Kingdom Hearts 3DS Demo Impressions

On the 3DS, publishers give the players a certain number of tries before they can't play a demo anymore. The Kingdom Hearts demo has 30 tries (which is what most of the demos have). I currently only have 21 tries left. This is the least tries I have left of any demo so far.

Why do I keep replaying the Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance demo?

First off, I have to admit that I'm a huge Kingdom Hearts fan. I loved the first two games a lot. Sure, the DS Kingdom Hearts game wasn't so great (it just repeated levels from the first game), but I still love the franchise. So I went into KHDDD hoping I'd love it.

And I did love it.

The graphics in the demo are stunning, especially with the 3D on. The 3D gives the game a lot of depth (only pop out I saw was in the Transverse Town logo) and it just looks amazing.

The gameplay is a lot of fun. Its similar to the other Kingdom Hearts games, in that there is a menu always there to select powers/items, but you move around in battles freely. New to the gameplay is something called Flowmotion. Basically, if you're character jumps onto a banner he'll slide across it quickly (almost like he's flying). Ditto down rails and if you grab light poles, you can fly at bad guys and attack them. Flowmotion is a really great new addition. It makes the gameplay feel very quick and fun. Also new is Reality Shift. In the full game there will be different ways to use reality shift depending on the world you're in. For the demo, when you reality shift, the gameplay goes to the bottom screen. You have hold of an object and can slingshot it far away. Very cool effect.

Demo disappointments:

The demo only lets you play in a section of Transverse Town, a non-Disney world. So there are no Disney characters in the demo (well there is a short tutorial with the villian from Little Mermaid, but thats it).

You only play as Sora in the demo, whereas in the full game, you play as Riku too. Its too bad we couldn't have seen what his gameplay was like.

The demo does not feature Drop mode. I have to admit I'm very nervous about drop mode. I hear when you're playing the actual Kingdom Hearts DDD game, there is a meter that goes down as you play. Once its out, you switch (drop) to the other games character (Riku or Sora). I wonder how this will effect gameplay. Does the meter go too fast? Will exploration of levels have to be really fast? I wish the demo had featured this so we would have a good idea.

In any case, I know the demo can't give away everything. I just wish the demo was a little bit longer and had included a couple more features at least.

I am looking forward to the full game a lot. This demo will have to keep me happy till then!