Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep - Sony PSP

Its alright. The storyline is alright, and the game play is harder than the other games. Youre going to spend a ton of time learning about the battle system and leveling. I dont like the battle system... The link is confusing and not needed. As far as the company who I bought it from? They were excellent. My order never showed up, they had no problem with sending me another copy. They were very nice about the whole situation and replied promptly to my messages.

Good game I enjoyed playing it even though I never finished it.

While original Kingdom Hearts games on PS2 had very childish stories, I loved them because of their unique combat system and fun RPG gameplay. Therefore I had to give Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (KH:BBS) a shot. I after finishing the story twice with two different characters, here is what I thought. ****************PROS.******************** THREE PLAYABLE CHARACTERS AND THREE SIDES TO THE STORY: KH:BBS is a unique game in the sense that you have three playable characters in this game. You get to choose which character you want to play as in very beginning of the game. Each character will visit different parts of the given worlds, will grow in a different way and experience a different facet of the main story. Thus, to experience complete story, you will have to finish the story with all three different characters. BATTLE SYSTEM: Like KH1 and 2, the battle system is the strongest aspect of KH:BBS. While this game is on PSP, it is amazing the number of different physical and magical combos you will find yourself pulling off on enemies. Throughout the game you get many different magic and attacks and you can combine these different magic and attacks to create stronger, more stunning and vary unique moves. In addition to attacks, you will also have different finishing moves. As you use different types of attack you will develop different finishing moves and different combos. It is very difficult to explain in words, but once you play, you will have an idea about the depth of battle system in this game. I personally loved it. Furthermore, different characters starts out with different moves so the variety of attacks you will have at your disposal are simply ridiculous. GRAPHICS, ART AND ANIMATION; The game looks as gorgeous as KH on PS2. Just like KH1 and 2, different Disney and Square-Enix characters are aesthetically animated and assuming you watched those cartoons and played square games, you will go through many nostalgic moments. Loved it! OPEN WORLD GAMEPLAY: Throughout the games you will visit different Disney worlds and game at most times gives you freedom to choose which worlds you want to visit. You are also allowed to revisit worlds to collect treasure that you may have missed or were unable to collect on your first visit. This is one of the features I loved in original KH games and am happy they have kept it here. RPG ELEMENT: Just like previous KH games, as you defeat more enemies, your character will level up and his or her strength, magic, health and other stats will increase. Also, as described above, in addition to your character you can also upgrade different magic, attacks, moves and finishing moves. The advantage of this system is say if you are finding a boss or enemies in certain area difficult to finish, then you can always level up and have another shot at them. RPG element is one of the biggest reasons I have been a big fan of KH games. ENEMIES AND BOSSES: Again just like previous games, very nicely designed. Different enemies and bosses will require different strategy to beat them (especially on harder modes). Buttonmashing will only get you so far. I wont spoil much, but I loved the fight where you fight human opponents. MINIGAMES: In addition to main gameplay, you will also find yourself playing couple of minigames, such as racing and dice games. Fortunately most of these are optional so if you like them, play your heart out, if not, not a big necessity. Great way to kill some more time though. Also, your performance in these minigames may help you upgrade your skills in the main gameplay. CO-OP GAMEPLAY: KH:BBS has an arena mode where you can either by yourself or with your friends fight hordes and hordes of enemies, race against each other or play dice game. While not necessary, it is an great addition to this game. I personally loved this mode. More you play, tougher arena modes you unlock (i.e. tougher horde fights etc.) REPLAYABILITY: As stated above, you will be finishing the story at least 3 times to explore all the areas and all the aspects of the story. And at least from what I have played, you wont get tired anytime soon. SECRET ENDING: No spoilers. The game itself tells you that if you want to unlock secret ending, play on harder modes. To unlock it, you will have to collect certain reports. So if you are completionist like me, you will be playing this game for quite a while to unlock this. ***************CONS.************************ REMOVAL OF SOME FEATURES FROM ORIGINAL KH GAMES: Since this game is may be taking place on PSP, they removed some good things from original KH games. You no longer have any partners. In many ways this makes things easier, but I kind of miss them. *************CONCLUSION******************* I have personally loved this game. Unfortunately, it will take a long while for KH 3 to come out, but meanwhile this is definitely a great game to pass some time and get ready for KH3. I personally loved the gameplay and also the story in this game. Hopefully they connect this game with KH 3. I would give this 9/10.

I think this game is the best of the series. the characters you can relate to, the story is touching, and the fighting style is sooooo much easier than the other games. BUT I recommend also getting the bradygames kingdom hearts birth by sleep walkthrough for advanced gameplay. I was stuck on the end of terras story (it took me five hours!) but it completely helped me so i could pass it without losing half of my health bar. So if your looking something to get someone as a gift, i recommend this game.

My stepdaughter gave me the money to buy this for her. She has previously played kingdom hearts 1 and 2 on her ps2 and since she bought a psp recently, she was saving up the money to buy this prequel. This was purchased at a reasonable price. She loves this game. She has been playing it for hours with no signs of stopping.

