A jacket for KH3D HD. Inside of a viewpoint, Sora and Riku hold their keyblades over their shoulders while looking out from on top of a building, with Sora leaning on a particularly rotund Dream Eater.

Before I say anything about the content of the game: Only buy the 2.8 collection if you’re getting it as part of Integrum Masterpiece or I-III. Compared to the four games and two cutscene collections you’d get from 1.5+2.5, 2.8 offers one of the shortest games in the main series (though 3D isn’t trivially short), a tech demo/playable lore explainer that is far shorter, and only one cutscene collection. I adore KH3D, but I would not rush to recommend it to anyone over a game like KH2 and everything else that is in that collection: Even if you’re mostly coming to it for KH1 and KH2 alone, it is still more worth it than only getting KH3D.

Now that that’s out of the way: Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance is no masterpiece, nor did I expect it to be one, but stands up the systems that took center stage in previous games and improved them. For one, the command deck system is more interesting to use in this game, as there’s not much in the way of it as there is in Birth By Sleep, as many of the mechanics that could’ve gotten in the way of a system like that were moved off to the Spirits. Speaking of, the Spirits made me feel like party members actually mattered in important moments, compared to a game like KH2 where it felt like I only really needed my party members for healing and Drive forms: Obviously, the Limits they provide Sora are powerful and the Drive forms they provide Riku are fun (if situational), but the ability boards are incredibly powerful vectors of progression, and even just what some of those spirits can do in active battle make them so influential in a game where combat can be slower at points than 1, 2, or 3. The combat actions outside of the active command deck are quite neat, and this game feels like a big part of the series’ attempt to make blocking stronger, what with all of the defensive and movement options that center around it, especially on Riku’s side. Though it feels very sloppy in its use in extended combat, save for Blow-Off, Flowmotion feels incredible: I get why they nerfed it in 3 because it’s so powerful here, but I appreciate what that power lends to how this game is able to design its huge maps and load them full of places to explore, a prospect that terrifies me about going into this game’s randomizer, especially with 14 total areas to explore across the two characters.

As for the game’s difficulty: It’s surprisingly hard when your only line of defense is Second Chance, and even then, you can kind of just be nuked out of the blue. In Proud Mode, I had to farm a little bit just to take on some of the bosses near the end of the game, including one farming loop of the final zone during the break in the five phase boss rush that succeeded it, and also including hobbling together an A-rank rare spirit that ended up having an incredible heal, lockdown, and ability board. When you know how good Balloon is, however, much of the game’s damage check woes disappear: As soon as you get your hands on Balloonra and, eventually, Balloonga, fights start to take less and less time and depend on fewer and fewer stressful interactions. It’s a shame the game’s meta can be so easily broken down, but if it helps the experience, I don’t personally mind.

On the drop meter, since I wanted to mention it at this point and only realized I didn’t until after I had finished the spoiler section: It’s probably not a mechanic for everyone, but I appreciated how it assisted pacing, personally: I appreciated that the alternation wasn’t mandated all the way through, and that meant I could be in slightly different places on each side and have it make sense. I don’t like how hard things were gated at some point, but I suppose I get it: At that point, you can have some pretty big desync on both sides and not really attend to it until then.

I am looking forward to giving the randomizer for this game a meaningful chance: It looks fun with a lot going on, and I appreciate how they integrate drops into the item pool instead of using the additional meter because they can afford to do so. It’s also so much easier to setup than any game from the 1.5+2.5 collection: Just get OpenKH running with the Lua backend, install a mod, and hook up the client before you start playing, no patch needed. I think I’ll have a really fun time, especially given how much I enjoyed the base game.

SPOILERS AHEAD#

Back to the difficulty for a moment: Fuck Anti Black Coat Nightmare. I got stuck on it as a kid and I got stuck on it returning to it, to the point where I beat Xemnas first. Basically every other fight is interesting, especially in the final boss rush, but even just in the game overall (see: The Chill Clawbster fight had such a cool ending, what with actually using Monstro to finish them off), but Anti Black Coat Nightmare was a miserable experience I had to slog through to get to fights I could actually parse, fights like Young Xehanort in particular (which I’m glad had a break zone so I could go farming). There is no reason a boss with attacks that are only as readable as they are should have lifesteal up three bars of health as well.

In contrast to my rage, I will say that I did think that this game is a high point in the series’ lore, primarily among the games after 2. A few things that should’ve been explained in this game weren’t, but it sent up the general notion of things to come, and especially on Sora’s side (but even on Riku’s), compared to Birth by Sleep and what I’ve seen by 3, the dialogue in many of the worlds feels much more natural and in-line with the good parts of 2. The world choices were interesting: Realistically, Musketeer world shoudl not have existed over Fantasia, but I appreciate that they at least tried to do something that explored Mickey, Donald, and Goofy, given that Fantasia couldn’t really do that. It just doesn’t make sense that both of those worlds were considered sleeping and independently held copies of Mickey. Maybe more dialogue could’ve gone to Symphony of Sorcery instead? I know they had to do it at the start and for the boss cutscene, but it feels like there was room for much more that could have been explored. The entire exchange at the end of the game was actually a very interesting exploration of the core game mechanic; honestly, I think it’s a very fun touch that the Drop meter just disappears after Sora is taken, obviously because there’s no point to having it, but also, given how big it is on the screen, it really drives that point home.