Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance Analysis | The One with Time Travel

Time to break all the rules

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00:00:00 - Introduction
00:02:30 - Flowmotion
00:19:23 - Drop System
00:29:55 - Dream Eaters
00:34:29 - Bosses
00:44:46 - Story
00:59:33 - Outro
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Footage Sources:

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Music (In Order):

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If you read this, comment below your favorite dream eater, mine’s Ryu Dragon

[KirbySonicTeam]

I love your recent output man but I’ll always have a special place in my heart for these KH videos. Thanks for always bringing your perspective. Can’t wait for KH3

[Xpwnxage]

It's been long enough since I watched your KH catalogue that I've fallen out of my cycle of watching KH content. But I will come back for this.

[josiahkeen]

Digging the ror2 music. Chris Christodoulou would be proud.

[barsabe]

Organization members growing their hearts was pretty much hidden from them except for a few key members. Thus they were made to chase Kingdom Hearts, which is just what Xehanort has been chasing for forever. I think it's an okay retcon and was clearly in plans ever since days, considering how many dialogue hints there were that they had hearts.

[niklasw.]

Man, they should have just made the entire game about Flow Motion.
Forget dream eaters, command decks and all that silliness, just give me that satisfying movement in a better game.

[bubbasbigblast]

@3:40 I'm not 100% sure if it's universal, but the Flowmotion thing is usually called a "centralizing mechanic, " usually by players in more competitive games; basically, it means that everything comes to revolve around one system, to the point where breaking with it makes the game substantially harder.

Take things like the Armoured Core stagger system, and the Dynamax system in Pokeman for example: technically, you don't need to use either of these systems, but you will repeatedly be punished in some aspect of the game if you don't.

[Nekomania]

Aw heck yeah was wondering when you would DROP another video!!

[ActionFilmsFan]

Oh my God yes! So hyped for this video! Love your KH stuff!

[tomdvrn]

The first video I watched of yours was a KH video after seeing you on one of Pat streams. I was of the age where I had both 356 days and this on the original DS and then 3DS. seeing the Dream eaters again brought backs forgotten memories of this game. I had entirely forgotten about this game which is notable considering I remembered 356 days despite being much younger playing it.

[SinderSoyl]

Great video, I'll have to rewatch all the other reviews. This is coming at a great time too since I've been replaying all the games and I'm about to replay KH3, which I haven't touched since the release.

As for examples of games with "Loud mechanics" I suggest Callisto Protocol. Especially if we consider it to be the spiritual successor to Dead Space it wants to be. The melee mechanic as well as the telekinesis both have huge impacts on the game as a whole, mostly for the worst. Having the ability to use telekinesis on monsters while they're alive meant that the level design had to be adapted to it in unnatural and distracting ways.
The melee mechanic added into the game also changes drastically how fights would generally go in Dead Space, trivializing single enemy encounters by essentially making you unkillable as long as you knew to push the stick left to right and vice versa with no real strict timing required. It's not as drastic as DDD, but you can see and feel how much this forces other aspects of the game to adapt to melee, or to fail at adapting.

[Warhammer_lover]

Damn, great vid, can't wait for KH3 video, and I haven't even played those games!

[TheMunkis]

I'll try my best to answer the design question about the drop system, having no idea where you're going with this.

If there's a theme of the characters being together even when apart and the storylines both affect each other and are gated by each other, then I'd probably design the forced swapping to feel like a passing of the baton. Perhaps there could be some narrative justification for the characters tapping out to rest while the other character jumps in and progresses. If that's not how the story is set up, then perhaps it could still be used as a thematic reason for a second wind with the characters remembering what they are fighting for and continuing with renewed strength.

Of course it would also serve the purpose of forcing the player to play both stories in parallel so they feel more connected to each other than if the player simply beat one story and then moved on to the next. I could probably think of more ways to integrate the mechanic into the game to make it feel necessary to include if I knew the design goals of the game, but at that point my comment would start looking like a design document.

[BabyArms]

I've really been looking forward to this. Actually checked I think yesterday or the day before to see if you'd uploaded again. What a coincidence. Unfortunately can't watch it at the moment, but I'll get on top of that as soon as I can. Here's a comment anyway.

By the way, you may have noticed that my tribute video that was supposed to come out in April didn't come out. Life's been nuts. Had a kid recently. Stuff was busy before that, but now I essentially have negative free time. So I'm probably looking at the very end of this year if I'm lucky or, more likely, April of next year. For one video. Them's the breaks. Just figured I'd share an update since you had expressed interest.

Anyway. Looking forward to hearing you talk about this game. Thanks for trucking along.

