

An indirect offshoot of Flowmotion is Reality Shift, which uses the stylus and touch screen in a variety of ways, whether its Faith Line’s connect the dots action, sending your character flying through the air over The Hunchback of Notre Dame’s La Cité des Cloches, or decrypting the Grid in the TRON: Legacy-galvanized domain. This power never runs out, and can be used in battle to link combos and spin around larger enemies, hurling them into packs of other foes like a dazed projectile. Flowmotion allows, with the simple tap of the Y-button, for super fast maneuvering across specific objects like lampposts or stair railings, making movement light speed whenever you feel it. The most notable addition is the Flowmotion directive, which is so easy to get a handle on that it almost feels like a hack when facing hordes of adversarial peons or simply moving around vast landscapes. The reliable Command Deck is fully intact, making establishment of your move sets quick and efficient. Many of the triumphant combat alterations from the PSP’s Birth by Sleep have returned in Dream Drop Distance, albeit with a few fresh additions that make this the better wholesale handheld episode. Of course, you can barrel through the bulk of Sora’s quest and then return to Riku’s if that’s your prerogative Dream Drop Distance kindly gives you this option. The key, much like the game’s overall theme, is finding a balance between the two timelines: Keep Sora and Riku roundabout the same level and your progression will likely be that much more smooth. This definitely takes some getting used to, and can be a real pain during boss battles or prolonged treasure-chest hunts (forgetting just what you were doing when you return can be problematic), but by the third Disney-laden microcosm I fundamentally had Dropping down pat. Keeping track of time has never been an issue in Kingdom Hearts, but now it’s paramount, as only a certain amount of action can be completed before an on-screen countdown runs out, switching you from Sora’s scenario to Riku’s or vice versa. Instead of both Sora and Riku journeying across a set of environments in traditional side-by-side unison, Dream Drop Distance has each champion conquering different versions of the same world, telling parallel stories that bounce back and forth by way of the love-it-or-hate-it Drop system. Dream Drop Distance resumes at the conclusion of Kingdom Hearts Re:coded, with the spiky-haired Keyblade-wielding youngsters taking their Mark of Mastery examinations lead by the wise Yen Sid and observed by benevolent King Mickey. Dream Drop Distance makes this balanced relationship the focal point of its narrative and the majority of its gameplay.

In essence, they are two halves of one whole, light and dark, Riku the yin to Sora’s yang. Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance is the seventh game in the canon, and despite the whacky chronology that precedes it, the game is the soundest entry since 2005-an authentically well-built bridge between Kingdom Hearts II and the forthcoming arc-ending Kingdom Hearts III.Ī variety of substitute central protagonists have made the rounds in Kingdom Hearts over the past decade (Roxas in both the early segments of Kingdom Hearts II and as the lead in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, and Terra, Aqua, and Ventus from the origin story Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep), yet none have been quite as durable or philosophically prepossessing as the tale’s original heroes, Sora and Riku. This feat has been downplayed ever since the very first Kingdom Hearts, and when the excellent Kingdom Hearts II turned up the drama by introducing a much darker motif, it would be several not-quite-as-grand chapters before that title received its proper follow up. When I venture into a new IP-inspired area, I’m amazed at how seamlessly the storylines of Disney films (some more memorable than others) casually absorb the plights of countless Square Enix characters it’s never too contrived or blasé for its own good, and the ideals of one source rarely override the other to the point of unappealing saturation. The peculiar thing is, no matter how applicative those snap indispositions may be, the theory that opposites attract has been true of each and every Kingdom Hearts installment. For 10 years now, detractors of the franchise have labeled it as an exercise in dual self-indulgence, nothing beyond a satiny novelty platform for the two companies to pile their assets atop one another in a video-game showcase of epically mismatched proportions.
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Come hell or high water, the Kingdom Hearts series has invariably thrived on the success of its unconventional fusions-combining the more or less niche world of Square Enix properties with that of the essentially universal appeal of Disney, therein synthesizing an eccentric brew of thematic elements both weighted and effervescent.
