Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep

[Rocketshipper]

Didn't see a topic for this when I searched around, so I'm making one.

Well, it came out in Japan last week, so spoilers are already flying around. Acording to a few blogs, they're already into recording the english voice acting for the game (or maybe already done by now), so hopefully it won;t be too much longer before it gets released. Can't wait!!! Looks like possibly the best KH game ever. Here are all the awesome trailers, in chronological order.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbZm_p7PUD0 (Jump Festa 2008 trailer subbed)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEblUWVA0KI (TGS 2008 trailer subbed)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D7okVtNaA8 (TGS 2009 trailer)

and finally...the ultra epic pre-release trailer from Jump Festa 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=154gH6-g97k

This game looks soooooo awesome IMO. Its nice to see a return of the princesses of heart subplot; looks like the disney worlds will have a much bigger impact on the story again, like they did with the first game (ever since Chain of Memories it seemed like the Disney worlds had become filler.) And it looks like this time there won't be nearly as much rehashing of previous worlds like there was in the other games. And Pete as a super hero is freakin AWESOME!!! "Captain Justice, SANJOU!!!!!".

"Everything is born from sleep, yes, even you..."

"His name is..."

[Radical Dreamer]

Wow, I've been out of the loop on Kingdom Hearts since KH2, but...I've gotta say, this game looks kind of awesome. XD Too bad I don't have a PS3! Any word on the other Final Fantasy characters appearing aside from Zack, or have they toned down on the FF cross-overs these days?

[Rocketshipper]

the game is for the PSP, not PS3 ^^.

So far Zack's the only one I've seen in the trailers and screen shots. Don't know about any others, but its possible a few could show up, since it looks like one of the worlds they visit is Radiant Gardens

[Cloud500]

I can't wait for this to come out! Seeing as how a lot of the voice acting was started(or finished?) this past fall, we should see a localized version fairly soon...maybe. It seems like Square-Enix has been trying to have near simultaneous releases for most of their games recently.
Back to the actual game, I think it looks great. It'll be interesting to see how each of the three main characters play and supposedly this will be the longest game in the series so far.
Hopefully we'll here something on Kingdom Hearts III soon as well...

[Rocketshipper]

There were only 4 months between the release of 358/2 Days in Japan and its release in America. But then again, 358 doesn;t have nearly as much voice acting as this one, so who knows. I hope it will come out soon!!

[Nate]

I meant to post in this thread earlier. I know someone on another forum who imported the Japanese game and she posted her thoughts on it (she also said she'd been playing the game for basically a week straight, which speaks well of it). Anyway here's what she said:

The game itself is fairly standard FF/KH, with a couple new settings thrown in for fun. There's an area with a mini board game you can play for stats, but I just skipped all that as level grinding seemed more interesting. The way to level up abilities and magic is interesting, though I didn't use either that much, as I tend to be a button masher and adding an extra key for me to press means I start fumbling at buttons. I basically left D-Link ability alone, though if you're in a pinch, it could probably help.

My one main gripe is with the targeting system. I had far too many occasions where I drove an enemy up against a wall, only to have my keyblade bounce impotently off the rock, as apparently the enemy was too short for me to hit. I have more luck with the shorter Ven than Tera, but it's still a problem. One persistent targeting problem is that the auto targeting will always lock onto the smaller, less threatening enemy, and even in some situations, unmoving targets like boxes or lampposts. Should you lock onto an enemy, it's very hard to turn it off again, as apparently pressing the same buttons again doesn't do anything except maybe switch to a different enemy, if you're lucky. There is a special sniper-like targeting system, but it requires a slight degree of finesse to engage, only works for 3 seconds or so, and basically is unnecessary with the usual smash-and-dash gameplay.

Overall a very solid game, and definitely some moments when I went "OHHHHHH! So THAT'S what happened" so it should help answer some questions about KH as a whole, and if you've got a spare 30-40 hours or so (Tera took me 20, but I was messing around with some unnecessary ability leveling up, so it probably could've been 15, and I hear the other two are shorter) I recommend taking a peek once it comes out in the US.

[Rocketshipper]

Sounds cool. Can't wait to play!

I wonder what the intended order of playing the characters is. Whenever there's a game where you can choose multiple characters, I tend to just go in the order that the characters are listed on the select screen. I'd heard that all three characters are supposed to be equally important to the story, but I still imagine the creators probably had a particular narrative order of things in mind. In the end, I suspect I'll probably want to play as Ven last.

[Roberts]

Been a long while since my last Kingdom Hearts outing. Can't wait for this. I bought my PS2 solely for Kingdom Hearts back in the day (and for FFX to a lesser... ok, an equal degree).

Be interesting to see if this turns out to be Kingdom Hearts 3. Really hope so. Actually, truth be told I'm hoping far far more (in a jaded non-expectational fashion) that it is actually Chrono Brake, but Kingdom Hearts 3 wouldn't hurt either (nor would Final Fantasy VII - 2, or a Vagrant Story sequel).

[Azier the Swordsman]

Wow. I really need to catch up on my Kingdom Hearts. (Haven't played anything other than the first two)

That game looks epic.

[Rocketshipper]

Release Date announced!!! September 7th! Time to start pre-ordering

[GrubbTheFragger]

the game looks interesting. The whole keyblade is a one of a kind weapon (KH1) to Everyone has one (KH: BBS) is kinda odd but you know i am not a massive stickler for KH story details since i only finished Kingdom Hearts 1