First Twenty-ish Hours Playing Command Board. I mean Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep

God, I freaking love the Command Board. It may just be my favorite mini-game in videogame history. Like, imagine Kingdom Hearts happened to meet Monopoly on the street, and offered Monopoly what it's been smoking since the early 2000's. Monopoly agrees, they chat for fifteen minutes and really hit it off, and before you know it, the Command Board is born.

Mmm. I love Monopoly. I love that feeling of getting Park Place and Boardwalk again, and use it as a cornerstone to snipe all that try to pass Go to bolster my already overindulgent pool of resources and throw the less fortunate to financial ruin. Ah yes. It's the feeling, rolled together with my secret love of numbers manipulation and leveling up your attacks in not-cheating-but-still-sneakily-underhanded ways to power up your stats. Nothing like doing level one missions with godlike attack sets. And this is rolled up in a package that has neither the six and a half hours of a good Monopoly game nor the frustrated restarting of stat manipulation. It's perfect. I love you Command Board. I really do.

Oh. Yeah. Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep.

My review: Twenty or so hours in and this game is so mind-blowingly amazing I'm surprised my PSP didn't explode when I put the cartridge in.

There. Now can I play more Command Board now?

...

Arch. Fine.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep for the PSP came out about a week ago, and long story short, I've been geekgasming over it ever since. I was honestly a little worried after 358/2 Days, which was by no means a bad game, but was more to satisfy canon whores and Organization 13 fanatics than a full entry of one of my favorite game series. So my expectations were mixed when I picked it (and the preorder stickers) up from Gamestop. I also had a mild panic attack when the opening cutscene of the game created the all-to-KH feeling of 'holy mother what in the heaven is going on here' (and this is coming form a champion mind screw fanatic, mind you). But before I could even think that all hope seemed lost, the game arrived, giving me a friendly pat on the shoulder. "I'm sorry for that brief emotional breakdown, Miss Type," it said. "Now allow me to present you with everything you with everything you adore about this series. Except more of it."

In fact, that's the impression that stands out with me the most about this game: a lot more than I thought. One of the selling points Kingdom Hearts is that it's a big, big, universe-spanning game. And after having a lot of noticeable limits on the handheld systems (looking at you Chain of Memories card system), I was surprised to find that I was playing a game that was large enough and strong enough to stand on the turf of it's big-boy console predecessors. Everything I've seen so far from BBS, from it's gameplay, to it's story, to the worlds themselves, to the MIGHTY COMMAND BOARD is large and rich. It feels not like your usual hand-held trinket, but a full chapter of the increasingly sprawling KH storyline. It's about time.

I'm impressed with how creative the dev team played with the cards they were dealt on the PSP. They went beyond just using the cartridge space to make a competent game, but they went so far as to streamline and fine-tune the game rather than cut out what the fans will miss the least. Granted, this is about twenty hours into the game, which would be probably only about 10 hours of the proper gameplay campaign total, so my views are still pretty much impressions so far. That being said, here's what I've gathered, and the reasons I haven't been on a regular eating schedule this week.

First of all comes the gameplay. I'd like to weigh in on a format that Square has been turning to lately that I approve of-scrapping MP. Magic Points were always something that bugged me when I was first getting into RPGs: the brawlers can hack and slash to their hearts' content without getting exhausted, but when the mages ran out of magic points, they're forced to do nil damage by smacking people with their magic wands? Lame. In Birth By Sleep, all spells, as well as special attack moves, are now "commands" that you can customize to an eight-slot deck (when it's maxed out, of course), and can be accessed at any time by pushing the triangle button. These commands will recharge after you use them, and until then, you can just bash away with the x-button. It's a surprisingly simple system, but very effective, and leaves a lot of room for fooling around and figuring out works best.

Additionally, new commands can be unlocked by mixing commands together, and in leau of not having a item synthesis system like the previous games, you can use gems to meld special skills to these commands to give your characters bonus effects, like stat enhancement, reduction of reload times, and bonus enemy drops. Even better, each command has a level, and once you max it out, you can keep the skill, even if you scrap the command for better ones. It's a system that integrates both character development and attack strategy, and a clever and fun one at that. And while it's confusing reading off paper, it's quick to master, and you'll soon be combo prepping like a pro (by the way, Terra with Blind-->Stopga-->Zero Gravity=PILE OF CORPSES). In fact, it wasn't until I started writing this review that I realized that item synthesis, summons, and even equipment outside of keyblades are nowhere to be seen. The system feels so well tailored that all of the previous seem like clunky remnants from an old-school era of gaming.

