Nintendo eShop KH3D Demo Impressions

[lycorismoon29]

If you didn't already know, the demo for Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] is currently available for download from the Nintendo eShop. Hopefully many of you have played through the demo more than once and enjoyed it, and for all of you who haven't tried the demo out, please download it as soon as possible!

For all of you that have had the chance to play the Kingdom Hearts 3D demo, we at KHInsider would like to know about your experience! Tell us about the things you liked and disliked about the game mechanics.

Also, only post once and try and give as much detail as possible!

[dakirbymaster]

First off, I appreciate the tutorial. Though the first part is mostly useless in the context of the demo, the other few parts let you explore the First and Second Districts of Traverse Town, and they've managed to transfer them magnificently to the 3DS from the original. Very nostalgic.

As for the main part of the demo, I really enjoyed it. The opening cutscene with Sora and Neku was great; I didn't see anything wrong with HJO's voice, and I think he did great. JDC did a great job as Neku too, unsurprisingly.

I love Flowmotion; that's definitely a gamechanger and really is a natural evolution of KH2's Reaction Commands (in that its all contextual). I love climbing up walls with it and reaching the top. The Link Portal was cool too; adds some incentive to explore if one wants to find them all. Dual Link is awesome (you can take out the Link Portal with one usage of Comet, which is Kooma Panda + Necho Cat), and is great fun. Also love the abilities they give you; very awesome and enjoyable.

As for the enemies, they're well designed and I'm glad that the enemy Kooma Pandas don't fall into what is becoming LARGE ENEMY MEANS NO ATTACK FROM FRONT as there was an Unversed like that iirc, much like the Large Bodies and Fat Bandits. I do like using Flowmotion to launch them though; nice usage of it. I didn't know that was possible until I tried the tutorial! The crabs were tricky, but once I realized I could jump behind their guard and kill them that way I was happy. I also love the Reality Shift, especially when launching weakened enemies to their doom into groups of other enemies. That's always fun. XD

Oh, and so glad health doesn't respawn with the enemies when they do. So nice. I wish there was more to explore in the demo, but I'll have to wait until the end of next month for that.

In regards to the Hockomonkey battle, it was well-made. His attacks really did make full use of the 3D, and it was cool using the mechanics of Flowmotion against him. I was fighting him once and was almost dead. Tried using Cura but he hit me, canceling the spell. So I used Flowmotion to flee from him (he had dropped down into the other area by then) and grinded up the rail, bounced off the wall, and landed on a higher balcony. I kept using Flowmotion to bounce around the room to dodge his attacks until Cura was recharged so I could heal myself. By this point, both my Spirits had their Link Gauges full, so I just finished him off with Comet.

The Link Gauge really helps if you're waiting for commands to refill, because it gives the chance for an extra attack. And I love how unique all their individual links are. All in all, the mechanics all complement each other masterfully, and I can't wait to help my Dream Eaters grow, and to play as Riku and experience all the game has to offer. :3

The demo may have been short, but it cemented my belief that this game is going to be phenomenally fun. ^.^

[King Chaser]

~The Downloading~

I was so excited when I rushed through the door when I got home. I quickly booted up my 3DS and went straight to downloading it. Every time the orange box filled, I got even more excited. I felt so bubbly when I unwrapped it.


Then my heart sank. 15 tries? Why only 15 tries?
This was quickly forgotten as I booted the game up. The demo started and I felt like crying. I haven't played one of the new KH games in such a long time, since most of you know my PSP and BBS is with my Drama teacher. I was more than excited. Thinking that I would suck at flowmotion, I clicked on tutorial.

~The Tutorial~

Ursula. Floating in the ocean. And there I was standing on a tiny raft.
"Get yo nasty tentacles away from me!" I yelled, hoping it would echo through the whirlpool void as Ursula smiled gleefully at me.
"SUPER N-A-S-T-Y. You hear me? I'mma come and find you witch. Watch you back." and then she ran into my keyblade. She ran into my keyblade three times. Cause that's all it takes. Three swings. Then I could use magic and I was all like ""HA HA! No more shall you hide far away from me. I will kupo! you up!"


