First Look: Kingdom Hearts 3D - Dream Drop Distance

Kingdom Hearts 3D is only a few days away from release, and there is still little information or videos out there of this game, but if there is one thing you can be sure of, is that Kingdom Hearts games are always worth playing. This installment of the KH saga was released in Japan on March 29, 2012 so they are already enjoying the game and it will see a release in Europe and Australia before we get to play it here in the US on July 31, 2012. Isn't that unfair? This game takes place after the last insallment in he series Kingdom Hearts Re:coded. In this game Sora the protagonist of the series and Riku a secondary but major character in the series and Sora's best friend must undergo the Mark of Mastery Exam which is the final test a keyblade wielder must take and pass to be considered a Keyblade Master. The game will keep old fighting mechanics but will introduce new ones as well, maintaining the series fresh as it has done in every game. Even though it is a game that involves Disney characters it is by no means a child's game, if you have played previous KH games you know that amount of difficulty the games can present, so much so that the games have been called Final Fantasy games disguised as Disney games. The good news about this game besides the fact that it's another KH game which is already a very popular game series, is that it presents a great story. In this story we see returning enemies from previous games, new enemies, new worlds to visit including the world of Tron, The Three Musketeers, Hunchback of Notre Dame and even Fantasia. Sora and Riku will be sent to different worlds to free them of Dream Eaters which are the new enemies in the series, these enemies eat people's dreams and create nightmares out of them. The worlds that Sora and Riku must safe are worlds that were previously destroyed by the Heartless and have now been restored, although they are in a state of deep sleep that prevents them from connecting to other worlds as if they did not exist. Sora and Riku must destroy the Dream Eater menace and find and unlock the keyhole of each world to awaken it. Although they will go their separate ways they will eventually find each other in the game, and at certain points in the game you will be made to switch between each character as well as being able to switch at will at Safe Points. The bad news, is that it will be released only on the Nintendo 3DS. That has been the bane of the KH series, cross-platform releases in systems that the typical KH player does not own, so far KH games have been released on the PS2, the PS3, the Nintendo DS, on mobile platform and now the 3DS. This makes it hard to keep up with the series although some of the handheld games have been released for the PS before this one seems a bit unlikely without making a few changes to the gameplay style which makes full use of the 3DS functions. As we've witnessed before every new KH game presents a darker story it's like the game grows up along with the players and KH is celebrating 10 years of it's creation. The best thing about KH 3D however is that it's basically a first look of how KH III for the PS will be like and that will come as great news for the fans of the series. If you've been reading this review and have not watched the trailer I recommend you give it a look or two because it seems KH's game formula keeps getting better every new game and this one makes the Drake's Reviews team wish we owned a 3DS as we are big fans of KH. While we recommend this game for those who own a 3DS even KH is not enough to make the Drake's Review team buy a 3DS just for this game, maybe we'll all pitch in for one and take turns playing it.

Drake's Reviews Score (Pre-Release) 8 out of 10

The game looks great but the exclusive release on 3DS is a real let down.