I've never been a big fan of the kingdom hearts combat. It's always felt to me, deflated and brain dead despite knowing that there is a certain nuanced to it. While I did enjoy Birth By Sleep's edition of it, going into more over the top modes and building on Kingdom Hearts 2 drives, I felt there was something lacking there. Surprisingly, it turns out that simply speeding up combat a bit with wall bounces and flashy movements with the environment is exactly what I wanted. The fact that Dream Drop Distance fixed this issue, and actually add a layer of exploitation with the balloon system simply just takes the cake and makes it my favorite version of Kingdom Hearts combat.

Seriously, Dream Drop Distance's combat rocks socks because of how hard it goes on flash and flare. Being able to just go zip zap all over the place and use a bunch of hard hitting spells makes combat more of a fun spectacle each time rather than a simple mash of the X button. On top of that, movement over all is improved by wall bouncing and mid air dashing; a fun little fact that air dashing improves the majority of games by simple inclusion. So not only is combat faster, but wait time and exploring are to. The fact the majority of your moves are also unlocked at the very beginning also helps improve players time overall.

Sadly I can't say they improved any of the story beats tho, as once again Kingdom Hearts is a complex mess of logic and reason that simply would be better off being ignored. Toward the end of Dream Drop Distance the story gets really weird and dives into time travel and dreams that it simply has no right in actually holding any merit. Thankfully, most of the story is more akin to self improvement and gives the worlds Sora and Riku visit a bit more meaning compared to the previous games, although changing a 1 to a 2 in meaning isn't really that big compared to being 100% worth it.

Dream Eaters are a fun little mechanic that helps Kingdom Hearts give a sort of collect them all vibe that I kinda wish they thought about more and went into more merch. Sadly, the majority of the time Dream Eaters are simply friendly enemies over having any real charm like other monster collecting games. The fact that you can literally lose one forever is a weird stress that the game adds to for seriously no reason, and it makes the whole mechanic feel like it has a catch, but overall they are a fine addition.

Aside from that, everything else is pretty much the same kind of Kingdom Hearts you may know ascetically. Worlds are bright, people say darkness a lot, and Sora is a dumb gay. While I don't think this game is needed at all to understand the lore of the series; at the least you will have a good time with the combat, and that's what I feel is worth playing this game for.

Reviewed on Dec 03, 2021


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