Kingdom Hearts

So, a few days ago, Kingdom Hearts 3D (Dream Drop Distance) came out. Well, here I am, three minutes before midnight on the third day of it's release writing a journal because I just finished it... Damn. It was a pretty great game in the Kingdom Hearts series. Flow-motion and the Reality Shifts, to me, gave the game a lot of the Kingdom Hearts "reaction command" type of combat without letting me cheat by tapping triangle until I beat the boss's face in.

Several times in the game did I go "Arggh!" and get mad at losing to a boss. In most cases, it was a simple, leave for a bit, level grind, get pissed at the drop system, level grind again and go back to the boss and rape it. Like one particular boss towards the end of the game during a long Riku sequence. Not going into any spoilers, but the game finally ties in all the itty bitty plot games that we've been getting for the past several years.

Time to discuss the new "drop" system, for those that don't know. So, the game goes like this. You take turns playing as Sora and Riku to complete the plot. Cool. I like them both, but Sora is my favorite. Plus side, you get to play as both and you can use the same Spirits with them both to get them to level up really fast. Now... The minus side. Here's an example:

"W00t! I'm Sora! Gonna go find Riku and save some guys! Hello, new friend!" Classic Sora. Then, find a boss. Rape boss because of new flow-motion system. About to land finishing hit. "So... Sleepy..." Drop to Riku. String of curses. Immediately, drop back to Sora. Restart boss fight. Rape it again.

That's the downside. If it, say, couldn't drop us right out of a boss fight then I would be happier with it. Many a time has this happened to both Riku and Sora throughout the course of my journey. Okay, it was probably only once or twice. Riku got dropped out of Hockomonkey fight and Sora dropped out of __________ fight. Saying the name, would be spoiling. Hockomonkey fight isn't spoiling. It's in the demo. Dropping isn't, fight is.

Flow-motion. Personally, I felt it removed the need of including powers such as high jump and glide, they were added in anyways and proved useful sometimes, but it seemed kind of like giving me a shotgun with infinite ammo then giving me a pistol with six shots. Just seemed not so great. Unlike in the others, where I was more like "F*** yeah!"

My only other real issue was the length vs level. Normally, I'm a pretty high level by the time I've reached the end of a Kingdom Hearts game and then I occasionally go back and train them. I'm about 91 in KH and 93 in KH2 or something? Haven't gone back in a while. However, in this one, Sora and Riku are both around level 36 or so. Riku was in the final part of the game with Sora at a level below 30. His attacks did crap compared to Sora who was about level 31 at the time. I think Riku was 25 and we were in the final world. The world's combat level was only 40, by the way, which still put Riku pretty low on the scale. Not sure why Sora got so much higher, but he did. (Probably because I wanted to play as Sora more.)

Now, Riku... I am so much happier with him. He follows through what he vows at the end of Chain of Memories. He follows through on, as put best in his own words, "to walk the path to dawn". That is not spoiling anything. So, I can say it. That's about the only way I can sum up Riku now and that he finally acts more like a friend to Sora. Things between them finally seem so upbeat.

Anyways. Had to talk. Apparently typing that took nineteen minutes to do. Considering I started at three before midnight. Well, I'm gonna finish before it goes up any higher. I will answer any questions about the game. Including those that contain spoilers, but only through... Twenty minutes. Anyways, only through notes will I give spoilers. I don't imagine I'll have many, if any, of those. Now, good night, before that damnable number rises again like a phoenix.