Heroes of Ruin Impressions

SquareEnix is on a roll with the 3DS. If you like rhythm based games and Final Fantasy, check out Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. If you love Kingdom Hearts, check out Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance. And if you love Dungeon crawling action rpgs with local & online support...

You should without a doubt check out Heroes of Ruin!

Heroes of Ruin is a really good action rpg. Why? Well, lets start with the basics. The combat is pretty basic, but very addictive. You go into dungeons, beat up enemies, level up, gain more skills, grab lots of loot, finish quests and then go off and do all that again. Its a lot better than it sounds here and its especially good if you have friends to play with either locally or online. Single player wise, the game can get a little boring. But with a team mate or two or three or four, its a blast. Finding secret areas, new weapons, armor, etc and just beating up the enemies with your friends is all really fun.

The games graphics are not the best on the 3DS, but they are really good and get better as you go (the Frost Reaches is my favorite so far).

The 3D during gameplay is not a must, its just OK there, but during the artwork cutscenes, the 3D is a MUST because these cutscenes are multi-layered (depth 3D) and look awesome.

The game also has voice-acting during cutscense (the artwork ones and the non-artworks ones) and its good voice work.

There is only one thing I wish was different about the game: the load times. Heroes of Ruin has some really LONG load times for a cart game. Loading into a new area takes more time than it should. Thankfully there isn't any load times once you're into the area, but really there shouldn't be that much load time in the game anyway. This is a cart game, not a disc based game. That said, the game is well worth the time you wait to get into it. Just wish the developer had taken a bit more time to make the load times shorter.

Overall, Heroes of Ruin is a really fun game. Its also the best online experiance you can get on the 3DS so far and imo, the local multiplayer is even better. Its a must buy if you love dungeon crawling action rpgs!

Kingdom Hearts 3D Dream Drop Distance Impressions

I remember when Kingdom Hearts 1 came out on the PS2, I loved it. Then I played Kingdom Hearts 2 and loved that even more. SquareEnix and Disney got together and created two really great games. The combination of Disney & Square characters just worked!

After that, I didn't get to play the Kingdom Hearts on the Gameboy Advance, but I did play Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and thought it was just OK. The gameplay was good, but the worlds were all the same worlds from Kingdom Hearts 1. The game ended up being very stale.

I missed out on Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep because I did not have a PSP when it came out. I remember hearing good things about it though.

Enter the newest Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance for the 3DS.

While the basic gameplay is similar to Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2, new additions like reality shift & flowmotion really add to the experiance and make it seem fresh again.

Thankfully, though, new gameplay additions isn't the only thing new to KH3D. This time around, there are NEW worlds and a couple of returning worlds that are pretty different.

The story in KH3D is also very interesting. Plus you don't just control one character in this game, you control two characters, Sora and Riku. You switch between them by "dropping". Basically one character falls asleep and then you take control of the other character. There is a drop meter, so if you're not careful, time will run out and you'll be "dropped" into the other character. I've heard this can be annoying, but I've been careful and make good use of the 'Drop-Me-Not' items (items that add more time to your drop meter) when I'm getting close to dropping into another character and wanting to stay in the world I'm in.

I actually like the Drop feature quiete a bit. I also like sending one character into one world and another character into another. It adds quiete a bit of variety to the gameplay and story.

Oh and there are two other things I'd like to talk about: graphics and music.

Kingdom Hearts 3D has some of the best, if not the best, graphics on the 3DS. It looks amazing. And the 3D is fantastic. I hardly ever turn the 3D off. It just looks so good.

As for music, the game has a bunch of great tunes, some familar and some not. The Fantasia world, of course, has the best music of the entire game. Wow.

Overall, if you're a fan of the series, I think you'll love this game. If you've never played any of the games before & you're a Disney fan, I think you'll love it too. Kingdom Hearts 3D is a great game for the 3DS. Its my favorite game right now too.