I haven’t done one of these in a while but here we go, I hope you all enjoy this review. Now this game is another instalment to the amazing Kingdom Hearts series and is technically the sequel/takes place after (Re:Coded) Square Enix released this game on the 3DS in March, 2012. So hold on as we’re about to drop into this Nightmare of a dreamy review!

Pre-set:  
So the story revolves two characters namely Sora and Riku who can both wield a mystical weapon called the keyblade, and even though they have gone through may strives and battles with it, they aren’t considered keyblade masters until they complete the “Mark of mastery” exam in which they are both sent on different worlds but with a parallel twist.

Game’s life setting:  
Now before we come to the beginning of this game let’s do a quick review, first off Sora has been using the Keyblade to stop many enemies and save many worlds and friends prior to this test even saving Riku at one point, thus later throughout the series Riku learns to co-operate with the powers of light once more thus letting him be able to use the keyblade for good like he was chosen to long ago. But as time has passed it seems the one organization that has been causing all the evil in the world is getting stronger and the time to bring all the keyblade masters and powers of light together is now.

Graphics 9:  
All right so the graphics in this game are very satisfactory, now even though most DS ports are pretty weak in the graphics department this game took it up a notch and the quality was well boosted, well amplify the colour toning and the graphic speed making sure you aren’t lagging or dropping frames anywhere in the game. All of the maps/worlds have all wonderful designs and are portrayed just how we thought and saw them as kids, like Tron’s world for one is a giant computerized maze with everything streaming with data ports and objects all relying on a script. The character designs are of course changed up a bit, Sora and Riku you can tell look a tad taller and their voices of course have changed but to keep this game in check their designs aren’t altered when they “Drop” just their height and clothes.
                   Now another part on graphics I want to talk about is the Dream Eater and Spirit design yes, friends instead of having Goofy and Donald or another Disney character as your teammate instead you get…Cute monsters? Dream Eater are the current main monsters/enemies you fight in the game and they are just a large variety of animals and weird creatures and Spirits are the good version of them that you can have on your party, all of them have really good designing and perfect for what they are and what moves they can use battle wise you can also alter them in so many ways with their skills and play with them (yes weird I know) you can even change their  colour *I’m done trying to sell this game off to you* Now battle wise the game runs really smoothly their isn’t any lag time when using a skill or just normal attacks even all the monsters have good fluent moving. And the cut-scenes don’t get me started they were really done well you could see the work put into them as sometimes the graphics could glitch and pixelated but not during a cut-scene they were smooth and coded/designed perfectly. Overall this game really can pride itself based on graphics which is why I rate this, a 9.

Bad: Now you might not find this a good bashing statement but the game was indeed a little too colourful to me and the 3DS is flawed especially in its 3D mode the colours and the graphics are amplified way too much to a level where it can easily hurt your eyes and give you headaches, and really affects you while you are fighting in battles.

Sound/Music 10: Don’t be mad this is a Kingdom Hearts game of course the Music is going to be beautiful and soothing brightening your day easily~. Every single world had its own great soundtrack no, songs were re-used that I could notice every battle, map, and boss had a different theme and even though most of the themes felt like they didn’t match-up with the scene or the fight take a thinker and you’ll see why each song was placed where it is and why it shows such a powerful meaning making the fight more enjoyable than it even would have been. Take Wargoyle for example his boss theme was super happy and cheery but if you think about the title –Majestic Wings- and the given world and time zone you are in, forget that you in a fight and just look around you and you’ll see why each song is perfect and the tone and sequence was composed and made for those special and heart throbbing hidden themes.
             Now let’s talk about the voice acting which they used the same actors they have been using for all these years and let me tell you they are still great really good emotion the lines perfectly line up with the subtitles the battle voices and cries are great all the sound effects were well made for each individual attack and the mini-songs for musical attacks and flow-motion had pretty powerful explosive noises obviously showing you packed in a strong attack. Overall with all the emotions and great sounds this game gives us I’d say it’s a 10/10 no, really obvious flaws to shown.


Difficulty 9: Okay so there are three different difficulty settings you can use in this game but the only thing the higher difficulties add is giving the monsters higher parameters and make boss fighting more annoying and grinding harder to accomplish. One thing they tried to do in this game is make it pretty hard to beat and I mean difficult this might just be me because I played on like Ultimate mode. But you always need to make sure you had a sufficient amount of grinding or the boss will destroy you easily, and you’ll have to respawn at least 5 times, most of the time the boss doesn’t give you time to heal or do anything so you have to spend a lot of time running and quickly attacking before the boss takes 60% of your health in one hit. But luckily they kind of do give you a heads up before you enter a world giving the world a specific level and DON’T take it lightly make sure you listen to that, over-level and I mean do it you’ll be happy you did. A lot of the optional bosses in this game can actually be more difficult than a real boss but there is always going to be that one battle you can’t beat no matter how over-levelled you are just take your time and study the boss movement and attack pattern that will help you a ton!

Bad: I do wish they made this game a bit easier especially since it is aimed towards most kids and considering that most of the beginning bosses are the hardest and most annoying ones to fight I’m looking at you Wargoyle  and this boss is in the second world. And considering “Drop” kind of stops you from grinding sometimes having to switch characters can be annoying and sometimes you could respawn into that grinding zone and all those monsters could respawn killing you also the fact that drop can happen during a boss fight which is very hard and annoying making you have to replay the whole boss fight and one thing I’ve noticed playing this game is that Riku has a harder time than Sora all of the boss fights and what not Riku goes through is twice as hard as Sora’s which can make you cry. I mean most kids I know wouldn't be able to last through a game this hard so make it a bit easier next time Square.

