Okay. So it took me over three years to actually get
around to getting the platinum for the HD remake of Birth by Sleep. It was back in March 2015 that I got the KH2 platinum. And frankly, I’ve completely given up on getting the Chain of Memories platinum, because that
game is just not very good and having to play it over and over is absolutely no
fun. But anyway, yesterday I finally got around to beating No Heart and then
the Mysterious Figure with Terra, before anticlimactically having to go and
find a heartless I’d missed in Deep Space – finally popping that coveted
platinum trophy.
And despite dragging this out over several years, I
think I can say with confidence that this is my favourite in the Kingdom Hearts series. The first game is
the best conceptually, with the merger of Disney and Square the best-balanced,
the story not yet horribly bloated and the overall feeling the most joyful. KHI
Sephiroth on Proud Mode is also the best they’ve balanced a hidden boss to be a
very hard challenge while also feeling rewarding and fair to fight. KHII is the
best player experience, and nothing quite matches the joy of late game Sora destroying
everything with a highly intuitive control system. It’s also the best-looking
game so far.
But Birth By
Sleep has a lot going for it. It has the most emotionally resonant story, quite
cleverly balancing a tragic story with a satisfying feeling of having triumphed
by beating the game. It has the most pure-hearted of the central boy
characters, for much as I love Sora there are a few moments where he borders on
psychotic when he talks about the deaths of enemies. It has the most
interesting control system in that each of the three wayfinders have their own
unique playstyle, so that mastering each of them takes different skills. More
than any other factor, though, I think it’s the very serious tone and the
dynamic of strained friendships, loss, betrayal and protective instincts that
fuel the story that make me like it the most.
In terms of flaws, there are a few that stand out – a somewhat
awkward control system derived from the game’s origins on PSP; poor balance of
certain skills and shootlocks that mean that the game stops being vaguely
challenging only about a third of the way in; a distinct lack of Final Fantasy elements, represented
pretty much entirely by moogles and Zack; and the most ridiculous hidden
bosses, all of whom spam attacks over and over that can take you to 1hp so that
most of the fight against them is just dodging and healing, and who require you
to be more lucky than skilled in taking them down. One quite nice thing was
that the platinum necessitated beating them all with every character, and of
course my pride necessitated doing so on Proud Mode, which was partly why this
process stretched out so long – I hesitated to load up the game when I knew all
I’d be doing was trying an unfair boss over and over.
But beat them I finally did, and very much enjoyed
watching the ending and extras on a TV screen instead of on a little handheld. And
with Kingdom Hearts 3 now only 7
months away and the franchise entering my life every day thanks to Union X, I’m very much in the mood for
playing through this game again. When I head back to England in a few weeks I’ll
pick up 2.8 as well and fill in the
little blanks I haven’t yet familiarised myself with.
I have to say, though, I’m still just a little sore that even with this remaster of the final mix, the original Japan-only expert version of the original three Ice Cream Beat tracks never reappeared.
