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I highly doubt anyone checks this journal anymore, but just in case, I'm going to post my long overdue reaction to Kingdom Hearts 3D. I've beaten it on two difficulties now, and will soon move on to the other two and Critical Lv. 1. Oh yes. I'm still doing that.

Graphics: HOLY MOTHER OF GOD. When I heard this game was going to come out for the 3DS, I was extremely disappointed, due namely to the gulf between the capabilities of the PSP and the original DS. I knew the 3DS would be better, but since Nintendo has never placed priority on graphics in their systems as opposed to their competitors, I had no idea HOW much better they would be. Folks, these are the best graphics thus far in the series. PS2 and PSP titles included. There's only one HD part, unfortunately, for the opening trailer, but my GOD is it a masterpiece. I don't even have to play the game to enjoy it, I could just play the trailer on a loop for eight hours and still be perfectly satisfied. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out on Youtube, even though that still doesn't do it justice.

Gameplay: The Command Deck makes a return, which is fine by me since it's the best battle system in the series by far. Two new notable additions have been made, though. First is the Reality Shift. This is a special move triggered by the player when you're near certain objects in the environment, or when you whack an enemy enough times. The move you perform is different for every world you visit, and some of them are pretty cool and destructive. The second, and the one everyone seems to love, is Flowmotion. Holy balls, is this broken in the best way possible. You no longer need High Jump or Glide to get to where you want to go, as Flowmotion allows you to bounce off walls, grind on rails, and launch yourself through the air at high speeds. You can even keep bouncing off the same wall over and over again by reversing your direction when you launch off, effectively climbing the wall. Not only that, but you can execute various attacks during Flowmotion and even use enemies that are big enough to whirl around and launch off of. I freakin' love Flowmotion, and I never get tired of using it. Knowing that Nomura INTENDED for Flowmotion to allow you to travel anywhere you want right at the start of the game also makes me like the system more.

Dream Eaters: In this game, the common enemies you fight are called Nightmares, a hostile race of Dream Eaters that devour good dreams and plant nightmares. They are the Realm of Sleep's version of the Heartless, since the Heartless can't gain access to this realm. However, the twist this time around is that there is a SECOND race of Dream Eaters called Spirits, which attack the Nightmares. All of the common Nightmares have a Dream Eater counterpart, giving the game a sort of "Gotta catch 'em all!" feel, but I don't mind it too much. Raising them can be a bit tedious, though, as it's more like playing Nintendogs than a Kingdom Hearts game, and you really have no choice but to raise them, as they are the only way to gain abilities and most of the best commands in the game.
As far as how it is fighting them, whereas the Unversed favored speed, Nobodies favored power, and Heartless were a mix of the two, Nightmares seem to favor unpredictability above all else. When you see a giant monkey Nightmare shapeshift into a hammer, smash you and capture you in it, then see hands pop out the sides of the hammer and punch you in the head repeatedly, you know you are fighting A FREAKIN' TRIPPY RACE OF BAD GUYS. They're way more colorful than any other race of enemy before them, and many of them are rather cute, which throws off a lot of players that believe only vicious and scary things are worthy of mature players. I, however, like the Dream Eaters a lot. I wish that the Heartless will make a return to the series soon, but these things are a blast to fight both with and against.

