Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep Review

The combination of Disney and Square Enix worked successfully when Kingdom Hearts first came out on the PlayStation 2, and title's fanbase has grown considerably since it debuted. However, while a lot of people are anticipating Kingdom Hearts 3, Square Enix has decided to focus on some spinoffs, the first of which was Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days on the Nintendo DS. Now it's the turn of Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, a game which is trying to push the franchise further.

For those who played Kingdom Hearts 2, a full completion enabled a glimpse a secret ending to the "next" game. This next game turned out to be Birth By Sleep. The end of Kingdom Hearts 2 is where Birth By Sleep carries on with its introduction, however, ultimately it's a glimpse at the future and we get to find out the story behind the 3 new mysteriously armour clad characters in the process. It's also a prequel to Kingdom Hearts 1 so expect to see a few cameos of recognisable faces.

The story initially follows the journey of three friends: Ventus, Terra and Aqua. Terra and Aqua are both applying to be Keyblade Masters under the supervision of Master Eraqus, while Ventus is still a bit too young to really get involved. However, when another Master named Xehanort vanishes, Terra and Aqua are sent to find him. Terra sets off first, closely followed by Ventus who was meant to remain behind but was worried about his friend, and Aqua is placed with finding the both of them as well as Xehanort. Eraqus also requests that she keeps a close eye on Terra who seems to be struggling with the Darkness inside him. From there the story divides up and each of the three characters has their own roles to play occasionally crossing over with the other two characters.

This is the interesting part, as players actually get to choose who they play as throughout the game, and on completion not only can they continue, they can start a new save and experience the story for the other two perspectives as well. While the actual worlds are the same, the locales on each world are not. These areas are off limits to the other characters and while some of the parts of the map are reused, for the most part the experience is very fresh for each character. As players progress they will find there are similarities between the three characters, so there isn't really much benefit from picking one over the other.

The formula, in essence, remains the same. Players will travel from world to world making sure the story from each Disney themed world carries out as it would in the movie. There are some discrepancies to the actual films but the worlds feel very much like stepping into the actual films. There are aspects which are drastically toned down, such as Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Those films actually had some of the most iconic villains with regards to just how frightening they were and that has been completely lost, but that's just a minor point.