The last time I played Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep I was 14 years old.
I was just starting high school, completely afraid of what my peers thought of me, deeply in a closet I wasn't even fully aware I was in and hopelessly awkward and bad at socializing. You could say that Birth By Sleep was a comfort game of sorts at that period of my life like all of Kingdom Hearts in general was.
A kind of transitional title for a transitional period in my life, trying to make new friends in real life while learning more about this world and series that I'd grown up with.
I loved this game to death. I played it many many times, beat it on Proud mode which felt like a herculean task to me then as a child who was TERRIBLE at video games. It was a game very special to my heart and still quite special in my memories.
So my girlfriend has been playing through the series (I'm only reviewing the ones here that I played in this round of playthroughs, not the ones I'm majorly watching her play though I have played those) and I was quite excited to get to this one.
This special childhood game that I'd held near and quite dear to my heart, adoring the narrative, the way in which they took the things I loved about the series while managing to fit it all on a chunky UMD on the go, fitting right nice and snugly into my PSP library of Dissidia Final Fantasy and the constant grinding I was doing with Squall and Jecht in that game, the film RV starring Robin Williams and some Gundam SEED film for some reason when I don't even think I really watched the series.
There's a reason you don't revisit everything you once held up as "the greatest shit of all time" when you're like 14 huh.
This go around after so much time away revealed that wow this combat is kinda majorly ass. Introducing the new command deck system and styles was a cool idea! The problem is that it ends up replacing basic functionality in the move set in ways that just end up making the game feel like total shit to play at points, especially early on in everybody's campaigns. Things feel floaty but in a way that feels like a bad in-between of KH2's lighter snappier feel and 1's weight and heft to its movement.
The unversed as an enemy type are just kinda bland and nowhere near as interesting in terms of designs as the Heartless, Nobodies and the Dream Eaters even. Fighting a chunk of them when they can just kinda barrel through all of your shit with I-Frames with fairly little stagger opportunity makes fights just feel bad half of the time.
The level scaling is also quite strange. For I'd say Ventus and Terra's stories especially, there are multiple points where they go into a world for like 5 minutes, maybe have 2 fights, fight the boss and then leave. This constantly leaving you fairly underleveled and needing to grind if you want to do any meaningful damage in the next world at all. It's like the game is built around you running out and doing the Mirage Arena or grinding constantly and I just really didn't wanna do those if I didn't have to!
Hell, after a certain point in every story we had to grind AT LEAST once per character for like an hour just to be able to not get completely shit on by some random enemy we didn't have any trouble with before because now the world level is "6" whatever that even MEANS.
It was disappointing, coming back to this game that filled my teenage years. All the memories of how much fun I had with it are not necessarily overwritten but just given a different context of sorts. It's a bit of a bummer coming back to it and realizing that I wish I didn't have to play this game's combat for the things I genuinely do adore about it still.
The music is absolutely still phenomenal. Aqua's Theme is absolutely my favorite track in this series. The oppressive loneliness and distance of some of the tracks in this game, the way the tragedy is sewn through those strings. I would even go as far as to say that it's probably my favorite soundtrack in this series right next to 3 with how many memorable pieces are in this thing that hit my heart oh so deeply. Those notes fuckin move me!
The narrative as well still hits in a lot of ways for me. Though I do find it funny how much I've flipped on Ven and Terra's stories as I've gotten older. As a kid, I didn't HATE Terra's story but I had at the time thought that it relied on his stupidity for the plot to happen at all, not fully realizing a lot of shit about his story somehow but again I was 14 and VERY V E R Y dumb. Ven's story I think I liked because of the gaps it fills in for how Sora gets the keyblade and that kinda young naive nature Ven carries was relatable to me at the time.
Playing it now I honestly found more relatability in Terra and his struggles, his constant self doubt, his want to protect others but worrying about not having the strength to do it, people using him for their own ends and gains. It takes elements of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith but I think it manages to still both make the arc its own but also play it differently by having Terra wake up to and confront a lot of the direct manipulation at play with him even if he still stumbles and absolutely fucks up multiple times.
Ven's story this time around was still interesting but I don't know, it felt like it meandered a lot more. The second half of the game being this quest for connection was interesting, that sorta disconnect from childhood to adulthood, finding what true connection is and how the friends you’ve known for a long time may change in ways that scare you, in ways that you may not be able to understand or comprehend. Maybe it needed to meander a bit more to sit with those ideas but at points the meandering felt aimless in a very boring way that didn't hit at all for me. I guess where I’d settle on it is that it's not bad and the mysteries it illuminates are really interesting but I’ve grown colder to Ven’s story.
