Review by: Neilie Johnson

Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts series has reached its eight year (North American) anniversary. Back in 2002, an action-RPG derived from a mixture of Final Fantasy and Disney sounded to most gamers like a disaster waiting to happen but today the hit franchise has become one of the most beloved in interactive entertainment. Its sixth installment, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Slee, represents yet another astoundingly well-made game and is none the worse for its exclusivity on the PSP.

Birth by Sleep occurs ten years before the original Kingdom Hearts, and focuses on close friends and Keyblade initiates, Terra, Aqua and Ventus. In the middle of their training, they're sent by their teacher, Master Eraqus, to investigate the disappearance of another Keyblade guru, Master Xehanort, and to discover who's behind the imminent threat to the seven Princesses of Heart. Fans of the series will see much that's familiar: the main characters as three close friends, the third person action-RPG-style play, the traveling among different worlds (although this time you do that on your own personal—for want of a better word—keyblade space chopper) and hunting down dark monsters.

In Birth by Sleep, you're introduced to the immediate ancestors of the Heartless, a horde of shadowy creatures called the Unversed, who are being controlled by a mysterious masked boy. As in other Kingdom Hearts games, your main goal is to fight and destroy as many of these abominations as you can and as you do it, you'll notice several key gameplay changes. Most obvious is the inclusion of the new Command system. In some ways, the Command system is just another name for assigning certain abilities for easy use in combat. What is different is that now when you use these abilities, you fill up a Command Gauge (a mechanism that takes the place of the previously-used Limit Breaks). When this gauge hits full, your combat style changes, allowing you to use more stylish and powerful magic or melee attacks.

Also new are ShotLock mode, Dimension Links and the Command Board. ShotLock is a first person targeting mode that allows you to select multiple targets at once and then hit them with fancy-looking ranged attacks. (Mind you, this mode takes some getting used to due to the relative awkwardness of using the PSP's tiny analog stick) Dimension Links take the place of other titles' Drive Gauge and party system. In Birth by Sleep you no longer have a party so you can't pull one of your friends out of your back pocket whenever you need them. You can however, access your friends' unique abilities during combat. Pressing the directional pad brings up a list of friends (characters you've met during your travels) and each of them offers you different types of combat support. Cinderella for instance, has healing powers while Mickey has one of the most awesome attacks in the game. The only downside to using Dimension Links is that you can't access your own powers until you run out of D-Link power or revert back to your own ability set and if your abilities are powerful enough, you may not need to D-Link at all.