I’ve had this awesome game for about a few weeks now, and I’ve got to say that it has far surpassed my expectations. The first thing that peeked my interest was the fact that there was three characters you can play with, Terra, Ven, and Aqua. Although you can’t play with the always favorite Sora, these three characters make up for the loss with diversity and quantity. The first thing you should notice is that this game will not be as versatile and long as Kingdom Hearts II, so if you feel you’ll get the same value, it just won’t happen. It is pretty close though. This game puts you right in the zone of being very flavorful, but not to overwhelm both the story and the main character at the same time. It’s before Kingdom Hearts so it won’t draw too much from Kingdom Hearts II, but the main characters are also Keyblade Masters so they will have many moves unfamiliar to Sora’s arsenal. The first impression this game gave me brought back fond memories of how it was when Kingdom Hearts II was out, and this was a welcome feeling when it’s been a few years.
This game offers a new contour that doesn’t strain Abilities for anything offensive, instead, you can earn and buy your attacks making them completely disposable and reusable. This allows a large list of attacks not seen anywhere in the Kingdom Hearts world to be used, plus it enables the use of stat changes. This method unfortunately doesn’t allow the use of anything like “Synch Blade”, “Berserk”, or “Horizontal Slash” abilities that we’ve all grown to love, however, it gives us the unlimited and full use of old favorites like Strike Raid, Sonic Blade, and Ars Arcanum. When playing this game, don’t expect much more than the story they give you since there’s no more from what’s already seen, so yes, you will see some repeated scenes, but these are very small since each character sees different places at different times. Still, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep’s main story is a little short with three characters and all of those over powered moves, but I’m sure you’ll get a great challenge in the mirage arena and in the more difficult modes if it’s too easy for you to beat.
The best thing about this game is the customizable decks coupled with the many Command Styles able to be used by one character. Of course, not all of them can use or create the same Command attacks and Command Styles like Ven’s Salvation and Spark Raid, Aqua’s Mega Flare and Triple Blizzaga, and lastly. Terra’s Ars Solum, and Zantetsuken. This goes for Style changes as well considering they have their owns including some that only two share. (Aqua has both Sky Climber and Blade Charge, while both Terra and Ven only have one of those two.) Of course, what’s a Kingdom Hearts game without mini games? This game takes it to another level and put in a whole lot more than what a hand held game should have. Including the Command Board mini game, you also have Rumble Racing, Fruit Ball, the Ice Cream game, Train Hercules mini game, and many more, plus most of them are able to be done over and over, and some can be done in the Mirage Arena for Arena Points. So, if you are really good at one, don’t be afraid to milk it for some easy earned Points as well. The frustrating thing about these is that losing is pretty much not an option, anything less than first gets you an automatic loss in the entirety of the game. (Remember the black screen with Sora standing in it feeling disappointed? Yeah, it’ll look like that.) You’ll get the option to try again, but it can get a little frustrating seeing it over and over again, especially on hard.
The graphics look splendid and amazing, especially since it’s on a handheld, unfortunately the graphics are a bit hard lined and not blended in like Kingdom Heart II, plus there’s none of that Kingdom Hearts spark that comes with how the character moves their lips and emotions, when Sora felt angry or sad, you saw that in him, but with Terra and Aqua, they’re a little anti-dramatic and non-comedic if you know what I mean. Ven had something to him but wasn’t as heartfelt as Sora. Combat wise they do a splendid job, they each have that verifiable trait that gives them a specific boost in attack and defense, and they each differ in how they do in each area. This allowed us to think outside the box and not how Sora and Mickey plus Riku and Roxas asserted their Keyblade powers. This also showed how the Keyblade can be wielded in many other ways instead of just leveled out to equal magic and attack power. Unfortunately this also limited the creators to cut the characters from power they could have used, like the ones I listed above. Sora could probably use all of those of he got to a power high enough to equal these Masters in strength.
Like I said the story is a bit small since you can’t do like Kingdom Hearts II and do each world two times with a totally different scenario, I know it may seem like you do it three times, but if the outcome is the same ending as the others, it’s just not going to cut it. Still they did give three different cut scenes and battles that others could never see, and I love this game for it, but the time spent in each world is cut short in places where you don’t have the chance to explore until you come back again and find you missed a lot of things on the road through. You will find that you have to get off track frequently just to earn that huge 100% chest earned and all of those stickers. This game totally exceeds on things that Kingdom Hearts II missed but it also left some of the great things behind in the dust, still, it brings back that flair in a new way with an epic story and the chance to play with Characters not seen. Even though the main characters aren’t able to be played, there are still at the least shown and that’s a big bonus to everyone. For my review, I give this game a nice….
9.0 out of 10.0
Unfortunately, it’s still not as good as Kingdom Hearts II and I didn’t think that the creators intended it to be. If I was rating Kingdom Hearts II, I’d give it a whopping…
9.9 out of 10.0
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