execution and the direction the story goes in is pretty interesting, but before I get into that I do want to talk about how this game is to actually play first.

So the core gameplay of Dream Drop Distance is incredibly similar to Birth By Sleep's systems at first with several new additions to mix things up a bit. The game still has you use the command deck to cycle through abilities and spells like in Birth By Sleep but unlock new abilities this time around via the Dream Eaters, which function as the main type of enemy you'll face, your party members, and discount pokemon. You get the abilities by creating a link with the dream eaters in your party that give you points which you spend on their own unlock tree that gives different commands, abilities, and buffs in order to help Sora and Riku. A surprise bonus with this system this time around is that all dream eaters and ability unlocks are shared between Sora and Riku. This was a welcome change from how Birth By Sleep handled abilities where you would have to spend a good chunk of time regrinding for the same necessary abilities on each character such as once more or leaf bracer. That being said, I'm not the biggest fan of the method for unlocking these abilities this time around.

While I do like the Dream Eaters unlock system in theory it overall just feels a lot less fun than mixing commands to me personally. It is most likely because it takes a lot longer to grind out the ability points you need for each Dream Eater compared to grinding for command levels in Birth By Sleep, but it also makes getting new commands a bit less fun because instead of getting buffs and abilities such as once more as attachments to commands you have to unlock them separately which adds to the amount of grinding you need to do; and trust me when I say that late game you will need Leaf bracer, once more, and second chance or some bosses will just oblitarate you. It's not the worst thing in the world but it did arbitrarily add to the playtime it felt like to me personally. This feeling is amplified a bit by the fact that a lot of the Dream Eaters with the necessary abilities are locked behind finding hard to find dream pieces in order to form the Dream Eater, another thing you have to grind for just to get some abilities to help you play the game without dying.

One new addition that I thought was the best addition to the combat they've made since Kingdom hearts 2 is flowmotion. When it comes to movement in games I love going fast and being able to do cool things while moving fast, and flowmotion is just that but with an added combat flair to it. Flowmotion is a system where by pressing the square while next to certain objects you enter a sped up state and by pressing square again you can launch yourself around to other objects and just keep doing this in order to traverse the landscape as quick as possible. This ability can also be used for combat; if you press X instead of square after entering flowmotion you'll do a flowmotion attack on the nearest enemy. It's also possible to do flowmotion attacks on larger enemies by running up to them and trying to activate flowmotion. I really liked this ability because it just lets you bounce around super quickly when you need to get places as well as adding more options and choices of attack.

The game also returns the on rails shooter style of gameplay that was present in the gummi ship sections in 1 and 2, sort of, via the dive minigame. Every time you enter a world for the first time you have to dive into it, which is usually just Sora or Riku falling towards the world with some kind of objective to complete like beat the boss or collect 500 star points. They're not amazing but I had a surprising amount of fun with them, especially considering how little I care for the gummi ship sections of the mainline games.

As much as I enjoy this game it does have a bit of a weird relationship with bosses though I will say. It seems to frontload all of its pretty bad to not great bosses right up front but once you get out of the first three worlds after Traverse Town I think the boss quality picks up tremendously. I think the final gauntlet of Riku's story with the multitude of bosses he fights are legitimately incredibly fun and Sora's final boss is pretty great also I felt. They even brought back Churnabog from Kingdom Hearts 1 but made his fight one of my favorite in the game instead of just outright one of the worst bossfights I've ever played like in Kingdom Hearts 1. Neither reach the level of Kingdom Hearts 2 or BBS's final boss fights but I enjoyed them immensely either way.

The one gameplay thing in this game that I really can't say anything positive about though is the drop meter. The drop meter is essentially a timer that forces you to swap to whichever character you are not playing as when the meter hits zero. This is such an odd system to have for this game that really does not need to be there. It just forces you to stop what you're doing in the middle of a fight or traversal segment without really giving you a good reason as to why you need to switch other than that they want you to regularly switch between Sora and Riku. Which could have been achieved in a lot better feeling of a way if they just forced you to switch after each world or after key story points; something that already happens at key points of the story. That being said as annoying of a system as this is it is made a bit more manageable by the fact that there are extremely cheap items you can buy that just negate the drop meter entirely because it just refills it and changes the intensity of it back to normal so you don't lose the meter at a faster rate. I'm not sure why this system is in the game because it adds nothing to it, but at the same time you quickly learn how to work around it so its far from the worst thing this game could have done.

