marinaAxel56

you won't need to know the details to understand kh3. all that's important is xehanort is gathering 13 different versions of himself across time to pit against 7 'guardians of light' (i.e. good keyblade wielders) which should forge the x-blade. the versions of himself include original old guy, xemnas, young xehanort, ansem sod and then a few organization xiii members who he's taken over. to prepare for the fight, sora and his friends have to gather 7 keyblade wielders, which means they're now gonna try and wake up ven, find aqua, and train up lea and kairi.

nonetheless, here in england we dont have shootings and also, guns are illegal. i sense a correlation.

see, this stuff i despise. a spoon is an object with which to eat. eating is necessary. a gun's sole purpose is to maim or kill, which is definitely unnecessary. you can't compare the two. people may be the ones who shoot each other, but its a great deal easier if you have a gun.

im having the same worries. although you can preorder the game with the artbook from shopto.net for fairly cheap, i'm refraining because i've seen some stuff online suggesting that site is dodgy (something about the owner not having a trade license and packages sometimes going missing). i would suggest waiting until game or amazon update their page because they're more trustworthy and it should happen soon, but you can always order from shopto.net and then cancel the order later if the option becomes available somewhere else. i don't think the artbook will sell out until then.

i really need that artbook but im not buying from anywhere that doesn't specify it comes with the game, so i can't really pre-order until it becomes available on amazon.co.uk. im freaking out a little bit. i would pre-order it anyway, but the bonus sounds so good i want to cry

i'm kind of freaking out. i want the artbook, but the only truly reliable shop is amazon.co.uk which hasn't even got the option to pre-order yet i'm gonna wait

someone help me please!the pal version of the game isn't available for preorder on amazon.co.uk yet, only the american version. it is available on game.co.uk but that doesn't say anything about the art book. so if i preorder from game.co.uk, will i get the book or not?

good good. thanks it'd better be released in europe, i'll finally get to play re:com!! ahh, i remember emailing square enix 3 times complaining....

when it says all cutscenes will be in japanese, does that mean even if it's released elsewhere..? or are we assuming they'll get english voice actors if/when it's released overseas?

THIS ^^ well done

if someone burned the british flag i honestly wouldn't care.

I doubt they'll kill Lea off. He's a major character now, and Axel already did the whole sacrifice-for-Sora thing in KH2, it would get a bit repetitive. Plus people never die in Kingdom Hearts, they 'fade into darkness' or something like that which he's already done as a Nobody. I think he's back for good. At least I hope so