And then I was in Traverse Town.
"Oh lordy, have mercy on my soul" I preached as I ran towards the lamp, ala "Chariots of Fire". I pressed "Y". And there I was. Spinning. Around a pole. Like a common stripper. It all felt natural. I jumped off and glided, no floated, towards a wall. I pressed "Y" again and I kicked off. It felt magical. Life I had been pressing "Y" my whole life.


From there I went into the second district. "Oh aren't you a pretty little thing" I said as I walked towards the Cat hybrid Dog.... and then it bit me... and ran into me... while bouncing.
"HELL TO THE NO" I yelled as I unleashed all I had on the little rodent. And then more popped up. It took a lot of strength, but I managed to overcome adversity and defeat the Nightmares. And that is how I found the first horcrux~
Next up was Reality Shift. Yeah I pretty much shot it straight into the air where it came crashing down without moving much.

~The Fourth District~

SPIN, HOOKER, SPIN.
I launched myself off and hit from wall to wall. "This is amazing." I thought to myself. Then I hit the enemies.
"Hey, new attacks!" And thus, Sparkga was discovered. Launching myself around the Fourth District while destroying the enemies was refreshing. Needless to say, I do wonder how much experience I have accumulated over my travels.The district was massive. More so than any other place in Kingdom Hearts(except maybe the Waterfall in Neverland, but that place was massive in a vertical fashion). I scooted off many walls, accidentally landed on roofs ending my Flowmotion, and striking many combinations.Something I need to say about Reality Shift... it's a blessing. I've always hated it in games when there is so much going on the screen, and there are so many enemies coming at you and you have no way to fix the problem?
It's so nice to have a system where you can enter reality shift, and blow the enemies far away from you. It is just wonderful.

~The Fifth District~

So this was it. The end of my demo. The superficial, energetic, stubborn, devoted and ridiculously named Hockomonkey.
I swung my keyblade, I linked my Dream Eaters, I unleaded hell on the multi-coloured Gorrila.
And before I knew it... it was all over. The boss went down quickly with barely a Cura used.
The rooftop was still intact and I questioned the very existence of these 3D characters. Where did they go after the demo ended? Were they stuck in limbo, waiting to be transferred to the main game? Did they get pulled all the way back to Ursula? Does her tentacles whip through Traverse Town, engulfing Sora and thrusting him back to that small raft?
All I know for certain is Meow Wow certainly doesn't miss him.

~The Game Menu~

What game menu? It wasn't accessible!!!

~The Cutscene of Glory~

All I can say is that Neku was amazing. A bit quiet for my liking, but it's a part of his character. Twister was an eargasm and it was so nice to hear the TWEWY music blasting through the 3DS speakers. Sora's foot tap was the cutest thing ever.
Almost as cute as Michael;

~TL;DR~

The demo, albeit short, was very enjoyable. It showcase the gameplay in an effective manner, and delivered the right punch for any KH fan to get a knock out of it. The demo has wonderful 3D that didn't hurt my eyes in both cutscenes and gameplay and I expect the same throughout the whole game.
It was a wonderful demo and I congratulate Square Enix for making their first public Kingdom Hearts demo a success!

[CactusAce]

I quite enjoyed the Demo. I would of liked to have Riku playable in the demo also, but it is just a demo.

It took a little while for me to get used to the Free Flow system, but once I got the hang of it I just wasted a bit of time around Traverse Town before going to verse the boss, who I destroyed.

[Sign]

Having played the demo at E3 just several weeks prior to the release of this demo, I was expecting a different experience than the one I had just undergone, which I'm quite happy to say I got rather quickly after being greeted by what's likely to be one of the most anticipated scenes in the game, coming from someone who's been struggling to avoid spoilers. Watching Sora wake up in this familiar 1st District of Traverse Town takes me back down memory lane, and you can really connect with him as he meets this purple-clad headphone-donning stranger who literally dropped from the sky, filled with questions and wanting to aid him. As Neku flowmotions away leaving Sora in his dream-dust, it only makes the anticipation grow as I desire to ride on rails and spin off poles oh-so-flawlessly as he does. This short scene alone was enough to make the entire demo worthwhile in my eyes. The voice acting is superb and the subtle movements expressed by the character has improved once again from the previous title.

