3.5/5 ★ – FishToes's review of Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD.

It’s a pretty fun game. Than you get to the final worlds boss fight. It goes from a pretty alright challenge to literally no hope unless you found all the secrets and did enough grinding to where it’s just not fun anymore! Oh, you didn’t do that? You didn’t seek out all the chests and level up every spirit before the final boss? That’s too bad! Better go back and do that! Hahahaha! The world choices and designs were really fun and unique, and the gameplay gimmick with the spirits/traversal was really exciting and kept the gameplay loop fresh. And I guess the story, while not very interesting until the very end (when the game stops being fun), is engaging enough. When it reaches the endgame, however, the storytelling is top-notch, and some of the best moments in the franchise comes from this game. But like, very specifically the last 2-3 hours of this 20+ hour game. Makes the rest feel like padding This game is bogged down by its messy (again, until the end) story, unpolished command deck system (done infinitely better in Re:Coded), and final boss that punishes you for not mindlessly grinding. I finally reached a Kingdom Hearts game I will never ever want to return to, despite the (mostly) good time I had.