Aqua's story is still absolutely GOATed though. A tragedy in all its forms. Wanting to help your friend struggling with their own fears and insecurities, someone working towards the expectations and demands placed upon them but not particularly knowing the best moves either. Being so willing to believe in those you care about that you have trouble seeing the blaring red flags and warning signs in front of you. The introspective loneliness of her entire arc leading to its fairly tragic end. That final cutscene with her after the fight in the Final Episode still makes me cry honestly.
Aqua is still one of the best characters this series has and I desperately need her in more of it.
Birth By Sleep is messy but despite all of its flaws and issues I still have a warm place in my heart for it, but I won't lie when I say that I really wish it was more engaging to play throughout the entire experience. I wish the combat didn't feel the way it did. It's a genuine bummer in ways!
Also what in the FUCK are those secret episode requirements???? 9999 unversed on standard are you shitting me??????
I was just starting high school, completely afraid of what my peers thought of me, deeply in a closet I wasn't even fully aware I was in and hopelessly awkward and bad at socializing. You could say that Birth By Sleep was a comfort game of sorts at that period of my life like all of Kingdom Hearts in general was.
A kind of transitional title for a transitional period in my life, trying to make new friends in real life while learning more about this world and series that I'd grown up with.
I loved this game to death. I played it many many times, beat it on Proud mode which felt like a herculean task to me then as a child who was TERRIBLE at video games. It was a game very special to my heart and still quite special in my memories.
So my girlfriend has been playing through the series (I'm only reviewing the ones here that I played in this round of playthroughs, not the ones I'm majorly watching her play though I have played those) and I was quite excited to get to this one.
This special childhood game that I'd held near and quite dear to my heart, adoring the narrative, the way in which they took the things I loved about the series while managing to fit it all on a chunky UMD on the go, fitting right nice and snugly into my PSP library of Dissidia Final Fantasy and the constant grinding I was doing with Squall and Jecht in that game, the film RV starring Robin Williams and some Gundam SEED film for some reason when I don't even think I really watched the series.
There's a reason you don't revisit everything you once held up as "the greatest shit of all time" when you're like 14 huh.
This go around after so much time away revealed that wow this combat is kinda majorly ass. Introducing the new command deck system and styles was a cool idea! The problem is that it ends up replacing basic functionality in the move set in ways that just end up making the game feel like total shit to play at points, especially early on in everybody's campaigns. Things feel floaty but in a way that feels like a bad in-between of KH2's lighter snappier feel and 1's weight and heft to its movement.
The unversed as an enemy type are just kinda bland and nowhere near as interesting in terms of designs as the Heartless, Nobodies and the Dream Eaters even. Fighting a chunk of them when they can just kinda barrel through all of your shit with I-Frames with fairly little stagger opportunity makes fights just feel bad half of the time.
The level scaling is also quite strange. For I'd say Ventus and Terra's stories especially, there are multiple points where they go into a world for like 5 minutes, maybe have 2 fights, fight the boss and then leave. This constantly leaving you fairly underleveled and needing to grind if you want to do any meaningful damage in the next world at all. It's like the game is built around you running out and doing the Mirage Arena or grinding constantly and I just really didn't wanna do those if I didn't have to!
Hell, after a certain point in every story we had to grind AT LEAST once per character for like an hour just to be able to not get completely shit on by some random enemy we didn't have any trouble with before because now the world level is "6" whatever that even MEANS.
It was disappointing, coming back to this game that filled my teenage years. All the memories of how much fun I had with it are not necessarily overwritten but just given a different context of sorts. It's a bit of a bummer coming back to it and realizing that I wish I didn't have to play this game's combat for the things I genuinely do adore about it still.
The music is absolutely still phenomenal. Aqua's Theme is absolutely my favorite track in this series. The oppressive loneliness and distance of some of the tracks in this game, the way the tragedy is sewn through those strings. I would even go as far as to say that it's probably my favorite soundtrack in this series right next to 3 with how many memorable pieces are in this thing that hit my heart oh so deeply. Those notes fuckin move me!
The narrative as well still hits in a lot of ways for me. Though I do find it funny how much I've flipped on Ven and Terra's stories as I've gotten older. As a kid, I didn't HATE Terra's story but I had at the time thought that it relied on his stupidity for the plot to happen at all, not fully realizing a lot of shit about his story somehow but again I was 14 and VERY V E R Y dumb. Ven's story I think I liked because of the gaps it fills in for how Sora gets the keyblade and that kinda young naive nature Ven carries was relatable to me at the time.
Playing it now I honestly found more relatability in Terra and his struggles, his constant self doubt, his want to protect others but worrying about not having the strength to do it, people using him for their own ends and gains. It takes elements of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith but I think it manages to still both make the arc its own but also play it differently by having Terra wake up to and confront a lot of the direct manipulation at play with him even if he still stumbles and absolutely fucks up multiple times.
