Product Reviews
The Square-Enix-Disney crossover adventure continues in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, designed exclusively for PlayStation Portable. The main characters in the game fight alongside familiar (and some not-so-familiar) Disney characters, as they travel through an inter-dimensional realm of the imagination, on a quest to purge darkness from the heart. Players equip their characters with a custom set of abilities using slots in a Command Deck, but the combat in the game is action-oriented. As they succeed in battle, characters fill a gauge that allows them to evolve to more powerful Command Styles. The action takes place in different themed worlds, based on well-known animated Disney films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Peter Pan, and Lilo & Stitch. Moving from world to world, players travel on a game board-like map, full of special opportunities and perils, depending upon which space they land. As they complete the challenges in each world, players can access a Command Board, which allows them to instantly travel back to previously visited locations, or to summon a distant character for help in an especially tough fight. The campaign includes three scenarios, one for each main character, and they can be played through in any order. Birth by Sleep is a prequel in the Kingdom Hearts series, set ten years before the events of the original PlayStation 2 game. The story follows three apprentices named Terra, Aqua, and Ventus, who are training to become Keyblade Masters. Just as they are struggling with their final tests -- Terra does not pass -- a rival master named Xehanort vanishes, and dangerous creatures called Unversed begin to appear in worlds throughout the realm. Charged by their mentor to defeat these dark entities and locate Xehanort, the young heroes encounter different franchise characters as they search through each world, including Mickey Mouse, who is still an apprentice himself at the time, and also on a quest to destroy the Unversed. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide