Finished Dream Drop Distance \o/
(right, plurk uses dashes, discord uses tildes, that's never confusing...)
This was technically a replay because I played it on the 3DS a couple years back
but it's amazing what hits differently with, you know, full context
like, The Grid hits harder when one actually knows who Tron is, for instance
I did play this one with a mod, this time around. Just one, to get rid of the drop gauge. That was a major sore point the first time, so since I could get rid of it, I did.
It's like, look, I understand what the developers were going for, trying to force people to swap between Sora and Riku more often, but the timer is an irritant at best, and actively in the way at its worst.
(Being dropped in the middle of a boss fight is the reason why my first attempt, back when I picked it up in grad school, didn't go further than Notre Dame....)
Meanwhile, I have to say I liked the Command Deck better in BBS, especially at the start.
Like, again, I get why it's like this in 3D. A third leveling system on top of the main one and the dream eaters would be A Lot.
But leveling and melding the commands encourages the player to actually swap their commands around a bit more, and to put stuff in their deck that they otherwise wouldn't so they can level it and meld it into cooler stuff.
It felt better as there were more options available, but there was still something about it that wasn't quite as good.
That said, the dream eaters are adorable, flowmotion is excellent, and honestly the level design in 3D is probably my favorite so far. They took the movement available and built stuff with it in mind, and it shows.
...and even when some of it can be cheesed, it's often more fun to go the intended route.
My only complaint about the worlds is that they are empty of NPCs, which, I mean, dream worlds, kind of the point, but they exist in cutscenes and almost nowhere else, and it's kind of a little sad.
The other two things that I'll note (because I should really go to bed) are
Anti Black Coat Nightmare or whatever is rude and I don't like that boss fight, I don't remember it being that much of a pain on the 3DS (though I was playing beginner back then, maybe there's that much difference on standard), though I took what I learned from Marluxia and eventually reflect spammed it
and lastly, there are so many monologues that could have been improved by turning them into secret reports instead, it's... it's a lot.
Why didn't 3D have secret reports? They put in a glossary, but they didn't want to use secret reports to exposit?
I get that the norts all love the sounds of their own voices and were deliberately trying to drone Sora into deeper layers of sleep, but yeesh.
Outside of the monologues, though, fun game ^^ Good playing it again, with context this time.
0.2 shouldn't take me long, probably, and then it's on to KH3.
I enjoyed 3D too! but I also liked BBS battle system and command deck better; I honestly think BBS might have my favorite battle system in the whole series.