Review – Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP)

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep sits in a strange place.  The kind of strange, awkward place that comes from being a game that could have possibly been so much more, but falls just a little bit short of the mark.  The PSP title is a prequel to the original title for the PlayStation 2, and as such would probably mark a good place to start for those who aren’t familiar with the franchise.

If you’re a long time Kingdom Hearts fan, but got tired of playing as Roxas and Sora, fear not.  You won’t be playing as them in Birth by Sleep.  Instead, three new protagonists make their debut: Terra, Aqua and Ventus.  Aqua is a young woman who specializes in magic, Ventus looks exactly like Roxas from Kingdom Hearts 2, and Terra looks suspiciously similar to Zack Faire from Final Fantasy VII.  The three protagonists are close friends and keyblade wielders, and you are given the chance to start off your game with any one of the three of your choosing.  Since Tetsuya Nomura, designer of Kingdom Hearts, stated that his recommendation was playing through the story with Terra first, then Ventus and finally Aqua, that is what I chose to do.

While on the PlayStation 2, the Kingdom Hearts games boasted a wide-range of vocal talent from Mandy Moore to David Boreanaz of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame.  Birth by Sleep is no different, featuring the voices of Mark Hamill, Haley Joel Osment and Jesse McCartney.  But not every character in Birth by Sleep has a stellar voice actor behind it.  Terra’s voice is absolutely horrible and sounds as though Jason Dohring read the script the same day he recorded.  His voice falls flat every single time and makes watching cut scenes and bits of dialogue laughable at best.

Most of the dialogue tends to be on the cheesy side, but hey, that’s typical for Kingdom Hearts.  You either love it or hate it.  It all depends on how high your tolerance for sugar-coated cuteness is.  The game features a menagerie of Disney characters, including Maleficent, Cinderella, Princess Aurora and Stich, just to name a few.  There are several worlds you’ll be able to visit, though you’ll be visiting them more than once with all three characters.  Some of the boss fights even repeat themselves and will call for the same strategy you used the first time to defeat them, making for some repetitious gameplay.

If you enjoyed the Gummi Ship mini-game from the original title, then there are plenty of mini-games here to curb your cravings.  If you hated the Gummi Ship… well, not to worry.  None of the mini-games are mandatory or forced on you and are actually kind of fun.  One mini-game comes in the form of a board game, which brings back memories of the earlier Mario Party games.

The game truly shines during its boss battles, which can be quite challenging.  There are several difficulty settings, though you aren’t able to change these settings on the fly once you’ve started.  If you pick Proud mode, you better be sure you can handle it because you won’t be allowed to change it should you have a change of heart.  You also won’t be allowed to unlock the secret ending if you choose the easy setting.

While playing on the normal difficulty setting I found myself struggling with a few of the boss fights mostly due to the camera and controls, which can be very obnoxious.  You’re forced to use the left analog stick on the PSP, which can become especially tedious when trying to use your special abilities, potions and magic during a fight.  Flipping through abilities quickly can prove to be a nuisance.  You can choose which ability you want to use by using the D-pad, which wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t have to also run for your life using the analog stick with the same thumb.  If the controls weren’t vexing enough, the camera will also enjoy messing with you while you’re in a heated battle.  Several times I found myself dying to the same boss repeatedly because the camera decided to induce some nasty whiplash, and would yank the camera in strange directions at the worst possible moments.

The boss battles are imaginative, fast paced and overall just really fun if you can keep the camera under control.   Though at times the game seems to encourage button-mashing, it is a breath of fresh air from other turn-based battle systems.  You won’t need to wait your turn to get your hits in, and the boss won’t wait for you to be completely ready before it starts assaulting you, either.  There are moments where the stars align and everything feels so right that it could have been the best Kingdom Hearts title to date.  But with every step forward Birth by Sleep makes, it seems to take two steps back in the form of clunky controls and an irritating camera.

The load times are also a problem.  While they aren’t the worst you have probably experienced, they also aren’t painless and it’s strongly recommended that you install the game to the memory stick.  Get a big one.  You’re going to need it.  The graphics are charming, which is to be expected from a mash up of Walt Disney and Square Enix.  Those who have been with the series since the beginning won’t notice any real differences, except that you’re now given a choice of 16-bit or 32-bit graphics.  You can change these settings at any point in the game through the menu.

The cinematic cut scenes are fantastic and are always enjoyable to watch.  So much so that I wish there were more of them.  The story isn’t anything strikingly original.  I won’t give much away of course, but I will say that it seemed to borrow a page from the Star Wars saga.  Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is worth playing if you’re a huge fan of the series, but the controls may be too off-putting to others.

All in all, it’s a huge leap from 358/2 Days but did not quite reach the greatness of Kingdom Hearts 2. It seems really strange that the problems that plague Birth by Sleep are the same problems that were present in the original and it leaves me to wonder why they still have yet to be addressed.  If you scrape away the rough edges from Birth by Sleep, you’ll find a real gem in this enormously successful franchise that will most likely please fans and newcomers alike, despite its problems.