• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Kingdom Hearts 3D Dream Drop Distance |OT| Sora is Everyone in Every Dimension

T

The Last One

Member
Finished the game. Well, that's a really nice final sentence
See you soon
.

I guess you won't start playing as Sora in KH III, then he'll receive a bad ass introduction.

Well, really liked the game, now let's hope the next one is Kingdom Hearts III.
 
F

Famassu

Member
Perfect Cha0s said:
From playing all the KH games recently, 3D most recently, I've come to the personal conclusion that the Osaka team (the SE team that did Re:COM, BBS, and 3D) is really bad at creating boss battles, or at least, boss battles that are hard without feeling cheap. I tried beating
Julius
, and it feels like the whole fight comes down to dodge rolling away and spamming balloon. The staggering of bosses from your standard attacks feels random, or non-present at times, which makes them feel very frustrating and non-skill based overall.

I'll try to come up with a more articulate explanation, but has anyone else had that same general feeling?
.
Click to expand...
Eh? I felt 3D & BBS had some of the BEST boss fights in the series, certainly the most exciting ones (and I never used Balloon in 3D). The staggers of bosses isn't random, they usually do their thing and you have a small-ish window to stagger them after that. Or if you get a hit in before they start some attack routine.
 
M

MaverickHunterAsh

Member
So I'm ready to go to the final world and finish the game, but I thought I'd go around and do all of the Special Portals to grind a little and get some rare Dream Eater pieces first (still haven't gotten Ryu Dragon or Skelterwild). Only nine or so portals into Traverse Town, though, and new portals have stopped appearing; I've dropped like 50 times now between both characters, and I'm only getting portals I've already finished (and I've not finished all six with either character yet).

Do some portals only appear after you beat the game, or is this just a frustrating design overlook? If it's the latter, I may never bother to go beat all the portals... having to force drop over and over again just to get one you haven't beaten to appear is pretty frustrating.

For that matter, are there any other reasons that it's better to do the portals before or after you beat the game?
 
T

The Last One

Member
Ok, I got 6 trophies. I need 7 on proud mode, right?

And where's the secret boss?

Edit: And what are the right answers to unlock the secret ending?
 
N

Napalm_Frank

Member
The Last One said:
Ok, I got 6 trophies. I need 7 on proud mode, right?

And where's the secret boss?

Edit: And what are the right answers to unlock the secret ending?
Click to expand...

You need 5 on proud. 7 on normal.

answers that have the word ''important'' in them. Secret boss is in traverse town in the area with fountains but I think he can be fought only after completing the game
 
S

Silent_Ocarina

Member
Anabuhabkuss said:
Beat All of Sora's portsl challenges and got through a lot of Riku's (including the one you mentioned) and I have yet to get one Epic Fantasy. :(
Click to expand...
Hmm. I know this is a basic question, but are you certain that you are clearing the Special Portals? These have alternate colored Nightmares.

Your reward for completing all of the portals is (not really story spoilers)
a Keyblade.
However, I had no use for this because I already
obtained the most beautiful Keyblade by completing all Dives with an A Rank.

I still haven't completed all of the portals, but I might soon.
 
T

The Last One

Member
Napalm_Frank said:
You need 5 on proud. 7 on normal.

answers that have the word ''important'' in them. Secret boss is in traverse town in the area with fountains but I think he can be fought only after completing the game
Click to expand...

Ah, thanks, then I probably didn't unlock the secret ending cause my answers were the "wrong" ones.
 
E

electroplankton

Banned
InsaneZero said:
Random observation of the day:

It was only until after I got the High Jump upgrade from Prankster's Paradise that I realized that the levels and the treasures were designed around honest to goodness platforming. And here I was thinking that the obstacles leading up to most of the treasures were just there for decor while I flew around in the sky with flowmotion like fucking Superman.

EDIT: I hear people talking about the drop system like it played any serious role in this game. Get a few cheap Drop-Me-Not's and it'll only be a problem when you have to drop manually just so you can actually advance the game.

There's a lot of major gameplay elements that really needs to go back to the drawing board, but I'm having fun just going around bashing everything with flowmotion despite that.
Click to expand...

I agree. I discovered many chests by looking around with the second pad, like a balcony in The Grid which is almost invisible.
 
M

Mario007

Member
duckroll said:
Fuck. I was supposed to beat the game the other day, but instead I ended up spending the weekend watching Olympics instead!
Click to expand...

