021: Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance or That Time Sora Slept In (Untangling Part 4)

As many of you should be aware of by now, I love me some Kingdom Hearts. I recently did a three post overview explaining the series and the increasingly convoluted storyline. You'll find those posts here, here, and here. I am currently doing a leisurely second play through of Kingdom Hearts III in Critical Mode. I‘m taking my time to really enjoy it. I waited soooo long for that game. I was convinced it was never coming out because of all the delays and lack of info. But it finally came out a year ago, and it was absolutely worth the wait. Kingdom Hearts III, in my opinion, far exceeded the hype.

Chasing the trophies for Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and 2.5, I got seriously into Proud Mode and Critical Mode. (Those are basically the Kingdom Hearts version of hard mode.) The Kingdom Hearts games are among the only games I ever play in hard mode. My brothers usually go right for the hardest mode available... usually for video games I go with Standard difficulty... I'm easily frustrated. Traditionally, Kingdom Hearts games have Easy, Normal, Proud, and Critical. I always start on Normal and then do a replay on the hardest mode. I prefer my first play to be Normal so I can learn the mechanics. The Kingdom Hearts games, while being fairly similar, all have vast differences in their mechanics and skill/attribute raising.

One of my favorite past times… smacking Pete around. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

I have played through all the main Kingdom Hearts titles in Critical Mode, and let me tell you, it's a blast. Winning in Critical takes more strategy and planning, but I find it very satisfying to feel like I've fully mastered it. Eventually you get to the point (in character level and player skill) where you can dominate everything in the game even despite the raised attack and defense of your opponents.

After Kingdom Hearts III was released, they added Critical Mode along with some free DLC, but I decided to wait on my Critical run until the re:Mind DLC came out. Well, that's out now, but I got so far behind that I haven't gotten very far in that play through yet. It's going to take all my attention, since I also want to do all the side quests, optional battles, and synthesize the Ultima Keyblade. (On my first play through I kind of rushed through to see the story I’d waited so long for.) To hold me over while I waited for the DLC, I decided to attempt to finish getting my Platinum trophy on Dream Drop Distance. And let me tell you, Platinum trophies on KH games are no joke.

They're irritating. That's what they are. Irritating.

Somebody needs to teach Phil how to count. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

Usually on Playstation games, you get the Platinum trophy by unlocking all the other trophies. I never got the Platinum for the first two Kingdom Hearts. I got everything except the Gummi Ship crap. (Shown above.) So annoying. (Do everything perfectly in this ship run with no mistakes, and DO NOT get randomly swallowed by the space whale. Lordy. I about threw my controller several times, and those things ain't cheap.) But I enjoyed Dream Drop Distance so much that I wanted to give the Platinum a shot. Plus it helped me wait first for Kingdom Hearts III and then for the DLC. Distraction is good.

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance was originally released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2012. An enhanced, HD version was released for the PS4 in 2017 in the collection Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue. This is the version I played.

This is a very shiny game. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

From the opening, I loved this game. There was plot advancement, you got to play as both Sora and Riku, and there was a huge collection aspect in trying to unlock all the Spirits. On my first (Normal Mode) play through, I didn't do everything there was to do... I typically save that for Critical Mode. Also, I didn't really understand the Spirit mechanics. (I was pretty horrified when I realized you lose the stat gains Spirits give to you when you take them out of your party.) And I was maybe 3/4 of the way through the game before I realized you could Reality Shift the Nightmares.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The plot for this game is that Sora and Riku are tasked with becoming Keyblade Masters. To do this they have to take their Mark of Mastery test... we saw one of those in Birth By Sleep, but this one takes a different approach, seeing as how the heroes are also preparing for the imminent return of Xehanort. Master Yensid has told them to travel into the Realm of Sleep and awaken the Sleeping Worlds. They are supposed to obtain something called “the power of waking”.

Three of the worlds in the map. Note the clever Mickey Mouse head. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

The Sleeping Worlds are the worlds that were lost to Darkness. But for some reason they weren't reborn with the other worlds at the end of the first Kingdom Hearts. I'm a little shaky on why this is. Why was, for instance, Pinocchio's world lost but Destiny Islands came back? And for that matter, how can their journey start on Destiny Islands, when it’s no longer destroyed? And how did Tron's world end up sleeping if it was data residing in Radiant Garden, which was never destroyed? And are Cinderella and Snow White's worlds sleeping too, or did they come back? There are SOOO many unanswered questions. More on those later.