Ven's story this time around was still interesting but I don't know, it felt like it meandered a lot more. The second half of the game being this quest for connection was interesting, that sorta disconnect from childhood to adulthood, finding what true connection is and how the friends you’ve known for a long time may change in ways that scare you, in ways that you may not be able to understand or comprehend. Maybe it needed to meander a bit more to sit with those ideas but at points the meandering felt aimless in a very boring way that didn't hit at all for me. I guess where I’d settle on it is that it's not bad and the mysteries it illuminates are really interesting but I’ve grown colder to Ven’s story.
Aqua's story is still absolutely GOATed though. A tragedy in all its forms. Wanting to help your friend struggling with their own fears and insecurities, someone working towards the expectations and demands placed upon them but not particularly knowing the best moves either. Being so willing to believe in those you care about that you have trouble seeing the blaring red flags and warning signs in front of you. The introspective loneliness of her entire arc leading to its fairly tragic end. That final cutscene with her after the fight in the Final Episode still makes me cry honestly.
Aqua is still one of the best characters this series has and I desperately need her in more of it.
Birth By Sleep is messy but despite all of its flaws and issues I still have a warm place in my heart for it, but I won't lie when I say that I really wish it was more engaging to play throughout the entire experience. I wish the combat didn't feel the way it did. It's a genuine bummer in ways!
Also what in the FUCK are those secret episode requirements???? 9999 unversed on standard are you shitting me??????
I really liked Terra's story, but since that's the one I played first I was kind of disappointed with the other two. Ventus's story was fine I guess, but nothing really stood out to me other than how it ended, and even that just bleeds in to Aqua's ending. I know people like Aqua a lot but her character never really clicked with me, even after playing III and 0.2 so I didn't really enjoy her story that much either. The way the characters' stories intersected and how you could see their effects on the worlds in different playthroughs was cool though, and Square Enix did a pretty good job of segmenting the worlds up so that each character had a few unique areas in each of them, though. As far as gameplay goes it's the same command deck system that the other handheld KH games used which I like well enough and the shotlocks are pretty fun to mess around with, but that's really it.
I like Birth By Sleep a lot. It is among my favorite of the Kingdom Hearts games. The story is a bit more coherent than normal and the combat is fun and expressive.
Being set in the past with a limited amount of characters really helps this game's story. This is a good introduction to Aqua, Ventus, and Terra, but it also lets us see some other characters earlier in their lives, so that is cool. The story is straightforward and predictable, and some of the character decisions are pretty asinine, but it mostly makes sense and lacks most of the trash that causes KH 1, 2, and 3 to be incomprehensible. Aqua is everyone's favorite character for a reason, and I like seeing the version of her here that isn't all traumatized by spending 100 years in the darkness dimension or whatever.
The game does suffer a bit for having all three characters go through the same worlds, even though they play different, some of the bosses mix things up, and it is interesting to see the story from three different perspectives.
Gameplay in Birth By Sleep takes a bit to wrap your head around, but once I got the hang of how commands work, I found the system to be super fun to exploit. The basic gameplay of setting up your command deck to put you into the form you want is very satisfying and it feels great once you get things working the way you want. I really enjoyed that each character pushes you in a different direction, favoring different forms and commands.
Melding is great. I love being able to improve my abilities directly like this and the addition of commands granting you abilities you can discover and permanently unlock (Final Fantasy IX!?) is really rewarding.
By the end of each character's story, when you have the most powerful commands unlocked, it can get a bit repetitive, however. It is never worse than combat often is in this game though, and the form changes let you opt into different gameplay pretty easily, if you want to.
Birth By Sleep is a really great game. Possibly my favorite in the series. If you want a solid action game with some cool systems, check it out!
(played in Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix)
Being set in the past with a limited amount of characters really helps this game's story. This is a good introduction to Aqua, Ventus, and Terra, but it also lets us see some other characters earlier in their lives, so that is cool. The story is straightforward and predictable, and some of the character decisions are pretty asinine, but it mostly makes sense and lacks most of the trash that causes KH 1, 2, and 3 to be incomprehensible. Aqua is everyone's favorite character for a reason, and I like seeing the version of her here that isn't all traumatized by spending 100 years in the darkness dimension or whatever.
The game does suffer a bit for having all three characters go through the same worlds, even though they play different, some of the bosses mix things up, and it is interesting to see the story from three different perspectives.
