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
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Kingdom Hearts BBS Preview
Breaking the ice here, I repeat to you all this is NOT kingdom Hearts III! I repeat, this is not Kingdom Hearts III, this game may look like it since it features Terra, Venn, and Aqua in KHII preview after you finish the game 100%, but unfortunately, it’s not III. Coming out in just a month is the closest thing we have to KHIII, and that’s KHBBS (Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep). Considering there was Kingdom hearts 365 days, that was just an insider into more of the Roxas and the Organization XIII plot that you should have gotten in KHII, so I don’t consider that game to even be in league with referring to KHIII. This new game has been featured for the PSP, which I think was a perfect choice since it’s so like Playstation 2, but with more graphics, color, and light. Its an improvement with out it being too much of an upgrade to where KHIII won‘t overpower it in terms of looks. Instead of the much liked Sora, you have three characters you can play with, each with their own styles so you can be sure that there’s a lot to unlock and go through for each character.
Terra is the powerhouse, using brute force to overpower his opponents, his speed hasn’t taken a big hit but is still noticeable. Venn is a quick striker, beating down his opponents with a flurry of fast and precise attacks that don’t do much individually, but will become lethal the more he advances. Aqua is a magical enforcer, using spells to deadlock and deal maximum damage with magical attacks, not much for key blade close combat but really isn’t necessary with her skills in magic. You have to play with all of them to get anywhere in the story since most places are only open specifically to each person. This change of pace is nice since the game doesn’t just use a big story with one character, it uses pieces of each story with each character giving the total experience once you play with all three of them, it’s like a puzzle piece really.
The enemies now have changed, although not too different from heartless, they are a new type called the Unbirths. Not too much is known about them, but they have a similar gameplay as the heartless do, and have the same shadowy composition. I can’t reveal too much of the story to you since it’s a major spoiler even if I utter out a word “cough--Roxas is Venn. Any who…the major upside to this is that most of the old features from KHI and KHII is back in this game including the abilities, wacky Disney bosses, multiple key blades, and tons of worlds not yet seen. I have yet to see a real downside except for the fact that the only render in the game is the opening. (A render is the part in KHI and II where everything is portrayed realistically, as in the part after you beat the game, or when you saw the preview of BBS.) Other than that it looks as awesome as ever. The new material is it’s crowning achievement because of how awesome it looks and how it differs so much from both KHI an II. The new abilities include the command bar, (don’t know if it’s actually new since I never played Chain of memories, or 365 days.) a bar that fills every time you attack successfully and can lead to an awesome finishing move once it fills up. I’ll explain more later so you don’t take it all in in one sitting. The next new ability is called the lock-on, which gives you the ability to lock on to every target in the room with a cursor and be able to attack them all with a push of a button. I find it’s going to be spammed a lot since it doesn’t take much to use it, and it can literally obliterate a whole room in less than three seconds. This is a move I’d advise using only when your health is real low.
Now, the next new thing I’ve seen in this game that differs from KHII is the physical to magical ratio of attacking when you use a move. With Sora, physical to magical combos were only used automatically as an ability, like when in Master or final form, even if you tried to combo it up, you’d find that Sora paused the majority of the time to use spells, making it difficult to even use them, that’s why most people avoided using any magical spells in the game. Here, in BBS, its flows as nicely as if you were in Wisdom or Master form, all the combos fit perfectly and you don’t even have to be a dedicated magical user to use them anymore. I guess this is the difference between a key blade wielder, and a “Master” key blade wielder. Another new invite to the game is style change. This is picking up from the command bar again and this time, it’s a whole new change from using a finishing move. When you fill the bar up, once in a while your character won’t do a finishing move, but change his/her whole style of attacking. This style change will allow your character to unleash new combos and abilities that he/she couldn’t use before. A good example is the style change that Venn uses, Speed Rave. This allows Venn to go into overtime, making his moves faster and powerful dealing maximum damage. He can now use a new finishing move and a couple of other attacks he couldn’t use before. Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W64xrWy0tVI by TheHelpfulGuy to watch it in action. There are others updated to this year, but again, spoiler alert. The other two characters have their own style changes that fit them and they have a couple they share with each other like Thunderbolt. With those new features plus new key blades and enemies, who wouldn’t want to go get this? I’ve already reserved a copy for myself and I can’t wait till I get it.
Terra is the powerhouse, using brute force to overpower his opponents, his speed hasn’t taken a big hit but is still noticeable. Venn is a quick striker, beating down his opponents with a flurry of fast and precise attacks that don’t do much individually, but will become lethal the more he advances. Aqua is a magical enforcer, using spells to deadlock and deal maximum damage with magical attacks, not much for key blade close combat but really isn’t necessary with her skills in magic. You have to play with all of them to get anywhere in the story since most places are only open specifically to each person. This change of pace is nice since the game doesn’t just use a big story with one character, it uses pieces of each story with each character giving the total experience once you play with all three of them, it’s like a puzzle piece really.
The enemies now have changed, although not too different from heartless, they are a new type called the Unbirths. Not too much is known about them, but they have a similar gameplay as the heartless do, and have the same shadowy composition. I can’t reveal too much of the story to you since it’s a major spoiler even if I utter out a word “cough--Roxas is Venn. Any who…the major upside to this is that most of the old features from KHI and KHII is back in this game including the abilities, wacky Disney bosses, multiple key blades, and tons of worlds not yet seen. I have yet to see a real downside except for the fact that the only render in the game is the opening. (A render is the part in KHI and II where everything is portrayed realistically, as in the part after you beat the game, or when you saw the preview of BBS.) Other than that it looks as awesome as ever. The new material is it’s crowning achievement because of how awesome it looks and how it differs so much from both KHI an II. The new abilities include the command bar, (don’t know if it’s actually new since I never played Chain of memories, or 365 days.) a bar that fills every time you attack successfully and can lead to an awesome finishing move once it fills up. I’ll explain more later so you don’t take it all in in one sitting. The next new ability is called the lock-on, which gives you the ability to lock on to every target in the room with a cursor and be able to attack them all with a push of a button. I find it’s going to be spammed a lot since it doesn’t take much to use it, and it can literally obliterate a whole room in less than three seconds. This is a move I’d advise using only when your health is real low.
Now, the next new thing I’ve seen in this game that differs from KHII is the physical to magical ratio of attacking when you use a move. With Sora, physical to magical combos were only used automatically as an ability, like when in Master or final form, even if you tried to combo it up, you’d find that Sora paused the majority of the time to use spells, making it difficult to even use them, that’s why most people avoided using any magical spells in the game. Here, in BBS, its flows as nicely as if you were in Wisdom or Master form, all the combos fit perfectly and you don’t even have to be a dedicated magical user to use them anymore. I guess this is the difference between a key blade wielder, and a “Master” key blade wielder. Another new invite to the game is style change. This is picking up from the command bar again and this time, it’s a whole new change from using a finishing move. When you fill the bar up, once in a while your character won’t do a finishing move, but change his/her whole style of attacking. This style change will allow your character to unleash new combos and abilities that he/she couldn’t use before. A good example is the style change that Venn uses, Speed Rave. This allows Venn to go into overtime, making his moves faster and powerful dealing maximum damage. He can now use a new finishing move and a couple of other attacks he couldn’t use before. Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W64xrWy0tVI by TheHelpfulGuy to watch it in action. There are others updated to this year, but again, spoiler alert. The other two characters have their own style changes that fit them and they have a couple they share with each other like Thunderbolt. With those new features plus new key blades and enemies, who wouldn’t want to go get this? I’ve already reserved a copy for myself and I can’t wait till I get it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)