Quick Look: Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance

I don't mind the story of the KH series, its more that I am forced to buy every single side story to get the whole picture. They are all on different systems and played completely differently. Chain of Memories was on GBA, 358/2 was on DS, Birth by Sleep was on PSP, Re:coded was a mobile game remade for DS and now this on 3DS. KH 1 & 2 were AMAZING at the time of their release, the side games not so much, they really dragged the series down after coming off the high of KH2. Hopefully if Versus 13 is ever done they will make a real Kingdom Hearts sequel.

One minute in and "not enough Disney" was said. Maybe if you got past the first fucking world you'd see how much Disney there is.

@Paul_Is_Drunk said:

So what does it take to be a completionist Kingdom Hearts fan? A PS2, DS, GBA, PSP, and a 3DS? Seems rough.

You actually don't have to own a GBA because the game that was on it (Chain of Memories), was remade for the PS2 (Re: Chain of Memories). I understand your point though.

@GunslingerPanda said:

One minute in and "not enough Disney" was said. Maybe if you got past the first fucking world you'd see how much Disney there is.

Shouldn't it be spread evenly throughout the game? An entire world, especially the first one, devoid of much Disney seems pretty peculiar considering the batshit insane origin of this series.

Ugh Sora's still looking for Riku...................  Whyyyyy

@MordeaniisChaos said:

@GunslingerPanda said:

One minute in and "not enough Disney" was said. Maybe if you got past the first fucking world you'd see how much Disney there is.

Shouldn't it be spread evenly throughout the game? An entire world, especially the first one, devoid of much Disney seems pretty peculiar considering the batshit insane origin of this series.

Traverse Town has always been pretty much empty of Disney characters and is almost always the first world. Considering Squeenix only have a single world to themselves, usually, let them have their fun.

@algertman said:

Needs more pedophile bait like the Atelier games.

Sorry. This game is full of shota-yaoi fanfiction bait. No room for moe.

I don't know what is happening. Ryan!

@the_OFFICIAL_jAPanese_teaBAG: that's not what's happening

@MordeaniisChaos said:

@GunslingerPanda said:

One minute in and "not enough Disney" was said. Maybe if you got past the first fucking world you'd see how much Disney there is.

Shouldn't it be spread evenly throughout the game? An entire world, especially the first one, devoid of much Disney seems pretty peculiar considering the batshit insane origin of this series.

These games always start with an original world, then all Disney worlds, and then end on an original world. These games are Disney games, so they're not going to be spread evenly, the majority is Disney stuff. For this particular game, it started off with a boss fight against Ursula and then went on to the Square stuff with The World Ends With You. Traverse Town does still have a lot of nods to Disney characters with large buildings and signs devoted to the Mad Hatter, 101 Dalmatians, and the fountain in the third district for Lady and the Tramp. If they had played for just a couple of more minutes the game would have opened up to a "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", "Tron: Legacy" and "Pinocchio" worlds.

But they and many others want to be under this illusion that these aren't Disney games because they can't be bothered to finish more than the first level. I honestly don't know how he has spent two hours just in the first world.

keyblades uh?  boy I'm glad i never touched one of these games, that's beyond stupid.

God that main menu music got me nostalgic as hell.

@BabyChooChoo: Really just playing Birth By Sleep would clear about a good 90% of the confusion people who've only played KH1/2 would have. Everything that's happened in this series plotwise is based on the events of that game. It's generally considered the best KH game too so no reason to not play it other than not owning a PSP.

I like Brad's ql of this. A little bit more of the Brad who in turn does games goes a fair ways..

I'd swear the ppl. who designed this spend their spare time visualizing colors and thinking that whatever that murk is that ocurrs to you whilst visualizing those colors. The surface stuff. It seems deep. Seems something. I think sometimes a tool or mechanism gets confused for the end result... say nonsense like that ..

This seems very acidy with the brightness, stylized characters with open faces of wonder , the self involved metaphysical jumbo designed into the game . That has been a stamp of a particular category of Disney content (that this draws upon) for a while and I have never known what to make of it.

Why does Sora sound like Raz from Psychonauts?

I will watch this for guaranteed hilarity. Really, I kind of like these pet spirits. It seems like the Disney aspect is dying out.

It is funny how the series has become so overwrought and almost inaccessible.The developers have to be getting sick of it.

The craziness of the boss battle has made me interested.

@iAmJohn said:

@ninkendo

@BabyChooChoo: Really just playing Birth By Sleep would clear about a good 90% of the confusion people who've only played KH1/2 would have. Everything that's happened in this series plotwise is based on the events of that game. It's generally considered the best KH game too so no reason to not play it other than not owning a PSP.