Gameplay in Birth By Sleep takes a bit to wrap your head around, but once I got the hang of how commands work, I found the system to be super fun to exploit. The basic gameplay of setting up your command deck to put you into the form you want is very satisfying and it feels great once you get things working the way you want. I really enjoyed that each character pushes you in a different direction, favoring different forms and commands.
Melding is great. I love being able to improve my abilities directly like this and the addition of commands granting you abilities you can discover and permanently unlock (Final Fantasy IX!?) is really rewarding.
By the end of each character's story, when you have the most powerful commands unlocked, it can get a bit repetitive, however. It is never worse than combat often is in this game though, and the form changes let you opt into different gameplay pretty easily, if you want to.
Birth By Sleep is a really great game. Possibly my favorite in the series. If you want a solid action game with some cool systems, check it out!
(played in Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix)
Birth By Sleep made me relive the magic that made me fall in love with Kingdom Hearts. And it did that in the most genuine, heartfelt, and passion-filled way.
5/5 10/10 100/100
Surpassed KH1 as my favorite Kingdom Hearts game.
(Anyone who tells you this game is bad is a liar and shouldn't be trusted)
5/5 10/10 100/100
Surpassed KH1 as my favorite Kingdom Hearts game.
(Anyone who tells you this game is bad is a liar and shouldn't be trusted)
Story, phenomenal. Gameplay, fun.
Not my favourite in the series, but it's up there.
Not my favourite in the series, but it's up there.
Aqua.
meu mano nomura tava passando por algumas merdas pra criar uma história tão triste e trágica pros três protagonistas. de longe é o jogo da franquia kh que eu mais tenho nostalgia pq foi o primeiro que eu joguei em 2013 no psp ainda. tem uma gameplay bem melhor q o primeiro, obviamente inferior ao segundo mas eu gosto da variação pros jogos numerados, diferentemente da bomba q é o gameplay de chain of memories, esse aqui funciona bem e eu particularmente achei mt divertido farmar habilidades e commands. tinha planos de pegar lvl 99 e a ultima weapon em todos os jogos mas em três campanhas diferentes é complicado ainda assim deu pra aproveitar tudo q o jogo tinha a oferecer incluindo o final e secret episode. a história poderia ser ainda melhor se esse jogo n fosse tão ambicioso em ter três protagonistas o que acabou deixando o desenvolvimento um pouquinho rushado mas ainda assim eu amo esses três, tão no meu top 5 personagens favoritos da série com certeza.
This review contains spoilers
The weird middle child of the franchise with all the pros and cons that the status comes with. Birth By Sleep has moments that make you feel the emotions and excitements that you want from a game in this series but also has some truly middling and baffling decisions that take you away from loving it as a whole.
First step, the story. For me this is will probably the last time when the main story in a Kingdom Hearts game will makes sense from start to finish (I have not played 3D, 0.2 or III yet). I say that because while I was able to understand most of what was happening on my own, there were moments where I had to ask my KH expert friends answers for major plot points. My favorite moments came from the friendship of our three protagonists, even if they do dumb angsty teen stuff which totally tracks for them. The Keyblade Graveyard section is a testament to how cool and ridiculous KH can be and it will forever be etched in my mind. The rest of the game feels barren and lacking of the heart that KH normally has in spades.
The Disney worlds are probably the biggest disappointment here. Maybe it was because I wasn't interested in Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella or Peter Pan but even Olympus doesn't hit the mark like I would have loved it to. The only one that I enjoyed and one that I felt actually affected the protagonists in a meaningful way being Deep Space. I love Lilo and Stitch and I was glad to see one of the Disney worlds being taken in a different direction and having an impact on KH's main plot. Disney Town is like the complete opposite, where I want to tear my ears off at the looping BGM and overall disdain for the world itself.
The protagonists themselves also end up all over the place. I enjoy when games have multiple routes that culminate in a final story, it's a weakness of mine and Birth By Sleep does the style well enough. My problems with the protagonists mainly stem from the fact that Terra and Ventus are mainly along for the ride, getting tricked, duped and ordered to do things so the plot can continue. Thankfully Aqua at least has some agency and takes the reins multiple times throughout but let's be honest, they kinda fuck her over. She ends up feeling like a babysitter who just keeps having the worst shit happen to her. My girl deserves better. At the very least, all three of them have great personalities that shine through when given the chance. Big fan of Terra beating the fuck out of Peter Pan. Hate that guy.
Second, the gameplay ends up feeling like the rough in between of KH1 and 2 with the deck building of Chain of Memories. At times, the game feels very stilted like the first game, but has the moments of free flowing combat that made the second a great time to play, it just feels like whiplash. The combat never really reaches it's true potential always pulling back before it reaches the top.
