Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance is the seventh game in the Kingdom Hearts series. It was originally developed for the Nintendo 3DS hand-held system. It is a direct sequel to Kingdom Hearts 2, Kingdom Hearts Re: Coded, and the epilogue of Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep''.

The game opening theme is the orchestral arrangement of "Hikari", while "Sanctuary -after the battle-" is used as the game ending theme.

The game was first announced at E3 2010, simply known as Kingdom Hearts 3D. A demo version of the game was made available on the Nintendo eShop on June 22, 2012. Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance is the first game in the series to see a release in Europe and Australia before North America.

The game was remastered in HD and called Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD; this port was released as part of Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue for PlayStation 4.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The game uses a battle system similar to Birth by Sleep while using a balance of ideas from Re:coded.
 * 2) Very high-quality graphics for a Nintendo 3DS game.
 * 3) It has a somewhat good plot that introduces the Sleeping Worlds and Dream Eaters. It also finally continues the story after KH2 after six years of spin-offs and a prequel.
 * 4) Sora and Riku return as the protagonists and try to awaken the Sleeping Worlds to achieve the Power of Waking, and become titled as True Keyblade Masters.
 * 5) The game tends to focus more on Riku than Sora. This allows Riku to have his character development continue even further as he struggles with the terms of being fit to be a Keyblade wielder after he gave into the darkness in the first Kingdom Hearts game.
 * 6) A new ability called Flowmotion is introduced as well. Which allows the player to use powerful acrobatic moves that gives them an advantage in battle, making the combat much more fast paced.
 * 7) Great soundtrack as always, courtesy of Yoko Shimomura, who has composed for the series since the first game, Takeharu Ishimoto and Tsuyoshi Sekito.
 * 8) This is the first game to add another Square Enix franchise, The World Ends With You. And many songs from The World Ends With You appears in the game and the voice cast now gets more speaking lines.
 * 9) This is the first game not to feature Olympus Coliseum, which tends to be overused in every game.
 * 10) The Spirits are a new mechanic unique to this game: you can create Spirits using different materials obtained from chests and Nightmares, which can then become partners, aiding in fights.
 * 11) The Spirits also have the Ability Link, a unique board mechanic where you can unlock new commands and abilities in exchange of Link Points obtained by defeating enemies or petting and playing with the Spirits.
 * 12) A new minigame called Flick Rush, where you can put a team made of three Spirits of yours against other Spirits' teams and gain medals from wins that you can exchange with various items, like recipes for other spirits.
 * 13) Speaking of which, even though there are recipes that lists materials needed to craft a Spirit, you can even use a free choice of two materials to obtain more powerful version of a particularly Spirit.
 * 14) The game features a glossary option, which contains a detailed list with descriptions about things from the entire series, like names and events.
 * 15) Link System, which allows Sora and Riku to use the power of their Spirits to do powerful (and sometimes funny, in the case of Sora) attacks. You can recharge the Link Gauge needed to use the Link System by using items or attacking an enemies together with your Spirit.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The worlds, like Birth By Sleep and II, are basically watered-down rehashes of the movies with Sora and Riku thrown in for good measure.
 * 2) The game is known for introducing the Time Travel gimmick to the franchise, which was not well-received by many fans, with many calling it ludicrous and saying that it made an already complicated series much more convoluted than it should be.
 * 3) Poor English voice direction, particularly for characters from The World Ends With You and Sora, and no option to swap to Japanese voices.
 * 4) Every world appears to be totally vacant (a criticism that Birth By Sleep also suffered from), with side characters only showing during cutscenes.
 * 5) Maleficent only appears once during the game, where she (along with Pete) invades Disney Castle and attempts to take over the castle by using the worlds' data, but gets foiled by Mickey and his friends. Other than that, she serves no real purpose to the story nor does she get to fight Sora or Riku, an issue that would continue in Kingdom Hearts III.
 * 6) The Wargoyle and Young Xehanort are both frustrating bosses.