Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance

[TV Eye]

Fantasia world confirmed!

[Arcadenik]

Three Musketeers? Fantasia? Nice!!! I would love to see new worlds like New Orleans from The Princess and the Frog, the Kingdom of Corona from Tangled, Duckburg from TV's DuckTales, the circus from Dumbo, a world set in the past based on The Band Concert, Brownstone National Park based on Humphrey the Bear shorts... and finally something WTF-y... London in Spring of 1910 from Mary Poppins. I loved those chimney and carousel scenes.

[The Qu]

Slight spoiler on a bonus boss, so read at your peril.

So one of the bonus bosses is [Julius from Runaway Brain. Didn't expect that cartoon to ever get acknowledged considering Disney more or less banned reference to it when it was released.

[kirbychu]

Well, they released it on DVD, and I saw toys of the evil Mickey from it when I was at Disneyland Paris last easter... so they can't hate it too much.

[TV Eye]

K-Kingdom...Kingdom Hearts, guys.

SO GOOD.

[8bitretroshit]

Soooo how's the whole time limit thing? I've read mixed opinions about the game because apparently you're forced to play another character's story the moment he gets tired or whatever. Is there a way to switch back 'n forth at will or are you just screwed when you're beginning a boss battle with 1 minute left?

[TV Eye]

Aug 7, 2012 3:27:27 GMT -5 8bitretroshit said:

Soooo how's the whole time limit thing? I've read mixed opinions about the game because apparently you're forced to play another character's story the moment he gets tired or whatever. Is there a way to switch back 'n forth at will or are you just screwed when you're beginning a boss battle with 1 minute left?

It's not too bad. You get about ten minutes to play with each character, then when there's one minute left, every hit you deal gives you bonuses, like money and health. Once the time runs out and you Drop, you don't HAVE to play as the other character, you can switch back if you want. But like a lot of people have said, if you're at a boss and you switch back, he'll be at full health again.

I was fighting the boss of Notre Dame as Sora and got him down to just one more hit when I was dropped. Totally unfair.

But the game is also hard in other aspects. I can't tell you how many times I've died. The guards of the Grid (Tron Legacy) are incredibly difficult. But they give good experience.

The worlds are HUGE. I can't believe how massive they are. This game encourages exploration since you can run on walls and jump around like a monkey to get anywhere and everywhere.

Collecting pet Dream Eaters is also surprisingly fun. There's a few mini games that are addicting as hell. One of them is basically the CoM fight gimmick where you use numbered cards, but it's implemented much better than the original.

[Boo Destroyer]

I don't know if anyone caught this, but here's how they started using Disney characters in this series:

iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/11/0

Iwata: Now, characters in the Kingdom Hearts series inhabit the same worlds as characters created by Disney—one of the strictest companies around when it comes to how their characters are used. I remember having a similar experience back when we were making Smash Brothers, and thinking how difficult it was. I'm therefore really interested in how such a collaboration got started, and how you got over such difficulties.

Nomura: It's often said that it started after we happened to meet while in the same building... But the story of making a game with Disney actually goes back further than that. So, one day I was, for some reason, in the same room as Hashimoto-san and Sakaguchi-san...

Iwata: All three of you just happened to be there at the same time?

Nomura: That's right. I had been called there for some completely different reason, but when I arrived, Hashimoto-san and Sakaguchi-san were talking about a discussion they'd had with Disney, having an exchange along the lines of "Mickey Mouse would have been great, but we can't use him". At that moment I basically put my hand up and said "I want to be a part of this". That's how it all began. But at that point, I wasn't really thinking of making a game that featured Mickey Mouse... Both (laughter)

Nomura: Anyway, in the end they both came to the conclusion that they would "let Tetsu give it a try".

Iwata: But why did you put your hand up in the first place? What interested you?

Nomura: Well, just as I was working on FFVII, Mario 64 was released. The fully three-dimensional spaces and the freedom you had to run around them had a big impact on me. When I told my colleagues I wanted to make a game like that, they said "but Mario's already a world-famous character. It would be impossible to start from scratch with an all-new character."

Iwata: They didn't think you could compete with Mario?

Nomura: Exactly. Somebody even said "The only way you could do it is with characters that are as well known as Disney's". That really stuck in my head, so when I heard we could be working with Disney characters, I naturally jumped at the chance.

Iwata: So, you put your hand up for this project because of the impact Mario 64 had on you, and because your colleague had mentioned that it would be impossible to create a game like that unless you used Disney characters. You remembered those words, and the rest is history!

Nomura: That's right, yes! (laughs)

Iwata: Well, well... Destiny is a curious thing, isn't it?

Nomura: (laughs)

Huh. Super Mario 64 having an influence on that decision. Who would've thought.