Kingdom Hearts 3D Review

'sup, n00bs?! XD Gamertag: XxKaito9049xX (That's KAI-toh, not kay-toh!). ANYWAY, let's cut to the chase! I'm here to give a laydown about the game Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, or Kingdom Hearts 3D. It's the latest Kingdom Hearts game, and is for the 3DS. Now, if you want the short review, KH3D IS AW#$0M#! ...ok, kinda.

ANYWAY, so what's the story? Well, without giving too many spoilers, Sora-kun and Riku the awesome (XD) have to take a Mark of Mastery exam to become keyblade masters. Why? Well, since fake-Ansem and Xemnas went kaplut, Xehanort is going to come back. And...some other crap about Riku wanting to see if darkness still has a hold on him. It's not really explained very well. So Sora and Riku are put into a sort of sleep, and enter sleeping worlds. There are some pretty friggin cool worlds, like the world of Tron: Legacy and Disney's The Three Musketeers. Oh, and Axel comes back as LEA! FRIGGIN LEA!!! :DDDDD I'm not giving anything away by saying that, since the commercial shows that pretty clearly. Oh, and Riku and Sora are seperated, there's multiple appearences by the characters from The World Ends With You, and, you saw the appearence by Vanitas, right? Well...yeah. He only appears that once. Bullcrap. And there's a non-canon alternate ending video that you can unlock. It's not much, but it's kinda cool. And the ending scenes are kind of confusing.

SO, what's with the gameplay? Well, the command deck system makes a comeback from Birth By Sleep, so that's pretty awesome. Also, a new combat/movement system appears here, dubbed Freemotion. It's basically where you can roll into a wall or pole and start flying around a bit, beating the crap out of Dream Eaters (we'll get to that), and jump really high. Also cool, but I admit the novelty wears off a bit after the third world or so. There's also something called Reality Shift, which is different for every world. Basically, when you land enough hits, you can do things like change the data of the Nightmare to make it attack your enemies, or toss a Nightmare against another. It's pretty fun. Another new feature is Dropping. XD Sorry. Weird thought. It's basically another form of the Gummi Ship and the...Keyblade Board? Whatever. It's the same thing, except you're actually Sora or Riku instead of a ship or an armored Ven. It's ok, and you can play the minigame again whenever you want. There's keyblades, which generally get better the further you  go, and you can also get some if you unlock certain achievements. Also, a new "drop" system is there. And I'm not repeating myself. When you're playing as a character, you have a meter that slowly goes down after time. When that meter goes out, you switch characters (Sora to Riku, or vice versa). You can force a drop with the push of a button most of the time, but if that meter drops while you're in a boss battle, you'll have to start the battle over again when you go back to that character. There is a cool thing in the middle of dropping, though. You get "drop points" as well as items and munny, but you spend these drop points on temporary power ups or items when you switch characters. I got a few items I couldn't find otherwise by doing this. But here's the real new thing: Dream Eaters. There are two types of DE, Nightmares and Spirits. Guess which one is bad? ANYWAY, There are no Heartless, since these "sleeping worlds" are shut off from other worlds, so Dream Eaters will take their place. And Donald and Goofy aren't your partners this time. Actually, you don't even get the worlds' characters as teammates. You get Spirits. This is where it gets even more awesome. You can create new Spirits from special items Nightmares drop, and each spirit has a Link ability, or finishing attack. Sora's finishers are more interesting, due to him interacting with the Spirits. Riku absorbs the Spirits into his Keyblade, and gets a powerup. Now, if you have two Spirits linking at the same time, you get an even bigger attack. It's really fun to see all the combinations. Also, you can take pictures of the spirts with your DS camera. So you can "put" the spirits on your table and take a shot. Spirits gain points or stats when you pet them, play minigames with them, or feed them treats. When they get enough points, you can unlock new abilites. That's also awesome. Finally, you have a new minigame, called Flick Rush. It's kind of hard to discribe, but I'll try my best. You send out your Spirits to battle another person's Spirits and....Yeah. See the resemblance? Spirits are pretty close to Pokemon, but...is that such a bad thing? Sure, it's a ripoff, but Flick Rush is pretty fun. Think the card game War, with Pokemon. Or even the Kingdom Hearts CoM card system. Each Spirit has different abilities in the minigame, so it's a pretty fun way to take a break from the normal game. This minigame also has multiplayer (local, though). And one more thing: Link portals. These are special challenges, like "Beat all the Nightmares in 20 seconds or less." Others lend you Spirits for a while. You can even place portals, which will transfer to your friends' games when you get into range with them.

So, what's the breakdown on Kingdom Hearts 3D?
Pros:
Fun battle system
Spirits are awesome
Drop system give the game an extra variable
Finishers look great
The 3D is AMAZING, and even without the 3D, it still looks near console-graphics
Story is good.
A Trophy system adds achievements
Music is great, as always
LEA SHOWS UP
Flick rush is enjoyable
Reality Shift is great
Kairi doesn't get a line in this game
Link portals offer extra challenges
You get to play as Riku for the second time (KHII doesn't count)

Cons:
Story gets kind of confusing, especially near the end.
Vanitas shows up for no apparent reason.
Sora gets much more story, while Riku faces much harder bossES at the end
Bosses are hugely overpowered, especially at the end.
Drop system kind of gets annoying
There aren't as many worlds as KHII, so while you will put a lot of hours into it, it feels a bit short
As with most Kingdom Hearts games, enemies can get annoying enough for you to just run past them
Only for 3DS

My final verdict? 8.5-9 out of 10. The game does have its flaws, mostly the very annoying bosses, but if you have a 3DS, I'd definitely suggest this game. For a Kingdom Hearts fan, it's a must.