The Dream Eaters, despite their appearances, certainly gave me a run for my money. After getting past the straight up adorable appearances and realizing that I was indeed losing health while they were around, it was time to stop admiring them and fight for my survival. Hockomonkey in particular, I felt was the physical representation of the word "unexpected" as I found myself being shot off the roof of the building, chased around by boxing gloves, getting the glass roof smashed right under my feet and so much more. I getthe feeling that this may be something you may actually see in your dreams or nightmares (no pun intended).

I personally loved the fact that the Link Portals are named after Final Fantasy characters, and getting the opportunity to battle "their" parties easily made up for their lack of presence in the game. I didn't get the opportunity to try it out in the previous demo, so I was really looking forward to this! What I didn't expect was to be thrown into battle against three Tyranto Rex with 20 seconds on the clock. As the first character the Link Portal was named for me was Vaan, I was definitely expecting a more docile party rather than three ferocious snarling dinosaurs in my face. Thank goodness for Sparkga.

The graphics are stunning for a Kingdom Hearts title, and the 3D effect only adds on to it. The depth presented during both cutscenes and gameplay is astounding, and it's hard to stop playing with 3D on after getting a taste of that. Definitely not headache inducing either, even at full blast!

Loved the addition of the new Districts in Traverse Town, and given the chance to explore even just one of them was a real treat. With bright lights, small alleys, and shops galore, you can really feel the Shibuya influences in the design. Now, if only we could actually go into the buildings and check them out from the inside! I'm sure it'd be just as beautiful inside as it is out, even if we can't dress up the Dream Eaters in random and obscure attire to boost their strength.

I thought the end of the tutorial was a real treat and definitely incentive to use all those 30 tries up, if only to see Meow Wow chase its Nightmare rendition, stare longingly at the big balloon, or roll around on the roof. Even now, I'm fairly certain that there are still quite a few endings I haven't seen yet, and I'm going to keep playing the demo until I do.

The gameplay is just as we've been told: it's current furthest evolution of the Kingdom Hearts battle system, and definitely a step in the right direction in my opinion for a series that has received great praise for it. With so many options available in battle, it's hard to decide which to use first. The commands offer both a trip down memory lane and step forward, allowing a wide variety of attacks and strategies to be implemented. With the introduction of Flowmotion, it combines the familiarity of manipulating the environment to achieve goals in the first installment of the series while taking a leap forward towards the future. Plus, the pretty colors and flashy effects are rather great eye candy. When you finally throw the new Reality Shift into the equation and begin flinging Dream Eaters left and right via slingshot, it's just a beautiful mess of action and style that instantly grabs onto you with a deathgrip. Once you go 3D (-'s gameplay), it's hard to go back. It's both fun and interesting to see what you can use to attack hardest and against the most enemies and what you can use to get literally above and beyond what were out of range in previous titles.

Long story short, I loved every minute of it.

However, nothing's perfect. My biggest disappointment lied in the fact that in both demos that I played, the camp menu remained inaccessible, which honestly is a shame seeing as they're a highlight of the system in my eyes. I would have loved to explore the various submenus and go spelunking for its hidden secrets, but unfortunately that will have to wait until the game officially releases.

From a different point of view, I can understand that the gameplay may actually throw too much at you at the same time, even with the tutorial. It can grow to be rather overwhelming with all these options available at once, especially during the frenzy of battle. *random nitpicking*

[Zephyr]

I've noticed they made a few changes with the fighting physics. You're not able to chain air combos unless they're flying/large like Hockomonkey; in previous Kingdom Hearts games, you could chain air combos even when the enemy was on the floor. I think it was for more balance issues.

In the tutorial, it didn't mention how you can move your camera up/down/close view. This can be accessed by holding both L/R and moving the circle pad. Presumably I think this is how the circle pad pro attachment will function.

Some enemies are rather arbitrary to know when to block like Komory Bat. It screeches when you least expect it.

The music is very fantastic and smooth to hear in the ears. Night of Fate really seems to stand out the most from the speakers. The Traverse Town theme is a bit quiet but I think that's intentional for the mood.

I really like how in the boss battle, the environment transitions from the roof into the botanical gardens. I feel like this should be executed by default rather than chance so it makes that first impression for the casual audience.

The Dream Eater's AI are very cute lol. They do wander off on their own and do funny animations. Sometimes they're walking towards a wall for no reason but I do find this amusing.