**SPOILERS**

Plot: ...WHAT?! PUMPKIN?! P-PUMPKIN WHAT WHAT WHAT?! ...PUMPKIN WHAT?!
Okay, now that that's out of my system, at the end, this game had the WEIRDEST TWIST I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE! And...well...that's not necessarily a good thing. Players just now getting into the series don't stand a chance at understanding this, even with the summaries of past games provided in game.
The premise is that the original X Blade, which was destroyed in the Keyblade War, shattered into 20 pieces, 7 of light, 13 of darkness. ...Since this unbelievably vital piece of information was newly introduced in this game, it's already obvious that Nomura's up to something. As it turns out, Xehanort separated into Ansem and Xemnas for multitasking purposes: Ansem was supposed to gather up the seven Princesses of Heart, which he almost succeeded in doing by use of Maleficent, to be used for the seven pieces of light needed to reforge the Keyblade. Xemnas, meanwhile, had to find humanoid Nobodies and generate an artificial Kingdom Hearts to hook them up to. Why? Because instead of returning their own hearts to them, as promised, Xehanort was going to inject his own heart into them, creating 13 vessels of darkness, you guessed it, also to be used to reforge the X Blade.
But Sora screwed up both plans, so Xehanort's stuck, right?
WRONG. Turns out that Xehanort had a backup plan for his backup plan. (His original plan being to use a heart of pure light and pure darkness to forge the X Blade, as seen in Birth By Sleep.) Put on your seatbelts: copious amounts of time travel follow. In the Kingdom Hearts universe, the only way to travel through time is to leave your body behind to do it, then have a version of yourself waiting at the destination, drastically limiting what all times you can visit. Well, Xehanort gave up his body to become Ansem. Ansem freaking time traveled back to Destiny Islands and gave his teenage self the ability to time travel as well. An interview with Nomura states that since one incarnation of Xehanort gave up his body, all other versions of Xehanort past and future can now time travel without having to do so. (This explains how Xemnas is able to time travel as well. Thank God for internet translations of the Kingdom Hearts Ultimania.) So, Young Xehanort begins timehopping all around to prepare substitute vessels to inject pieces of Xehanort's heart into in the event that Xemnas should fail, similar to what Voldemort does with Horcruxes in the Harry Potter books/movies. However, he could only find enough to total twelve, counting himself, Ansem, Xemnas, and the original Master Xehanort. What to do about that thirteenth vessel?
They originally set their sights on Riku, but he eventually learned to resist the darkness and even seal it in his heart so that it doesn't eat away at him. Then they thought about Roxas. Well, Roxas eventually went berserk and rebelled against the Organization, after killing another possible candidate, Xion. (This is not stated in game, but I view it as perfectly possible given that no one remembers her due to the events of Kingdom Hearts 358/2. She was supposed to absorb all of Sora's memories and hence virtually become him. BEAR THIS IN MIND.) So...who do they turn to now to become the thirteenth vessel? None other than Sora.
The Mark of Mastery exam that Sora and Riku begin at the start of the game is immediately hijacked by the Xehanorts, in particular Ansem and Young Xehanort. This is because in order to enter the Realm of Sleep for the first time, Sora and Riku had to travel back in time to Destiny Islands on the night their world disappeared, and hence sort of ride it out into the Realm of Sleep. Gee, remember who else was on the Island that day? Young Xehanort and Xemnas from a time before he perished used Ansem as an anchor and time jumped to that day as well, following Sora into the Realm of Sleep and eventually forcing him to appear in the Sleeping Realm version of The World that Never Was. He was then lured into the deepest part of the Realm of Sleep, where he exhausted himself after an amazingly epic battle with Xemnas and finally collapsed, where the darkness began to eat away at him. Due to the nature of this realm and where in it he was, Sora didn't have to succumb to darkness in order for it to consume him. And to be fair, the player really does get scared for Sora when he finally goes comatose.
What the Xehanorts hadn't counted on was Riku diving into Sora's heart out of pure instinct at the beginning of the game to protect him, seeing Ansem and sensing that something was wrong. Riku therefore had the power to save Sora's heart from darkness, and in amazing clashes with Ansem and eventually Young Xehanort himself, the boss of the game in this installment, Riku, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Lea (YES, LEA) manage to get Sora the hell out of dodge before the newly revived Master Xehanort can inject a piece of his heart into Sora and make him into the thirteenth vessel. After the rescue, Riku dives into Sora's heart one last time and after a brief final fight with a Nightmare-possessed Sora, frees his heart from darkness.

...Confused? I sure was the first time I played this, and I'm an expert in Kingdom Hearts. This could have been an amazing twist IF it had been built up throughout the series. But instead, it's amazingly clear that this was thought up by Nomura relatively recently. Not only that, but many key details that actually help this to make sense (such as how Xemnas can time travel given he is nothing but a body with no heart, as mentioned above) is given outside the game, in the Kingdom Hearts Ultimania (which isn't published outside of Japan, by the way). Game plots shouldn't need this degree of outside information to make sense.
Looking past the relatively crappy execution of this twist, though, this officially catapults Xehanort to being the best villain I've ever seen in everything. He always has a backup plan no matter what, not letting arrogance blind him to a degree where the heroes can easily foil one scheme and hence, foil him forever. His backup plans have backup plans, for God's sake, and given his complete lack of anger or any negative emotion when this latest plan fails, we can assume he has yet another backup plan in place to provide him with the thirteenth vessel of darkness. As for the seven guardians of light, if Mickey doesn't want the seven princesses murdered and the universe plunged into darkness, he has no choice but to play into Xehanort's hands and assemble 7 Keyblade wielding guardians of light to counter Xehanort's thirteen vessels of darkness. If somebody doesn't think of something soon, the X Blade's return is almost guaranteed.


**END SPOILERS**

All in all, I still love this game despite its flaws, and if you have the money to get it, get it. Just be prepared to be a little patient with the plot. After the initial brain break, it makes sense eventually once you give your mind time to cool off and ponder it. To help, here is a link to the Nomura interview in the KH Ultimania that cleared up a lot of confusion for me. There are tons of spoilers in here, so you have been warned. http://kh13.com/forum/topic/34430-spoilers-kingdom-hearts-3d-ultimania-nomura-interviews-completely-translated/#entry654620

This ain't no spinoff game, people, so if you're a Kingdom Hearts fan, BUY THIS GAME. And you know what? Even if you are new to the series, watch the playthroughs of the games before on Youtube and then pick this game up. It's that good. Hope this might help someone out there decide whether or not to buy this game!