Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
09 Jan 2010
All releases
09 Jan 2010 - PlayStation Portable
07 Sep 2010 - PlayStation Portable
10 Sep 2010 - PlayStation Portable
09 Sep 2010 - PlayStation Portable
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Birth by Sleep is an action roleplaying game that introduces a gameplay aspect called the Command System, which allows players to customize a Command Deck with techniques and abilities that they can perform at will, called Deck Commands. Performing ordinary attacks and Commands fills a gauge displayed above the command deck that, when certain requirements are fulfilled, activates a Command Style that changes the player's basic attack command with the "Surge" command, which racks up powerful combos depending on what Command Style is activated. Filling the gauge with certain requirements a second time causes the character to change into an even higher level Command Style, which replaces the "Surge" command with the more powerful "Storm" command.
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep begins in the Land of Departure, where three Keyblade wielders and close friends—Terra, Aqua, and Ventus (more commonly known as Ven)—train to become Keyblade Masters under Master Eraqus. To achieve this rank, Keyblade Apprentices must take the Mark of Mastery exam once they come of age. Terra and Aqua take this test together and in the first round Master Xehanort sabotages the exam, forcing Ventus to intervene. In the second round Terra and Aqua fight each other, but while Aqua passes the test, Terra is deemed unfit to become a Keyblade Master due to the abundant darkness in his heart. Afterward, a group of mysterious creatures called the Unversed begin to surface in other worlds, and another Keyblade Master, Xehanort, disappears without a trace. Terra is sent to destroy the Unversed and find Master Xehanort, who had earlier encouraged him to embrace the darkness in his heart if he desires the strength to become a Keyblade master. Ven, meanwhile, is goaded into following Terra by Xehanort's mysterious apprentice Vanitas, against Eraqus's wishes. Aqua is dispatched by Eraqus to survey Terra and keep him from falling into darkness, as well as to bring Ventus back to the Land of Departure.
Claudio
1
Taking this out from the start: it’s a very short game, taking about 12 hours to finish with most stuff done, but it is played 3 times, from the beginning to the end. Each time with a different character, with different playstyles and point of views from each character. That was a nice take on how to present a story, and a smart manner of hiding the necessary repetition on a handheld entry.
The story is nice, perhaps the best one in the series, since it is consistent and gives a lot of context from the get go. It even manages to have some nice twists. The worlds, however, are somewhat less charming and interesting, mostly because it focus on older Disney stories, which are now very dated. Fortunately, the unpredictability of how the three takes of the story connects in each world gives a breath of fresh air on those classic stories.
The combat feels like a mix of Chain of Memories and II, with slight worse camera (most likely because it was made for a small screen). It’s incredibly varied, and each run has a very different feel. It does get a bit stale in the end, and it’s not the most fun to navigate, but it feels fresh almost always.
Strangely enough, it’s a good experience most of the time even with many pitfalls, mainly because of the 3 runs: the start is always rough and has to replayed, there are a LOT of minigames and those also have to be played individually. Completing everything is absolutely daunting: getting every treasure and every command is already very difficult and repetitive, but levelling them all and playing every single minigame and arena? Exceedingly undesirable. I thought nothing could top gummi missions, but the extra content of this game gets trophy. It even managed to include a Mario Party/Monopoly minigame which needs to played dozens of times (with each character!) to unlock everything on the main game.
Because of the sheer amount of content, only managed to do enough to unlock the secret episode and get all treasures and active commands. No playing the arena or the minigames, especially not with everyone, and definitely not taking on the secret bosses, which would require a lot of extra levelling and choreographed gimmicky battles. If I had to evaluate the “extras” it would probably drop to 6.