Square-Enix held the Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance launch event at the Nintendo store in New York City on Saturday to celebrate the release of the game to the Nintendo 3DS on July 31, 2012. Approximately 2,000 fans showed up for a chance to purchase the game, receive special gifts only available at the event (t-shirts, posters, card packs) and get their picture taken with the official Keyblade. The fans Toonzone spoke with at the event were very excited to have the chance to get their hands on the game and looking forward to playing it.
While there, we took the opportunity to get some hands-on time with the game. Two tutorial segments were played. One involving Sora and the other Riku. The game looks really good on the 3DS. Whatever they did is making good use of the system’s graphics capabilities. The two main characters were entirely on model. The animation was smooth. The controls were fairly intuitive and the buttons were responsive. The battles moved pretty quickly once you got a hang of the more advanced moves you learned from the tutorials.
In Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance, King Mickey and Yen Sid must prepare for an impending threat by subjecting Sora and Riku to the Mark of Mastery exam. Sora and Riku are sent into the Sleeping Worlds, where they’ll face enemies and allies they have never been seen before. If they successfully complete their task, they will be acknowledged as true Keyblade Masters. The Dream Eaters inhabit the Sleeping Worlds and are split into two categories: Spirits and Nightmares. Sora and Riku are able to recruit the spirits as allies that fight by their side.
We’ve included a small gallery of pictures from the event and the game. Visit the official website for more information. For more photos of the event from Square-Enix’s official gallery, view the Flickr slideshow below or visit their Flickr or Facebook. Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance is available in stores as of July 31, 2012 on the Nintendo 3DS.