Now it's time to talk about the story, I will be spoiling a lot going forward so this is the warning if you have interest in playing the game but don't want to know what's going on story wise.


This game's plot gets a lot of flack for being stupid and too confusing but honestly I kind of found it pretty straight forward outside of one aspect which was just me forgetting a detail of Kingdom Hearts 1 since its been two years since I played it; there are definitely dumb moments in the story though I won't deny that. That being said, I do feel the dumb stuff was not as bad as it was made out to be before I played the game. The most prominent example of something dumb for me was Xigbar's "I'm already half Xehanort" line which while it did make me roll my eyes I kind of got what it was going for? It felt like an in character way for Xigbar to quickly say "Xehanort's heart fragment is already inside of me but its not the controlling force" to Sora who has shown up to this point to not be the brightest. It's a dumb line regardless but I do think there's some sense to it following the series's logic and how these characters act.

Though most likely the main reason people complain about this game's story is most likely the time travel aspect, which frankly I do not mind because I really don't have as much of a problem with time travel media as other people do. Especially in this case since it seems like there's pretty clear cut rules on how time travel is handled in universe so it's not just an end all be all to problems like it could be used to be. Them establishing that time travel exists, people can't just travel back in time to whenever they want, and that even if you mess with things it can't just change fate all being set up in one scene was a lot of information to drop within a ten minute timeframe but I do appreciate it doing that because it cleanly answers a lot of the questions raised by the introduction of time travel.

I also really enjoyed Riku being the more prominent main character of the game. Not only does he get a lot of time to shine throughout the story but he has some of the best boss fights, and he gets to be the one to finish the story and fight the final boss as well as being recognized as a master of the keyblade. This last part is something that I find really cool because it sort of completely's Riku's arc from the first game to now where he fell to darkness and lost his chance to be the keyblade's chosen weidler because of it, and then after being pulled out of the darkness and struggling with it continuously he managed to pull himself out of it and free himself entirely before coming into his own destiny as a master of the keyblade. It's such a great end to this character arc for Riku and I can't wait to see what he does going forward as a master of the keyblade.

I also was actually pretty okay with how they brought back a lot of the organization members into this. While I feel like the explanation is a bit odd, the idea that once both the nobody and the heartless that were spawned from the same body die they return to form themselves again does work within the series's own internal logic and hey it gave us more Axel/Lea so I'm cool with it. It does make me wonder which other members of the organization are back and whether we'll see them as enemies or foes in Kingdom hearts 3. We already know Saix/Isa is back as well as Xigbar/Briar, but I'm interested to see who came back fully and what characters are important to the plot going forward.

Outside of the actual main plot I have to say that despite not being a big disney guy I feel like the world selection in this game was kinda great honestly. I'm not sure why but I just heavily vibed with them using The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tron legacy, Pinnochio, The Three Musketeers, and Fantasia as their worlds this time around. Especially since the Dream Eaters played a roll in a number of the stories involving a good chunk of the worlds. Judge Frollo having a giant Dream Eater Dragon that he used to set fire to Paris was a really fun way to play on what I assume is something Frollo does in the movie, Fantasia being a chase through different shorts to get pages and then stop a Dream Eater from controlling Mickey, a giant T-Rex Dream Eater chasing the Princess's carriage in the Musketeers world, they all had really fun ways of integrating the Dream Eaters into the plot of each world instead of just directly making them repeats of the movie entirely like is something that happens in more than a few Kingdom Hearts worlds throughout the series. Also as someone who watched Fantasia for the first time only a day before getting to it in this game I have to say that was a lot of fun to get to play through the worlds of it in some sense.

As always with this series this game has some insanely good music. The Dread of Night, L'Emineza Oscura, the fantasia world music, The Eye of Darkness, and a few others are all great songs. As always, give the soundtrack a listen even if you don't play the game because it's great.

Overall Dream Drop Distance feels like a very underrated game to me, its far from perfect but I had a great time with it. The story has its dumb moments sure but I feel like overall the main idea/set up is cool; and at this point in Kingdom Hearts as a series dumb moments are kind of too be expected to some degree. Really good game that is definitely slept on too much in my opinion, definitely one to play instead of skipping if you're going through the series in my opinion.

9/10