I adore melding and the tooling of your commands but when the game stays incredibly easy throughout it's entire runtime, the only reason to try out new stuff is the fun that comes from the shiny new thing. At no point does the game try to make you use it's systems in interesting ways. D-Links seem worthless except for using them for a full heal during the early game when you don't have easy access to a cure spell, Shotlocks are easily abusable and are super overpowered and Command Styles are super flashy and fun to use but the nature of them appearing and disappearing at random times during combat makes them frustrating when they happen at an inopportune time or at the end of combat. Rhythm Mixer is so fucking cool but I get one combo with it before I'm forced into using it's finisher and it goes bye bye. The depleting command gauge is just the icing on the cake making you to want to rush between fights to keep it going which would be neat if every level transition didn't reset it. Or just pausing the menu which is a really cool move. Your normal attacks feel weak and the standard finish commands are garbage that totally stops the pace of the fight. All of the good and bad of these systems come to a head when decide to tackle any of the FOUR SUPER-BOSSES that this game has to offer.
Speaking of bosses, this might be the winner for the worst boss fights in any KH game. The only memorable fights are the final bosses (with one exception), Eraqus, Trinity Armor and the fucking Magic Mirror from Snow White. Overall they range from really piss easy, to abuse the game for all it's worth with little in between. I truly hate the fact that they make you fight the Iron Prisoner like 10 times in the arena mode, sometimes in that stupid form where he will become untargetable for upwards of 30 seconds on two separate moves. I understand that the arena was made for multiple players, but this port doesn't have that multiplayer and I feel the bosses here could have used a retooling. The super-bosses truly take this bullshit to a new level. While KH2 has Lingering Will, an absolute banger of a super-boss and the data fights (which some might consider to be super-bosses, honestly feels more like a boss rush to me), BBS instead features 4 fights, only one of which reaching somewhat close to the bar set by Lingering Will. That one fight being Vanitas Remnant which if were being completely honest, is still bullshit with a ton of it's moves. I beat it once in a normal fashion with Terra which took me about 3 hours because damn, Terra is baddd but doing it that way made me appreciate the rhythm that comes from the fight. It sucks that the rhythm is broken by Vanitas going invulnerable for like 15 seconds as he sends clones at you (the most annoying move) and the fact that like 3 of his 15 moves can be actually blocked but it still was fun at the end. Both Armor of Eraqus and No Heart, despite having such banger character designs (biased, I love armor) are complete pushovers minus 1 attack that makes them a threat.
Finally, Mysterious Figure exists as a monument to all of Birth By Sleep's problems when it comes to combat. Just a genuinely unfair fight that really wants you to win the lottery on what attacks and moves that he decides to use. Shout-outs to having a move (the doom timer) that makes it impossible to play slowly as getting hit by it three times basically means game over. More shout-outs to the fact that he will sometimes use it three times in a row early in the fight and even more shout-outs to me finding out that you can influence him into almost never using this move by REMOVING ALL UNIQUE MOVEMENT AND DEFENSE COMMANDS FROM YOUR DECK. This is something that is never brought up or a mechanic used in the game at any point and serves as a final fuck you from the developers of this fight. Seriously, I thought the internet was fucking with me when I looked up a solution to dodging the doom timer move until I did it and beat the fight on the next 2 attempts. Actually mind boggling.
The minigames don't fare that much better. KH games have always been hit and miss when it comes to these and BBS isn't any better with it. Rumble Racing, Ice Cream Beat and Fruitball can all go die in a trash fire but at least Command Board makes up for it. A simplified Fortune Street is something I can get down with any day of the week and the arena is a nice change of pace from the story, Iron Imprisoner 1 through 4 notwithstanding.
Finally you got the completion. The 100% cleanup. The staple of Kingdom Hearts games and my honestly one of my favourite parts of these games. Just like KH 1, CoM and 2, I enjoyed my time getting the report done.
Only once though. Because somebody really thought that in order to get the plat and the 100% in game, you would need to not only do it once, but THREE TIMES, once as each character. Some psychopathic shit that only a masochist would do and lets just say that I now see Huey, Dewy and Louie shaking their asses for ice cream in my dreams now. Even my beloved Command Board I despise with a burning passion after having to play a total of 21 boards not including the extra boards I had to do to unlock some commands that are hidden on the board itself and unobtainable through normal gameplay. If you do play BBS, DO NOT GO FOR THE PLATINUM OR 100%. I beg of you.
At the end of it all, while this review seems like a rant about the worst game of all time that killed my family and my dog, I really did enjoy my time with Birth By Sleep. It still has that Action RPG gameplay that I adore, the campy story about friendship that I can't help but route for and the love for it's source materials and original creations that I stick around for.
