mewtwo (2012-10-29 21:39:20)

---

"With the Mark of Mastery test underway, Sora and Riku must travel to new worlds to show their mastery of the keyblade. Along the way, trouble starts to arise and these changes might affect the Kingdom Hearts series forever."

Finally, we get a new Kingdom Hearts game. Not like 358/2 Days, and Birth By Sleep, this game actually continues the story and is the game before the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 3. So, has Square Enix managed to impress us yet again, or is this game just not worth the money? Well I am here to tell you what I thought about this game, and trust me, it is amazing.

Story
Well, every Kingdom Hearts game has a compelling and interesting story, but this game makes the story even better and more compelling and interesting. So as I said, this game takes place after Kingdom Hearts 2 (Finally the story moves on) and acts as the game before the long awaited Kingdom Hearts 3. So Sora and Riku must take the Mark of Mastery exam to prove they are true keyblade masters, but along the way, you find out that the Orginazation XIII has gotten involved and the stakes have never been higher for Sora and Riku. You must go through a total of 7 worlds each with special characters and special mini games you must complete and boss you must kill. Let's just say, Traverse Town was my favorite due to the characters from The World Ends With You. So, the story is pretty long, it takes at least 35 hours to complete the story, and 60 hours or more to finish everything. I finished the game in 25 hours, but I got a bunch of quests to do. Anyways, this story is a fitting piece before the next game, and if you get Kingdom Hearts 3D, you will be interested as well. Also, a good incentive in this game, is that they have these things called, Chronicles, and you can read what happened in the previous games, so the time to play Kingdom Hearts has never been better.

^Overview of the game

Enemies and Alies
Unlike the other Kingdom Hearts games, the enemies in this game are Dream Eaters. They look sort of like Pokemon, but these creatures are the enemies you must fight in each world, and every world has a different kind of them. Most of the bosses are Dream Eaters, there were only about 5 bosses that were not Dream Eaters. Dream Eaters may be your enemies, but they can be your greatest allies. (The good dream eaters are called Spirits and the bad kind are Nightmares) You can create, collect and train a bunch of Dream Eaters (Sounds like Pokemon) and use them in battle as support characters. Along with training your Dream Eaters, you can teach them many abilities with a path based board, that you can use to your advantage in battle. (Sounds a lot like Pokemon doesn't it?) Sora and Riku use their Dream Eaters in many different ways. Sora combines with his Dream Eaters for a devastating attack, while Riku absorbs the power of his Dream Eaters and mops the floor with the enemies with new and devastating combos.

^Spirits and Nightmares

Gameplay and Controls
So in this game, like many other previous games in the series, you must travel to several worlds and battle enemies and eventually get to the boss. But along with this, Square Enix has managed to bring something new to the series, these mini games called Reality Shifts. Each world has a different one, but if you do the mini game right, you will unleash a powerful attack, or unlock more areas depending in which world you are in. I thought these sequences were very fun and we should have more of these in the next game. As for the controls, in this game they are very silly smooth. You attack with A, Magic with X, scroll through command deck with control pad, ect. Square Enix has managed to make the controls easy to use and easy to learn. This is another job well done when it comes to controls. They also use the 3D effect in a inward way versus a popping out way, but it looks pretty amazing, and very colorful. As for the touch screen, you use it for selecting options, editing decks, playing with Spirits and using Reality Shifts

^Example of a Reality Shift

Streetpass
This game has a couple of Streetpass functionalities. The first is Player Challenges. When the play passes by a Streetpass area, he/she has the choice of accepting the challenges. An example of a challenge is "Defeat all the Nightmares in 20 sec" or "Defeat all the Nightmares only sustaining 2 hits" The challenges make Streetpass interesting and shows how evil people can be. Another Streetpass functionality is borrowing Dream Eaters, a player might lend you his/her Dream Eaters that you can use for period of time, but just know that this time period is very short, and I recommend to make use of the Dream Eaters fast. Another Streetpass functionality is Flick Rush, where players can have their Dream Eaters fight to the death, it is also compatible with local play, but the other person must have the game.

^I love Flick Rush

Other
Another thing you need to note in this game is the drop system. The drop system is a gauge the lowers overtime and forces you to switch in between Sora and Riku, so you can progress in both their stories. And please note, Sora and Riku may go to the same worlds but what they do and the people they meet are totally different. They also have different bosses to fight.

The Verdict
This game is one of the best games in the 3DS library and is a very good game. I have never been into the Kingdom Hearts series, but after playing this, I already bought myself Re: Coded and 358/2 Days. And with the chronicle mode in this game, you will be totally updated on the story. This game serves justice the Kingdom Hearts series deserves and shows what the 3DS is really capable of, and is a great game leading up to Kingdom Hearts 3. And if you are still sketchy about this game, try out the demo in the Eshop.

Final Score: 9.5/10

This post has been edited one or more times, the last time was:
2012-10-30 17:13:47

---

pikarceus (2012-10-30 00:15:51)

---

I'll get it eventually.

---

(Capt.)Orb (2012-10-30 17:38:54)

---

I HATE the demo....

---

Carmilla (2013-01-19 02:30:34)

---

I'm glad to get this

---

DarkHarvest (2013-02-08 00:30:08)

---

Are you retarded? @scythe

---

rayword45 (2013-02-12 05:06:04)

---

I'd give it an 8.5

-The story is interesting, but incredibly convoluted
-The drop system sort of sucks
-Camera can be annoying
-Command deck is inconvenient

---

SuperShadic76 (2013-08-11 00:47:59)

---

I loved the demo my story is kinda like yours.I wasn't into KH but I started too when I tryed the demo it was amazing I want to get 385/2 days and this one and amazing review!

---