Just be ready to sit for about an hour as you watch the ending (I'm not even exaggerating here, the ending really does clock up to be around an hour)
 
M

MaverickHunterAsh

Member
Finished the game this morning, and... wow. Loved the endgame, final battles, and incredibly long ending. Now that I've finished it, I'm surprised to read that so many people had issues with it or felt that the story didn't advance the overall plot at all. No, 3D isn't as meaty as BbS, but quite a lot happens and is revealed throughout the course of the game (though mostly in the final world, I'll admit).

Things at the end of KH 3D are quite different from how they were left at the end of KH II and Re:coded, and in particular I love that
Kairi and Lea are being brought in as guardians of the light -- if we get to play as them in KH III, that's gonna be ridiculously awesome.
Also, pretty much every one of those final battles, from
Xemnas
to
Armored Nightmare Ventus
, was incredibly epic and excellently staged, thanks in no small part to Yoko Shimomura's consistently brilliant music. I guess the fact that
Young Xehanort's battle theme is a remix of the Mysterious Figure battle theme from BbS means the Mysterious Figure was Young Xehanort all along, eh?
Anyway, I loved all the end stuff and the game overall is excellent; definitely one of the better games in the series, even if it's got its issues.

The only things I didn't particularly like about the ending were
the introduction of time travel with Xehanort's Heartless and the fact that Riku passes the Mark of Mastery exam and becomes a Keyblade Master, but Sora doesn't. For the first point, I think it's a little late in the game to introduce time travel into an already dense (but enjoyably so) story, and if you think about it too hard, there's absolutely no way it makes any sense that Xehanort's Heartless has been able to orchestrate everything all along to make sure the real Organization XIII came together at the appointed time and had Sora's body available as the 13th vessel. It's just way too convenient and throwaway, and kind of a disappointingly ridiculous plot "twist" in that regard. I also felt that a lot of the ancillary reveals related to it, like Xigbar and Saix just happening to be two of the 13 future Xehanorts and the stuff about Sora's "Recusant Sigil," were just thrown in there without any setup or explanation whatsoever.

For the second point, I just don't like it when stories abandon the main character in favor of the main character's "cooler" or "more badass" sidekick/best friend, and that seems to be what Nomura's doing here with Riku becoming a Keyblade Master and Sora pretty much getting the shaft. He's still done tons more than Riku to rescue various people and save several worlds twice over, and he still had to survive Xehanort's hijacking his Mark of Mastery exam... and yet he still fails? Don't get me wrong, I like Riku and all and get that his becoming a Keyblade Master is an important touchstone in his "hero's journey," but I've always preferred Sora's character and it's bumming me out that it seems like he's getting tossed aside now. Oh well... maybe Nomura has a few more twists in store for KH III that'll make that not be the case after all. After all, the digital version of DiZ did keep stressing how unique Sora was and how only he could save all the people connected to him... so we'll see.

Anyway, overall I loved the game and really enjoyed the story developments and ending. As for the secret message, are we all generally in agreement that
the first part of the message basically says "Hey guys, we're a making Kingdom Hearts HD collection..." and the second part is basically "... and Kingdom Hearts III is next!"?
One can only hope!
 
P

Phoenixus

Member
I can see at least one more KH game after this before III, a
Kairi training Arc that revisits the worlds of the Seven Princesses of Heart for some strange plot-based reason
sounds like something Square-Enix would do. Otherwise, I'd love to see a KH collection with the first and second final mixes and Re:Chain of Memories (for us Euros that never got it) as the only stopgap to Kingdom Hearts III.
 
C

clemenx

Banned
HammerOfThor said:
Wow, I'm having the hardest time finding Secret Portals for Epic Fantasys! I only found one so far. This is so annoying >:[
Click to expand...

There's one on a chest on Sora's last big area on Symphony of Sorcery.

I haven't had luck with Secret Portals yet :(

Edit: Ah I can't read. You probably already found that one, heh.
 
M

MaverickHunterAsh

Member
Phoenixus said:
I can see at least one more KH game after this before III, a
Kairi training Arc that revisits the worlds of the Seven Princesses of Heart for some strange plot-based reason
sounds like something Square-Enix would do. Otherwise, I'd love to see a KH collection with the first and second final mixes and Re:Chain of Memories (for us Euros that never got it) as the only stopgap to Kingdom Hearts III.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I really hope that when the HD collection does happen, we Westerners (in both the U.S. and Europe) get the Final Mix versions of KH I and II... it's almost a must at this point.