And if your story is so completely incomprehensible to anyone who's followed the mainline stuff that the common suggestion is to play a different game on a different system to explain things, I'd argue you completely fucked up. But then again, I've always found KH's writing style to be kind of awful. I think Ryan's comment about everyone talking like they're in an insane asylum nails it; it's all a bunch of long pauses and prattling exposition-heavy conversations about absolute nonsense that go nowhere and sound completely divorced from all reality. And yet part of me still wants it because I feel like this will be the last time Square acknowledges TWEWY's existence. :\

Birth by Sleep is a mainline game. I'd imagine it is difficult to understand anything when youre not even attempting to pay attention.

@Brad@Ryan Little FYI, the wizard's name is Yen Sid. Disney spelled backwards.

I enjoyed the first KH, and somewhat enjoyed Chain of Memories. Only thing about those games I hated were the final boss fights. Never completed the games because of how ridiculously hard they are.

These guys are the wrong guys to play this game as they have no idea what the fuck they're talking about. Not enough Disney? Pretty much every fucking level after Traverse Town is Disney lol. Hunchback, Tron, Pinnochio are the first three levels you can pick from! Not enough Square? The World Ends With You characters are in the first level!!! Seriously... They don't have a fucking clue what they're doing.

goddamn that looks boring.

@Molomar said:

These guys are the wrong guys to play this game as they have no idea what the fuck they're talking about. Not enough Disney? Pretty much every fucking level after Traverse Town is Disney lol. Hunchback, Tron, Pinnochio are the first three levels you can pick from! Not enough Square? The World Ends With You characters are in the first level!!! Seriously... They don't have a fucking clue what they're doing.

Maybe you're just the wrong guy to watch this?

@WrenchNinja said:

I honestly don't know how he has spent two hours just in the first world.

Judging by his damage output, he was levelling. Damn. Takes a while to get to down them panda bears.

@JJWeatherman said:

@TheHT

@JJWeatherman said:

@Xtophre said:

...The problem is, if the Quick Look is about a game he doesn't really want to play; he will just skip through everything and that ends up being clueless if it is a heavy story driven game with somewhat unique mechanics...

Why the fuck is that semicolon there?

Honest to god, people. If you don't know how to use them, then simply avoid them.

Sorry, I had to get that out of my system. There are actually multiple instances of this within this comment thread, and I just couldn't let it go.

lol; it"s just a semi_colon:

"lol" is another thing that needs to not happen anymore. The internet is terrible.

LOL

@Molomar said:

These guys are the wrong guys to play this game as they have no idea what the fuck they're talking about. Not enough Disney? Pretty much every fucking level after Traverse Town is Disney lol. Hunchback, Tron, Pinnochio are the first three levels you can pick from! Not enough Square? The World Ends With You characters are in the first level!!! Seriously... They don't have a fucking clue what they're doing.

Yes, they are, and thats what they were saying the whole time, "this game is not for us." But who else is going to play it, Jeff?

In this thread: normal people and people who love kingdom hearts telling them to fuck off

@Tikicobra said:

Why does Sora sound like Raz from Psychonauts?

Because Haley Joel Osment is way too old now?

@iAmJohn said:

@ninkendo

@BabyChooChoo: Really just playing Birth By Sleep would clear about a good 90% of the confusion people who've only played KH1/2 would have. Everything that's happened in this series plotwise is based on the events of that game. It's generally considered the best KH game too so no reason to not play it other than not owning a PSP.

And if your story is so completely incomprehensible to anyone who's followed the mainline stuff that the common suggestion is to play a different game on a different system to explain things, I'd argue you completely fucked up. But then again, I've always found KH's writing style to be kind of awful. I think Ryan's comment about everyone talking like they're in an insane asylum nails it; it's all a bunch of long pauses and prattling exposition-heavy conversations about absolute nonsense that go nowhere and sound completely divorced from all reality. And yet part of me still wants it because I feel like this will be the last time Square acknowledges TWEWY's existence. :\

Wouldn't the whole being a game set in a fantastical setting be divorced from reality as we know it? It's odd to blame a game or any story for that matter for not being something it has no aspirations to be. That said I don't come to KH or videogames in general for story. Would rather read a book.

@ShakeItBaby: It totally is. This game just looks plain boring and convoluted.

i wonder what brad thinks of all the criticism of him and the way he approaches games. i'll admit i'm not at a place where i can watch this atm, but i think many people are forgetting what i think is the nature of a quicklook: first impressions, going in blind. i think it makes for a more immediate and realistic experience, and also makes the whole affair more interesting, than if they went in knowing the rote mechanics of the game right off the bat. it's like they're discovering the game with us, and i'm sure this is similar to the reactions most of us would honestly have when being faced with any new game. maybe some of their initial reactions come off as ignorant or flippant, but almost always they seem to correct or refine their opinions and knowledge of the games, either in a review or on the Bombcast, so I'm not sure what the problem is. i like the fact that they just dive in and give you a fresh take. mostly i'm frustrated at the bile and vitriol spewed at brad (mostly) and others during quick looks, and what comes off as sort of a self-righteousness from other commenters. personally i think it's a bit harsh and unwarranted, especially given the nature of the format. i'm probably spewing b/s but it's my opinion.

