I hate terra
This game ties with the original as the best in the franchise. The split stories may be repetitive for some, but it is one of the games I think of most when I think of Kingdom Hearts.
Bom jogo, uma das melhores adições para a lore da serie no geral no entanto não gosto do bactracking todo de ter de acabar a série toda 3 vezes.
O ventus é o meu favorito.
O ventus é o meu favorito.
Terra, aqua and ventus, all three elements form the depression trio
the good:
- i really like the story, even though terra's is literally just revenge of the sith
- ventus and vanitas are really interesting characters
- the music, generally, is pretty good
- shotlocks
the bad:
- the difficulty curve is very steep, like you'll fight through enemies in radiant garden easily but then you'll do chip damage to even common floods in the next worlds
- disney. f*cking. town.
- the worlds feel a little too small, which is understandable for a psp game, but then half of them are like mazes
- ventus's story feels like it adds nothing to the overall plot until the finale
the verdict:
casting the star wars guy and the star trek guy as the two opposing forces was the funniest thing disney has ever done
- i really like the story, even though terra's is literally just revenge of the sith
- ventus and vanitas are really interesting characters
- the music, generally, is pretty good
- shotlocks
the bad:
- the difficulty curve is very steep, like you'll fight through enemies in radiant garden easily but then you'll do chip damage to even common floods in the next worlds
- disney. f*cking. town.
- the worlds feel a little too small, which is understandable for a psp game, but then half of them are like mazes
- ventus's story feels like it adds nothing to the overall plot until the finale
the verdict:
casting the star wars guy and the star trek guy as the two opposing forces was the funniest thing disney has ever done
I actively lost brain cells playing this game. Do not 100%.
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.
apesar dos apesares, é meu kingdom hearts favorito pelo fato da ambientação e a gameplay ser diferenciada (para mim no caso), é reconfortante e nostálgico junto com as musicas que yoko shimomura compôs para esse jogo me lembra infância, a historia não é uma das melhores mas a amizade de aqua, ventus e terra fazem com que isso muda minha perspectiva sobre o jogo.
great gameplay but the story of kingdom hearts loses its charm when they take it too seriously
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.
A very solid gameplay with a more or less story. The characters are not bad, but could have been better explored. The info and insights into the main villain (specially the journals) are good tho.
I really liked playing with Terra and used him to fight all optional bosses I beat, nad had fun creating new commands and builds based on the styles. But when it came the time to play with the other characters, I just rushed through the story and didn't feel like exploring their abilities as much.
It is a good game, with very obvious flaws, one of them being the repetition.
I really liked playing with Terra and used him to fight all optional bosses I beat, nad had fun creating new commands and builds based on the styles. But when it came the time to play with the other characters, I just rushed through the story and didn't feel like exploring their abilities as much.
It is a good game, with very obvious flaws, one of them being the repetition.
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.
pretty good if you give it a chance but very jarring to play after getting done with kh2
Birth by Sleep is a Kingdom Hearts game that I have really enjoyed from start to finish, having to playthrough Terra, Ven and Aqua's story to get all of those stories connected was something that I really like
And the Command Deck mechanic idea being introduced in the game was really fun to use, it's way more quicker and faster to understand with having to fully customize it in the pause menu, better than the whole card battle mechanic in Chain of Memories!
And the Command Deck mechanic idea being introduced in the game was really fun to use, it's way more quicker and faster to understand with having to fully customize it in the pause menu, better than the whole card battle mechanic in Chain of Memories!
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)
El peak de KH, el único que volvería a jugar junto con el III
For a game thats rough around the edges, there's actually some incredible character writing in here.
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.
love kh but not my fav personally
Bastante bien. Al ser 3 historias, cada una se hace cortita, aunque el tener que jugar los mismos mundos 3 veces es algo ligeramente en su contra, así que se nivela. 8.5/10
For fans of: the worst voice acting to land on a triple AAA title, fighting ten waves of recycled enemies, and obfuscated true endings.
Es difícil hablar de este juego ya que en cuanto a historia es de los más importantes sin duda, si eres fan de la saga o quieres seguir entendiendo el lore sí o sí tienes que jugarlo, ocurren hechos muy importantes para entender la tercera entrega. Quitando la historia y pasando al juego en sí, noto mucho el hecho de que sea un juego remaster de uno de PSP, no soy un gran fan de este juego, los personajes me gustan pero no consigo conectar con su gameplay como si lo hago con el del 1 y del 2, lo noto tosco y demasiado mecánico y nada dinámico, al igual que el Chain of Memories me lo pasé en el verano del 2016 y tendría que forzarme a jugarlo, ojalá verle lo que le ve alguna gente.
