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

One of the best opening cinematics in the series, which is saying a lot. 2nd only to the “Sanctuary” openings in KH2 and 358/2. I love the way this game accounts for Sora’s growing power from KH2 with flow motion. Chain of Memories took the easy route of making Sora lose his memories and powers after the first game so he could be reset. Now that he’s fully back, this game had the task of balancing him for a new story. Flow motion makes the game fun to play from the very start and gives you a wide range of movement and attacks. You still feel powerful even if you can’t use your full arsenal from the previous games. The drop mechanic is interesting. I feel like fans had wanted to play as Riku for a while so this services that and pads the game’s overall length, but I found it a little tiring to play everything twice. Riku has a few unique moves but nothing that significantly sets him apart from Sora. Even their unique moves have similar counterparts (Sora gets an extended dodge roll, Riku gets a shadow roll that does mostly the same thing with a different animation). I like the ticking clock though. It’s fun trying to desperately finish a fight or complete an objective before you pass out and the other character takes over. It’s also helpful in a sticky situation to manually drop so you can reassess later and think of a solution without the pressure. I think this game’s dialogue and attempted comedic beats work a lot better than any of the previous games. I chuckled a few times, especially in text menus or when building new spirits. Speaking of, the spirit system is surprisingly fun. I enjoyed finding recipes and making my own party, even if I rarely used their combined/link attacks. I mostly just picked the ones I thought looked cool and had them follow me around. I liked exploring (mostly) new Disney worlds as well. Three Musketeers, Hunchback, and Fantasia were all fun additions. Fantasia in particular, the climax with the “Sound Idea” was very emotional and I loved the divergent boss fights for Riku and Sora. The only world I strongly disliked was Tron, but I hate Tron in every KH game. Overall, pretty solid.