And I know it's asking for way more than Square would probably ever give us (or Disney would allow), but getting an HD console version of Birth by Sleep (a lá Re:Chain of Memories) would be amazing, too. I would say let's thrown in 3D too, but that's too recent to make sense...
 
W

Wolf Akela

Member
I just got to
The World That Never Was
.

You guys weren't kidding. All the non-sensical plot that was missing the entire game? All dumped in 5 minutes.

Thunder Surge sucks in this game. Nowhere near as awesome as it was in BbS. :(
 
N

Napalm_Frank

Member
MaverickHunterAsh said:
I also felt that a lot of the ancillary reveals related to it, like Xigbar and Saix just happening to be two of the 13 future Xehanorts
Click to expand...
It has been hinted tho before that those 2 are special by their high ranking (Xigbar being number 2 and Saix being basically second in command even when he is numer 7-8 I think? Also the colour of their eyes hinted that there is more to them. Even In BBS you can see that Braigs eye color changes mid game and it has something to do with Xehanort. I figured as much that Braig(and Isa) has to be part of some bigger plot of his with the secret ending in BBS Xehanort taunting Terra that he still has ''many roads he might choose to take''
 
M

mugurumakensei

Member
I didn't really find the time travel bit that strange. The keyblade which allows you to travel between worlds connected by their hearts is basically interstellar travel using hearts as vessels. Therefore, a heart that has forsaken its body can utilize the same to cross distances of time and space.
 
S

Seven Force

Banned
MaverickHunterAsh said:
I also felt that a lot of the ancillary reveals related to it, like Xigbar and Saix just happening to be two of the 13 future Xehanorts and the stuff about Sora's "Recusant Sigil," were just thrown in there without any setup or explanation whatsoever.
Click to expand...

That's one of the few plot twists that actually got some proper foreshadowing, at least in Braig/Xigbar's case. When Braig shows up to fight Aqua in BBS, they make it a point to zoom in on his now yellow eyes, making it clear that Xehanort did something to him in the time between then his fight with Terra before. Between that and the secret ending for BBS where Xehanort says that Terra is but one road he may take in the future, it was pretty obvious that Braig was being set up as a potential vessel. The sigil stuff was kind of an ass pull though, yeah.

Granted, the whole thirteen Xehanorts thing is kinda stupid in general...
 
M

MaverickHunterAsh

Member
Napalm_Frank said:
It has been hinted tho before that those 2 are special by their high ranking (Xigbar being number 2 and Saix being basically second in command even when he is numer 7-8 I think? Also the colour of their eyes hinted that there is more to them. Even In BBS you can see that Braigs eye color changes mid game and it has something to do with Xehanort. I figured as much that Braig(and Isa) has to be part of some bigger plot of his with the secret ending in BBS Xehanort taunting Terra that he still has ''many roads he might choose to take''
Click to expand...

I actually did not notice that
Braig's eye color changed midway through Birth by Sleep
. Okay, that's pretty cool that they've been setting up what happens in 3D for at least that long.

So for the
seven guardians of the light, I have Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Aqua, Ven, Terra, and Lea. That's... eight. So I'm guessing what's gonna happen is that Terra won't make it back (his body is gone after all, while Ven is sleeping and Aqua's chillin' in the world of darkness), and Lea will instead be the seventh? Or does Lea not count as a guardian of the light, even though he now has a Keyblade?

Seven Force said:
That's one of the few plot twists that actually got some proper foreshadowing, at least in Braig/Xigbar's case. When Braig shows up to fight Aqua in BBS, they make it a point to zoom in on his now yellow eyes, making it clear that Xehanort did something to him in the time between then his fight with Terra before. Between that and the secret ending for BBS where Xehanort says that Terra is but one road he may take in the future, it was pretty obvious that Braig was being set up as a potential vessel. The sigil stuff was kind of an ass pull though, yeah.

Granted, the whole thirteen Xehanorts thing is kinda stupid in general...
Click to expand...

Yeah, I see that now. Pretty cool that that actually was foreshadowed beforehand. :) Thanks!
 
S

Seven Force

Banned
MaverickHunterAsh said:
So for the
seven guardians of the light, I have Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Aqua, Ven, Terra, and Lea. That's... eight. So I'm guessing what's gonna happen is that Terra won't make it back (his body is gone after all, while Ven is sleeping and Aqua's chillin' in the world of darkness), and Lea will instead be the seventh?
Click to expand...

Master Xehanort strongly implies that Terra is among his current group of darknesses, so you can probably cross him off of the list of potential lights.

