Game played on: PlayStation 4
Is a remaster of a game originally on 3DS
I've been playing games in the Kingdom Hearts franchise since the original title. While the original is still one of my favorite games, my opinions of the overall series highly differ between what I am playing. Some I highly enjoy for their gameplay or story, and some I can barely wrap my head around and end up cursing the bizarrely implemented controls. Remember when Kingdom Hearts II decided we needed the ability to skateboard? I mostly remember that it never came back as a mechanic.
With a series as complex, convoluted, and contended as this one, allow me to be a little bit more relaxed in this review than I normally would. Now, the truth of the matter is that I did not play the 3DS version of this game. I'm fully aware that all games in the franchise have important plot points, that skipping out on one game can leave you completely in the dust. I learned this lesson when I originally skipped over Chain of Memories, which led to complete confusion during Kingdom Hearts II up until I played the remake on PlayStation 2. But before I finally played Dream Drop Distance, I did make sure I was up to speed, with some minor exceptions due to my increasing frustration in certain boss fights of games I had beaten once before anyway.
Also, to be frank, I knew several of the story's spoilers before I went in. I don't tend to care about spoilers, at all, so I learned everything about this game's story just by random searching about the franchise's plot. Anyone who has played only a couple or even all of these game will admit that isn't a horrible idea. The series does make sense once you ingest everything, but even then, there's nothing wrong with a guide by this point.
Due to the spoilers, I didn't think I'd like this game.
I was wrong. I really loved playing this game.
The first thing to catch my attention was the combat. I was not a fan of the command deck from Birth By Sleep, and it returned here, but this time it felt much more straight-forward and easier to figure out. It still had it's glaring problems, but I didn't hate it this time around, and it was much easier to decide which attacks I should keep stocked now that I did not have to level them up along with my character.
The real star of the combat show was the flowmotion. Flowmotion involves Sora or Riku dashing against a wall, streetlamp, or other surface. Suddenly the character glows, and you are given a possible attack where you get to spin around, hit very hard, and cannot be hit from what I could tell. The franchise had been getting more and more unfair boss fights as of late, and this equally unfair style of attacking has made it so we are back to being on equal playing grounds instead of just hoping you might win.
Flowmotion also allows you to jump again in the air, then dash again, and continue until you reach the top of the wall you dashed against. Similar to Saints Row 4, it is very cathartic to know that any item you want is now easy to get, even if it's on the top of a tall building.
There are certain commands that can allow you to interact to certain objects and weakened enemies, and they are different depending on the world. Take for example the image below, where the command lets you encase an item or enemy in a large bubble, and you can use said bubble to trap further enemies in until it pops, a lot of the time instantly killing anything inside.
Your companions are now little battle monster style creatures you create with the synthesis method, which meant they gave a purpose to synthesis that I finally liked and did not feel nearly as tedious.
It's also surprisingly fun to play with them. And the original game came out before Pokemon X and Y, so it did Pokemon Amie before Pokemon did.
The graphics and the framerate are also quite nice. True, nothing is particularly beautiful, especially for PlayStation 4, but even without playing the original game I can tell this port looks far better. All the vibrant colors the series loves to employ are still here, and they still look very good, even if they are not beautiful this time around.
Now, the story. For many players, the story this time went too far. There were a couple of explanations that didn't make sense and did not fit with the previous games. The overarching villain became so overpowered and seemingly flawless that players are calling him badly written. I kind of agree.
Behold the awesome power of balloons.
But I also kind of really like that.
The original Kingdom Hearts is, again, one of my favorite games. One of the reasons is because of how much silly stuff is in there, even stuff that wasn't supposed to be. I'm a little more than done with the harp strings and the single game plots that branch off fifteen different ways. The plot is getting stupid, so to me, by all means let it get stupid. I enjoyed this story so much. The moments I thought were moving, did move me. The moments I thought didn't, made me laugh or otherwise enjoy myself. It had been a while since a Kingdom Hearts game had a good mix of fun game play and fun story telling, and this one did it for me.
Fans are gonna hate me for this.
8/10.