First step, the story. For me this is will probably the last time when the main story in a Kingdom Hearts game will makes sense from start to finish (I have not played 3D, 0.2 or III yet). I say that because while I was able to understand most of what was happening on my own, there were moments where I had to ask my KH expert friends answers for major plot points. My favorite moments came from the friendship of our three protagonists, even if they do dumb angsty teen stuff which totally tracks for them. The Keyblade Graveyard section is a testament to how cool and ridiculous KH can be and it will forever be etched in my mind. The rest of the game feels barren and lacking of the heart that KH normally has in spades.
The Disney worlds are probably the biggest disappointment here. Maybe it was because I wasn't interested in Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella or Peter Pan but even Olympus doesn't hit the mark like I would have loved it to. The only one that I enjoyed and one that I felt actually affected the protagonists in a meaningful way being Deep Space. I love Lilo and Stitch and I was glad to see one of the Disney worlds being taken in a different direction and having an impact on KH's main plot. Disney Town is like the complete opposite, where I want to tear my ears off at the looping BGM and overall disdain for the world itself.
The protagonists themselves also end up all over the place. I enjoy when games have multiple routes that culminate in a final story, it's a weakness of mine and Birth By Sleep does the style well enough. My problems with the protagonists mainly stem from the fact that Terra and Ventus are mainly along for the ride, getting tricked, duped and ordered to do things so the plot can continue. Thankfully Aqua at least has some agency and takes the reins multiple times throughout but let's be honest, they kinda fuck her over. She ends up feeling like a babysitter who just keeps having the worst shit happen to her. My girl deserves better. At the very least, all three of them have great personalities that shine through when given the chance. Big fan of Terra beating the fuck out of Peter Pan. Hate that guy.
Second, the gameplay ends up feeling like the rough in between of KH1 and 2 with the deck building of Chain of Memories. At times, the game feels very stilted like the first game, but has the moments of free flowing combat that made the second a great time to play, it just feels like whiplash. The combat never really reaches it's true potential always pulling back before it reaches the top.
I adore melding and the tooling of your commands but when the game stays incredibly easy throughout it's entire runtime, the only reason to try out new stuff is the fun that comes from the shiny new thing. At no point does the game try to make you use it's systems in interesting ways. D-Links seem worthless except for using them for a full heal during the early game when you don't have easy access to a cure spell, Shotlocks are easily abusable and are super overpowered and Command Styles are super flashy and fun to use but the nature of them appearing and disappearing at random times during combat makes them frustrating when they happen at an inopportune time or at the end of combat. Rhythm Mixer is so fucking cool but I get one combo with it before I'm forced into using it's finisher and it goes bye bye. The depleting command gauge is just the icing on the cake making you to want to rush between fights to keep it going which would be neat if every level transition didn't reset it. Or just pausing the menu which is a really cool move. Your normal attacks feel weak and the standard finish commands are garbage that totally stops the pace of the fight. All of the good and bad of these systems come to a head when decide to tackle any of the FOUR SUPER-BOSSES that this game has to offer.
Speaking of bosses, this might be the winner for the worst boss fights in any KH game. The only memorable fights are the final bosses (with one exception), Eraqus, Trinity Armor and the fucking Magic Mirror from Snow White. Overall they range from really piss easy, to abuse the game for all it's worth with little in between. I truly hate the fact that they make you fight the Iron Prisoner like 10 times in the arena mode, sometimes in that stupid form where he will become untargetable for upwards of 30 seconds on two separate moves. I understand that the arena was made for multiple players, but this port doesn't have that multiplayer and I feel the bosses here could have used a retooling. The super-bosses truly take this bullshit to a new level. While KH2 has Lingering Will, an absolute banger of a super-boss and the data fights (which some might consider to be super-bosses, honestly feels more like a boss rush to me), BBS instead features 4 fights, only one of which reaching somewhat close to the bar set by Lingering Will. That one fight being Vanitas Remnant which if were being completely honest, is still bullshit with a ton of it's moves. I beat it once in a normal fashion with Terra which took me about 3 hours because damn, Terra is baddd but doing it that way made me appreciate the rhythm that comes from the fight. It sucks that the rhythm is broken by Vanitas going invulnerable for like 15 seconds as he sends clones at you (the most annoying move) and the fact that like 3 of his 15 moves can be actually blocked but it still was fun at the end. Both Armor of Eraqus and No Heart, despite having such banger character designs (biased, I love armor) are complete pushovers minus 1 attack that makes them a threat.
