PS4 Game Review: Kingdom Hearts 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue

 Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue is a multi-game, one cinematic disc that features the games Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance, Kingdom Hearts 0.2- A Fragmentary Passage and the cinematic (movie) of Kingdom Hearts X, Back Cover. I will detail all three here starting with the cinematic!

Kingdom Hearts X: Back Cover

 The cinematic is just over an hour long detailing the beginnings of the keyblade and who may be behind the possible evil that comes up in the future.  They are unknown who has been succumbing to the evil but trouble is brewing for this group as someone is becoming evil with power.  Overall I didn't mind the cinematic.  I thought it was alright, it detailed a good story.  I thought overall knowing more about the past it warrants a solid 9 out of 10.

Kingdom Hearts 0.2- A Fragmentary Passage

This game features after Birth By Sleep, after Aqua has been put into the Realm of Darkness.  This follows Aqua's journey through the Realm of Darkness and how she meets our good Mouse friend Mickey.  It is a modestly short game, something that will only take only 2-ish hours, 4 hours at most.  It's a game that will be quick and is a favorite of some to speed run through.  I felt it was a quite alright game, very straight forward, not too challenging.  I do wonder if it could have been just put in as a cinematic rather than a game but it was enjoyable enough to finish in a day.  Overall, solid 8 out of 10.

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance

Oh boy there is a lot to cover here.. Without further ado..

Positives

1. Riku- He gets a major feature here in a big way and in most ways it is positive.  You get to work with his wide arrange of skills, his ability to be very good not just on ground but a great aerial attacker as well.  You see how much this means to him over the time span and it makes him look at his roles of maturity through the series.

2. Graphics- Yes, this was always going to be a positive.  It never isn't but for a game that came from the Nintendo 3DS to PS4 it's a good step forward.  I felt that every world was very well done overall.

3. Lack of Gummi Ship- This.. I thought would not be a positive but it was actually quite nice to see a change with the dropping into the world.  There are different challenges so it is a nice change of pace from me.

Negatives

1. Combat- I despised the combat system in this game because it was a loading time for everything besides just plain attacking.  There is a reason you have MP in every game and to go with magic.  This game was completely nonsensical in this way and it really just struggles to make me like the combat system.

2. No World Depth- Other than Traverse Town, there is no depth to any of the worlds.  At least in KH1, KH2, KH3 there is some depth to the story.  These just don't really showcase much, if any, depth and they just seem to want to jump from one to the other minus The Grid with Sora and Tron.  After that there isn't depth to this, even in the Musketeer world.  Which brings me to..

3. Sora- Bro, you cannot be serious with how they scripted him through most of this game.  They almost make him not intelligent or very daring by nature due to either thinking he is going to have something catastrophic happen to him or he just is clueless.  Take for instance he essentially knows what is supposed to be happening by the end of the first world but by the Musketeers world he still doesn't know what is happening, which is confusing to me.  Typically as well he does try to do something insanely obtuse but that doesn't happen in this game either.  So it's like a very tame Sora that doesn't work.

4. The Drop System- Just.. Just why with this.  I get if you have to be mandated to switch characters but then just mandate it without the player having to have the choice.  Otherwise it just looks tacky and weird and you have to use drop-me-nots just to just not have to be dropped to the other person which just is weird.

5. Execution of the Pet System- I do like the concept of the pet system, however the execution they did of it is not very good.  You don't have any clue what is effective against the enemies, you just know what they are equipped with.  If you don't use a guide you are going to struggle on this because it doesn't really tell you the best combinations for a certain situation.

6. Storyline- Yep it doesn't flow well at all.  It just is one that bounces from place to place and really doesn't have a good sense of progression.  Even when ending the game you are more or less just show casing the fact that KH3 is right around the corner thankfully to take the story back together.  This was a struggle through and through due to this.  It never flowed and it made it a major struggle to really like this game.

Overall Rating of Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance

Overall, I can't really recommend Dream Drop Distance for the many flaws that it has.  The story is just all over the place and never flows, the execution of the pet system and the combat is just bad at best.  The main saver here is that Riku is written very, very well overall.  Otherwise this is a pretty rough game that is a massive struggle throughout.  Overall Rating: 5 out of 10.