First Impressions: Kingdom Hearts 2/Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep

Kingdom Hearts 2:

Surprise! I know we said that we would wait before doing this First Impressions but we just couldn't wait! So, enjoy! Now I played Kingdom Hearts 2 on my PS2 years ago and absolutely adored it (along with all the other games in this brilliant series). From the story to the control scheme, this game was spectacular. So when I heard that it was coming out on the PS3 with the Birth By Sleep, I immediately went and pre-ordered the limited-edition version of it (which comes with a Kingdom Hearts themed pin!)  And then I saw it was coming to EGX, so I got tickets for that and went to play this game, among the many others at EGX. After watching someone complete the Beauty and The Beast level, and seeing the great improvement of graphics, not just between this remaster and the old version but between KH1 and KH2, I jumped into the Nightmare Before Christmas level. Now I noticed a few things from my time playing it (and watching every cut-scene), These included: the quite vast differences in controls between KH1 and 2, the masterful storytelling still being there and fact that the characters mouths actually moved most of the time in the cut-scenes instead of just being on a 2D plane. The actual level consisted of defeating some heartless, going into Santa's workshop, defeating some more heartless, going out of Santa's workshop, beating a few more heartless then going and fighting a boss. And I found it to be one of the most enthralling sequences at my time at EGX.

Thanks for reading, Satamer.

Kingdom Hears Birth By Sleep:

After holding a real life keyblade (life goal complete!) and waiting in a queue for someone to figure out how to attack an enemy, I finally got a go at the game! This is a special Kingdom Hearts game for me as it is one of the only ones that I haven't played (the other being Chain of Memories) due to it being on the PSP (which I've never owned). So imagine my delight when it was announced to be coming to PS3 as part of Kingdom Hearts 2.5! Well anyway, back to the First Impressions! First of all, I chose Ventus's story to play through because well, he looks the most like Sora I guess (I also got to see Aqua's demo by watching the person in front of me). I started off in Cinderella's world, whatever that's called, and stupidly skipped the cutscenes because I didn't want the story spoiled for when I get the full game later in the year (and because I could feel the person behind me staring daggers into my back) so I missed what I was meant to be doing. It was something to do with gathering materials for Cinderella's dress which also involved me fighting off a load of Unversed as well. For me, that was I enjoyed the most. This game had you cycling through special moves by just pressing triangle as well as a special Surge power. These two things let me smash through the (most likely low levelled) enemies with ease and spectacularness (technical term). Suffice to say, great fun. The puzzle elements combined with both me not really knowing what was going on (is that a theme for my journey in EGX?) as well as the other people wanting a go (and publicly voicing this opinion) was not so fun. So I had a last battle and then left the game for now. But I will beat it... someday. Can't wait for it to come out this December!

Goodbye for now, Harry