Finally, Mysterious Figure exists as a monument to all of Birth By Sleep's problems when it comes to combat. Just a genuinely unfair fight that really wants you to win the lottery on what attacks and moves that he decides to use. Shout-outs to having a move (the doom timer) that makes it impossible to play slowly as getting hit by it three times basically means game over. More shout-outs to the fact that he will sometimes use it three times in a row early in the fight and even more shout-outs to me finding out that you can influence him into almost never using this move by REMOVING ALL UNIQUE MOVEMENT AND DEFENSE COMMANDS FROM YOUR DECK. This is something that is never brought up or a mechanic used in the game at any point and serves as a final fuck you from the developers of this fight. Seriously, I thought the internet was fucking with me when I looked up a solution to dodging the doom timer move until I did it and beat the fight on the next 2 attempts. Actually mind boggling.
The minigames don't fare that much better. KH games have always been hit and miss when it comes to these and BBS isn't any better with it. Rumble Racing, Ice Cream Beat and Fruitball can all go die in a trash fire but at least Command Board makes up for it. A simplified Fortune Street is something I can get down with any day of the week and the arena is a nice change of pace from the story, Iron Imprisoner 1 through 4 notwithstanding.
Finally you got the completion. The 100% cleanup. The staple of Kingdom Hearts games and my honestly one of my favourite parts of these games. Just like KH 1, CoM and 2, I enjoyed my time getting the report done.
Only once though. Because somebody really thought that in order to get the plat and the 100% in game, you would need to not only do it once, but THREE TIMES, once as each character. Some psychopathic shit that only a masochist would do and lets just say that I now see Huey, Dewy and Louie shaking their asses for ice cream in my dreams now. Even my beloved Command Board I despise with a burning passion after having to play a total of 21 boards not including the extra boards I had to do to unlock some commands that are hidden on the board itself and unobtainable through normal gameplay. If you do play BBS, DO NOT GO FOR THE PLATINUM OR 100%. I beg of you.
At the end of it all, while this review seems like a rant about the worst game of all time that killed my family and my dog, I really did enjoy my time with Birth By Sleep. It still has that Action RPG gameplay that I adore, the campy story about friendship that I can't help but route for and the love for it's source materials and original creations that I stick around for.
CAN THEY PLEASE JUST BE HAPPY. WHY CAN'T THEY BE HAPPY
Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep (2010): Historia sencilla complicada hasta el absurdo e innecesariamente, personajes más planos que un folio, jugabilidad desbalanceada... y aún así es divertido. Es un juego con defectos obvios, pero sigue siendo bueno. Y Nomura es Kojima (6,05)
BBS has a lot going for it. The Command Deck system is like if KH Re:Chain wasn't kind of crap, with the added benefit that leveling and melding commands can be pretty fun. The three somewhat different playstyles are interesting, especially since some of the funnest stuff is available to Aqua. Finally letting a lady do stuff in a KH game, what a concept! She even has one of the less onerous minigames in Disney Town! Speaking of which, the ice cream rhythm game can go all the way to hell.
great as a PSP game as a console game it does feel a bit lacking and the way the story creates and really repetitive gameplay loop isn't great either
i love this game so much man
combat was janky and playing through the same disney worlds 4 times (i replayed roxas part cuz i accidentally deleted his save) is pretty annoying but i enjoyed the story
Its story has its moments and some nice worlds like the Lilo and Stitch one and a fun combat system, but it sort of embodies the problems I've been finding with Osaka Team games. The multiple stories approach is fine and the worlds do something different between Terra, Ventus, and Aqua.
For fans of: the worst voice acting to land on a triple AAA title, fighting ten waves of recycled enemies, and obfuscated true endings.
Birth by Sleep does a lot of good things, I got a lot of satisfaction from melding commands throughout each playthough, I thought the gameplay was solid as a whole, and I enjoyed the main three characters. I never had a problem going through each characters route, there’s so much variety in the command system not to mention the stories themselves that it never seemed repetitive. I played every route on Proud, and I’m glad I did both to easily see the secret endings and I found the experience easier than 1 or 2 on Standard, though still fine. As for my issues, I really wish that we saw more of the main three interacting with each other. There’s the opening, and some flashbacks, but I really just wanted to see Aqua Terra and Ven’s relationship fleshed out more than it was. For the gameplay, there wasn’t many boss fights I cared for. I can’t help it that I’m pretty fresh off KH2FM which has like a billion of the coolest boss fights ever. The bosses here are either boring or just don’t feel good to fight. There’s exceptions, I really enjoyed everyone’s final boss in particular, but a lot of the other fights just don’t feel special or just don’t feel good to fight. Overall, I had fun! I’m just not certain if I’ll ever feel like going through all three stories again.
something in me snapped when those scrooge mcfucks danced while demanding i shoot ice cream at them
every action game should have disneys 1959 classic sleeping beauty in it
I completed 2 routes and stopped halfway through the third. The game is pretty fun when experimenting with command decks and becoming completely overpowered, but three times is just too much.