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.
O meu primeiro KH
Um jogo genuinamente ótimo
Só é meio zuado ter q fazer tudo 3 vezes
Um jogo genuinamente ótimo
Só é meio zuado ter q fazer tudo 3 vezes
I ended up having a lot of fun with this game, and in turn, putting in a ton of time into it on the PSP, but playing it now and looking back, it really isn't too great.
Having three characters to play as with their(mostly) unique story to play through was really cool, with everyone having different interweaving events and unique areas to explore in the common worlds.
I really enjoyed the concept of the Mirage Arena in this game, but with the Multiplayer functions withdrawn from the HD release, it becomes a lot less fun to progress through.
However with the content being spread between three characters, mostly focused on the story, it means that there's very little postgame. When you beat the game it lands you roughly between level 28-37 depending on what character you play and, of course, how much side content/grinding you do. But there are superbosses that you want to be a much higher level for and grinding experience for it ends up being very tedious.
The command deck system this game introduced also made characters feel very samey, and combat feel really clunky and punishing for really no reason. As well as locked abilities, that were once level up rewards, behind it.
The command deck alone makes this game one of the weaker entries in the series, which is honestly a shame.
Having three characters to play as with their(mostly) unique story to play through was really cool, with everyone having different interweaving events and unique areas to explore in the common worlds.
I really enjoyed the concept of the Mirage Arena in this game, but with the Multiplayer functions withdrawn from the HD release, it becomes a lot less fun to progress through.
However with the content being spread between three characters, mostly focused on the story, it means that there's very little postgame. When you beat the game it lands you roughly between level 28-37 depending on what character you play and, of course, how much side content/grinding you do. But there are superbosses that you want to be a much higher level for and grinding experience for it ends up being very tedious.
The command deck system this game introduced also made characters feel very samey, and combat feel really clunky and punishing for really no reason. As well as locked abilities, that were once level up rewards, behind it.
The command deck alone makes this game one of the weaker entries in the series, which is honestly a shame.
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)
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??????
This review contains spoilers
enjoyed a fair bit more than my original, non-FM outing on PSP, mostly due to playing it on not the PSP. Love the overarching story of Terra, Ventus, and Aqua and all the connections that are revealed to the rest of the games; some real crazy, near mind-blowing stuff at times. that being said, I do not enjoy the Disney worlds and they’re contained stories very much. The first three worlds may be the worst in the franchise as I can recollect (except for the abomination that is KH2 Atlantica). so re-doing them on the second and third characters is a slog; but things get a lot better and move along quicker once you get to Radiant Garden. overall I enjoy the overlapping story and the blanks getting filled in. The combat did grow on me again, and it is fun getting powerful commands and going nuts with a full deck, but I still prefer the simpler combat of KH1 and KH2. The secret episode is great, very cool to have a new piece I haven't experienced before, thanks to the final mix. so it is another step on the long replay journey building up to eventually finally playing KH3. only a KH: 3D replay stands in my way of new KH gaming.
Unlike 1 and 2, really have no desire to 100% this game (and not just because I fucked up real bad and saved over my terra file…[still was able to get the final and secret eps without having to replay tho]). Just seems like more of a chore even tho it probably actually isn’t. didn’t beat any secret bosses either; grinded to get the secret episode on standard, so was a much higher level and thought I’d give it a go, but vanitas remnant killed me in on hit so like yea no.
I believe I will still have to leave BBS in 4th place behind 1, 2, and 358/2 — https://www.backloggd.com/u/MrSacamano/list/kingdom-hearts-rankings/
Unlike 1 and 2, really have no desire to 100% this game (and not just because I fucked up real bad and saved over my terra file…[still was able to get the final and secret eps without having to replay tho]). Just seems like more of a chore even tho it probably actually isn’t. didn’t beat any secret bosses either; grinded to get the secret episode on standard, so was a much higher level and thought I’d give it a go, but vanitas remnant killed me in on hit so like yea no.
I believe I will still have to leave BBS in 4th place behind 1, 2, and 358/2 — https://www.backloggd.com/u/MrSacamano/list/kingdom-hearts-rankings/
My literal favorite Kingdom Hearts game and I don't care what anyone thinks about that. Love this game to death, and I love you Terra
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