Having pre-ordered the game and living in the UK, I received KH3D on the 21st of July and had finished it by the 25th. As a huge fan of the Kingdom Hearts series, I was uncontrollably excited and I wasn’t disappointed by the quality of the game. -GAMEPLAY- The gameplay is possibly the strongest aspect. The new flowmotion technique allows you to make the most of the large, open areas, use a powerful acrobatic fighting style, get places quicker and dodge attacks while still keeping the game challenging enough to be fun. There’s something immensely satisfying about how smooth the movement is. The game features command attacks from previous games such as Mega Flare and Zantetsuken as well as new ones like Balloonga and Triple Plasma. The dream eaters are also very interesting, particularly the way you breed and look after your Spirits; reminiscent of the command melding in previous games, it’s very fun to investigate what dream pieces you require to make the best allies and go off in search of them. The ability link is genius, allowing you to unlock strong abilities and commands by caring for your Spirits. They are, in my opinion, the most aesthetically pleasing enemies in the Kingdom Hearts series so far; all based on animals, using bright colours and patterns. The bosses in particular are completely beautiful, such as the Wargoyle in Riku’s story, which has wings based on stained-glass windows of Notre Dame to suit its world of La Cite des Cloches. With there being nightmare equivalents for each spirit, the ‘bad’ versions use darker colours and glowing eyes to make them look suitably dangerous instead of cute. There are different ways to care for your spirits; with various foods that yield boosts to certain stats, toys such as balloons, water barrels and treasure goggles (these trigger mini-games which, by playing, award the spirits involved link points among other bonuses); by painting them different colours, and petting them with the stylus. In battle, they fight alongside your character and can link with them to grant them impressive powers. The reality shift is a nice addition as well, letting you interact with your enemies and surrounding objects to deal damage in battle, the style changing in every world – for instance, in The Grid, upon prompt you can enter reality shift and ‘decode’ your enemies, allowing you to control them and then blow them up; in Prankster’s Paradise, you can encase a nightmare in a bubble, then ride the bubble to engulf more enemies before letting it pop and deal damage. Dive Mode, while a lot of fun, is in my opinion not one of the stronger aspects of the game. I personally prefer the Gummi ship, though many will disagree. I liked being able to design your own ship, but I suppose with all the other extra features of KH3D this would be unnecessary. Besides, the angle and style means Dive Mode is a great opportunity to make the most of the 3D feature, and the challenges for each Dive (destroy a boss, collect a certain amount of points, defeat a certain amount of enemies, etc) are very interesting. Also, the space you're falling through changes depending on what world you're travelling to (for example, while diving to Symphony of Sorcery you pass trees and music notes while moving through a spiral of a stave). Drop Mode is quite cool. It can be infuriating to drop halfway through a boss fight, but it does add a sense of urgency to battle - although you usually only notice you're running out of time once the gauge starts flashing, at which point you don't have much time to defeat the boss, even if you rush. Otherwise, it's not a problem, except maybe if you get really involved with one character's situation, only to drop, and forget what you were doing by the time you drop back. There are ways to slow down the time and you can always drop back immediately if this happens, however, and it's basically a great way of keeping the character levelling even and fitting in with the whole dream-world theme. -VISUALS AND SOUND- As well as being fun to play, the game looks amazing, too: great graphics and generally beautiful worlds make it one of the best visual KH games to date. Even without using the 3D effect, you feel as if you could step right in. The sound is also very high quality and the voice acting is well done, despite the fact that many of the actors are getting too old. The music, as always, is incredible, and old songs appear alongside new ones. The exception to this is Symphony of Sorcery, which is perhaps my favourite world of all, being completely stunning: the background music is classical music from the original Fantasia film. Even sound effects like the character’s yells and crashes from the keyblade are transformed into instrumental sounds like drums and harps. -CHARACTERS- Although Final Fantasy fans such as I may be disappointed that no FF characters (excluding the odd Moogle) are featured, the World Ends With You characters make a very good replacement. You don’t seem to get as close to them as you do FF characters in the previous games, but they still make the beginning of the game a lot more fun than it would be without them. They also offer a touch of comedy. In the rest of the game, I noticed that you don't seem to get as friendly with the Disney characters in the worlds as you do in other KH games (as shown in cutsences when you fall asleep in their presence and wake up to see they've left you behind). I can't imagine going back to them in sequels and being in the same relationship as Sora is to, say, Aladdin. Sora and Riku themselves stay true to their characters: Sora is upbeat, naive and trusting, while Riku is a lot more serious, though he has certainly lightened up since KH2 and seems determined to help his friends every step of the way. -STORY- The story of KH3D is mind-blowing. It’s difficult to explain just how cleverly done it is without spoilers, but I will say that it makes you rethink the whole series. Unlike most KH games, in which the story is pretty linear and predictable, DDD is more like a kind of playable novel: there are twists and turns in the plot that make you tense while you play, eager to say how it all ends. Pretty much all major characters appear, if some only briefly, so fans will not be disappointed – though they may finish extremely confused and questioning their existence. Axel/Lea fans in particular will be very happy with the amount of screen-time he has. -FAULTS- The main fault with this game is that it’s a fair bit shorter than the others in the series, with each world pretty much going: introduction, bit of story and walking around, boss, leave. However you will probably be so eager to arrive at the bulk of story near the end that this isn’t much of a problem. Also there are lots of things to do once you’ve completed it: collect all spirits and complete their ability links, get all chests, obtain all keyblades, the secret boss in Traverse Town, Flick Rush (a minigame in which you let your party of spirits fight another one. It is similar to CoM in that it's card based, with you swiping the cards upwards to attack or downwards to defend) Critical Mode (which, by the way, carries over all spirits and commands from your first game), etc. The other flaw is that the ending leaves you gasping for a sequel. -CONCLUSION- All in all, Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance is a hugely important and entertaining addition to the series, despite being a handheld ‘side game’. It is, as was said in an interview with a member of Square Enix whose name I can't remember, like BBS on steroids: the style is similar, but completely amplified with much smoother movement. The sound, visuals, story and gameplay are as brilliant as they are in the numbered titles, if not better, earning the game a 9.5/10 from me (the reason it’s not 10/10 is that it’s just too short). You’ll be addicted from the very beginning, but try not to rush it like I did. - Marina