So this game is divided into three parts. YAY! I got three games for the price of one? Well, mostly. There are parts when they cross over, you'll play the beginning three times, with a few different scenes at the end, the ending has the same first two videos, but adds some stuff for each individual character after that. There are a few times where you meet up with another character, but it's pretty rare. The biggest annoyance is having to re-level not only your character but their commands. I'll talk about that in a minute.
You choose to play as one of three best friends. Terra, Ventus and Aqua. Terra's story is very much like Revenge of the Sith wherein you're being drawn into the darkness by an obviously evil master of the keyblade. Ventus' story is much more innocent and he's just searching for his friends. Aqua's story is all about following orders and getting everyone back home and under control. This story does not have a happy ending. The finale's in each story are quite satisfying, especially at the beginning when everyone gets back together and faces down the Sith Lord Xehanort. I mean master of the keyblades.
As usual you work your way through various Disney themed worlds. They added in Snow White, Cinderella, Lilo and Stitch and the actual island from Peter Pan in this game, along with a few other original areas. The story telling is really rudimentary. Bad thing is happening to good person, you stop bad thing, good person is all better. Typical Disney/Kingdom Hearts storyline. The interesting bits are really the subtle storylines hinted at. This game takes place prior to the other Kingdom Hearts games, so you get to see Maleficent build her army a bit, you get to see where the Heartless originated from (kind of), you get to see why Sora and Riku get the keyblades in the future. It's pretty interesting, but it still MAKES NO DAMN SENSE.
This is really the most epic story thus far though. It's just too bad it was limited by the writer's inability to write a gripping plot, though this maybe due to the fact that this game is kind of targeted for kids. I don't really know who to blame. Taken at face value, it's really weak. But if you're like me and like to analyze something way further than it ever needed to be, or you can see the basic theme and mentally expand it on your own this plot is relatively badass.
So commands. In this game instead of just leveling up (KH 1/2) or using cards (Chain of Memories), you equip commands. Commands are obtained via finding them, buying them or synthesizing two commands together. Now this system is really interesting. There are a fair amount of commands in the game, some of which are even character specific, and you can even augment them with gems which give you permanent passive abilities. You have to level them up (they level up rather quickly, only the really top dog commands take a bit to level up) and then you can combine to make new or better or sometimes worse commands. Then you can use them freely in combat, they have a recharge time, but it's fair depending on how helpful the ability it (later in the game you'll spend some time dodging while waiting on Curaga to reload), along with your usual block, dodge and attack options.
Now that sounds, and is, all well and good. The only part that bugs me if having to redo all of this for the three different characters. Same with levels. I can't really complain too much, fighting is beyond easy in this game. I was having a bit of trouble with Aqua (she's physically pretty damn weak) but when I got to a point I couldn't beat I went to the first area of the game and just grinded. One hour later I had gained 16 levels. In the very beginning of the game. They either made grinding this easy due to the three plots, or because it's a portable game, or because of both. But this is the only game where I've actually enjoyed grinding to the point where I kind of lost track of time and progress to just grind more. This also levels up your abilities and you can quickly assemble a killed list of commands to use.
Let's see, we've got a pretty routine story, and incredibly easy, but incredibly fun, combat. Graphics are up to par. Seriously. This game is pretty fucking gorgeous. Load times are a bit long, but you can install part of the game to your memory card if you have the room, and can make the CPU speed increase, though it drains batteries. This game really isn't portable due to this. Not to mention how long the cutscenes take. Sheesh! But the graphics, those are really really good looking. There's only one real cutscene in the game, and that's the intro. After that it uses pretty much exclusively in game footage and it actually works. Color me impressed but this looked up to par with PS2 games, seriously. I mean the worlds were lacking in people and detail, but so did Kingdom Hearts, and I think even the sequel. There was never any slow down, animations are up to par, enemy designs are all fitting, the locales look great, it's just a really nice looking package.
The only other small detail I can think to cover is the voice acting. It's good. They got a pretty good cast and they all do their jobs pretty well. They kind of suck at doing emotions, for the most part, but near the end when Eraquas (voiced by Mark Hamill!!) is sad you can hear it. They all do a decent to good job. The music is all fitting, and just copies Disney chorus' for the most part. The sound effects all work. Nothing mind blowing here, but everything does what it's supposed to.
Really this game is damn fun. It's pretty easy, until a couple of the final bosses, and the secret bosses are just rapeyourface difficult, but it remains fun throughout. The story is worth playing through for the endings alone really, and aside from a feeling that all the characters are a bit touched in the head, it all works out and they all have motivations to do what they're doing. Even if it's a little derr sometimes.
For the three people who have a PSP I highly recommend checking this game out.
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