@ripelivejam: Nah, I'm with you on this one. The real issue is that the people who get mad are the ones who sink a bunch of hours into the game, then come back to the site and watch a Quick Look on it. For most people it's perfectly fine, but there still seem to be a good number of people who just freak out when these very much, "first impressions", kind of videos have the crew not knowing much about the game outside of what they've played. Generally it just ends up being easiest to not read the comments, since the tools who throw a fit every time the host isn't playing up to their standards are the ones who flood the comments with generally incoherent, useless trash.

@TheSummerEnds said:

Here's my two cents:

I bought this as I had just purchased a 3DS xl, I wasn't all that excited about it, to be honest. However I'm about 10 hours in and I think it's brilliant. All the things I had thought about the game from watching videos in the run up to it's release have been proved wrong (with one exception, still not fond of the crazy multicoloured look of the enemies etc).

The combat is extremely fun but more importantly it has depth and is fluid. Is there a lot of "A" button bashing, yes, but there's also all the traditional Square magic abilities, flowmotion attacks, reality shift attacks (that change from world to world), the ability to do link attacks with your spirits (such as a giant asteroid falling from the sky or Riku/Sora becoming much more powerful for a period of time and performing much bigger and cooler melee attacks that look awesome in 3D), and a whole host of other abilities. There's plenty of options for how you want to play.

As for the "convoluted story" remarks I've read about on a few sites, I don't quite agree, and this is coming from a person who's only ever played about half of KH1. To me it's more about a collection of smaller stories contained within one large one. Think of it as little episodic Disney chunks. As for the dialogue, is it Earth shattering stuff? No, and whilst simplistic, it has charm (mainly due to the Disney factor) and does the job well. The presentation and fantastic looking 3D really helps in that area.

Anyways, I don't normally chime in but I felt I should as I think people are being put off of this game by people who either haven't played it, or are basing their opinions on videos and other internet content. If I had done that I wouldn't have played it, so I'm glad I took a chance on it. It's one that is much better to play that to watch being played, that's for sure.

But... but... why do teh dudez look like chickz?

Not sure I entirely follow their complaint about lack of Square/Disney stuff. They spent most of their time in the first hub world, which has typically been there to set things up anyway. The disney worlds often didn't come in right off the bat.

EDIT: May be the first title that really makes me think about pulling the trigger on a 3DS

Looks alright..somewhat sameish to KH1 which isn't such a bad thing. I don't really dig the controls on the 3DS though...I enjoyed playing BBS though, as the controls were more comfortable.

I might pick this up still...hm.

I feel like this is a game made for DeviantART.

Square has been really sleazy with the treatment of this franchise. Releasing side stories on multiple platforms is fine in my book, but releasing major pieces of the story on random systems like this is so stupid.

I really liked the first two games but there is no way I'm buying two portables just to play one franchise.

The writing in the entire series is bafflingly bad. There is an assumed profundity to lines of dialogue that are utter navel gazing drivel. I think it is a result of poor, pretentious light-novel/audio drama style Japanese writing, coupled with an awkward translation and a lack of a planned overarching story. Even Nomura has commented that Disney had problems understanding the nonsense that is the story in Dream Drop Distance ( http://www.siliconera.com/2011/07/31/kingdom-hearts-dream-drop-distance-to-have-controllable-event-scenes-too/). That is not a communication problem between a Japan and America, that is an inherent problem with the coherancy of the material.

Kingdom Hearts' brand of dialogue writing has sadly taken ahold of the Final Fantasy. After finishing off XIII-2 I feel like the random four part babble text generator in Theatrythmn is being used to write characters' dialogue. We push onward... for friends!... and hope... in eternity!

I am not a Disney fan and whilst I love Kingdom Heart's gameplay, the characters, setting and writing are enough that I am done with the series. I will not subject myself to it further. I would love to see the games' fun and responsive action RPG mechanics to be put in a new Seiken Densetsu or original title, without the Kingdom Hearts baggage.

To anyone defending the franchise I would suggest that, sooner or later, you will get to a point that you can look at the series with more objectivity and will perhaps feel it was not what you once thought it was. The same process that millions of Star Wars fans, including myself, have gone through.

@Nevi: I completely agree with you, word for word. Really hit the nail on the head.

On top of that, I just wanted to pull this quote from that article you posted:

"Interestingly, Nomura says the reasonKingdom Hearts has a complex story is that Final Fantasy creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, once told Nomura long ago that he needed to make the story more complex than planned, or else it wouldn’t be able to compete with other games."

