Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance

Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance Rom is an action RPG for the Nintendo 3DS, and here it’s available as a [CIA] 3DS ROM. You can run it on emulators like Citra, so playing it on a PC isn’t a problem. This is the USA release and the game itself is in English.

The story follows the usual duo, Sora and Riku, and picks up right after Kingdom Hearts II. With Xehanort possibly coming back, King Mickey and Yen Sid set up the Mark of Mastery exam for them so they can finally become Keyblade Masters and be ready for whatever’s next.

During this exam, they drop into seven different “Sleeping Worlds.” Each world has its own Keyhole you have to find and unlock to wake that world up. The places you visit are pulled from different Disney movies – one moment you’re running around Notre Dame, then you’re in Pinocchio’s world, Fantasia, or even the neon grid of Tron – so every area looks and feels pretty different from the last.

Combat is fast and a bit chaotic in a good way. The Flowmotion system lets you bounce off walls, slide along rails, spin around poles, and turn all that movement straight into attacks, so you’re not just standing still mashing one button. Every so often, the game triggers a Drop, which swaps control between Sora and Riku. They move through different versions of the same worlds and timelines, so you end up piecing the story together by jumping back and forth between their routes.

Instead of a classic menu-based system, the game uses a Command Deck. You pick out a small set of skills, items, and spells to equip, and those are the ones you can quickly fire off in battle, which makes your setup feel pretty personal. The enemies here are called Dream Eaters. Most of them are out to get you, but some – the ones called Spirits – can be raised as your partners. They fight beside you, give you stat boosts, and unlock extra abilities and special moves as you go.

If you’re into action-heavy JRPGs and you want to play more of the Kingdom Hearts story on a 3DS-style setup (or through an emulator like Citra), Dream Drop Distance is basically made for that.