Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Review

O: Look who's back. Yes ME TheDokta has been invited to do weekly reviews and gaming updates.
For this week's review I shall be reviewing a popular game for the PSP; Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. Firstly I'd like to say this is my favorite game of the series so far.

Our three protagonists, Terra, Ventus and Aqua.(from left to right)

First of all I shall look at the Story. Ok so the story here is seperated into three parts, for each respective character. At first this might seem like a really tack way of trying to extend the game by making you travel to each world and doing the same thing for each character, but believe me this is certainly not the case. Each character has their own overarching story in the same worlds. Terra is the first to travel to most worlds, Ventus trails behind him, and Aqua is sent to get the both of them traveling last to all the worlds. The main plot is interesting and engaging for the most part, but some parts can be a bit confusing. The three stories fit together well to make a whole. Overall the story here is well written.

Next I shall look at Audio. The Kingdom Hearts series has been known for their memorable songs and great voice acting and this portable rendition is no exception. Most tunes are new and sound familiar to those who have watched the movies. Voice acting here is great with famous inclusions such as Mark Hamil and Leonard Nemoy. The substitutes for the deceased voice actors are similar to them enough to not ruin the experience.

Spinny

Next up is gameplay and controls. Gameplay here is Action\Adventure. One of my favorite additions is the command deck system. The basic actions are performed with the face buttons jumping, attacking, blocking moving, But the triangle button allows you to perform a special move, spell or item. The spells and special moves require a reload time but no kind of bar (mana bar etc)
Another inclusion is the Focus mode which is like a FPS lock on system which allows for multiple attacks on many enemies. The D-Link allows you to "summon" another characters abilities. The Focus mode was only really helpful later on, as was the the D-Link. These new elements are a welcome addition to a classic series.

Next is Graphics. Graphically this game is on par with its console brethren, with crisp character models and great environments. This said the environments did feel a little bit lifeless and at times dull. The game allows for The CPU speed to decrease and increase and a 16 or 32 bit color scheme to reduce battery consumption.

Got it memorized?

My final verdict... A 9.5 out of 10!
This game is a monster portable game and I was surprised they could fit this much into one little disc. If you have never played a Kingdom Hearts game before then this would be a great place to start. This game is worth the money and a definite buy. NOW GO AND PLAY THIS AWESOME GAME!