That sounds like the absolute worst advice you could give someone like Nomura. And now that I think about it, I feel like someone said that to Kojima along the way..

@Winsord said:

@ripelivejam: Nah, I'm with you on this one. The real issue is that the people who get mad are the ones who sink a bunch of hours into the game, then come back to the site and watch a Quick Look on it. For most people it's perfectly fine, but there still seem to be a good number of people who just freak out when these very much, "first impressions", kind of videos have the crew not knowing much about the game outside of what they've played. Generally it just ends up being easiest to not read the comments, since the tools who throw a fit every time the host isn't playing up to their standards are the ones who flood the comments with generally incoherent, useless trash.

Because it's the internet. A false sense of superiority and doing things "right" is standard fare. See also: all three Endurance Runs, ESPECIALLY the first two and EEEESPECIALLY Persona 4. Couldn't fathom the people who claimed Vinny and Jeff were "playing it WRONG!!!!111!!" It was their FIRST TIME playing and some people don't go to a FAQ every 3 steps to ensure they play the game "correctly."

@Shaka999 said:

@Nevi: I completely agree with you, word for word. Really hit the nail on the head.

On top of that, I just wanted to pull this quote from that article you posted:

"Interestingly, Nomura says the reasonKingdom Hearts has a complex story is that Final Fantasy creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, once told Nomura long ago that he needed to make the story more complex than planned, or else it wouldn’t be able to compete with other games."

That sounds like the absolute worst advice you could give someone like Nomura. And now that I think about it, I feel like someone said that to Kojima along the way..

Hironobu Sakaguchi to Nomura (Quote translated to English):

"Hey you know Metal Gear Solid??? Well fuck'em. Our story will better and more complex than theirs. Make it happen." (Sakaguchi then slapped Nomura's ass)

People keep saying Kingdom Hearts is convoluted when it really isn't that hard to follow. For the basics of the story you really only need to play Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, and Birth by Sleep. Coded, 358/2 and Chain of Memories just help flesh out what was happening in between however you can get by without playing them. You can make an argument for Chain as being more essential but its not an absolute. To those on the outside looking in it can seem like giant nonsensical gobbly gook and in someways it is but a child could follow this having played those three mentioned games.

Its not a franchise for everyone but "Kingdom Hearts is nothing but a terrible yaoi fanfic in videogame form." Really? Seems to be a lot of hate in these posts for Kingdom Hearts.

Oh and to Brad and Ryan, your not going to see much of Square and Disney characters in the first world. The rest of the game is chalk full of characters from those sides. In these newer games they do seem to feature more to the Disney side and the KH universe characters and less to Squares classics. Either way great quicklook and keep up the good work GB.

No, it's convoluted.

@Nevi said:

I am not a Disney fan and whilst I love Kingdom Heart's gameplay, the characters, setting and writing are enough that I am done with the series. I will not subject myself to it further. I would love to see the games' fun and responsive action RPG mechanics to be put in a new Seiken Densetsu or original title, without the Kingdom Hearts baggage.

To anyone defending the franchise I would suggest that, sooner or later, you will get to a point that you can look at the series with more objectivity and will perhaps feel it was not what you once thought it was. The same process that millions of Star Wars fans, including myself, have gone through.

Oh, I'm not pretending the story isn't terrible. But I'm not about to stop playing the games since I am a Disney fan and I still find the gameplay quite fun.

Why do those two characters look like they dropped out of a bad nineties rap video?

@Yelix: Since Nomura is the main director, they pretty much stick to characters he himself designed.

He said in an interview that he was even reluctant to include Vivi in Kingdom Hearts 2, since he didn't have a hand in creating the character.

Can't they just make another The World Ends With You? That was great.

It's not a keyBLADE, its a keyMACE! 
 
OPEN YOUR EYES TO THE TYRANNY!!!!
 
Also Traverse Town track is too sloooooooooooooow in this.

How has he spent over 2 hours in the first world? Is Brad just grinding a bunch? I mean that's his problem as to why he hasn't seen any Disney or Square Enix stuff that much because the first world in every single game had only a small amount of Disney or Square Enix stuff.

Also love when Ryan speculates about something he already admits he knows barely anything about, that's classic. XD

Riku wasn't dropped in to the series, he's been there since the very start. Sora, Kairi and Riku are the first characters you see when starting the first Kingdom Hearts.

BTW Brad this game is the lead up to KH3 according to word of Nomura.

Edit: Neku and Rhyme are from The World Ends With You, which is one of the best DS games with the most interesting combat and use of the two screens that has ever come out and it's a shame neither Ryan or Brad played it.

I was watching the quick look at work and almost yelled out "FINALLY!" after Ryan figured out they were from TWEWY. It amazed me that Brad never played that game as it seemed like a game that'd be up his alley