Quick Look: Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance

ooh

hello

yay

Yay! I don't know what else to say! (yet)

EDIT: OK, the capture card thing seems a bit silly.

EDIT 2: Yes, Neku is from The World Ends With You. Never played it, but I know a bit about it.

EDIT 3: After finishing the Quick Look, it... looks like another Kingdom Hearts game. Enemies pop up every few feet, mash the attack button, use some spells, convoluted story, good music, occasional appearance of Disney characters.

Also, there has been Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days, Re: Coded (the cellphone game made for DS), Birth By Sleep, and now this.

Is there a lot of Donald Duck in this game? He was the best part of KH 2, which was the only one I've played.

I'm up! I'm up!

It's kinda funny how they keep forgetting (not knowing about?) RE: Coded. Granted, it wasn't the most acclaimed of the franchise either.

Needs more pedophile bait like the Atelier games.

Ninth

Is that some Neku I see? Awesome

Man this game is UGLY

My meow remains un-wowed.

Brad plays really terribly in this one :/ USE FLOWMOTION DAMN IT

EDIT There are actually several recaps to get you up to speed, but I'm not sure how extensive they are, since I haven't played the game.

Seriously, they are really not the good guys to quick look this game.

Brad doesn't use any of the different combat mechanics properly

what a surprise

Perfect guys for this QL. they know that the game sucks and happily show you how much it sucks.

Never more on topic.

While i appreciate them taking a look at a kingdom hearts game, i don't think the giantbomb crew is equipped to do it properly, they probably should have got kevin van ord from gamespot or something.

also there's tons of disney in this game, just not at the start.

They keep saying things here that would make me really angry if I gave a fuck about Kingdom Hearts.

@flip2000b: Brad says that the game doesn't suck, he just don't care about the fiction.

And he probably didn't read the tutorials and such, it's pretty clear that the keyblade on the maps shows from where you entered the area and he didn't seem to understand half of the mechanics in the game (most are from Birth By Sleep.)

Brad, did you use the 3DS XL? if so how was it? :>

I absolutely loved Kingdom Hearts 1 and liked 2 but after it moved to handhelds it lost all appeal to me.

This seems just as boring as the others in the series. I watched half of an LP of KH1 and it was dreadfully boring. Is the combat always so simple/repetitive?

@Wes899 said:

This seems just as boring as the others in the series. I watched half of an LP of KH1 and it was dreadfully boring. Is the combat always so simple/repetitive?

Combat in 2 became more engaging, but I get that the game isn't for everyone.

@flip2000b: I wouldn't say that. They admit that this game is at least fairly competent-looking, and give it fair judgement, even if they're bummed out that there isn't much familiarity toward their liking. (But then again, of COURSE you're not gonna see much of Disney/Final Fantasy stuff yet: based on what I've played of these games, it's gonna probably take more than two and a half hours to see Squall in Pooh world.)

I'm digging the heavy World Ends With You crossover with some of the characters already (I'm certain at least two if not all of the characters I've seen in this quick look are in that vidya game). I have to give it to Square: this actually looks kinda cool (and I thought I was disGUSTed with this franchise). Fantastic, quick look, Ryan and Bradly. I'm hoping to see a Carbon Neutral Games crossover with the misadventures of Jubbly, Pricklemang, and Flap Flap in the works soon.

P.S. how old is Haley Joel Osment to still do this Sora stuff? I could picture him still sounding like a prepubescent boy in these games. And what's up with that question mark bear in the bottom screen of the pause menu?

throw some Ds up in this!

Oh man, how did nobody at Giant Bomb ever play The World Ends With You? That was one of my favorite DS games. A battle system based on patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time!

I WANNA RIDE DUMBO

Well, hey if you had played for five minutes more, the game would have opened up to three new Disney worlds.

also why does it need to be old square titles? clearly theyre not taking completely from old disney stuff. TWEWY was a pretty good game, you guys should still play it.

@Monthenor: It's Japanese as fuck, Giantbomb staff kinda hate Japanese as fuck games.

I really enjoyed Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. I think saying Kingdom Hearts lost it's way is a little weird. It's way was to be a cash in to grab Disney and Square fans. Kingdom Hearts 2 was the start of the franchise finding it's way and becoming it's own thing.

I've only played one of the games since then (the pretty bad card based combat system one) and I'm not sure Kingdom Hearts is for me anymore but it's awesome Kingdom Hearts fans are getting cool Kingdom Hearts games.

Eeeehhhh

Eeeehhhh

@chilibean_3: If you have a PSP play Birth By Sleep. It explains a lot of all the fucked up shit happening in 2 about Sora and Roxas. But yeah from 2 the story got super dumb.

