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.
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