Anabuhabkuss said:
Anyone also know where to obtain brilliant and Wild Fantasies?
Click to expand...

Special portals in Symphony of Sorcery and the final world, respectively. (Both on Sora's side.)
 
B

Box of Bunnies

Banned
MaverickHunterAsh said:
So for the
seven guardians of the light, I have Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Aqua, Ven, Terra, and Lea. That's... eight. So I'm guessing what's gonna happen is that Terra won't make it back (his body is gone after all, while Ven is sleeping and Aqua's chillin' in the world of darkness), and Lea will instead be the seventh? Or does Lea not count as a guardian of the light, even though he now has a Keyblade?
Click to expand...

Terra-Xehanort is amongst the XIII, isn't he? So Lea and Kairi will make up the numbers and we'll get a big happy reunion/sad sacrifice when Xehanort is finally defeated and Terra's heart is freed at the end of KH3
.
 
F

Famassu

Member
Phoenixus said:
I can see at least one more KH game after this before III, a
Kairi training Arc that revisits the worlds of the Seven Princesses of Heart for some strange plot-based reason
sounds like something Square-Enix would do. Otherwise, I'd love to see a KH collection with the first and second final mixes and Re:Chain of Memories (for us Euros that never got it) as the only stopgap to Kingdom Hearts III.
Click to expand...
All of that could easily be done in Kingdom Hearts III. I'm just not quite sure what they will come up with to use Disney worlds this time, since things like
saving Aqua and waking up Ven
don't really have a lot to do with any Disney worlds, unless they come up with some "we need to open keyholes to get power X to do thing Y that will help us in getting to
the Realm of Darkness
" storyline for it.
 
D

dankir

Member
For those of you that beat how long did it take? I'm about 12 hours in and just started the Muskateers World.

How long is a standard playthrough? 20 hours?
 
T

TranceKuja

Member
I've just beaten it, took me about 18 hours. The home stretch is WAY longer than I anticipated.

Dat ending : O

Also, the end credits look awesome in 3D.
 
K

Kouriozan

Member
30 hours to finish the game(proud mode), but that's because I love this game and try to play it for longer.
Right now I'm trying to get all dream eaters to star rank and then start critical mode.
 
S

SpeedySwaf

Member
Arrgh, I'm getting my butt kicked by
Xemnas
. I always do okay getting him down to the last two-three bars, but then he spends the rest of the battle spamming away at me. I'm tempted to put Elixers in one spot, and spam him with Link attacks at the very end.

That or spend a couple hours going through the worlds again to pick up chests, beat portals, A-rank dives, etc.
 
S

SpeedySwaf

Member
Anabuhabkuss said:
Use
Baloona and Baloongas or whatever the fuck they're called. These final bosses were incredibly easy surprisingly. Died once. Lock on, strafe around. have two cure/curega, use the remainder slots on baloona. keep your distance and have at it.

Edit: What lvl are you? You want to be at least 40, which is where I was.
Click to expand...

Level 41, though I'm also playing on Proud.
 
S

Seven Force

Banned
Anabuhabkuss said:
I guess the point is that when you do get your DE, you can roll them over into new game, eh?
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's pretty much the hook.

One way to farm for some of the rare materials is to scan and purposely kill off the AR Card dream eaters. They leave behind high ranked materials like Brilliant and Wild Fantasies, and it's a lot quicker than hunting down Special Portals for the materials. In addition to that, you can rescan the card after the dream eater dies, so you can farm as much as you want.
 
N

Napalm_Frank

Member
Seven Force said:
Yeah, that's pretty much the hook.

One way to farm for some of the rare materials is to scan and purposely kill off the AR Card dream eaters. They leave behind high ranked materials like Brilliant and Wild Fantasies, and it's a lot quicker than hunting down Special Portals for the materials. In addition to that, you can rescan the card after the dream eater dies, so you can farm as much as you want.
Click to expand...

Darker side of KH revealed! Think what morals this game teaches to our children :(.
 
M

MaverickHunterAsh

Member
So I've been thinking about KH 3D's ending and I came across something that I think might be a giant plot hole or oversight... or maybe it's just something I'm confused by:

After Riku defeats the second form of Xehanort's Heartless/Ansem SoD, he wakes up in The World That Never Was, looking for Sora and commenting that he must finally be in "the real world." I take that to mean that he that he thinks he's woken up, but that makes no sense since he should still be sleeping back in the Mysterious Tower.