[soulkibble]

This was the one that finally broke me. The moment they started explaining time travel I was so deflated and just lost all motivation to play any future games

Adding to this, the whole developer claim of the older games being bad because they are "restrictive" is such an asinine out of touch argument that clearly shows these people clearly never knew why their series was popular in the first place or why people enjoyed them. Freedom does not always equal better in games.

[ReginoGuendolinoXIII]

Aayy! I was just thinking about rewatching these!

[NieOrginalny]

We're so back. Or maybe from another perspective, it's so over.

Anyway, my pre watch comment is gonna be longer this time, because since you've started the series, I actually picked up the games myself, and this is the first one I've completed before your video came out. And honestly, this might just be my least favorite one. I dislike RE:CoM gameplay conceptually, but given how solved it is, it was never *that* frustrating, plus the story was excellent. Days has easily the worst feeling melee combat, but using lots of magic and like the one decent keyblade you have access to, it's good enough to experience the story. For Re:Coded I hated almost all the gimmicks and the repetitive code zones, but I did still appreciate its actual action gameplay and levelling. For BBS, all the issues you've noted in your video ring true, but it's still fun casually, and I enjoyed the new cast.

With 3D though, I kinda struggle to really pinpoint the one thing that really brings it down for me. For one, I'm not fond of dream eaters and their progression, though this is also a bit of a personal beef, I had an issue where if I remained in the spirit menu for too long, my whole PC would freeze, and need rebooting. It made me dread interacting with them. Flowmotion is a big one too, it's a powerful system that's fun to play around with for a while, but it turns out to be *too* powerful - wall kick, super glide and the super armored attacks are basically the Skyrim stealth archer or Impact of this game. Reality shifts were a bit of a mixed bag, some were good and fast paced, others brought everything to a screeching halt. The grid just sucks in general. The drop system - while I appreciate merging the campaigns compared to BBS - the gauge is just a stupid, and I really wanted to punch people on Twitter who were complaining about the mod to remove it. No, I don't care it's easy to trivialize it, having to either waste one of my cool command slots or take time to swap it in is not fun or interesting. The story... well, that's the most complicated part. Literally. While I don't subscribe to most of the complaints about KH story being convoluted, 3D sure tries to challenge that notion, and even this wordwall of a comment isn't enough for me to really touch on it, other than how Nobodies are recompleted when they're killed. I know that's technically revealed in ReCoded secret ending, but it takes effect here, so I'm blaming DDD. Cheapening all the deaths before aside, the fact that Yen Sid apparently knew this all along is just baffling, and it really makes me hate his character. But also, if you've resorted to using time travel to bring back old villains, why not jusy also do this with the main X. What was once this tragic shell-like state has turned into an immortality cheat code.

It's not all terrible though. The music is still on point. The reveal that Nobodies can effectively regrow their hearts with new bonds and experiences, to me lines up perfectly with what we've seen of them in previous games. And as much as most of the reveals didn't really land for me in the final world, I couldn't help but feel hyped going through it, the gauntlet of bosses being a breath of fresh, uh, oppressive air? Compared to blandness I've felt from most of the previous worlds. And apparently, these are all the things other people hate about this game. Maybe I'm just weird.

I'm curious to see your analysis of it all. I'm open to having my opinion changed, but I can't say I wouldn't enjoy being reaffirmed.

[OzomaLp]

Ok I have to address a few things considering the story here. I will not argue with the gameplay. DDD has the second worst gameplay in the series in my opinion and yes this includes the mobile games.

First of Tron Legacy. Yeah I didn't watch the movie too before I played the game the first time and after watching it I actually see that the world indeed explains basically everything important.
You get told that the ISO are an complete new lifeform based of Data something Sams Dad didn't create. Meaning this is a being completely born out of nowhere in Data and Sam's Dad did try to protect them in hiding from Clu. Sam did convince his father to actually move and that is the reason he says he has already done enough because Clu gets the ability to leave with the disk from him. Clu also killed all ISO except for Quorra and since it is an entire new life form it is perfection right in front of Clu which Clu doesn't sees because every Human being makes mistakes and mistakes are not allowed in a program that tries to achieve perfection. The only thing which is not good explained in the world is who actually sam and his father is. The father (sorry I did actually forgot the name) is the one who originally created Tron and joined Tron to defeat the MCP. Later he build his own Dataworld and was going inside and created Clu who should achieve the perfect system in his own image. But Clu thought humans are imperfect and should be eradicated as well as ISO so to trap him inside the Data he closed the portal and was stuck inside. Sam later tried to find his father and got inside too.