[inverse K-blade7]

You can use any kind of command in the air, even ones like quick blitz or ballonra, which have jumping animations. I really liked that. The demo as a whole was incredibly fun, though a bit too short. But the 4th district is so big and fun to explore, it almost didnt matter.

[Ragnell 37]

While watching Nintendo's press conference, I dropped everything and turned on my 3DS the moment they announced the demo was out. Video game news could wait. There was KH to play.

The demo definitely delivered. It was short, fairly simple, but I managed to sink an hour or so into what is supposed to be a five minute demo, which is a testament to the fun and novelty of the new gameplay system. The tutorial was concise and fun. The Ursala section was mostly old had for me, having played other recent KH games. But the flowmotion tutorials were great. I spent quite a bit of time in the 1st and 2nd districts getting the hang of flowmotion and just messing around trying to see where I could go.

The actual demo was great as well. The cutscene at the beginning showed off some beautiful animation and 3D effects, plus Neku for the TWEWY legion. It was funny and clever, and not too long. Then it was on to running around the 4th District. This area was absolutely fantastic for a demo, since it had thin corridors, rails, lampposts, and just about everything else needed for a full flowmotion playground. Plus, it was huge. I was very pleased with how impressively large the place was, yet how detailed every inch of it remained. From the shop windows, to the crates, to the construction beams, it felt very polished.

Dream Eaters
Being followed by Dream Eaters was pretty funny. I swapped the cat out for the panda pronto, and kept Meow Wow. Gotta say, I thought the cat/narwhal/Bidoof fusion was disturbing at first, but that guy is adorable. Their little noises as they ran around and their animations made it easy to fall in love with them. Unfortunately, I ran into a small problem that I'd noticed in gameplay videos: it could get really hard to tell between my Spirits and the Nightmares I was fighting in the midst of battle. In the demo, Sora was very overpowered, so a little confusion didn't matter, but I imagine when you're beeping red and desperately trying to survive and you lunge at your own ally it would be stressful. Still, I'm now totally sold on the Dream Eaters-as-partners thing. And I thought the concept was a little stupid originally.

Flowmotion
Flowmotion was easily the highlight of the demo for me. Reality Shift and Link attacks were cool, but for the most part I ignored them in favor of leaping of walls and delivering devastating, stylish attacks. While people have been correct in saying that it is a little difficult to control at first, I found that after a little experimentation I could get just about anywhere I wanted very quickly, and I could unleash strategic attacks whenever I pleased. The entire system was extremely satisfying. Unfortunately, at least in the demo, there were only 5 flowmo attacks: Kick Dive, Shock Dive, Sliding Dive, Buzz Saw, and Blow-off. These work perfectly fine, and they're more than enough to work with, but I do hope that you unlock/create/find some more later in the game to keep things fresh. If not, then I'm guessing Riku will at least offer different attacks/animations, so that should mix things up enough.

Whiny Nit-Picks
I only had a few complaints about the demo. The first was the boss. By no means was he bad; his design and animation and such were great. He was just very easy due to Sora's insane OP-ness in the demo. My first go-through, I just kept leaping at the short walls and using Kick Dive and Shock Dive and I took him down without even half a bar of damage. Obviously, this won't be the case in the actual game, so I didn't really mind the chance to kick some boss tail. My more serious concern was that the boss was very unstrategic. I just finished playing through BbS on proud mode, and in that game, unless you went and level grinded forever, you had to develop very specific strategies against pretty much all the bosses. Most fights involved a lot of running away and observing attack patterns. With Hockomonkey, basically you just mashed attack. It was very KH2-esque. Not awful, but it could be better.

My only other minor annoyance was that you only see two commands in your deck at a time. I very much liked how BbS and Re:coded showed you the command above and below your selected one. While you'll eventually get familiar enough with your deck that you don't need to look to know what's next, it made things easier. I assume its a result of the 3DS' smaller screen size than the PSP. But Re:coded did it fine.

TL;DR
Overall, the demo was fantastic. My hype for this game just flew up to the roof, did a kick-dive off of it, and exploded into the ground in a ball of awesome. The 3D effect is spectacular; easily one of the best seen so far on 3DS, especially in cutscenes. The music is beautiful. The gameplay is fast and intense. And the Dream Eaters are adorable.

