Title: Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
Genre: Action Role-Playing Game
Platform: PSP
Publisher: Square Enix
High Concept:
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep is an action role-playing game for the PSP, developed and published by Square Enix (but as a collaboration with Disney). Created as a prequel to all other Kingdom Hearts games, this game allows the player to see and take part in the events that started the Kingdom Hearts series.
The player can choose to play as one of three characters: Terra, Ventus, or Aqua – all friends, each with their own story, and each intertwining with the others at several points in the game. The three friends start out on individual journeys, hoping to prove themselves worthy to their teacher and one of the few true Keyblade Masters, Master Eraqus, but instead find themselves pulled into a crisis between other worlds and their own. The player must be quick and clever to solve problems and fight their way from one world to the next, complete their character’s story, and find their destiny.
Rules:
The player starts this game by choosing one of three main characters to play as, and this choice will affect which story the player ends up playing through. The NPCs in the game range from enemies to fight with, called the Unversed, to side characters from Disney films who contribute to the story and gameplay, to characters created specifically for this game that are also important to the unfolding of the plot. Other characters can also affect gameplay by allowing the player to use some of their special moves in combat, creating a stronger link between characters.
Constitutive Rules
The constitutive rules of the game are similar to those of any role-playing game, most of which are obvious to the majority of gamers. Some of these rules include: the player’s health decreasing by a calculated amount when hit by an enemy, losing the game when the player character’s health reaches 0, the character’s power when fighting depends on his or her stats, characters level up according to experience points, characters lose focus points when they use magic and can only use magic when there are a certain number still left, weapons add attack or magic bonuses to the player character, etc. These rules don’t exactly set Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep apart from other games, but that’s fine because these are just the basics – the real differences are with higher level concepts.
Operational Rules
Since gameplay changes slightly depending on what is happening in the game, the easiest way to describe operational rules would be to follow rules of each mission in a world (for example, a mission to find all of a certain kind of item would mean you have to explore the area and possibly press X when you reach a needed item). The player can fight or flee from monsters, and fight bosses (no fleeing available) using a straightforward attack with X, or with special commands they can choose from a side menu in real time. The player gets through each world by completing all of its missions at the time, and then he or she can move on to the next one.
Implicit Rules
Many of the implicit rules of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep are emergent in the game. For instance, the player does not automatically get “munny” or health from killing monsters. These items explode out of the monster, and you actually have to go and pick them up to get them. Another rule that emerges through playing the game is that you can only save at save points or while traveling between planets – meaning that you can’t randomly stop and save at any point. Also, you can’t travel to certain planets before there is a plot available there, and you can’t arbitrarily attack good NPCs (only random enemies or bosses).
Core Mechanic of the Game
A typical level of this game is composed of linear missions to complete that portion of the story (the plot per each world is linear, but you can go to the worlds in a different order). Missions include finding hidden things in the world (often through solving puzzles), fighting, exploring to find secret treasure chests (optional), and more, though these are the main elements. The player advances by completing a series of missions in their current world, which advances the plot until they are able to leave that world and move on to the next one. This game is very plot-based, so you would advance the story in order to advance the game.
The game is for a single player, and there are 3 playable characters: Terra (the physical powerhouse), Ventus (the quick fighter), and Aqua (the mage). The player’s choice of character determines the plot they will access, as well as their fighting style because each character has their own skills.
Breakdown of information types:
There are a handful of important information types in this game, each with a different purpose. Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep appears to have a greater number of information types than similar games due to the creators making a more complex battle system, but they don’t take long to get used to. These information types include:
- “Munny” – Currency the player can collect to allow them to buy skills and other items.
- Command Cards – Skills that the player can buy, sell, or find, each with a different effect. These are divided into battle commands, action commands, finish commands, and a shotlock command. All of these are only needed for battle except for action commands, which include commands such as jumping.
- Healing items – Used to recover the player character’s health or focus gauge.
- Keyblades – The weapons used in battle. They can vary in strength, reach, magic, etc, and give these as a boost to the player character while fighting.
- Items – Things you collect, each with a different purpose within the game. These can include a wide variety of things, from quest items to useless items.
- Abilities – Give the player certain advantages in battle. For instance, the ability “scan” allows the player to see the enemy’s health bar, which makes the fight a lot easier.
- Command Styles – Affect how your character fights in battle, and what kind of bonus moves they could get. You gain these through the attacks and other commands you choose to use in a fight.
- Stats – The different values that show the power of your character in different areas. These include level, exp, hp, strength, magic, defence, fire resistance, thunder resistance, blizzard resistance, and dark resistance.
- D-Links – Keep track of which characters you can “Dimension-Link” with, meaning you can use their abilities for a period of time.