For the main plot I have to say that time travel was not randomly added too late inside the game without inside how it works. Through interviews it is clear that time travel was fully worked out already in KH2. And yes it was already present in KH2 because Timeless River still exists even if this specific time travel is still a mystery for the series. The time travel rules are also very good worked out and hard defined. I will not go over every detail because the comment is already long enough but just to address the three "whatever that means" you mentioned here what it means:

Leaving your Body behind: Heart and Body are different things in Kingdom Hearts. Hearts alone can also look like bodies. The Sora and Riku on Destiny Islands at the beginning of DDD are just Hearts. The Sora in Chain of Memories should technically be just a Heart. (even if this is something people still argue about) Riku in the Realm of Darkness is just a Heart....his body is still running around with Ansem inside in KH1. He get's his body first back after Ansem is defeated. So what this means is you seperate Heart from Body because only the Heart can time travel.

There must be a version of you at your Destination: Something that is later further explained is that you need a waypoint for time travel. This is basically every instance in time where a "you" exist. So from your birth until your present day basically. Or for Maleficent in UX a Data Version long in the past because a certain person created it with knowlegde from the future. That is also the reason why young Xehanort needed brown robe to meet him to time travel into the future. Him meeting himself from the future established knowlegde for him that a version of himself existed in the future and made time travel to this point possible.

You can not rewrite the events that are destined to happen: Basically it is impossible to change the past. You can travel back in time but you cannot change anything which relates to change anything which you know will happen. The world itself will prevent it. Sora can time travel back to Destiny Island and take with Riku the raft because the actual real Sora and Riku at that time never used the raft...instead they did something on another point of the island. They don't know what happened to the raft too so taking the raft is absolutely possible. If they for example would have found the raft in KH2 then it would not be possible since it would establish the raft never disappeared. It is basically a timeloop explaination. This also means that brownrobe meeting young Xehanort always happened and is not a change of the past.

And then the stuff with Nobodies growing Hearts...this is neither a retcon nor contradicts it story from earlier games. All the games from KH1 too Re:Coded did establish this if you looked at every hint into this and just did not fall for the lie which Xemnas spread and Yen Sid just repeated. But if you don't believe me here examples for exact this:
KH1 Pinocchio a puppet has canonically a Heart in Kingdom Hearts.
CoM Axel is obviously enjoying stuff in CO and he even mentions it. Zexion is clearly hardly anxious of Riku, Naminé cries and has obvious feelings. Also Riku Replika gets his memory wiped and we learn that memories are stored in the Heart. A Replika created in the same game through a puppet with Data.
KH2 Not just did Demyx mention that they have Hearts....all the way the Nobodies act and talk are clearly contradictions. They are even in the scheme of Xemnas like Xigbar or maybe even Saix. Or do act like they have no Heart which is Xemnas. Everyone else acts in the proper way. Axel betrays the Organization because he wanted to see Roxas. He even says to Sora that he makes him feel. Roxas literally fights with Sora inside his Heart and has a whole Dive to the Heart in his Prologue.
Days is basically the best contradiction so far. You see literally how much Roxas and Xion evolve and everytime they suffer or feel joy. But everytime they feel something it is explained with the same lie: "Maybe you remember how this feels" even if we learn inside this game that either Roxas and Xion have no memories of their past.
BBS: May have not a big plotpoint in this matter but we see here the first time that the Stations of Awakening are the Hearts of the people.
Re:Coded: There is litereally the plotpoint that Data Sora gets a real Keyblade because he grew a Heart and became more then a system. Since you also include Nomura interviews you should know that he already confirmed in Days that you need a Heart to have a real Keyblade. He obviously talked vague to not completely spoil this DDD plotpoint.
DDD: Well if it is not enough the Grid Story has the ISO which fit perfectly in the Datapeople getting Hearts. Also the way Rinzler seem to be able to go over his program. Which is again a direct connection to the Hearts can grow storyline which was made up to this point.

Saying it is just an retcon out of nowhere which contradicts established plotpoints is not true at all and I hope this list made this clear to you. The game is not the best in terms of explaining stuff...yes but it has every information you need for this. And the information were always there. Not seeing them is just falling for a lie of a charakter which was made after already showing the opposit clearly.

Good after addressing this I hope you are not one of the guys who just gets angry over the established lore and deny it just because you don't like the game. From all not mobile games I like this game the least. So I really don't try to defend it in any way here.

[phattsthedood]

I literally just rewatched everything up to BBS on a long road trip, let’s goooo!!

[MrSasyB]

I agree about flow motion but some of your points about the drop system I would argue that they actually serve the story. I was annoyed by the system but the game was really enjoyable

[LizardKingRequiem]

I still love this game, even though it basically was the shark jump. I have more critical thoughts about kh3 as an entry than 3d cause yes 3d brought in dreams and time travel, but 3 had yearsss to follow it up and yet nomura just had to bring even more metaphysical layers and break his own time travel rules.

Edit: oh my GOD your voice dropped like two octaves from CoM to 3D 😱😱