[theirlosthearts]

I think my emotional high has worn off now, so here goes.

Flowmotion was awesome, though it was kind of annoying that you couldn't use both flowmotion and glide while in the air. Took a couple minutes to master flowmotion, but I loved it. Really, I could have solely used flowmotion for battle. Definitely fun, and I enjoyed being able to have so much mobility. Overall, it's great!

Reality shift was interesting. I found it nice that everything is paused when you use reality shift, so you have enough time to look around and set up. I can't wait to see the reality shifts for the other worlds.

The Spirits are adorable. I got the feeling that the spirits weren't attacking as much as Donald and Goofy have in previous games, though that might only be because Sora's attacks (especially flowmotion attacks) seem to have more movement and thus more camera change than previously, making it harder to notice spirits attacking. Also, the spirits seemed to have some trouble moving to your location when you moved too far too fast using flowmotion. Once during the boss battle, the wonderfully cute cat was walking into the wall, even when I went to stand right next to it, and it didn't stop walking until it was struck by the boss. Meanwhile, the panda was somewhere else entirely. Overall though, I loved the Spirits, and they were still useful and helpful, especially with their special attacks.

The Nightmares were also very cute. They weren't very difficult, but that's probably just because it's a demo. They were fun to watch and seemed competent. The boss battle was enjoyable, but, again, was very easy. I only fell through to the botanical garden once (out of the three or four times I played the demo), and I thought it was a very good touch. I like that it was random and not just a pre-set occurrence, as it supplemented the fast paced, frenetic feel of combat. The nightmares definitely lived up to and went beyond my expectations.

The link portal was interesting, especially the variety of possible characters. I didn't show much of any possible variety in the actual link portal itself (ie, objectives, enemies, conditions) though, have to wait for the actual game to come out for that.

The cutscene was awesome, definitely love the 3DS graphics and audio quality! I should probably play TWEWY though. . .back to the cut scene. The 3D made it awesome. I'm gonna love seeing all of the cutscenes! I had never heard "traverse" pronounced like that before though. xD

The music was great. I loved being able to hear this version of Traverse Town. Definitely dreamy. I can't wait to get the OST just because of this demo, that's how good the music is!

Graphics were awesome. So fluid, even when you're moving very quickly. Maybe even better than KH1. Definitely great!

The commands were definitely. . .different (except for cura and slot charge, or whatever it's called), but in a good way! I do wish that you could see three commands at one time instead of only two. Two made it a little harder to think of which way I had to rotate the command deck to find a command. I think I just wasn't used to that though. Overall, I like the new commands!

My only real complaints are that there was no dropping and you can't access the menus, that's just due to it being a demo though. The only other problem was the fact that it doesn't tell you that you hold down L+R and then use the analog stick for free-look mode. Can't really complain about the game though.

Overall, I FREAKIN LOVED IT!! I still have to go back and get all of the amazingly cute endings, definitely going to enjoy this!

[crash13]

Personally, I didn't like it. It was too short, and no Riku. Had I not noticed that portal thing I would have just killed the enemies and boss in like 3 minutes, and that only extended it like 30 seconds. I'm pretty sure I did everything possible to do and still, took me like 8 minutes tops. Now I didn't hate the demo, the gameplay was fun. Linking with the Dream Eaters was awesome and flowmotion was really fun. The boss was also cool because he destroyed part of the level. Overall more disappointed than impressed, but the two things I didn't like won't be represented in the game, so I'm still looking forward to it.

Edit: If I weren't a fan of Kingdom Hearts, this demo wouldn't make me want it.

[Got_it_Memorized]

Pretty amazing Demo.
I ABUSED the crap out of flowmotion.
spinning and flying off walls and killing stuff with Balloons!!
<3 this game already cant wait for the 31st!

[Shadow_]

Personally I loved the Demo, I thought it was a bit to short, but I understand that there saving the best for the final game. I loved when Neku said "SHUT IT" I wish we got to grow levels in the game, or gave us some menu options to play around with. But then again, this is just a demo, and anything more would of been heart stopping lol. My heart almost gave up when I saw the demo in the shop, I literally jumped in the air, and said "YESSS!" haha sorry but KH DDD is probably one of the new games that is coming out this year, that I've been looking forward too.

