Shane
Prepare to wield the big yellow and blue key once more as King Mickey and Yen Side get ready for a battle against a dark force, requiring the assistance of Sora and Riku again.
But are they upto scratch? Do they have what it takes… Master Xehanort is planning a comback.
For the first time in the KH franchise you play as both main characters (Sora and Riku) via a ‘Drop’ system that works seamlessly throughout the entirety of gameplay. The controlling of the two characters rotates between characters as the ‘Drop Gauge’ depletes.
To avoid the lowering of the ‘Drop Gauge’ you will need to take on varying levels of combat and attacks against enemies.
Once Riku is available as the secondary character you can opt to switch between the two at will via Save points.
Mickey requires certain objectives from to prove that you have the skills to be successful in the protection of the parallel worlds. These tests are apart of the Mark of Mastery exam.
These objectives take place
in the Sleeping Worlds where you will align yourself with new allies and experience enemies that have never been within a KH title before.
Dream Eaters inhabit the Sleeping World and come in two flavours; Spirits and Nightmares.
In a very Pokemon-esque gameplay initiative, you can recruit over fifty differing Spirits to fight along side you, combining elements via a in-game Menu system enables you to give ‘birth’ to these varying Spirits, retaining that RPG feel that we are used to throughout the previous titles.
Like a cyber pet, you can train them, pat them and the more attention that you give them the more loyal to you they become.
You will make use of ‘Flowmotion’ which was introduced in Kingdom Hearts – Birth by Sleep.
This skill allows you to use environmental elements to quickly get around the area that you are in.
Bouncing off walls in order to dash over the otherside of a city area or use it to reach higher places, slide on rails and even in combat.
Combat skills are mostly dependant on your Dream Eater collection tally, the more you hunt, the better skilled you become. Combat abilities can be chained together for a more explosive and fatal outcome. You will need to do these for some of the Bosses that you will come across. Differing Keyblades, past present and, well, future are all included, some limited to be character specific though.
The main staples of the Disney cast return, but also bring with them some never seen before in any of the previous KH’s.
There are seven worlds that you will go through, vanquishing baddies and up-skilling as you go. The majority of these worlds are inflicted by a ‘Sleep’ state. The majority of these worlds are based on well known Disney themes; The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pinocchio, Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, Fantasia and Tron: Legacy. The other two playable worlds are Traverse Town and The World That Never Was, while the worlds Twilight Town, Radiant Garden, Disney Castle, Mysterious Tower and Destiny Islands only appear in cutscenes.
This is the seventh edition
in the Kingdom Hearts franchise and by far, one of the best and a precursor to the upcoming (and rumoured) console based Kingdom Hearts III (Release date yet to be announced).
With interactive cinematics by way of Diving, touch screen play (catapult either yourself or enemies using a slingshot technique), A.R. integration (the game includes a set of A.R. cards) and Circle Pad Pro compatible, this is the game that the 3DS was made for.
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Genre: Action
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Publisher: Square Enix
No. of Players: 1 – 2