Sora, diving into a new world. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

Since these worlds are asleep, none of the inhabitants remember Sora or Riku. They run across Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Jiminy Cricket, and Pinocchio, none of whom remember them.

Rather than the usual Final Fantasy characters, this game includes characters from another Square Enix game, The World Ends With You. Because of this segment, I bought that game, and the soundtrack. I have yet to play the game, but I highly recommend the soundtrack. It's amazing. The world they exist in for this game is Traverse Town, the hub world from the first Kingdom Hearts game.

Sora, getting chewed by a Tyranto Rex while a Cera Terror looks on with interest. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

In Part 1 of my Kingdom Hearts overview I mentioned Dream Eaters. These are the creatures that live in the Realm of Sleep. The bad Dream Eaters are the main villains of this game. They're called Nightmares and they eat good dreams. The good Dream Eaters are the ones that help you on your way and battle Nightmares. Those are called Spirits.

Riku and his buddy Komory Bat. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

There are many new mechanics in Dream Drop Distance. One of the main ones serves as both your party and your primary method of skill building. This is where the Spirits come in. Through recipes (which you can purchase or find) you create new Spirits to join you. You can have three Spirits in your party at once, although only the first two show up on screen to actively fight with you.

There is a bit of a Tamagotchi aspect to the spirits. In order to make them grow, you can play with them, pet or poke them, and feed them candy. Candy can raise their stats. Playing and interacting with them gives them Experience Points so they can level up, and also Affinity Points and Link Points. They gain these Points by fighting alongside you, as well. Experience helps them get stronger. Affinity decides how often they attack and protect you in battle. Link Points are spent on Ability Link, which I’ll talk about shortly.

Aww, bunny. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

There are 50 possible Spirits to collect in the game. There is some customization you can do with them-- you can choose their name and recolor them using Paint Guns. (Yes, you read that right. You shoot your pets with paint guns.) As you interact with the Spirits, their Disposition may change. This changes their eye color, can open new locations on their Ability Link board, and change the way they behave in battle.

This is fine. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

In battle, Spirits fight alongside you, attacking Nightmares. As they fight, their Link Gauge fills up. When it's full, you can Link with your Spirits, either with one or both, to perform powerful attacks. Sora and Riku Link differently. Sora teams up with the Spirits, riding them or otherwise cooperating. Riku merges with the Spirits, adopting a different fighting style, like the D-Link system in Birth By Sleep.

The other thing you can do with Spirits is a minigame called Flick Rush.

What an unfortunate name. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

Flick Rush is a tournament that your Spirits compete in. It's similar to a Pokemon battle, but much more like Monster Rancher, if any of you remember that game. Your Spirits have a deck of cards numbered from 1 to 9 and Star, which is the strongest value. You select your cards in either attack and defense, and if your value is higher than the cards your opponent selected, you win. A successful block can evolve your cards to use a more powerful attack. When all your opponent's Spirits reach zero hit points, you win and are awarded a rank in the Flick Rush Tournament. You also win medals that you can spend for prizes. Some Spirit recipes can only be bought at the Medal Shop.

Balloons everywhere. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

Some players complain about the spirits, saying it makes Kingdom Hearts too much like Pokemon, but I disagree. The Spirits are just a different kind of character building. Rather than learning skills or traits yourself, your Spirit learns them on a board called an Ability Link. You only have access to these learned skills and traits when the Spirit is in your party.

Like I mentioned earlier, I was stunned and disappointed when I first realized that... I make it a point in RPGs to learn and master everything I can. I feel like the entire point of an RPG is to make your characters the best they can be through leveling, stat building, and equipment. The Spirit mechanic makes that impossible since you'll never have all the skills and stat boosters equipped at once. I got over it. It just adds a layer of strategy to choose the best combination of maxed out Spirits to make yourself stronger. Also it necessitates the Spirits... without the stats being tied to them, they wouldn't be as useful late game.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. The Spirits are an essential aspect to this game, so make sure you figure them out early on, and never neglect them. Without the Spirits, your character is not powerful at all in the Sleeping Worlds.

I named Meow Wow after our cat CeCe. They’re both fatties, but Meow Wow bites less. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

The other ways you have to advance are the standard level system, Deck Commands, and Keyblades. By leveling up, you get boosts in Attack, Defense, and Magic. This works like normal: defeating enemies gives you Experience Points. Amass enough Experience and you level up.

Deck Commands work similarly to the way they work in Birth By Sleep. You equip abilities into your deck and use them in battle. They have a recharge time after use before you can use them again. There are a ton of different Commands, consisting of attack moves, magic spells, items, defensive moves, movements, Flowmotion abilities, and reprisal (which are like counter attacks).