This information is valuable to the player for a couple of reasons. Munny is valuable information to track because the amount of munny the player has determines what kind of items they can buy. If they didn’t have this information, shops couldn’t exist in the game. All the rest of the information is heavily related to the battle system and ultimately, health. If the player did not have access to this information, there would be virtually no working battle system (or at least, it would be frustrating to the player who would never know how well they are doing in a fight), and the player character would die far too easily and without warning. Some of this information is just a bonus, to make the battle system more interesting, but it is still necessary to make this game as enjoyable as it is.
Some information that is kept hidden for the player includes enemy stats (besides health, which shows up when you have the “scan” ability), and how close you are to releasing a powerful attack (this seems to happen once you’ve been attacking normally for quite a while). However, in general, most information is shown, especially if it involves the player character.
Play:
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep is a single-player game based heavily on story and fighting. The player must develop different fighting strategies by using different skill line-ups, giving diverse outcomes. Players could also have an emotional connection to the story due to its heavier elements as the game progresses.
GUI
Some different elements of the Graphical User Interface of the game are:
- Command Deck: A list of available skills to use that you can scroll between and select. This menu is visible in the bottom left corner of the screen during regular gameplay and fights.
- Command Gauge: A yellow bar above Command Deck; fills when you attack enemies, but drains if you don’t attack for too long. Once it fills up, you can use a powerful finishing move.
- D-Link Bar: “Dimension Link”, allows you to borrow other characters’ powers in the game; when the bar runs out, the link is broken. This bar wraps in a semi-circle around the health bar.
- Health Bar: A green bar wrapping in a circle directly around a picture of the character’s head. The bar shortens as your character takes damage.
- Focus Gauge: A straight yellow/orange bar beside the health and d-link bars. Focus drains as you use “Shotlock” attacks that hit multiple enemies at once, or when you use magic. When it’s empty, you can’t use these attacks until it recharges.
Controls
There are 4 distinct game modes in which controls differ: the field, combat, menus, and space travel. For each mode, the buttons on the PSP do different things.
Field:
- X = attack or action key
- L & R (shoulder buttons) = turn camera
- analog stick = walk/run
- start = pause/menu
- select = switch to first-person view
- O = jump
- up/down arrow keys = select special moves from the Command Deck to use
- triangle = use special move selected
Combat:
- X = attack closest (or targeted) enemy
- L & R (shoulder buttons) = when used individually, they turn the camera
- L & R (shoulder buttons) = when used simultaneously, you will lock on to a target
- square = if still, defend; if in motion, slide
- All other controls are the same as in the field.
Menus:
- arrow keys OR analog stick = move cursor to adjacent button
- X = select highlighted option
- O = cancel/go back
- triangle = remove command from list (when choosing skill commands to add/remove)
- shoulder buttons = toggle through similar menus
Space Travel:
- start = pause
- x = dash
- analog stick = move
- triangle = land on selected planet
Input Devices
The input device, being the PSP itself, maps fairly well to the game mechanics. Every button makes sense with what it does logically, with the camera being controlled by the shoulder buttons, attacking and selecting with x, running or walking with the analog stick depending on pressure applied, and scrolling through the commands menu with the arrow key pad. I felt that all the controls made sense, and I caught on very quickly without reading the manual. The most interesting part of the concept of input to game mechanics was that you could run, move the camera, and scroll through the commands menu all at the same time, which was very handy.
Audio, Music, Sound effects
At the beginning of the game, I was feeling a little iffy about the game’s music. The same upbeat music played through a sequence of very different events, from searching for a meteor shower to engaging in battle for the first time, to serious moments in the plot. However, this wasn’t a huge deal, because this was essentially the tutorial level, and levels afterward had a greater variety in music for different situations. The majority of the game’s music seems to be bubbly and fast-paced, which wasn’t the greatest to have all the time at first, but eventually it just starts to feel like the signature of the game. Fight music is also not very dark or dramatic like it often is in other games, but is instead fast-paced and somewhat electronic sounding, which is interesting in its way, but I am hoping that the music will grow more intense as the game progresses.
The background music in the Disney-themed worlds is also inspired by the same Disney movie as that world, but also has a feel that matches the rest of the game. This music tends to have a mellow yet still somewhat cheery and bouncy feeling. It really does feel like background music in the sense that it’s light and you don’t really notice it after a while. This does mostly fit the intended mood of the game.
This game actually has very satisfying sound effects. It makes appropriate noises for picking up different types of items, and even makes different sounds depending on where you hit an enemy – if you hit a monster’s metal backside, you hear a metallic noise, but if you hit its flesh, you hear more of a thump sound. Sounds are useful since you can tell what items you picked up by the noise, as well as whether you hit a monster for damage or if you hit it when it was blocking or turned the wrong way. This is very useful, since you have to rely on your eyes far less.
