Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP) is actually really damn impressive.

[Sigfried1977]

For the 5 people who care (okay, maybe it's just me): Square Enix did a phenomenal job on that game. It looks absolutely outstanding (the clean and bold visuals really bring out the best in the PSP, and the the effects are downright magnificent - seems that the little handheld doesn't have too much trouble with transparencies), it controls very well (like pretty much every 3rd person game on the PSP it's not without camera issues, but so far it's very manageable) and if you like the odd Disney-Tetsuya Nomura-joint venture it's obviously going to charm your socks off.
It even has quality-vs-performance settings in the main menu: you can freely choose between 222 Mhz and 333 Mhz as well as between 16 bit colour depth and 32 bit colour depth. I got around 5 hours worth of playtime with the quality settings (at the second brightness level and with head-phones). That's actually pretty decent. It doesn't look/run a lot worse in energy-savings-mode, though. Neat for longer trips, but if you have a power outlet nearby you'll definitely appreciate the non-dithered 32 bit mode. I heard a lot of whining regarding the load times on message boards, but with the 600 mb installation they haven't exceeded the 5 seconds mark so far, so really a non-issue (heck, you could take a rather relaxed whiz each time you died in TR Legend. I guess not many people can remember the first couple of PSP years)
Seems like a very long game as well. It's a very pleasant suprise so far.

 

[nightshade]

This sounds great....its been a while since I platinumed FFXIII & since then I have been searching for a JRPG that gets me hooked for hours to come.

 

[Sigfried1977]

You and me both.

 

[Gitaroo]

Im also very impress by the technical achievement, since Hexadrive are made out of key Capcom techs that worked on the MT Frame work engine, we can expect no less. Can't wait to see 3rd birthday.

 

[Sigfried1977]

I think the part that's actually impressing me more than the underlying tech is just how polished and lavishly produced everything is. Those kind of cut-scenes, the voice acting and the sheer scope? - not exactly a commonality among PSP games. It's just like the console games in that regard, and for a change this shrunken down version actually works just fine. (I can't for the life of me get to grips with the controls in MGS Peacewalker for example, which is a real shame)

 

[upnorthsox]

This is/was my son's most anticipated game this year, he's been in bliss all week. He'll pop out every 1/2 hour or so to show me something going on so I've seen quite a bit of it and yes it is quite impressive esp. for a PSP title.

 

[Sigfried1977]

My only gripe at this moment is that the game is just piss-easy on the standard difficulty setting. The Gametrailers review mentioned that the game quickly got challenging, even on the easy setting. I'm actually thinking about starting over on a higher difficulty now. I'm just a little afraid that it will be like the second game: way too easy on normal, yet a wee bit too frustrating for my taste on hard (at least until you level up to the point where you can survive a little combo attack)
Maybe I'm just over-leveled.