And of course, what would a Kingdom Hearts game be without Keyblades? There are 15 Keyblades in this game, including Sora and Riku's starting Keyblades. Each one has different Strength and Magic stats, along with stats for critical chance and Reality Shifts. Most of them unlock as you play through the worlds, but five of them are only unlocked by doing specific actions in the game.

Speaking of Keyblades, for the first time ever, this game includes a Keyblade that's better than the Ultima Weapon. Unbound, which you unlock from defeating all the Secret Portals, has higher Strength, crit chance, and Reality Shift chance. It has a lower magic stat, however.

It’s pretty weird-looking, though. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

There are many other special moves in this game. The primary combat addition is called Flowmotion. You can interact with your environment to attack or move about. When you bounce off a wall, slide on a rail, grip a pole or an enemy, you get all glowy and can do various attacks.

Flowmotion in action. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

A big aspect of this game is the Drop System. You play as both Sora and Riku, and each time you begin play as a character, your Drop Gauge begins going down. When it reaches zero, you drop into the other character. (This is where the "Drop" in the title comes from.) Battling enemies gives you points called Droplets that you can use to help your friend along on their next drop. These can boost attack, defense, Spirit Affinity, and more.

Another move you can use is Reality Shift. You can shift the environment or weakened enemies to do a special move, which is different in each world. My favorite example of this was in The Grid, where you can hack into enemies and weapons to take control of them or make them self destruct. You could even hack the boss to stun him.

Each world has different portals you can activate, which begin a special timed battle. There are different difficulties to these, and different challenges that can give extra rewards if you succeed. There are Battle Portals and Special Portals to challenge, and they change after each Drop. After winning the game, Secret Portals open where you can fight a stronger boss. These are not timed, and are the only way to obtain the Unbound Keyblade.

What a show off. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

And the last game mechanic to mention is Diving. Before entering a new world, you have to go through Dive Mode. You fall through a different environment each time, achieving some sort of goal to open the portal to the next world. There are a few boss battles in the Dives, but mostly you gather items as you fall, pop balloons, or battle Nightmares.

Magically induced comas are so peaceful. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

Okay, now that all that’s out of the way, I’ll move on to the plot. As I said in my overview posts, this is a critical game to the overall story of Kingdom Hearts. Many key things happen here. I'm not going to go through the entire plot, but I'll discuss the most important things that occur, including the twists and turns in the game. So for those of you who haven't played yet, and don't want to have the game spoiled, you may want to bookmark this post and return later. And if you're not planning to play this game and you haven't read my three part overview (linked up above), some of this won't make much sense until you've read those posts. (I’m not going to re-explain who everyone is, basically.)

Still with me? Okay. As I said, Master Yensid sent Sora and Riku into the Realm of Sleep to save the Sleeping Worlds. You start out on Destiny Islands, then shortly end up in Traverse Town, where the two are separated. Joshua, one of the characters from The World Ends With You, speculates that they're in different, but very similar worlds from each other.

The two of you continue along the various worlds, making new friends, defeating bad guys, and unlocking the worlds. You make your way through Traverse Town, La Cité des Cloches (Hunchback of Notre Dame), Prankster's Paradise (Pinocchio), The Grid (Tron: Legacy), the Country of the Musketeers, and Symphony of Sorcery. (This last one is the season-themed world based on Fantasia. They play classical music in this one and man do they crank that shit! I had to turn down the volume every time I visited that world.) At the end of your journey, you don't wake up as expected, however. Instead you find yourself in The World That Never Was, home of the Nobodies. (This world was last seen in Kingdom Hearts II.)

Xigbar gets right to the point. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

Shockingly, Ansem and Xemnas (defeated in Part I and II respectively) have come back to life! Ansem reveals they've been tracking Sora by the X on his clothes. This symbol is something called the Recusant's Sigil. (This also explains why all the Organization members have an X in their name.) Young Xehanort pulls Sora even deeper into sleep. Sora defeats Xemnas, but he's too deep in the dream and his heart is swallowed by darkness. This was their plan all along, to make Sora— their biggest threat— into an ally. He is protected by Ventus's armor, indicating that Ventus is still somewhat aware inside Sora's heart.