Special Features
There are a few special features in this game that differentiate it from other similar games in the same genre. For one thing, there is a different structure for the story than other games tend to have. Since there are 3 characters, each with a different story you can follow, this is a very different approach to play the same game from 3 completely different perspectives, giving a new experience each time, making it essentially 3 different games in one.
Another special feature that Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep has is its unique battle system. There are so many different elements beyond attacks, magic, and defending – there’s a command deck to choose from with its own levelling up system, a special move called “Shotlock” that attacks all the enemies you can lock onto within a short amount of time, and Dimension Links, which allow you to use skills from other characters in combat. This unique access to multiple characters’ skills at once through one character gives you an interesting move line-up.
One negative difference between Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep and other games of the same genre is that many JRPGs tend to have beautiful, rich backgrounds, whereas this game has somewhat dull, boring, and uninspired backgrounds. Some backgrounds in this game are dull dirt walls stretching into the distance with nothing else there. I would’ve liked it if the creators of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep put as much effort into their setting as they did with their plot and characters.
Intended Audience
The audience that this game was created for was first and foremost, fans of the Kingdom Hearts series who have played and enjoyed the previous games. However, the Kingdom Hearts series as a whole was created for both Disney enthusiasts and Final Fantasy gamers, or even more generally, for males and females, ranging from adolescents to young adults, who enjoy action and especially role-playing games.
Story
The story has a huge role in this game, considering that the game itself is extremely story-based. In order to progress in the game, you have to progress the story, and in order to leave a world you need to finish the chunk of plot for that world through various missions. As a role-playing game crossover, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep also has a very deep, well-developed plot, and this in itself should keep an RPG fan playing the game.
The playable characters each also have their own story, and since you choose one character to play as, plot also gives the player reason to replay the game to experience each character’s story differently.
What is essential and non-essential to the game:
The most essential elements to the game are the characters, story, and fighting system, because these are its strongest points. However, other aspects of the game are non-essential in the sense that they could easily be replaced with something else and it wouldn’t make a big difference to the game. One non-essential element is the specific worlds in the game. Since all the worlds are based on Disney movie settings and don’t tend to have a direct correlation to the main plot, the specific worlds in the game are easily interchangeable with other possible Disney worlds they could’ve used. Another non-essential component would be the individual mini-quests for each world. These are definitely needed in the game in some form, but the mini-games are not particularly memorable, so if they were replaced with something else, it wouldn’t make a huge difference, and wouldn’t even effect the plot a whole lot.
If I had to pick one element that could be sacrificed from the game without affecting gameplay, it would be the Command Board. The Command Board is a board game-style mini game the player can choose to do many times in the game, in order to level up or gain bonuses. However, this is not required at all to level up or for the actual game – it’s just a mini-game that’s completely unrelated to the normal gameplay, and feels somewhat out of place. Because of this, and also because of the fact that I played the game without even really touching this, I feel that losing this would not negatively affect gameplay.
What should be changed/added to the game:
One thing that could be added to the game would be better backgrounds with more to them rather than really plain settings that look like they had very little thought put into them. The settings of the game were supposed to have a magical Disney feel, but ended up feeling dry and dead, and I feel like the game would have felt richer if this were fixed. A change that would benefit the game would be improving the camera, since for most of the time, it works decently, but there were quite a few times when it would get stuck or just wouldn’t turn the way I tried to make it turn. Sometimes, I even had issues with trying to keep it still because it would keep automatically turning in a direction I didn’t want it to go in. Another change I’d make would be a better end to each individual world’s plot before the character leaves to the next world. Right now, it sometimes feels incomplete with the character leaving the world with no explanation as to why, since a plot event will end and then the character will just appear in space.
Learning Curve
The tutorial level at the beginning was very easy, but informative, and didn’t stretch on for too long. Every time the player is given access to something new in the game, an explanation pops up as to how it works. It felt like it went fairly quickly from easy tutorials to actual difficult bosses that I struggled with. Then again, I’d chosen to play on “Proud Mode” which is essentially hard, so I’m not complaining. While pointers are often given for fights, puzzles are completely up to you to solve, and certain aspects you have to figure out on your own. However, they’re definitely solvable if you pay enough attention to your surroundings.
Altogether, there was a decent learning curve, starting out easy and then progressing fairly quickly to challenging. This isn’t so bad since this way, you learn what you need to at the beginning, but you aren’t getting bored as you’re bogged down with numerous tutorials and easy levels to help you get going.
Artificial Intelligence (NPCs)
My first thought about the AI was that monsters seemed to be intelligent in battle, since they were actually a challenge much of the time. Sometimes, however, enemies would seem to attack half-blindly, but this didn’t necessarily work against the game, since there’d be so many enemies at once at times, so this just made the fights more possible to win. I did end up seeing one case of poor artificial intelligence though. At one point, an enemy fell off a ledge, and even though the fall was too far for it to climb back up, it kept trying and trying to get back onto the ledge, and the battle music continued as if I were being pursued, even though the enemy had no way of reaching my character. This means the enemy was essentially running into walls stupidly – meaning that the AI could use some improvement. However, I didn’t encounter any problems besides this with the AI in the game.
