A tale that goes deeper than Atlantica's depths, The Kingdom Hearts story is continued in this PSP prequel to the first Kingdom Hearts game. 10 or so years before the events of Kingdom Hearts, Birth by Sleep features a trio of friends who share the same dream, the same laughs, the same pains, and the same misfortune. Terra, Aqua, and Ventus are three aspiring Keyblade masters who's dreamt of becoming one since as far back as they can remember. Unfortunately, no one could forsee the terrible travesty that was about to unfold. A story of hearts and heartache told from the perspective of three people, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep provides a deeper, more emotional connection to the series. Each hero goes to different worlds, experiences it differently, and all connect once more in the end.

Some people who had the original Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II were excited for a new, fresh experience on a new console. Originally planned to be on the PS2, during development Birth by Sleep was shifted to the PSP, and I don't think it was a bad decision at all, because the PSP was made worth buying because of such titles as this. Even people who never had any involvement in Kingdom Hearts prior praised this game for it's exciting Action-RPG gameplay and impressive depth for a PSP game. Not only was it made for hardcore fans of the game, but the difficulty selection made it easy for even average gamers just getting into the series. As much as there is to say about this game, I'm afraid it'll have to wait until a bit later in the sections of this review.

Graphics: 10/10. Now, I know this is going to sound biased, but it isn't really. I've yet to find a game that has this much content while still keeping the graphics this good. Square Enix made sure to do it as well as possible, including their strategy of using lower quality models and animations in shots that don't focus too much on the character in question, to give an interesting depth effect. Moreover, each world is colorful and exciting, like disney games should be. I believe that this game took PSP graphics to a new level, one that can't be surpassed. In addition, you could also change the color mode to 32 bit color instead of 16 bit, which greatly enhances the game. You could adjust the clock speed to make the game run faster, install some of the data to the memstick for faster load times so the graphics looked more seamless, and so on. It's very solid and hard to be outdone as far as the PSP goes. Feel free to try and disprove me if you want.

Sound: 10/10. Again, this is going to sound biased, but hear me out. Yoko Shimomura, responsible for music in such titles as Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga, Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior etc did the soundtrack for the entire Kingdom Hearts series. It is known as her best work in the videogame industry, and even people who have nothing to do with Kingdom Hearts still praise it's soundtrack as well as the composer herself. Every song fits every scene just right, the battle themes are epic (I don't use the term epic loosely, you should know I'm serious when I say this) and overall is a soundtrack that can be enjoyed whether you've played the game or not. Birth by Sleep introduces tons of the best songs in the series as well. If I was going to honestly recommend a few songs to represent the soundtracks, I'd have to say "Dark Impetus", "Rage Awakened -The Origin-", and "The Silent Forest" as well as "Tears of the Light". You won't regret it, it's a great listen. Most are in a sort of traditional orchestration sort of feel, even though I'm fairly certain it's synthesized. Nevertheless it still sounds good.

Addictiveness: 8/10. Now let me break down why this game is so fun to play. Firstly you have an Action RPG consisting of Attack, Block, Dodge, and Command. Now, of course, you can do combos and such to attack, sure, but let's say for instance you have a Blizzard command. You can mix the fighting style up to where you can do two attacks then follow up with a Blizzard, or if you're going to be a little more extreme, do something risky like a Quick Blitz into a full combo. Making combinations with the Command Deck is what makes this game particularly fun. But if you're not satisfied with that, let's add another way to attack. The Shotlock command turns you first person, allowing you to lock onto multiple enemies, and then unleash a flurry of fireballs or do some sort of highspeed dash attack. Want more? Take junk commands you don't need and meld them into something new! Add a fire command and a quick blitz to get a Fire Strike to have an edge against ice elemental enemies. More? Let's say you could borrow abilities and commands from the various characters you meet along the way. Well, you can, using D-Links. You'll forge D-Links with many people across your adventure and you can use the newfound power to destroy everything in your path. Now with all of that in mind, let's give you plenty of monsters to fight that only respawn when you move a few entire rooms away. None of that dumb random encounter stuff, just plain fun. If you're not satisfied even then, go to the Battle Arena to test your strength and even compete against someone else in Ad-Hoc multiplayer. Needless to say, the battle system is incredibly versatile and you can tell it to do exactly what you want it to do, unlike a lot of games. The freedom gives you a really addictive experience.