[Japanlover]

When I was watching the Nintendo Conference and heard that the KH3D demo was available I slammed my laptop close, sneaked into my brother's room to get my 3DS charger (It was like 12am in my timezone), and grabbed my 3DS to download it. I was screaming and bouncing up and down of excitement.

Anyways the demo was great probably played it over 30 times (without exiting the demo). I loved Flowmotion and Reality Shift. I liked the link portals.
When I looked at my prizes for completing the link portal, I was like "Yay! I got an Ice Dream Cone...! Wait? wah?" I kept wondering what an Ice Dream Cone would taste like.
The Boss Hockomonkey wasn't that hard but I can imagine it being harder in the actual game.

The cutscene between Sora and Neku was amazing. I was smiling through the whole thing. HJO sounds fine to me and JDC did a good job as well. And those cute ending scenes with Wandanyan is too adorable! X3

The demo was perfect but the only 2 things I didn't like was no Riku gameplay and no Drop system.

[ReaperShadcat]

So! Demo impression time.

First off: the cutscene. I will stress this: I LOVE HJO's voice for Sora this time around. It sounds incredibly natural and he did a great job with the delivery. And then Neku showed up. Man. I am incredibly excited for this game, because wow - hearing Neku fully voiced is such a marvelous treat. I love his little exchange with Sora, especially the line "Do you trust every random stranger you meet?" because darned if that's not advice that Kingdom Hearts characters should take to heart (coughterracough). Twister sounded great as well, and I was sad when the cutscene ended, because I wanted to hear the entire song! Oh well, though.

Gameplay wise, it was smooth as butter and very fun. I like that it's so streamlined as compared to previous KH games, which have had some choppy battle action in the past. I really enjoyed the Dream Eaters, too.

I think most impressive of all was the 3D. Now, my eyes aren't hurt by the 3DS like some folks' eyes are, but they do feel funny after a while of OoT for example. This had none of that - the 3D was very natural and put absolutely no strain on my eyes. I was worried that gameplay would be stunted by pain from the 3D, but it wasn't at all. Everything was natural in 3D, and turning off became a non-option for me. It looked so nice, how could I turn it off??

I am incredibly excited. I loved it!

[Rydgea]

【PREFACE】
I just got my 3DS from Target last night, so other than the fact I've piddled with the system for about 30 seconds on end at various Gamestop locations, I had a whole lot of new coming at me in giant waves. The overall system feels really fresh and intuitive, and (I hope) a great step forward for gamers who want to interact with eachother!

【REVIEW】
So having my new system paired with the KH3D demo felt a little overwhelming! However, this is not a negative aspect of the experience, au contraire! Provided I was breaking in my system virginity and getting used to the position of the circle pad above the d-pad, among other new obstacles, this meant maneuvering and performance were going to be sub-par. As with any new skill, it takes practice, so thank Jeebus I got this demo, because as a fan of KH for 10 years, I went into it a little cocky and was humbled.

For me, the battle system was near perfect in Birth By Sleep, so the evolution of combat in KH has always been a treat to look forward too. There is SO much to do in this aspect, I was pleasantly surprised. The question is not whether or not you're capable of dispatching your enemies but how. Often, I would think, "Ok, do I want to use melee attacks, commands, flowmotion, reality shifts, a dream eater, two dream eaters - which ones - WHAT TO DO!???" There are literally so many options that by the time you pick, you're low on health and have no choice but to cast Cura. (Also, hurray for shortcuts and that this demo had Cura set as such.) ;p

Now, I feel compelled to say this was not particularly hard, but my senses were absorbing everything going on around me; I was in awe, and with as flashy as KH3D is, one can get quite distracted. Because there's so much to do, different players are bound to develop different playing styles, finding their niche and developing a finesse for it. Of coarse, my goal is to utilize all of these new options and be able to weave from one to the other gracefully, but that'll take some time.

【FINAL WORD】
The review only contains my initial reactions, but since then I've played this demo three times - so far just for the sake of combining the Dream Eaters in different ways, getting different Meow Wow endings, and obviously, because it looks absolutely gorgeous. Kingdom Hearts graphic's style is a perfect fit for the system, and the 3D makes it look amazing (jack it all the way up, yo) - emphasizing this title will add a whole new layer of depth.

*tots stoked 4 this*