Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP)

[teddymeow]

Mrs Teddy seems to be enjoying this. Normally technical stuff doesn't bother her but even she has commented on the load times.

I let her start again with my PSP as she doesn't have a big enough memory card and the opening 29 minutes was reduced to 21 minutes! 8 minutes of loading in the first half hour! Crazy!! She said maybe it would have been better as a PSN release or something.

[abigsmurf]

From what I understand, if you don't do a full install, the load times are really bad. Make sure you put it on 333mhz too, the slowdown in the opening orb bit is pretty bad. 333mhz with 32bit is silky smooth and looks great.

Completed the game with Ven, some fairly neat twists (typical KH stuff though) but a frustrating, confusing final boss fight. Clocked in at 10 hours but that was doing the bare minimum side stuff.

Doing Terra now, the differences are much bigger than I expected, the cinderella level is completely different. Seeing some events from a different PoV makes some of the trios behaviour seem a little less inexplicable. Does seem that Nomura was good for his word that each playthrough really is radically different.

Also can't believe me it took me until the credits to realise that Xenanort is voiced by Nimoy.

[neoboy259]

Is there any rhyme or reason for my skills levelling up? All I need to do is equip them to the deck, I dont actually have to spam the skill to level it?

Also finding the command board strangely compelling...... gotten some skills that I havent come across before. I wish there was a way to really speed up your opponent's turns!

[abigsmurf]

It seems that every enemy gives you a certain amount of 'GP' which levels up the skills, you don't have to actively use them.

For the command boards you can speed things up slightly in the options and mashing X seems to have a (possibly purely therapeutic) effect on the time it takes for them to take a turn. I'm actually a lot better at the boards now and find it slightly less irritating. The CPU tends to take inefficient routes so you get a slight handicap to help you win.

Had a read up of the bonus scene requirements. Have to 100% the reports in regular mode. For every character. Every sticker, every type of item... Painful once, let alone 3 times.

Looks like I'll be watching the secret ending on youtube.

[neoboy259]

Can you not just restart on Proud difficulty instead? Then you just need to 100% the reports.................

[abigsmurf]

Already played through 1.5 characters. Restarting at this stage... Euch

[teddymeow]

From what I understand, if you don't do a full install, the load times are really bad. Make sure you put it on 333mhz too, the slowdown in the opening orb bit is pretty bad. 333mhz with 32bit is silky smooth and looks great.

Do you need CFW to do this?

[abigsmurf]

nope. You simply do it in the game's option menu ingame.

You can select 32 bit colour too. 333mhz + 32bit looks amazing and runs silky smooth frame rate never drops, even in the mass unversed sections.

[abigsmurf]

Completed Ven and Terra now, just started Aqua. Will be interesting to see what's revealed in her story. In the other two, she didn't have a whole lot to do except be worried about everyone and to make you wonder if they actually made her bits jiggle or if you just have a dirty mind...

Not going to be as straight forward as the other two playthroughs, she has a pitifully weak keyblade attack and I'll miss Terra's game breaking shot ability.

One thing that's dissapointing (very minor spoilers).

->Open Spoiler<-

playing as Ven and Terra you see that Aqua gets some 'exclusive keyblade master knowledge'. I play Aqua looking forward to seeing what this is... And it's one generic sentence about how important the light is before he gets interrupted. Bleh

[abigsmurf]

Completed with all three characters...

I missed two of the reports needed to unlock the bonus chapter! With two different characters too. You have to beat the final boss to 'register' the reports which is a total PITA.

Why did they have to hide a report in the mirage arena &#172;&#172;

[neoboy259]

Never mind mate! You going to play through on proud to get the secret ending?

[abigsmurf]

Finished the bonus chapter, was pretty good, the first boss was hard as hell though, especially as you fought it with Aqua (was a boss that would pound you hard and only provide very tiny windows in which you could only physically attack him).

Ties up pretty neatly with KH1 and makes a reasonable attempt to explain some of the convuluted aspects of KH2.

Don't have enough free time to play through all three characters again on proud. Just going to youtube the ending.

Note to self: for KH3, play through on proud. The 50&#37; extra damage taken is nothing that can't be countered by a small bit of grinding.

*edit*

Watched the secret ending on youtube

->Open Spoiler<-

God damn they squeezed a lot into that ending (which wasn't even that short at 11 minutes)

Explained why Sora was so notable as a keyblade wielder and why Roxas looked like Ven. They set up the plot for RE:Coded and hinted at the plot for KH3.

Great little bonus that's pure plot fanservice (unlike previous secret endings which focused on showing off Squeenix's CGI talents)

Also, was that Patrick Stewart as the fallen Diz? Sure sounded like him but he isn't credited.

[nakamura]

I have a PSP with 6.2 enabled CFW so it works ok but it will not install the game.

Anyone encountered this?

[sj33]

Interesting, because my brother has my CFW'ed PSP right now and also complained about this. Being at the other side of the world, I cannot check this myself, but it sounds like there's a pattern.

[Rep]

This game has one of the strangest difficulty curves, I've been coasting through with Terra without running into any problems. Then once you reach

->Open Spoiler<-

Radiant Garden

you take a hammering off both bosses, which put it up with some of KH/2's hardest.