Story: 7/10. Right... so, the story I was talking about? it's not for everyone. Not only is the entire Kingdom Hearts plot incredibly difficult to understand unless you play the games that everyone deems as a "spinoff game" just because it doesn't have a number in the title, and well, if you haven't played any other then you might not understand this one. The story revolves around Terra, Aqua, and Ventus attempting to become keyblade masters. Ventus is kept grounded by his master so he will not wander off, while Aqua and Terra battle each other in the Mark of Mastery exam. However, Terra's Darkness escapes him for a moment and as such only Aqua is deemed a Keyblade master. Terra is sent to find Master Xehanort who has disappeared, and Ventus is visited by a strange boy wearing a mask who tells him Terra will be lost before he can catch up to him. Ventus then leaves despite his masters wishes, and Aqua is set out to find him. Along the way the three of them are met with many hardships, and what lies at the end of their journey... is for you to find out.

Depth: 7/10. So with one character you go to an assortment of worlds and complete those, but along the way you also find collectibles such as stickers that you can use to place in your sticker album to get cool stuff, play minigames to get cool stuff or to just casually enjoy them, they're pretty good. After collecting everything and beating the game as one character, you can re-enjoy the game as another. Doing the same thing. But the thing is, it gets a little more interesting because of the new fighting style of the character, as well as the alternate D-Links you can use. You have different abilities, visit different worlds in different situations, and overall it feels like a different experience in a familiar world. Different characters get different minigames as well. On top of all that, assuming you've completed a decent amount of side stuff as well as the main story of all 3 characters you unlock a secret episode to get further into the story. There are also optional superbosses that take some genuine skill to beat. Overall I'd have to say there's a lot to do with all three of them, it's a big adventure.

Difficulty: 9/10. So assuming that you've kept up this far, with all the battle system stuff you might be thinking this game is a little easy, right? Well, no. The bosses get incredibly difficult unless you plan your strategies accordingly, which isn't exactly easy on your first playthrough. Of course, if you're on a particularly high difficulty you won't even manage to survive long enough to toy around with the different strategies either. More or less this game is easy if you want it to be, but otherwise it's quite the hardship. Especially considering the superbosses are insanely overpowered and actually make you have to use lots of strategic healing as well as invincibility frames from dodging and Shotlock. I wouldn't worry too much about it though, because if you get a hang of the gameplay, you'll be able to overcome it.

Overall:9/10. Although the concept of Disney mashed up with Final Fantasy seems a bit odd, Tetsuya Nomura has done an amazing job of crafting one of the most interesting and touching stories in videogame history while making it a unique and enjoyable experience for all ages. The family friendly touch gives it a charm and can assure you that anyone will be safe playing the game. Now, that might be exactly why no one wants to actually play it (most people who liked final fantasy hated kingdom hearts because of how kiddish it seems) but I think that a lot of people, especially the people on here, will be able to look past that and see the game for what it really is: A really great game entry in a really great series. I honestly hope this'll make some people take a little more interest in the series, and maybe even give it a second chance. It's definitely worth the experience.

If I didn't know better, I'd say you and I are in a dead heat fighting for Yellow.

No Kingdom Hearts is a series I really want to get into because man it looks awesome, but I feel like all of the confusing names kind of make the series extremely unapproachable unless I want to sink hours on end into learning what goes when. And yeah you've tried to explain it to me but I just can't get it man. I wish they'd just release them as remasters so I could easily play them in order. Whiny me. Lol

But I'm confused by something here: you praised the lack of random encounters here (which is a HUGE plus for me) but seemed to oppose it in Undertale. I may be mistaken there as I wasn't entirely sure what you meant with it in the other review. Still I cannot stand random encounters and they're a large part of what turned me away from turn based RPGs.

I think I played this one I think, or at least I played one with cards, but I couldn't really get into the battle portion. But hey, you said it was for hardcore fans after all, right?

Anyway, nice review man. Keep it up...tomorrow please. Lol

Eirinn : The thing about Undertale is that, simply put, the random encounters fit Undertale because it was a turn based RPG. Random encounters fit it perfectly. The problem with random encounters in undertale is that they are limited, and you're essentially punished if you defeat them all. In an Action RPG it doesn't really fit. (which crisis core has the random encounters but it can easily be bypassed by hugging the wall.. don't tell anyone)

Basically undertale was good but the problem is that they are limited. They didn't respawn when you left, they were literally gone. Forever.

Plus canonically it makes sense for Kingdom Hearts to have endless enemies because the source of the enemies constantly spawns them, which is what the three are essentially looking for.

The cards one is Chain of Memories which is known as the worst kingdom hearts game. Birth by Sleep is different.

Also yeah geez that race for yellow was intense oh gosh