@Drakoji: i really liked the first Kingdom Hearts but like they say here, it is nothing like the first one when it was interesting who you would meet along the way.

@Cazamalos said:

Brad doesn't use any of the different combat mechanics properly

what a surprise

Another annoying kid who thinks they're smarter than Brad, what a surprise.

The story is incomprehensible and the combat is tedious and overly complex. I understand that there are fans that still adore this series, but I honestly don't understand why. I tried the demo and found myself not enjoying the actual game playing part at all. The presentation is pretty good though; very colorful with nice music.

@sixpin: I like the crazyness of the storyline, as stupid as it can get, I miss the time when Japanese games were crazy and stupid fun, Kingdom Hearts is one of thoses rare franchise still doing that, maybe with Shin Megami Tensai games. And for me the gameplay is fun, it's just simple brawling with RPG mechanics around it, it's not that complex to me.

But I can see how this is not for everyone.

@Xeirus: Dude, I'm saying Brad is dumb, but he didn't understand what they keyblade meant on the map. Maybe he didn't read the tutorial that much...

@flip2000b: Well the gimmick is not fresh anymore, and honestly, where do you go now, they have done all the big disney worlds. Emperor's New Groove? Bambi?

Turn on, tune in, drop distance.

@Wes899 said:

This seems just as boring as the others in the series. I watched half of an LP of KH1 and it was dreadfully boring. Is the combat always so simple/repetitive?

The combat usually builds and you get longer combos and other options such as dodging, blocking and countering as the games progresses (also more spells), but at its base level it's mashy and flashy. In a way it's similar to Diablo-type games, the pleasure comes from exploding enemies into collectible crystals and leveling up your guy.

Brad mentions possibly being interested in a game of this kind if it had a story you could actually follow, for what it's worth that's what a lot of people think Versus XIII is going to be.

Just like with Assassins Creed, I'm waiting for 3 to get back into the series.

I'm with Ryan and Brad. I know nothing about this universe, and this makes me care even less than I did before.

I remember being a serious fan of Kingdom Hearts when it first came out but even just the first game confused the heck out of me. I wasn't sure at all what I had accomplished in that game, especially within the last couple of hours. I played a bunch of Chain of Memories but even then I had NO idea what was going on in KH2 when I played that.

Looking back I realize it wasn't because I was a dumb 13 or 14-year-old. It's because the story is told HORRIBLY. I still like the style overall but I think they fail to capitalize on it. Too bad really.

@vince_kupo said:

@Wes899 said:

This seems just as boring as the others in the series. I watched half of an LP of KH1 and it was dreadfully boring. Is the combat always so simple/repetitive?

Combat in 2 became more engaging, but I get that the game isn't for everyone.

I remember the combat in 2 being mindless and button-mashy even compared to the first game. It lost almost all of its RPG elements too. I thought I was the only one with a problem but IGN's review stated largely the same thing.

No, the combat was never the strong point. It was the world, characters and atmosphere. I think I liked the first one for the novelty, looking back. And possibly because I still believed most of what Game Informer said and they gave it a 9.5 out of 10.

Kingdom Hearts is nothing but a terrible yaoi fanfic in video game form.

It's a shame that Kingdom Hearts basically replaced Secret of Mana as Square's go-to Action-RPG franchise. With this engine, and the more likeable characters and world of Mana, it could be something worth playing. As it is, this belongs only to die-hard Kingdom Hearts fans, who are among the worst sector of the gaming culture.

Well, that was painful to listen to. Not because of what they had to say about the game, but more because what they couldn't. Brad and Ryan being critical of Kingdom Hearts because they aren't running into any Disney characters for half an hour is like a guy getting annoyed when he starts reading Return of the King after enjoying The Hobbit and getting annoyed that the story doesn't make sense and bemoaning the lack of Bombur. It's one part ignorance in not keeping up with the story, and another part wanting the game to be what they want it to be, rather than what the creators intended, and punishing it for that.

Well the gotta keep making these or Haley Joel Osment will become homeless!

Loved KH on PS2 but they lost me with KH2 when they starting bringing in original fiction. Don't even think KH3 could bring me back to the series now

@dropabombonit:

What kinda killed the storyline for me was the emphasis on Organization XIII because fangirls find them cute/sexy/whateverit'screepy. To the point of making a game about them. Seriously they are the most boring shite ever the whole franchise.

@Plasticpals:

Dude, did you play the Legend of Mana game on the PS2. It was freakin' horrible.