Kingdom Hearts 3D, AR Cards, and You!

So if you picked up Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance you have at one point noticed some AR cards that should have come with the game. Three were "preorder" bonuses (the AR Stand, R&R Seal, and Trio card), though I haven't seen any stock that didn't come with them, and the Mark of Mastery edition comes with the those plus additional two (Kab Kannon and Frootz Cat). What the heck do they do? Well I can tell you right now, they don't kinetically charge and explode once you throw them at your annoying siblings. Darn.



Most of them (4) unlock "Spirit" Dream Eaters within the game. The last card is a "stand" that will help corral your wandering Spirits so you can photograph/paint them. In actuality any AR card will work this way, but whatever, it's a pretty card so I won't complain. One of them works a little differently than the others though. The "Trio" card as it is being called unlocks a "random" one of three Dream Eaters in the game that is otherwise terribly difficult to get. From what I've experienced though it may be somewhat less random than it seems. So along with some pretty pictures this is all I've found so far:



It seems like each region has a different picture for these cards, including the Trio card. For instance the NA version of this card has Ursa Circus in the foreground, the EU region has Sudo Neku in the foreground, and the Japanese card has Meowjesty in the foreground. The ribbon below the image is also a different color in each region. This doesn't seem to affect the "randomity" of the Dream Eater you unlock though, as I tried scanning EU and JP Trio cards and it wouldn't even register. I tried resetting and rescanning my own Trio card and got Ursa Circus each time... even after six tries. After starting a new game on another save file I found myself yet again staring into the googly eyes of, you guessed it... Ursa Circus. I even tried the "soft reset" (L+R+Start+Select) trick recommended by Destructoid only to come up with Ursa yet again each time, even after another six tries. A friend helped me with this test and started a new game and scanning his Trio card got him a Ursa Circus whereas his first game got him a Sudo Neku. I deleted my second game and started a new one, and this time unlocked Meowjesty, but resetting I got Meowjesty each re-scan after that. It is clear to me at this point that the random factor occurs not when the card is scanned, but when the new game is started, so essentially the soft reset will do nothing. If you want to get a particular Spirit with this I suggest you start a new game until you get the one you want.

Another interesting thing about these cards is they will also work when scanned on computer or phone screens. You can also print them and scan them as long as you are printing them in color. Most other QR codes and even the Kid Icarus: Uprising AR cards will work from phone or computer screens as well but it is handy to know you don’t always have to keep the cards on you.

There is also the fact it seems these five cards will be it; unlike Kid Icarus: Uprising, where 400+ cards are planned and distributed on a semi-regular basis (depending on region, of course) and have a collectible value to them. Not to say this can't change in the future, due to the 3DS's capability to be patch games via Nintendo Network, but it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense unless future AR cards for Kingdom Hearts 3D had nothing to do with Dream Eaters. There are plenty of ideas I have for different approaches though, such as adding different backgrounds, items, or perhaps color patterns to existing Spirits. Despite how insanely cool this sounds I doubt Square Enix plans to support any game via AR cards, and not straight DLC.

So there you have it, all the accumulated knowledge for Kingdom Hearts AR cards straight from the WildCardCorsair himself. If you have any questions about these cards that I didn't seem to cover let me know and I will experiment until I find out!