 |
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, is the newest game in the Kingdom Hearts series, and is a prequel to the first game. It was released on the today from a few weeks ago, and is playable only on the PSP. Just like most of the other titles in the series it is an action role-playing game, that takes characters from the Final Fantasy, and Disney universes, and blends them in with an original cast of half-breeds.
The story takes place a long time ago, when there were many keyblade masters. Honestly, the story reminds me a lot of the Star Wars prequels… A lot. Although, unlike the prequels, I wouldn’t say that it’s to this series detriment. What’s really cool about this particular games story is that it is viewable from the perspectives of three different main characters, Ventus, Aqua, and Terra.
I don’t know where I sit on this series completely, I’ve always been torn between having fun because the games are generally well made, and being annoyed because they have really childish areas in the game. For example, Pirates of the Caribbean land, and the Hundred Acre Woods. Although, there are usually as many really good choices for world’s as there are bad. For example, Tron, and Nightmare Before Christmas. Birth by Sleep’s main advantage in this field is that the world’s are really short, so you aren’t caught up in Cinderella land for an obnoxious length of time.
I was a little worried about the gameplay in Birth by Sleep, as it’s on a portable system, and it is a fast paced game, but I was quickly surprised to find that it runs as well as the other versions, and way better than the other portable versions. So to sum up, I was really impressed with how good this game felt. They have an entirely new skill system, that includes a slew of what they call “finishing combos”, that are pretty innovative. They removed MP from the formula, which gives the game a whole new spin. All and all the changes are vast, but it manages to feel similar enough that it fits in to the series wonderfully.
This is probably the best PSP game I’ve played… visually speaking at least. The cinematics were not only done really well, but they had some really good content. All around I would compare the graphics to the PS2 versions of Kingdom Hearts, and I’d say that some of the enemy designs are better than ever. They introduce a new enemy species in the vein of the heartless, called the unversed, that have a really good design, and I thought it was a good addition that two of the main characters actually looked like adults… or at least tall teenagers.
The only complaints I really have, are that there are a lot of load times, and there might be a little too much story. Meaning that I feel intimidated to take it on the road sometimes, but that is how I feel about almost all of the PSP games… I wish that I could just play PSP games on a console… Whoa-is-me.
This is a really impressive game, and totally worth the investment if you like the Kingdom Heart series. For some reason my score graph isn’t working on this post, so I will just sum it all up by saying, I give this game an 8 out of 10.