This is a brilliant prequel to what will be one of most well known video game crossovers of all time. Beautiful graphics, the PSP shines like the PS2. True sceneries could be played with more but for the PSP Im massively impressed. The story is absolutely heartbreaking, and incredibly dramatic. A perfect tie in to Kingdom Hearts, while also setting up potential storylines for KH3(whenever that decides to be announced). I despised 356/2 days, absolutely loathed it this is such a breathe of fresh air. True its a hack and slash but there are so many minigames and story to tell its just a fantastic experience. The gameplay like any Kingdom Hearts game is the typical God of War hack and slash with reaction commands every now and then. I like how they added D links and I LOVE the new combat system, its very enjoyable. The one problem with the gameplay is the camera mode, they fixed the problem in KH2 but it came back in this one, granted it does not really effect the game play but when your trying to fight the boss and it locks on to a crate it can kind of make or break you. Which now leads me to difficulty, this game is HARD. It is very challenging especially on Proud Mode, I underestimated the level of difficulty. It seems all those fans that complained about how easy KH 2 was can breathe a fresh air because BBS especially on proud mode is HARD. I think I died 6 times in the Sleeping Beauty world, very difficult. This game is well worth the money, well worth the wait and an incredible experience. 5/5 easily, I hope I helped. The 1 star review for this amazing game is just a huge hell no.

Im very new to KH and figured Id use this game to launch myself into the world and get used to the characters and playing style. As a newbie to the whole RPG world, this game was very easy to learn how to play. (Like all the other KH games it comes with the ability to choose what difficulty setting youd like to play at. The options are Beginner, Standard, Proud, and Critical Mode.) The characters are fun and its easy to get caught up in the whole story line and concept. This is a fun PSP game and I recommend it to all who would like to become familiar with the whole KH story, this is the prequel to the entire series after all!

Okay, so I am a huge fan of the Kingdom Hearts franchise. As a result, I was very, very excited for the latest installment, Birth by Sleep. So excited, in fact, that I actually went out and bought a PSP just so I could play it. $170 for the system, $30 for the memory card and $45 to get this game on release date. Was it worth the almost $250 I paid to play it? Absolutely. In case youre not aware, Birth by Sleep is a prequel to the Kingdom Hearts series, taking place roughly ten years before Soras tale kicks off. Does this mean you can just jump in? Well, yes and no. A lot of what is contained in this game is nods and winks for what will come later in the series, so if you havent played KH, Chain of Memories, KH II or 358/2 days yet, you might miss some of these (but I doubt that would be critical). This game, if nothing else, begins the tale by explaining a lot about why a lot of the things that happened in the series did, so its beautiful for continuity. About the storyline of this game specifically: there are three. Thats right, three beautifully interwoven stories. You play as Terra, Ventus and Aqua - three students yearning to become Keyblade Masters. But right at the beginning, their fates take a twist, and you end up separated. You can play as all three characters in any order you desire. (Though Terra, Ventus, then Aqua is the order recommended by the games designer). In my opinion, the story build-up through each *individual* story is kinda sub-standard compared to the rest of the KH series, but putting the stories together makes it just as awesome as its predecessors. As far as gameplay is concerned, I have to say that it is, by far, the best combat system that the Square Enix has come up with yet. The command deck system is a good compromise between the standard battle system of KH and KH II and the Panel system of 358/2 Days. (Thankfully they neglected to add anything of the horrid card system that Chain of Memories sported.) They also added a couple of new features. One, for instance, is the addition of Shot Lock commands. Using this neat feature, you can lock on to a large number of enemies (or just one enemy repeatedly) to unleash multiple attacks simultaneously, even sometimes launching massive combos that can do insane damage. One big difference in this game is that there is virtually no party to help you in combat. Every so often youll get a little help for a boss fight, but its mostly you on your own for the majority of the game. But, to counteract this, they added a D-Link feature. Basically, when you switch D-Link mode on, you can get different command decks based on the character you linked with. You can also get powerups that are shaped like stars as you defeat enemies in D-Link mode that will strengthen the deck, give you a new finish command, and make it more powerful overall. That is something I neglected to mention about combat. There is the addition of Finish commands. As you unleash combos against enemies, you will fill a combo bar. The more damage you do, the faster it fills. Once it fills completely, your character will unleash a finish command, which can evolve into several more powerful versions as the game progresses. Also, if you use deck commands (attacks, magic or both) in the middle of building up a bar, you can sometimes trigger different combat styles. This will allow you to build your combo bar up again, while using far more powerful attack patterns - maybe powered up by lighting your keyblade on fire, or by dealing critical damage with every strike (very similar to Limit Attacks in Days). Oh yes, and to make sure your commands are leveled up as far as they can be, you have several options. One great one is playing on the new Command Board feature. Thats right, the designers at Square Enix added a fully functional board game to the KH game. And trust me, it is really a lot of fun. Plus, as you play, your attacks and commands will get stronger. How cool is that? But if board games just arent your style, you can also go try the Mirage Arena. You can either play multiplayer and try to compete either with or against your friends, or go it alone for some really tough battles. And all the while you can collect loads of XP to make your character strong. Not sure ive missed anything else. So as far as gameplay, its absolutely outstanding, by far the best in the series (and one of the best Ive ever played - and Ive played a lot). When it comes to story, its pretty much par-for-the-course, but trust me, Squares set the bar very high, so even par is very good. No digital version, so youd better by the UMD if you have a PSP and like Kingdom Hearts. Heck, you should buy this even if you *dont* like Kingdom Hearts - yet.

You can play three different characters with three different journeys, but what annoys me is that you have to protect a certain character until it reaches a certain point. Its the reason a stopped playing Kingdom Hearts 2 on PS2. The first one was much better and I wish they had the PSP version of it.

I admit Im never very good at finishing games, but when I grabbed my existing copy to play around in the world again I noticed the crack in the case surrounding the UMD disc was so impacted that it prevented the disc from loading. So I needed another one. Birth By Sleep is one of those games in the series that goes almost TOO light on the actual cooperation between Square Enix designs and Disney characters, but remains one of the most polished in combat and options. If you want a look at how things started BEFORE Kingdom Hearts 1 happened... its a must-buy. And thankfully by this time price has gone down enough that I didnt feel bad at all for just getting a second (working) copy.