Let me tell you: this one took forever. I started this the year it came out, put it down halfway through Ventus' story for reasons I don't really remember, and then had trouble picking it back up again. I finally finished it, though not as much as I intended to. I was going to 100% the Trinity Report, but with 2.5 Remix coming next year, I decided to just finish up all the individual reports to see the secret movie. All in all, 113 hours went into this game. I wish I could say it was all fun, but... it really, really wasn't.
Alright, let's get this out of the way right now: the main game is good. Great, even. I had my most fun when I was just playing through the main game. The Command System happens to be my favorite out of all the Kingdom Hearts games so far. Getting to experiment means a more varied experience.
The plot starts ten years before Kingdom Hearts and features three character who we never see in any other game, so... yeah, I never got attached. And that's all I'm saying on plot, because this is Kingdom Hearts and trying to explain it to the uninformed is an exercise in frustration. There are three campaigns, one with each character, and they all play different: Terra is the bruiser, hits hard and has lots of HP; Ventus (another Sora look alike...eh) is quick and agile; Aqua uses the most powerful magic. These three are supposedly equally balanced, but Aqua can be a game breaker in the Mirage Arena (more on that later).
The gameplay is as fluid as ever. I was able to destroy Unversed as well as I could destroy Heartless. Shotlocks took some getting used to, but I managed. But let me tell you, I would have never even touched D-links if the Reports hadn't demanded it. That isn't to say you can just damage rush everything. On the contrary, I think this Kingdom Hearts was the first I had to really think to win.
The voice acting is top notch. Once again, the Disney characters are played by their movie counterparts (when possible). Even Chris Sanders came back as Stitch. For the new characters, we have the the much talked about pairing of Leonard Nimoy and Mark Hamill as Master Xehenort and Master Eraqus, and they hit it out of the park. Aqua and Ventus's voice actors do good as well. Terra... man, he is dry. Probably the only misstep in the audio.
The graphics... let me tell you, I feel old every time I turn on my PSP. I remember when the GBA was a big deal because it had Super Nintendo-level graphics. Now... wow.
So, what's my beef with Birth By Sleep? To use an discredited South Park meme, "If you go for 100% completion, you're gonna have a bad time." You think filling out Jiminy's Journal was hard? Try doing it three times, and each time you have to conquer a mode meant for multiplayer. No one I know plays KH, so I was stuck doing Mirage Arena solo. This meant beating very hard bosses solo. This meant hours of grinding to get high enough to beat them. I really want to like the arena, but I can't give an honest thumbs up. Worse, the other Arena Challenges come from a watered down Mario Kart and an asinine Mario Party clone. And once you do all those, you still need to grind for medals to get everything.
All in all, unless you're a completionist like I am, stick to the main story. Otherwise, hey, you're funeral.
And now, I can finally move on to re:coded
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