Additionally there are too many things I didn't like about this game.
One being the worlds feeling so empty. I just personally have trouble immersing myself into a world that is inhabited by 4 people and it ruins the experience for me :c
Then we have the story and dialogue. It's Kingdom Hearts, so I'm used to cheesyness, but this takes the cheesecake so far. And it's not made better by the voice acting being really meh. It's not the worst you've ever heard, but it's far from good.
This game made me finally question, why I am even playing through all the Kingdom Hearts games in the first place, since they are really mediocre in my honest opinion (except for maybee KH2, that one has banger gameplay). But that didn't stop me from playing through all of Yakuza, so I will see this to the end as well x3
Additionally there are too many things I didn't like about this game.
One being the worlds feeling so empty. I just personally have trouble immersing myself into a world that is inhabited by 4 people and it ruins the experience for me :c
Then we have the story and dialogue. It's Kingdom Hearts, so I'm used to cheesyness, but this takes the cheesecake so far. And it's not made better by the voice acting being really meh. It's not the worst you've ever heard, but it's far from good.
This game made me finally question, why I am even playing through all the Kingdom Hearts games in the first place, since they are really mediocre in my honest opinion (except for maybee KH2, that one has banger gameplay). But that didn't stop me from playing through all of Yakuza, so I will see this to the end as well x3
The gameplay can be frustrating and some characters (Terra) are kinda comically stupid, but I do enjoy this a lot. There is a level of charm that this franchise has that makes the flaws not matter to me after all these years.
great gameplay but the story of kingdom hearts loses its charm when they take it too seriously
Terra, aqua and ventus, all three elements form the depression trio
a melhor historia de Kingdom Hearts, um combate magnifico por ser tão dinâmico e com os melhores protagonistas da franquia.
Todas as três rotas deste jogo se unem para nos entregar um dos títulos mais divertidos da saga inteira.
Óbviamente inferior em sua essência ao KH II por suas limitações técnicas, porém o mesmo ainda é um título em que vale apena se aventurar, ainda mais pela rota da Aqua e do Ventus. (Não sou muito fã da do Terra)
A narrativa desse jogo é esplêndida, simplesmente elevou KH para outro patamar. Por se passar no passado, o tanto de furos que eles conectam e fazem com que faça sentido é inacreditável.
A batalha final da campanha do Ventus ainda é uma das minhas favoritas da saga inteira.
Óbviamente inferior em sua essência ao KH II por suas limitações técnicas, porém o mesmo ainda é um título em que vale apena se aventurar, ainda mais pela rota da Aqua e do Ventus. (Não sou muito fã da do Terra)
A narrativa desse jogo é esplêndida, simplesmente elevou KH para outro patamar. Por se passar no passado, o tanto de furos que eles conectam e fazem com que faça sentido é inacreditável.
A batalha final da campanha do Ventus ainda é uma das minhas favoritas da saga inteira.
Ótimo
despite how good the story is in every KH game, this is still prolly the best story in the series
Actual dogshit game. Legit the worst game i played in a while xd
I want to like this game for its story and characters But
Having to replay the whole thing TWICE just to unlock the final episode was actual torture. All the worlds are so empty and boring, there's no reason to have you visit them as each character. Never Land was specially bad.
It doesn't help that the combat system is so awful. You can barely stagger bosses, which makes half of the commands you get useless. All the major fights play out the same way: You spam dodge while you wait for the enemy to stand still so you can use the one or two actually useful moves you have. Or just shotlock to win. Not a single boss fight in this game was actually fun. Maybe it's because I was playing on proud mode, but I don't care enough to try any of the other difficulties.
Also, why can't you see what commands you're crafting? Why do you even have to level up abilities? Why are half of the items you find in chests useless?
I would unironically rather play the command board mini game than the main story to be h
Having to replay the whole thing TWICE just to unlock the final episode was actual torture. All the worlds are so empty and boring, there's no reason to have you visit them as each character. Never Land was specially bad.
It doesn't help that the combat system is so awful. You can barely stagger bosses, which makes half of the commands you get useless. All the major fights play out the same way: You spam dodge while you wait for the enemy to stand still so you can use the one or two actually useful moves you have. Or just shotlock to win. Not a single boss fight in this game was actually fun. Maybe it's because I was playing on proud mode, but I don't care enough to try any of the other difficulties.
Also, why can't you see what commands you're crafting? Why do you even have to level up abilities? Why are half of the items you find in chests useless?
I would unironically rather play the command board mini game than the main story to be h
it's good but i don't like the fact that you pretty much have to play the game 3 times and all the worlds being pretty much the same.