Culture:
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep was made as a prequel to the first Kingdom Hearts game. It’s one of a handful of Kingdom Hearts games created as Square Enix avoided making a sequel to Kingdom Hearts 2, possibly just to milk the series. The game was first released in Japan on January 9, 2010, then in North America on September 7, 2010, and then in Europe on September 10, 2010. An alternate version, Final Mix, was later released in Japan on January 20, 2011.
This game can be seen as a “clash of cultures” since the games in the Kingdom Hearts series are a mix between Square Enix, most well known for creating Japanese-style role-playing games, and Disney, known for producing American animation. This means that this game is, in a way, a cross between the Japanese and American cultures.
Developers
Square Enix, the creator of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, was formed in 2003 as a union of Squaresoft and Enix, two of the biggest and greatest RPG publishers and developers of all time. Squaresoft is most famous for creating the Final Fantasy series, whereas Enix is famous for the Dragon Quest series, each having sold 63 million and 40 million units worldwide respectively.
Square Enix has developed and published over 300 games including sequels, spin-offs, and special editions, all for a variety of platforms. They have created games for the iPad, iPhone, Nintendo DS, 3DS, and DSi, PC, Playstation 1 through 3, Playstation Portable, Wii, and Xbox 360. Of all these games, however, they are most well-known for their role-playing games, including Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. The Kingdom Hearts series is actually one of their most popular series of games, though it still falls below the fame of Final Fantasy. By December 2006, the first 3 games in the Kingdom Hearts series had shipped over 10 million units worldwide. The first game, Kingdom Hearts, was released on September 1st, 2002, followed by Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories on December 7th, 2004, then finally Kingdom Hearts 2 on March 28th, 2006. Lately, however, Square Enix has had far more mixed reviews on their games, such as the newer Kingdom Hearts and the newer Final Fantasy games. The company’s profits plummeted by about 36% in 2010 despite a rise in 2009, but it’s their major titles that kept them going, such as Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and Dragon Quest. If the loss in profit continues, Square Enix could be in a heap of trouble, but with such a great track record, they certainly have a chance at pulling themselves out of this rut.
History
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep was actually influenced the most by previous games in the series, as well as other games made by Square Enix and creations by Disney in the past. The original Kingdom Hearts was the first game that Square Enix and Disney collaborated on, and so it was very obviously influenced by Final Fantasy games and Disney movies. The game itself (and games later in the series) contained many characters and settings taken almost directly from Final Fantasy and Disney, since Kingdom Hearts was meant to be almost a direct combination of them both.
Cultural Impact
If you step back and view the cultural impact of the elements put into Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep rather than just looking at the game itself, you will see a huge cultural impact, most notably in North America and Japan. Square Enix’s Final Fantasy series is the most well-known JRPG series of all time and revolutionized the genre, and Disney films are the most well-known of all animated films, and have had a huge impact on generations who grew up with their movies, not to mention having a huge impact on animation as a field. The Kingdom Hearts series can’t compete with this success, but instead it combines the successes of both companies to create a series with impact of its own.
One easy way to see the cultural impact from the Kingdom Hearts series is to go look at some Cosplay, and notice that Kingdom Hearts in a common theme. However, this is a stronger influence on the Japanese culture than anywhere else, although Cosplay does exist around the world.
However, one of the biggest impacts that Kingdom Hearts has had was pulling Disney into the hardcore video game industry. Before Kingdom Hearts, most gamers would automatically jump to the conclusion that a Disney game would be lame, childish, and not at all up to the standards of a real gamer. However, Square Enix helped Disney along by creating the game with elements of Disney in it rather than making a pure Disney game – and it was a huge success. Now, gamers are more open to the idea of Disney making games, and Disney is more confident that they can create high-quality games, as we can see with the release of Epic Mickey. In fact, the Head of Disney’s gaming division himself admitted that Kingdom Hearts “paved the way for another Disney game” (kotaku.com). In other words, Kingdom Hearts laid the groundwork for what could turn out to be multiple Disney games, and possibly even other games inspired by these Disney games.
Sources:
"Thank Kingdom Hearts For Epic Mickey." Kotaku. 17 Feb. 2010. Web. 1 Feb. 2011. http://kotaku.com/5474368/thank-kingdom-hearts-for-epic-mickey.
Gifford, Kevin. "Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep Gets Final Mix Treatment." 1up.com. 14 Sept. 2010. Web. 1 Feb. 2011. http://www.1up.com/news/kingdom-hearts-birth-sleep-final.
"KINGDOM HEARTS Birth by Sleep." Square Enix. 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2011. http://na.square-enix.com/khbbs/.
