Instead of fighting with Donald and Goofy, Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] gives you two friendly Dream Eaters called Spirits as partners. Sora starts of with Wonder Nyan, a chubby cat-like critter that specializes in casting Cure spells. Riku’s first Dream Eater is Bat Bat, which learns spells like Confuse and Zero Gravity.

How do you get new Dream Eaters?

Since Sora and Riku didn’t dream about Pokeballs you can’t catch wild Dream Eaters. Players have to breed new Dream Eaters by using two types of Dream Pieces, which are dropped by Nightmares. Throughout the game, you’ll find recipes that tell you how to create specific Dream Eaters. I think the first one I found was for Goat Horn, but I have not made that Dream Eater yet.

Most of the Dream Eaters I made were through trial and error. You can select different Dream Pieces and Kingdom Hearts 3D will show you if these create a Dream Eater. Once you decide you’re going to create Needle Lion, for example, you can increase the number of Dream Pieces to increase the nascent Dream Eater’s level and rank. You can also add in a single item for another stat boost. Potions give a 5 HP bonus and Spark, a magic spell, ups magic power by one and holy resistance by ten. If you infuse a Dream Eater with a command you’ll lose it, so you might want to save those –ga tier attacks.

You can also unlock Dream Eaters by using AR cards. First print copies of Kingdom Hearts 3D from Japan include a card that unlocks Kingda Nyan.

Cool, now I have a Frog Chef. What else can it do other than smack monsters with a frying pan?

Just beating up Nightmares rewards your friendly Dream Eaters with link points. You can use these to unlock new commands on what is essentially a Kingdom Hearts 3D sphere grid. The Ability Link board doesn’t have as many paths, though. Roles for Dream Eaters are fixed so while Wonder Nyan can learn attacks like Spark he’s primarily a healer with Curaga as his top tier spell. New abilities range from 50 points for a low tier spell all the way to 300. Some abilities are blocked with level locks so even if Wonder Nyan has 100 link points you can’t access Cura until he’s level 10.

Is there any way to earn Link Points faster?

Yeah, there is. Pull up the Spirit menu and pet your Dream Eater by rubbing the touch screen. This rewards players with link points and also experience, but the bonus you get is random. Playing with Dream Eaters also changes their characteristics. Bat Bat changed from a support type to a Nightmare debilitating Jammer.

So… this is a pet simulation?

I’d say Kingdom Hearts 3D is pet sim lite. There are a few items you can find to feed Dream Eaters. Candy increases attack. Magic Ice Cream boosts magic attack. Resist Chocolate ups magic defense and Guard Cookie improves defense. Special Cake appears to be the prime food for Dream Eaters. After you toss a snack you have to wait for you Dream Eater to walk towards it. It’s first come first serve so if you want to power up Kuma Panda, but not Neko Cat take him out of your party.

Another item you get is a Paint Gun. You can use this to change the color of your Dream Eaters, but since paintballs are limited.

I heard there are augmented reality mini games too.

Kingdom Hearts 3D has a few AR mini games. You need consumable items to play mini-games as well, but you can boost stats really quickly by playing Balloon. This makes your Dream Eaters hit balloons towards the screen and you have to tap on balloon silhouettes using the touch screen. Each round is about a minute, which makes Balloon like the kind of game you want to play when you’re waiting in line.

Treasure Goggles (pictured) makes your Dream Eaters search for items. Press A and you can scan for objects. If you find something tap the touch screen to make the Dream Eaters move towards it. Their pathfinding isn’t great so you may have to do this a couple of times. Then they’ll dig up the area and reveal things like potions or Dream Pieces.

This sounds like a lot of work…

I think it can be tedious if you want really strong Dream Eaters right away. I tend to do most of the fighting so I didn’t put that much effort into petting them. Most of my link points were earned through defeating Nightmares and playing Balloon. One good thing is Sora and Riku share Dream Eaters so you only need to make one Wonder Nyan who can act as a healer for both characters.