Fun fact: I meant to review this game… shit, three years ago. Well, better late than never, I guess. May as well make that my catchphrase.
When it comes to the Kingdom Hearts series, my thoughts and feelings on it change from game to game. There’s a handful that I really like and would happily replay given the time. But of the list, that handful is small indeed. These games constantly experimented with different ideas, and not all of them worked.
Birth by Sleep? Now here’s a game that worked! I’d honestly say that this is my favorite game of the series!
Even if the story is a total mess. Which is a given, considering… y’know. Kingdom Hearts.
Especially because there are now three of them.
Our story centers around three friends, Terra, Aqua, and Ventis, your standard Naruto-inspired trio of anime buds. The three are Keyblade Masters in training, and both Terra and Aqua are about to take their test for the full title before their masters, Eraques and Xehanort. But when mysterious shadowy creatures interrupt the test, our three leads are set on their own paths.
Terra is basically the KH equivalent of Anakin Skywalker. Following the guidance of the definitely-not-evil Xehanort, he goes from world to world, helping Disney villains do villain things. Because he’s just flat out stupid.
Ventis, being the youngest, is not allowed to go out on an adventure. But when the mysterious villain Vanitas appears and threatens his friends, he heads out to protect them. He’s your standard Sora.
Aqua is the member of the trio with the brain cell. Her story focuses around finding the source of the shadowy not-Heartless and destroying it. Though she mostly spends her time cleaning up Terra’s messes.
Also Mickey Mouse is around. Doing stuff. He’s not especially important.
Jokes aside, this is one of the better Kingdom Hearts stories. It’s definitely one of the darkest. Nobody gets a happy ending in this game. Not the good guys, not the bad guys, everyone loses by the time the credits role. For what this game is, it’s a very effective and memorable ending.
Namely because the end game boss fights are all amazing. But we’ll get to that later.
While I do like this story, it still suffers from the ultimate problem with the KH series by overly complicating things. It’s not enough to have a tragedy where all your playable characters meet a grim fate. We need to introduce all the human forms of the KH2 villains, and connect all our leads to Sora, Riku, and Kairi, and make a mess of our main antagonist’s name for no reason. Don’t even get me started on the god damn χ-blade or why Ventus looks like Roxas.
Your enthusiasm is commendable, Nomura, but maybe chill a bit, okay?
To be fair, for a PSP game, ‘Birth by Sleep’ is fairly impressive. Granted, I played on the PS4 HD Remaster, but that was more of an upscale than anything else. The classic KH art style translated fairly well to a portable format. My only real gripe is that the camera is a bit too close to the character for my taste, but that’s just another side effect of the original portable format.
It goes without saying that the music is incredible. Yoko Shimomura, Takeharu Ishimoto, and Tsuyoshi Sekito brought their A-games to this one. Basically every track is a banger.
On the surface level, combat is your standard Kingdom Hearts fare. Mash X to swing Keyblade, cast spells, kill enemies, get EXP, level up, repeat. Simple, right?
Unlike the numbered games, ‘Birth by Sleep’ doesn’t have party members. Sure, you can summon Disney characters to your side via D-Links to fight with special abilities. But for the most part, you’re on your own. No need to constantly micromanage Donald and Goofy!
To help make up for your disadvantage in numbers, each character has a new attack called the Shot Lock. Basically, you lock onto the enemies and unleash waves of bullets to do extra damage or cull waves of smaller enemies. It’s not especially impressive, but it is useful.
Melding is the main form of progression. To oversimplify things dramatically: abilities such as attacks, spells, and items are all essentially accessories you need to equip. More than that, you can merge these commands to create new, stronger commands. For example, merging a melee skill with thunder magic might give you a thunder-melee attack.
Some of these give you passive abilities that can help you out. Don’t feel like grinding for a million years? With some material grinding, you can unlock the EXP Walker ability. Now you gain experience just by walking. It’s a small boost, but it really adds up; I managed to max out all three characters well before their final mission, even on Critical mode.
Yes, I played on Critical mode. Recommendation: don’t do that. Unless you’re either a masochist or have the patience of a saint. This game will kick your ass if you want it to.
In terms of level design, I feel like ‘Birth by Sleep’ is one of the weaker KH games. Due to it being a PSP game, levels are much smaller, emptier, and most of the time: more annoying. Especially when your objective is something as miserable as an escort mission. Of which there are several. Though I do appreciate how all three campaigns have unique levels designs for each character instead of just making you play through the same game three times.
There’s also the mini-games, like the mediocre cart racer and the Monopoly knock-off. But I hate them and I played them as little as possible. Though if they sound like your cup of tea, you’ll have plenty of them to play. The Monopoly one alone can burn dozens of hours of playtime.
The boss fights are definitely a highlight in this game. Some can be really frustrating, but most of them are super fun and challenging! The post-game bosses are some of the hardest in the whole series! Fighting these guys on Critical is downright brutal!
‘Birth by Sleep’ is the most fun I’ve had with a Kingdom Hearts game. A decent story, complex and challenging game systems, RPG mechanics you’d need a spreadsheet to fully understand, it ticks off all my personal boxes. It is far from perfect, but so is the entire franchise.
Which is why I’m not reviewing KH III or ‘Dream Drop Distance’ any time soon. Because then I’d need to replay them, and I don’t think I can do that to myself again. Especially not DDD.
God, these titles are so bad…
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