Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep

[Acklow]

With the release of the latest game that is "in" the series (technically it is the prequel, and is not labeled KH1, 2, etc.) on September 7, we see yet another amazing Square Enix handheld game.

This much anticipated game follows the story behind three young Keyblade wielders: Ventus, Aqua, and Terra. It explains part of the reasons on how the Heartless, "Ansem" aka Xehanort, came into existence. In addition, it reveals why Roxas, Sora's Nobody, looks so different from Sora.

This thread is going to be open for discussion about the game, its plot, and its features.

Now to start it off, I would like to ask three questions to anybody who has got their hands on a copy of this game:

1) Which character's play style (the feel of their movements, attacks, how much damage they deal, etc.) do you prefer?

2) What do you think of the graphics?

3) What kind of setup in terms of abilities do you use?

 

[Nozizaki]

Great game. So far I've only played with Ventus so I'm going to answer like this:

1) Ventus' gameplay is my preffered as the balance is very notable. While he won't be slashing through health bars, he can avoid attacks as well as Aqua, and has good speed.

2) On par, if not better than the PS2 games (Seriously, graphics weren't that fantabulous.)

3) I have about 3, I'm still trying to find the Air Combo +1 ability, as the ground combat lacks an auto-sliding dash, which pairs great with Dodge Roll.

 

[Acklow]

I've started out playing as Terra (I'm currently on Proud Mode), and the character, Zack, is probably the toughest boss I've fought so far. The second time you fight him, he attacks so fast that he can OHKO if you don't even try to Shotlock right away. He starts off the battle similar to Sephiroth, in that he charges up a move, however, you can't do anything to prevent the move. You can however, try Shotlocking him whenever he starts charging up, because you'll be invincible to the flurry of attacks he rains down upon you.

Otherwise, yeah this game is really great. It has an easy way of using opportunities to use Shotlock, D-link, and other things like that. Plus, I like that they've incorporated a bunch of status spells. Using Zero Gravity and Sleep are quite fun to use.

I agree with you on the graphics, this game certainly has equal if not better graphics.

One thing I haven't liked too much about the game, however, is the load speed. Even with the software install (maximum), the game still takes at least 5-10 seconds to load. But otherwise, the game is worth the buy.

 

[Nozizaki]

I've started out playing as Terra (I'm currently on Proud Mode), and the character, Zack, is probably the toughest boss I've fought so far. The second time you fight him, he attacks so fast that he can OHKO if you don't even try to Shotlock right away. He starts off the battle similar to Sephiroth, in that he charges up a move, however, you can't do anything to prevent the move. You can however, try Shotlocking him whenever he starts charging up, because you'll be invincible to the flurry of attacks he rains down upon you.

Otherwise, yeah this game is really great. It has an easy way of using opportunities to use Shotlock, D-link, and other things like that. Plus, I like that they've incorporated a bunch of status spells. Using Zero Gravity and Sleep are quite fun to use.

I agree with you on the graphics, this game certainly has equal if not better graphics.

One thing I haven't liked too much about the game, however, is the load speed. Even with the software install (maximum), the game still takes at least 5-10 seconds to load. But otherwise, the game is worth the buy.

I'm on Proud too. With Ventus, I've have to extremes with bosses. Either laughably easy or infuriatingly difficult. The Tree Unversed and Vanitas have been most troublesome (Tree more, since I lacked Cure.)

I'm also curious about Critical mode, as it has never been on a North American KH game.

 

[Wanderer]

I've completed all three characters on Critical (still wasn't that hard). From what I can tell, Ventus is the most broken of the three due to two skills in particular: Faith and Tornado. Both have some nice super armor, Faith has massive AoE, decent damage, and heals you to full at maximum level. Whenever I faced Vanitas, I literally spammed Faith over and over again (he can't knock you out of it) and won. Tornado is good for some bosses since it makes them immobile, and is also good for crowd control in arena or something. Superglide is also very nice for him.

Aqua doesn't have many good exclusive skills like Ven does, so IMO she's the weakest of the three. She does get to block attacks when facing away, but that's not a great advantage. I tend to just spam Firaga clones with her, but that can be done with any character.

Terra on the other hand has extremely powerful counterattacks (they can flinch bosses, which can't be said for the other two) and way better physical attack due to his keyblades (gets +10 attack on his best one as opposed to 6 or so for the other two chars). Stats actually do matter in this game since there are no boosting items for them, though the only way to actually differentiate the stats between the three chars is with the Keyblades since they're all more or less identical in stats.

The game itself is pretty superior to the other KH games, I think. The greater balance between magic spells is nice, since I remember Thunder was by far the best magic skill in KH2 and there wasn't ever any reason to use Fire or Blizzard. The addition of physical commands is also nice since it opens up a variety of physical attacks that weren't available in the earlier games (XXXXXXX combos lol). Styles are an excellent addition, it gives you something to work towards while doing attacks instead of just spamming. Graphics are nice.

For abilities, I just max all of them as soon as I can, but I emphasize Magic Haste to speed up Cure reload time. Once More and Last Chance are both extremely valuable especially in Critical where bosses can kill you in two hits. I also get Thunder Boost as soon as I can to speed up CP farming.

I've personally never used Shotlock a lot, though that's more because I can't aim with it very well, haha.

 

[norelationstojfk]

I would love to be playing it right now, but I managed to brick my PSP again. Last time I'll ever take one with me to school.

When I do get a working PSP, though...

1) I will have to go with Ventus first. He intrigues me more than the other two.

2) What I've seen, they're pretty gorgeous for the PSP

3) We'll see when I get to play.

 

[Acklow]

I beat my game a while ago, but here are my thoughts:

By far, my favorite to use was Aqua. Although her physical damage output was low, I could easily find myself dealing damage fast using magic. Sadly, having only 8 slots to put different combos into is not too great. It's like having moveslot syndrome. Otherwise, combining the right commands to get good abilities wasn't too tough.
In terms of bosses, I ended up beating the Vanitas Sentiment only with Terra however. He was really tough, and the easiest way I found to do so was just spam Strike Raids while using Vanish and sitting behind one of the large rock structures.

I tried Mysterious Figure afterwards and I have to say that he was by far, the toughest boss I've ever faced. I don't think I would be able to beat him unless I sat around and kept retrying it until I would win, especially since I'm running Terra.

I do enjoy Terra for his large damage output and bulk, but the fact that he can't Dodge Roll or Cartwheel quickly makes him inferior pick when fighting bosses.

Ventus is great because of Dodge Roll. His damage output is the most versatile, hitting both sides of the spectrum with equal damage. However his strongest trait is his natural attack speed. I like that since that means I can string longer and faster combos. However, that also means that it even his finisher isn't the strongest thing in the world.

Out of all the commands, I love Vanish the most, since it does not require leveling up and since it basically makes you un-lock-on-able. Otherwise, the other commands that take up two slots are fun only for the animation.

I especially like it when you fight the Trinity Armor and the camera closes in on Ventus because he appears to be bouncing to the beat of the music. Plus his battle stance isn't boring like Aqua's (he spins his keyblade around, fuck yeah). Jokes aside, this game is totally worth buying. It has the longest play time in the entire KH series, totalling over 50 hours of play time (and I haven't even unlocked everything yet, and I've still more to go). Buy this if you plan on getting yourself a very good Real-time RPG for a handheld like the PSP.