Addictiveness 8: Now this game is pretty addicting even if you haven’t played a kingdom hearts game which you should because you are missing out on so much information and fun gameplay. I’d say this game is really addictive because it has a lot to explore, play, and accomplish for you. First there are some fun things you can do, like playing with your pets I know cliché but playing with your pets and fighting with them a lot can help you a ton in the game not only is it fun and cutesy but they really assist you in battle. There is also the Friendship Portals where someone can send you their pets temporarily or you can battle their pets for special rewards and such you can even set your own and help out lots of other players. Then there is Flick Rush which is my favourite thing out of this game and I keep going back to play it, so Flick Rush is basically you sending out three of your spirits in tournaments to fight other spirits but it’s way more player involved than you think you can switch which pet you are playing any time and you have to choose the right attack card or combo to easily deal great damage I found this addicting since it was so fun playing just using my spirits and seeing them more in action then just paying attention to my own character. One last thing I thought was a great idea to bring in was the Achievement panel basically all these were pretty well thought out achievements to earn while playing the game and even though it takes a lot of time to complete them all its satisfying.

Depth 9: Now of course all the Kingdom Hearts games are really long and thought out games and this one really takes the cake we are starting to close in on the Xehanort saga and this game just kills us more with hours of intense plotline. This game relies mostly on filling us in on some plot holes that were missed during all the other games and also brings in lots of new information. So on average if you just do a quick and easy play through nothing else it takes about 24 hours but if you take the time to complete everything and get the most of the story and game it should take twice that amount of time aka completing optional boss quests, ultima weapon that kind of stuff. Also Kingdom Hearts always uses the extra game time to enlarge the character development by great amounts always bringing news facts about a certain character or making a cameo appearance just to make us tear up, basically in this game we met many new characters and how they lived before and how they needed each other, so much development learning about Xehanort. All the depth and story line acquired from a new world and of course let’s not forget the massive levelling system and how long it takes to get maxed out .-. So many abilities to learn and make yourself pretty much impossible to kill, using them to easily battle out strong opponents this game makes you always want to click New game and Continue 24/7.

Camera and Controls 3: Okay so I rated a 3 not because it was good or bad but because. The controls in this game are difficult to master okay, it takes a pretty long time to somewhat master the powers of Flow Motion as you pretty build yourself and go through the game almost using flow motion entirely so master it quickly or you’re dead. The camera on the other hand was simple and an easy button hold, most areas did not allow you to move your camera which could get a little annoying if you really couldn’t see that well but those are the flaws and I wish they could be altered to make fighting easier to handle.

Storyline 8: Okay so our story begins with Sora in Destiny Islands being attacked by Ursula, but don’t worry this is a quick tutorial on learning how to use the battle system (Action Real Time Battling) After you and Riku defeat Ursula and open the Keyhole you are then transported to Master Yen Sid talking to them about the corruption in the world and all the darkness and that they have to undergo a test of courage and that they have to undergo all the rules, save the sleeping worlds waking them up and saving the trapped people there from both sides of a parallel sleep. So they must drop into a dream trance going out to help all the lost dreamers.  While proving that they are worthy of the title Keyblade Masters. So go all out stopping the Dream Eaters born from darkness trying to forever keep the worlds disconnected from the others, together make all the worlds once again awakened and restored to their fellow worlds. Will organization XIII finally destroy the light and have darkness overflow the world?

Bad: Now this story is actually pretty original and new and provides us a lot of growing to terms and liking to all the characters but there were still a few plot holes, and contradictions to things that were told to us in the previous games of the series. As well as having Organization XIII, come back when I thought we pretty much seen the last of them after 2, and 358/2 days seems somewhat bland for a new enemy. Now having to play every other game prior to this is also a must because you won’t probably understand a thing that going on unless you have prior knowledge from other games so they really could have worked on this luckily they did have the memoirs to somewhat catch you up which is good but we need more substance.

Gameplay: The game play this game offers to you battle wise is an Action RPG just like all the rest, but now added in with the Drop with helps us alternate both characters giving us a good portion of both Sora and Riku. We also have the use of Deck Commands which was used in only a few games and helps you to sort out your magic and skills pretty easily but does cut down on how many you can have giving you a short amount. Another addition to this game was Flow Motion which is the power of dreams your characters can use to help them slide through the battle flipping on walls, poles, and monsters themselves helping you either make a quick getaway or a giant attack, we also have the Reality Shift battle element which allows us to shift into a different space helping us to use strong attacks on the enemies turning them into bubbles that explode in money and xp or catapulting a large bucket at them.

Pros- The pros of this game are the emotional and thematic soundtrack, wonderful graphics, depth and story given.
Cons- The difficulty of the game, and the controls/ camera usage.
Between- Story is in-between because while it has a great story and it tries to fill us in it just gives us more plot holes and strange contradictions

Final- This game is great for those who are fan of this series and have played most of them before this, this game has a very powerful theme throughout shown with music and the battles all the cut-scenes were made greatly, there may be many plot flaws and the game might be hard to beat but it’s still an experience worth playing through. Who knows you might learn a thing or two about life and friendship yourself and how emotions can hurt. This game to me is a solid 9.2 I hope you all enjoyed this review and I inspired you to look this game over and play it thank you.