After that happens, Ansem drops a big bombshell. For this entire game, Riku has been inside Sora's dream, protecting him as a Dream Eater. This is why Riku's jacket has a Dream Eater symbol on the back. (That's right... their style choices meant something this whole time!) Kingdom Hearts Inception... Sora may be super deep in the Realm of Sleep, but Riku is always one level deeper. You could say that Riku has been inside Sora all along… a fact that a legion of fan fic writers must have delighted in.

Mickey always shows up in the nick of time. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

After several boss battles (six in all!) and some more story, everything is in place for Kingdom Hearts III to begin! Both the heroes are awake and Sora puts all the Spirits in Traverse Town where they can have happy lives. (Take note that the ending credits have a little minigame… I almost missed it the first time through. You want to dive through the gold letters in the credits to get a secret message.)

Key things that happened in this game: The big thing, of course, is Master Xehanort's return. Other versions of Xehanort have also returned, comprising the Real Organization XIII. Included in their number are various time displaced versions of Big X and our old pal Xigbar, who is mostly Xehanort by this point. (It’s a cult… there’s no way around it.) These will be the thirteen seekers of darkness that must battle against the seven guardians of light in Part III.

In the course of this game, you discover the answers to two secrets... first off, the Mysterious Figure you optionally battle in Birth By Sleep, is actually Young Xehanort. Secondly, the brown-cloaked figure that tried to take Kairi in the very beginning of Part I was a time travelling Xehanort. He gave up his body to travel back and his displaced heart took the form of a Cloaked Figure. Right there, that was one of the longest-running mysteries in the series.

Riku encounters a digital copy of Ansem the Wise within Sora's heart and learns that good Ansem left research data inside Sora that may help them save the missing Keyblade Wielders. Riku has become a Keyblade Master, and Sora, due to his brush with darkness has lost all his powers. (Again.) He doesn't mind. He has a tea party with Donald and Goofy, then runs off to play with the Spirits.

There's always time for a tea party. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

In this game we also learn that the previous Organization XIII members have come back to life as humans. Some are good, some not so good. Axel, now going by his human name Lea, has sided with the good guys and wants to learn how to be a Keyblade Master. He even summons his own Keyblade, shocking everyone. Lea will be training with Kairi in anticipation of the final confrontation with Xehanort and his evil crew.

I've had dreams like this. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

That's enough plot. Now for my assessment of the game. I love the story. After so many years of waiting and getting backstory to fill in the gaps (Birth By Sleep, 358/2 Days) we finally got some actual plot advancement. This set the stage for Part III in the same way Chain of Memories set up Part II. I love the story balance there.

There was plenty of variety to the worlds. It was nice to see Traverse Town again, and even more districts of it than before. The Grid and Symphony of Sorcery had very creative designs. As for Prankster’s Paradise, although Riku spent his time in Monstro, Sora got to explore the outside, giving us a glimpse of where our old friend Pinocchio came from.

I enjoyed the new game mechanics. Flowmotion is lots of fun. It made the battles feel fast-paced and exciting. Dropping was also a great mechanic, balancing your time between the two characters. The Spirits were a nice addition, adding aspects of collection, party building, and pet simulation to the game. All the new mechanics work very well together. Even though there were a small number of worlds, there was plenty to do between gathering materials to create Spirits, seeking out all the portals, and finding the right combination of Spirits and Command Deck actions.

I was just as confused as Riku when this happened. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

One of my favorite parts of the Kingdom Hearts series is fighting the optional bosses. These are usually difficult challenges to overcome... Sephiroth in Part I and II comes to mind. (Well, not so much Part II. Duck Flare FTW!) The Mysterious Figure in Birth By Sleep. The Phantom in Part I. The hardest in my opinion (I am willing to argue this point) is Lingering Will in Part II. I'm still proud of myself for beating him. That battle was sheer and complete HELL.

There are several optional bosses in Dream Drop Distance, but most of them are harder versions of previous bosses that are activated by the Secret Portals. The only true optional boss is Julius... a Frankenstein Monster version of Pete. This is not explained AT ALL. You're just wandering around Traverse Town and suddenly FrankenPete pops out of the sewer and starts wailing on you. He's not too tough at higher levels. It was actually a pretty fun battle. It was no Lingering Will, but very few things are. And we can all be grateful for that.

If I never have to Flick Rush again in my life, I'll be a happy bunny. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

Like I mentioned in the beginning, this play through of Dream Drop Distance was all about getting the Platinum Trophy. One of the things you need to do for that is to beat all the Special and Secret Portals. The Special Portals are difficult, because only one of them shows up in each world randomly when you Drop. Sometimes you have to cycle through many times before you get the one you need.

