I live in the UK and so we got it a few days before America, didn't really make much difference though seeing as my mother booked us to go on holiday during when it was released and so I had to spend four days after the release knowing that my pre-order was sitting on the doormat at home, calling out for me. It was a 12 hour drive home each way though including ferry and so during that time though I managed to get in some serious playtime and completed days and re:coded while I was there (to my horror the day before I left I realised that my copy of birth by sleep was missing and I basically spent that whole night crying. Anyway, I got back from my holiday and on the drive home I had been dying for a pee, but there it was in all it's glory, my brand new copy of Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance, with just about a centimetre of packaging paper between me and it. I decided to rip open the packaging paper, take out the game and watch the opening cinematic while I was sitting on the toilet, and may I say I do not regret that decision at all, the moment I saw all the Keyblade wielders standing at the Keyblade Graveyard I knew that this game was going to be freaking amazing.
So I got off the toilet (extremely relieved and excited to play the game with empty bowels) and began actually playing the game, and may I say what a game it is. It takes quite a while for the story to pick up, but when it does, bloody hell it does. Nomura seems to finally be interested in giving us a few answers rather than giving us unanswered questions. During the Disney worlds the story seems to have more content in Sora's side of the story, but at the end that just gets turned on it's head and Riku suddenly becomes the hero of the story. I loved how in the game you get to see how much of an idiot Sora really is because you never really get to realise it before this until you compare him to Riku ("What's your name?" "Dream eaters!!!" "That's a weird name").
I also love the new addition of the world ends with you characters, they seem to lighten up the mood a lot in the dark and dreary Traverse Town with the way Shiki is all flirty with Riku and he is just clueless, and just how much of an idiot Beat is. The only negative thing I can really say about them is that I think Neku's character developed a bit to quickly, he only really remains a hardass for the first few minutes of the world and then suddenly he's just like "YAY I'M SO HAPPY EVERYBODY'S MY FRIEND". The world that I was really looking forward to seeing the most though was The Grid and I feel a little let down, I loved Space Paranoids in Kingdom Hearts 2 and I loved the Tron: Legacy movie, but somehow I just thought it was really boring.
I like how there's a steady shift of power between the flowmotion attacks and Combat commands because it really keeps the game fresh rather than just having you bouncing off of walls for most of the game (to be honest I probably still wouldn't have gotten bored of it). At times I liked the idea of more wide open areas so that you could use more flowmotion attacks but at times I just found myself sprinting for the nearest wall because all of my combat commands were loading up and I had to quickly get rid of the enemies. There are loads of people saying that they don't like the drop system but personally, I love it, I'd usually drop just before a boss battle, kill a load of dream eaters and rack up a load of drop points until I drop back to the other one and become basically indestructible and destroy the boss.
I thought that having spirits as your new party members was a great idea, especially being able to pet them, although when I first started playing it I found myself making weird cutesy noises until I remembered that I have family members in the other room who would probably be able to hear me, so then out of embarrassment I just left them alone for a while. I thought it was cool how badass some of the last dream eaters you can make are and it was an epic feeling just beating down the final boss with two freaking huge ass dinosaurs at my side.
I decided that I was going to attempt, for the first time to go for 100% completion this time, but I came to a difficulty somewhere down the line, when I realised that I was going to have to collect all of the dream eaters, which would mean that I would need friends which, unfortunately, I don't have...naaaaaaah, I'm just kidding, but the only friend of mine who is a Kingdom Hearts fan can't afford a 3DS right now and so I'm kinda stumped. I did however manage to find all of the chests with a lot of help from decimo's guides (thanks A LOT by the way) and I beat all of the special and secret portals which took a hell of a long time seeing as you have to keep dropping between Sora and Riku if you want to get them all.
The secret ending, message, and the stuff in the credits however is now wishing that I could time travel SO THAT I COULD ALREADY HAVE GODDAMN Kingdom Hearts III (DAMN YOU NOMURAAAAAA)
Overall this game is definitely my second favourite Kingdom Hearts game however it doesn't even hold a candle to Kingdom Hearts II