Kingdom Hearts 3D Dream Drop Distance Signature Series Guide (Bradygames Signature Guides) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Let me tell you one thing: My only reason I bought this guide in the first place was for the maps so I can locate hard-to-find chests. So, my expectations were pretty low at the start. Despite my negative thoughts, I did find this guide to be extremely helpful in navigating the intricate environment of the Kingdom Hearts' 7 worlds. However, there were a couple of flaws that can be off putting.

First, the quality of the book left much to be desired. The pages are flimsy. On par with magazine pages. They have this tendency to get those "wrinkles." Second, the setup was plain wrong. You know what they did? They actually placed the Bestiary before the walkthrough! Normally, it is usually placed in the back of the book where you can go to it as a reference, when needed. Not crucial knowledge to the game. So, who made this wise decision is beyond my comprehension. If you don't want any spoilers of future bosses, I suggest skipping to page 76.

Other than that, this guide will give you decent advice. At the start, it goes into the basics of the game: controls, main characters, etc. Next, you will learn about the spirits and how to take care of them. It gives a table of all available Friendly Spirits that you can create. (What would've been useful if they actual put information of the recipe location of where to get each one.) Then the Dream Eater Enemy Bestiary. Followed by the Boss Bestiary. And finally, you will reach the walkthrough. Each world is preface with the character information of the characters you will meet. They do sometime add some spoilers to these blurbs, so read them at your own risk. Next, the best part, is the maps of the towns. They only show where the Boss battle will be and where all the treasures chest are located. Then you get to the walkthrough. There are no real spoilers here. It gives the usual tips and hints if you need it. Most of the time, I skip it unless I'm stuck. But that's rare if you are exploring everything in the first place. And each chapter ends with the strategy on the final boss battle. Sora's walkthrough is shown first. Riku's comes directly after. It can be a pain flipping pages back and forth when you drop. But what can you do? The final chapters give a quick blurb about the command deck, items, and a laughable art gallery.

Considering the price, I would've paid more for quality, more extensive details for the best team line-ups and more extras. As is, I would recommend this only for the wonderful maps. If you are a Kingdom hearts fan, in any case, the game is pretty straightforward. There are no hidden quests to miss. So, technically, you don't really need it. But if you want this guide, get it for a cheap price. But I believe a good online guide would be the best way to go.

When I bought the BradyGames guide to Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, I was expecting this to be just as descriptive, organized, and well-put-together. Mistake.This guide doesn't help at all with secrets of the game. I have favorites in my Internet sidebar to help me with secrets to this game, but I kept telling myself, "the guide will be here in a couple days, and it'll help me with everything." Mistake. I had this thing for a grand total of 30 seconds before I realized it was useless. Let me tell you my process of realizing this.

I open the package to see that the book is alot smaller than the one for 358/2 Days. I open the guide to see a table of contents page. I think, "Oh, well isn't that organized." I turn the page to see a list of characters, nothing different here. Moving on, a page telling me the objective of the game, controls, screen layout, etc. Next Section, Spirits (Dream Eaters). I see Problem #1. The book only tells you what items you need to synthesize your companions, and not how many of that item you need to make them or what rank they will be if you use those items.

Moving on, the next section is Dream Eater Enemy Bestiary. Problem #2: The guide doesn't tell you what items they drop if you are looking for a certain item to synthesize Dream Eaters. The book only tells you where to find them. But it's useless to know where they are if you don't know the items they drop. It tells you other things like HP, Magic, Defense, and other things a person that just wants to keep pressing the Attack button wouldn't care about. Next the Boss Bestiary is the same stuff, but I wouldn't trust it because it's telling me that the secret, most powerful boss in the game (Julius) is less powerful than Rinzler when you fight him in the secret portal.

Finally, we get to the story. Normal stuff on the first page of the walkthrough: Tutorials, Strategy, names of events. Next page, we see the portal map. Mistake #3: More of a personal feeling, but I didn't like the way it was set up on this page. It seems like it was all crammed in together to fit into this one page, and I didn't understand most of it. Next, I see a page listing local characters for that world. No opinion on this, so I move on.

Next, I see Maps for Sora. Problems #4: This page is the one that tells you where to get all your treasures. The problem with that is that it doesn't tell you what treasure it is. The best way to explain this is with scenario. Imagine that you've finished the game and want to find a specific treasure to help complete the Reports. As if the map wasn't confusing enough, you would have to check every treasure chest and make sure you didn't miss it. I stopped looking for problems after this, but I shall go on so that no one makes the same mistake as me.

The rest of the walkthrough is stuff you would find in a regular strategy guide. The next section is stuff listed in the command deck, such as Attack commands, magic commands, etc. Nothing wrong with this, so I move on. Next Section: Dream Peices. I think, "Oh, so I find out what Dream Eaters to get them from here!" PROBLEM #5!!! This section only tells you what the items are and how much you can get them for if they are sold in the shop.

Lastly, Abilities. This section would be great if it told me what Dream Eaters I could get the Abilities from. But of course, we encounter Problem #6: The abilities are listed but not which Dream Eaters to get them from. It would be great if the book would tell you what dream eaters you got them from, or which set of dream eaters if most premium for each fighting style, but unfortunately it doesn't.

I would like to conclude with the fact that the only part of this book without flaws of my perspective is the Art Gallery at the end, which has a total of six pictures. I'll tell you this, the game itself doesn't tell you many of the secrets within the game, but it'll tell you more than this guide ever will. My advice is that if you have questions about the game, I strongly suggest you look for the secrets yourself, or find them on the internet, because this guide won't give you the slightest hint.

I'm a collector of Video game strategy guides - I don't often use them, but this time I decided to use this guide to find some of the treasures and help me fully understand the Ability Link board. The treasure map sections were great, but the section on Dream Eaters was utterly LACKING - they tell you nothing about what the different depositions do, how to achieve these depositions, and how to fully finish each Dream Eaters Ability Link board! Some Dream Eaters have secret routes that can only be opened by making them a certain deposition - a very important piece of information I feel should have been included in the guide - not something I should have to search online for!. As a collector of Strategy Guides, it's nice to have another Kingdom Hearts one on the shelf (Now I need KH:1, KH: Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days, Birth By Sleep, and Coded [Or re:coded - whichever they made one for if they did, lol] - yes, I know, I'm missing a LOT in the KH Department - I do have the limited edition copy of KH:II Tho!

Good guide if you need it to find some treasures that are hard to locate, and if you want a step-by-step guide for each world, but the game is pretty straight forward, and I only had to use it a couple times to find some treasures - the rest I found on my own. Purchase if you want to add it to your collection, if you're OCD like me, but this is one guide I would pass on personally if you want it JUST for information. I give it a 3/5 just because most Brady games square-enix guides go up in value over time, so it's a good one to have for a collector. For information purposes - 2.5/5.