The other difficult part of this trophy was the Flick Rush portion. You had to get Star Rank on every Flick Rush Cup. I found some guides on how to do this... you have to select your Spirits carefully and defend often. Successfully defending evolves your cards so you can use Meteor, a powerful spell that hurts all your opponents, including those on the bench. You keep doing that until you win. The guides didn't mention, however, that the later Cups require a careful mixture of defending, spamming Meteor, and attacking.

I was operating under the misunderstanding for a long time that you had to max out your Spirit's Affinity levels to get the Platinum Trophy. There are 50 Spirits and 9 levels of Affinity for each one. I spent an embarrassing number of hours tending to my Spirits, thinking that was what needed to be done. It was an exhausting grind. I got bored with it one night and decided to buckle down and finish Flick Rush. Once I finally managed to get Flick Rush done, I unlocked a string of trophies. I bought the last Spirit recipes I needed from the Medal Shop, created those Spirits and got another string of trophies. At the end was my long-awaited Platinum Trophy. I was relieved and annoyed... I wasted a bunch of time trying to max out the Affinity levels. You do have to do that for the in game trophy, but not the PSN trophies. So... yeah.

GOOD. ENOUGH. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

Oh, I didn’t mention that… the PSN trophies are the ones I was trying to achieve Platinum on. There are also trophies within the Reports menu in game that you can get by doing various things. Getting high scores on Flick Rush and Dives, getting all the Keyblades, that sort of thing. The only one of those I didn’t get was the Dream Pleaser trophy. That was the one requiring max Affinity on all 50 Spirits. Thankfully you don’t need this trophy to get Platinum.

Sora and his crew. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

Although I do love the story, I am left with some lingering questions. One of those is about the timelines in this game... was Mickey a Musketeer after being the Sorcerer's Apprentice? What was the problem he referenced? (He told Sora he was "working on a problem" and that's why they were Musketeers.) Was that whole adventure just an elaborate plan to woo Minnie or was he training Donald and Goofy? Was Mickey already a King at that point? (He didn't seem at all confused when Sora called him King Mickey. He did know what a Keyblade and other worlds were, he just told Sora to hush when the topics came up.) Minnie was a Princess... does this mean Mickey married into royalty?

Not that there's anything wrong with that... it just kinda puts my perceptions of things into disarray to think about it. I always assumed Mickey just declared himself King one day and no one questioned him. He didn't have a Keyblade in either world, or at least not one that was shown... so I assume both these adventures happened prior to him getting his Keyblade.

ZAP. This screenshot has nothing to do with what I’m talking about. I just like it. Zap. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

Another thing that occurs to me as I'm writing this... since they unlocked the Keyholes in these Sleeping Worlds, does that mean these worlds exist again in the Realm of Light? This was not addressed in this game or in Part III.

But the two big questions I have were mentioned briefly in the beginning of this post. How can Tron's world (The Grid) be a Sleeping World when in Part II it was a program in Hollow Bastion / Radiant Garden? I'm assuming it's a different program, but the game doesn't state that for sure.

Biggest of all... why was Destiny Islands there? We saw Sora and Riku on the reborn Destiny Islands at the end of Part II. So it's not destroyed anymore. Was this version of Destiny Islands just a dream? Did Yensid create a replica within a dream to grant them access to the Realm of Sleep? It's not explained. So much is not explained. Like just what is the power of waking? I’ve played through this game and Part III and I still don’t understand it.

This looks like so much fun. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

Well, enough of that. Overall, burning questions and confusion aside, the story of Dream Drop Distance is pretty good and it impacts the Kingdom Hearts saga as a whole while doing a great job of setting up Kingdom Hearts Part III. I recommend this game for anyone who enjoys the Kingdom Hearts games. (You may also like it if you’re not into Kingdom Hearts, but come on, the story gets confusing enough even for fans.) This game is an interesting mash up of different mechanics, some old, some new, that creates a whole new experience. It worked as a great bridge between all that came before and all that was going to come. And there were tons of cute, weird creatures to befriend.

Photobombed by Zolephant. (Credit: Square Enix, Disney)

Thank you for reading my recap and review of Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance. As always, I had a lot of fun putting this together for you all. The next Kingdom Hearts post will be all about Part III, but that one will probably take me a bit to get to. It will happen, though. I'll be back soon with some all new and different craziness. I’m pretty sure I’ve decided what the next post will cover, and if I go with that one, you’re all in for a treat. Until then, keep hunting for that treasure… and DON’T paint gun the cat.