Well I can't say I didn't enjoyed the entire game I can say some things for sure.
Well I can now confirm any Kingdom Hearts game to be release on any Nintendo product will suck: Chain of Memories... 358/2 Days (oh god I hated that one), Re:coded (originally it was for the phones but it still sucks), and now this. Birth by Sleep was a great title and a great addition to the series and was looking forward to this one but I was utterly disappointed. I can say however some things in the game were actually decent or great which kept me going.
The Story:
You start off as Sora and Riku after the events of Kingdom Hearts II, going to Yen Sid to talk about the Mark of the Mastery for keyblade wielders so they can have the power of a master keyblader. They go inside a dream world in order to wake up the 7 worlds to gain the power. Now this I cannot stress enough now confusing this was for me and I understand every single story in the entire series but this one was just scrambled, also the other worlds were pretty slow too. I understand the ending (sorta) but holy crap I couldn't keep up what was going on the entire time entering the world that never was as sora or riku. Talk about confusing even in the end it doesn't clear up what the hell just happened. After sora defeats Xemnas (yes he is still alive...) inside the dream world (which happens to be soras dream the entire time...) sora went to far into the dream and falls into darkness, in short terms sora gave into the darkness. After that riku reawakens to find sora in an attempt to go inside soras dream, by fight 5 god forsaken battles in a row which included a nightmare thing (which never establish who or what it was and why should we care) Ansem twice (yea he is also alive...) xehanort from the past (yea time traveling in dreams...) and ventus nightmare and my god it was hell. I can't say I enjoyed the story more confused and disappointed really and looking at the secret ending, I'm pretty sure there is going to be another spin-off with kairi instead (maybe with lea) trying to master the keyblade...
The Gameplay (w/ game mechanics):
I can say it's kingdom hearts and the gameplay is always fun, until dream eaters showed up. I thought the unversed were terrible but the dream eaters not only took the cake, but the damn factory. Dream Eaters are the enemies in this game, and they are annoying as hell, when attacking, they don't hold back which is a challenge and I respect that but they will spam the crap out of knockout, magic, hit n runs (they love to do that a lot), and whatever specialties they have. It takes forever for you to recover from an attack here for some reason even with recovery, so I cannot stress the fact you will die a lot. Checkpoints are another problem in this game, like the other kingdom hearts game going to the next "screen" or area is a checkpoint but the problem is the areas in this game are long and huge. That isn't a bad thing there is loads to explore but nothing to examine, it's fun to explore huge worlds but with nothing to show for it is a waste of time, what is worse enemies are everywhere and as I said before checkpoints, die anywhere start the whole area again. What is even worse not only dream eaters are your enemies, they are your allies. Your partners in this game are the dream eaters you kill, you create the dream eaters with the materials you find (synthesis) and not only that they have abilities to give you, like how birth by sleeps ability system was with getting abilities from leveling up skills you get them by leveling up your dream eaters which was a lot better really, but your dream eaters are most of the time useless. Also the dream eaters won't help out much or gain much exp if you don't take care of them. You have to pet them or poke them to get their affection up with you but petting them or poking them at certain parts of them can give them a hidden ability. Another problem is flowmotions, trying to dodge attacks? dodge into a wall, poll, enemies will lock you into a flowmotion which renders you vulnerable to any attack and won't be able to heal during it, got killed a lot due to this. Reality Shifts are used in all the worlds but each world has a special shift use for that world, it's pretty neat but not useful only at certain times. The one thing that I actually liked was the secret boss Julius scared the living crap out of me and I actually enjoyed the one boss out of the entire game, great job on that really.
The Sound (sound effects, voice acting, etc.)
The Music is so grand I love it in this game, the settings for each of the worlds are beautifully done. Traverse Town still the same but great, La Cité des Cloches love that one (one of my favs) Symphony of Sorcery (I teared up a bit). The voice acting is great, not the best but great indeed. The sound effects are great it really was like how any kingdom hearts game should be, and the magic sounds alike really fire, fira, firaga so on but still sounds great.
The Graphics (w/ concept):
Graphically it looks good for a 3DS game, not the best but really great like how any kingdom hearts game should look (using that one a lot) but it really looks good. Character Models look great, but I still don't know why the hell are they kids in this game, I wanted to play as older sora and riku... also the environment looks amazing, one of my favorite worlds is La Cité des Cloches I love this world so much, the characters, the landmarks, the music all of it. The magic looks great and the dream eaters look pretty odd but their attacks are good looking. The 3D in this game is pretty solid, I like it eye popping in and out and works really well on this game. Reality Shifts are fun actually one of my favorites is in the Country of the Musketeers, always use that when ever I got the chance. One thing I hated the most was the dream functionality this game had, the worlds being a dream is all just soras dream and xehanort traveling through or even xehanort being the main antagonist in the whole series, (plus trying to make clones out of himself using the organization XIII was dumb).
The Controls (w/ presentation):
Now here is another problem I had with this game every time I try to attack or use a command or hell even jump, it won't unless your done with an attack, hold down the button or just plain luck to pull off in the nick of time. You wouldn't believe how many times I got killed when trying to heal and wouldn't let me. I even tried to master it but still get problems with the button response and it is pretty bad for this game considering there is a lot of action going on and the recover time is terrible. I was using the circle pad pro with this game considering I had it with Resident Evil Revelations I decided to use it. I is useful when aiming and switching targets, triggering reality shifts (still got to use the touch screen in order to use it), and moving the camera, other than that it is pretty much useless and can still be playable without it, but fells more like kingdom hearts with it. The boxart looks good, one of the reasons why I was looking forward to it actually, inside looks colorful, and the instruction booklet is colored! (believe it or not that is very important).
I really really love kingdom hearts I do, and there is always a bad egg in any series, but this series has plenty and this one might the the most rotten on of them all. It's not all that bad but still not one that is worth it either. But hey this is my opinion maybe you will love it more than I do.
Overall:
Story: 3.5
Gameplay: 2.0
Sound: 8.5
Graphics: 9.0
Controls: 2.0
Overall: 5.0