For that matter, Sora and Riku still retain their younger appearances and KH 3D outfits throughout all the events that follow (until the story goes back to the Mysterious Tower where Riku dives back into Sora's dreams for the last time), and it doesn't seem to make sense that Xehanort could possess Sora's heart and body just by doing so inside a dream. So... by the "real world," did Riku just mean the dream world (and not Sora's dream within a dream) and not wherever he was fighting Xehanort's Heartless? There's just no way it could actually be reality, since Sora and Riku's actual bodies should never have left the Mysterious Tower throughout all of KH 3D and they can't magically be younger in the real world again.

But even though that's the case, it's just weird that all these major, pivotal events at the end had to have taken place in Riku's dream, which is really inside Sora's dream... or... something. I guess Yen Sid put Mickey, Lea, Donald, and Goofy to sleep so they could all go save Riku and Sora from Xehanort and the true Organization XIII at the last second? Argh. Am I onto something here, or am I just trying to make sense of something that makes none and just confusing myself as a result?

And did anyone ever figure out why Sora takes on his older, KH II appearance for some of the cutscenes in The World That Never Was but then reverts right back to his kid form with the KH 3D outfit for gameplay? So weird...
 
H

hamchan

Member
Ending spoilers

Has anyone ever considered that Riku did not wake Sora up? That he is still sleeping in the tower and is only dreaming about waking up and seeing Sora eating cake. Dream within a dream. He needs a spinning top or something.
 
M

MaverickHunterAsh

Member
hamchan said:
Ending spoilers

Has anyone ever considered that Riku did not wake Sora up? That he is still sleeping in the tower and is only dreaming about waking up and seeing Sora eating cake. Dream within a dream. He needs a spinning top or something.
Click to expand...

I suppose that's always possible, but there would be no precedent for that twist. Besides that, if that was the case,
all the important things that happen after he wakes up, such as him passing the Mark of Mastery exam, Sora going off to assumedly train after "failing" the exam (I call BS on that, Yen Sid!), Lea summoning his Keyblade, and Kairi being revealed as one of the seven guardians of the light, would all have not really happened, and what would be the point of that? Nah. It's a neat idea, but I think all the signs point to the idea that everything happened just as we saw it.
 
B

branny

Member
I honestly wouldn't overthink things because it's all nonsense at this point.

If there are indeed some big plot holes, they'll probably be addressed in an Ultimania for people to wiki later or lampshaded in a future entry. And, to be frank, even if everything actually made sense after sorting through every little detail, I really don't care enough to put that much effort into understanding such a convoluted mess in the first place. We don't even know if everything is deliberate, like MaverickHunterAsh mentioned with
Sora's two forms that could just as well stem from rushed development as they could from story significance. It confused me even more after it seemed like you actually do play as KHII Sora in the final dive through the credits (which is something that may even end up being canon for all we fucking know).
 
Gardios

Gardios

Member
You retain your DEs ranks, recipes, dispositions, affinity, what color they were painted and I believe what stat bonuses they got via commands when you made them in new game plus. You lose everything else though, so spend 'em if you've got 'em :p
 
C

Crash Station

Member
In
The World That Never Was
. Just beat
Xemnas
. This is some Inception level shit right here. Dumb or not, I am loving the story in this. Also,
Braig's
dialogue is always so awesome.
 
H

HammerOfThor

Member
So just finished the game last night. All-in-all, I really loved it.

During the first two Worlds I was having the hardest time getting used to the combat, but once I got a hang of things, I pretty much flew thru the game, and didn't really have any issues with any of the bosses after the first one.

Now, I really want to get a PSP to play BBS.

How are 358/2 and Re:Coded?
 
E

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
So I'm stuck in
The Symphony of Sorcery World and got into the Music Realm, but I don't know what to do here. I get to the fountain or whatever in the centre of this small area, do the reality shift and nothing happens. What am I doing wrong? Doesn't seem like there's anything else I can do here, do I just leave?

HALP

EDIT: Appears I just wasn't doing the reality shifts properly, got it to work.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

KINGDOM HEARTS Franchise has been released on Steam for $99.99 (currently -35% Off)
News Platform 2
91
6K
nikos replied
Neva | Review Thread
Review
26
2K
Alan Wake replied
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven | Review Thread
Review
22
2K
NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt replied
Homeworld 3 | Review Thread
Analysis Review
22
3K
amigastar replied
  • Locked
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 | Review Thread
Analysis Review
2
461
CyberCali replied
Top Bottom