And yes sports fans, the fighting is still hilariously over the top. I admit, it's not quite as fantastic as the cinematic mastery of II, but that's like comparing fresh pie with ice cream on top to fresh pie with ice cream on top served by dinosaur Chuck Norris. On top of the commands, there's a standardized eye-candy bonus finish for every basic x-button combo, which can be leveled up and customized as time goes on, so you can take satisfaction in wasting your foes even when you're button mashing. Additionally, there's a bonus bar that fills up at the top of the screen, and based on the moves you preform, puts your character into a super-mode, giving them even more bonus damage into basic attacks and commands (while glowing, natch), with a super-special thematic finishing move that pretty much wipes the entire board.

And this is a standard battle mechanic. You don't need to run around beating a billion foes for drops to access it, like you did with the drive mode from II, and thus even grunt battles suddenly become nothing short of badassery for the sake of badassery overkill. Which as you know, is the best kind of kill. In a way, it almost makes the battles more interesting, because the excitement is pretty evenly spread across the board, instead of being confined only to boss battles like in the previous games.

Another thing I have to say to the dev team-thank you for not making the magic itself suck. As you can probably tell by the screens, there are actually three playable characters this time around. Terra (the angsty looking brunette with a man skirt and a shirt that's painted on), Ventus, AKA Ven (the jailbait), and Aqua (Princess Shoulder Blades). The story is more or less a three-way-split perspective between them (more on that later), and each has a very distinct battle strategy. While they all have access to base spells, each character specializes (i.e. can command synthesize) in only a few exclusive types of megaspells. Each character's spells match their moves, making for three very distinct battle styles. Terra is a typical brawler with everything but speed, so he's fit with darkness and earth spells. Ven is a character with fair attack and abysmal defense and HP, but with insane speed. So he's given light-but-powerful spells, like holy attacks and wind magic. And Aqua is pretty much midway with most stats and sub-par defense, and is pretty much your magical warrior.

A magic-based combatant honestly had me worried. Kingdom Hearts games of yore are very guilty of magic system abuse. You had three or for slots for easy access in the first two games, and one is already taken up by your healing magic. And if you wanted a more advanced spell, you had to access and scroll down a menu right in the middle of combat. In addition the damage was hardly worth the huge bites it took out of your annoying-to-refill MP bar. But thankfully, there's no more of this tomfoolery; if you've been doing your math, with the command system, you know have quick access to eight different kinds of spells that automatically reload after they're cast without wasting thirty seconds waiting for the MP bar to recharge or gathering enemy drops. So this translates to Aqua setting her foes on fire, followed by her max magnet spell, max thunder area spell, max bind spell to hold them together, and pummeling them with a standard attack, and then five seconds later getting to do it all over again.

Even better, one of the bonus character development included with command synthesis is "attack haste" and "magic haste", which makes the reload time near instantaneous. So once I got her rolling, what I thought was going to be the most frustrating character turned into a surprisingly unique and interesting fighting style, especially after years of KH beat 'em up button mashing. And for magic haters, imagine all of this, but with Terra's special mega attacks like Strike Raid and Sliding Dash, or Ven's hard and fast moves like Quick Blitz and Stun Strike. Between distinct character commands, the different base fighting styles, and the character development, there's a good balance of a sense of customization and uniqueness of each character you play.

And then there's the story. I have to admit, I'm still just getting into the meat of BBS's storyline. Though from what I can tell, the three-person system is an exceptionally clever way to approach the events of the game. As most of you know, the canon of Kingdom Hearts has been a little...ah, confusing as of late...

Okay, dude, so like, there's this kid. And he lives on an island with his friend and his girlfriend, but they're like, dude, this island sucks, we should go somewhere else. So they build a boat, and then like, these monsters attack, right? So this kid is like thrown into Disneyland, and he meets Leon and Aerith, who are like, dude, you gotta save the world from these monster things. And the kid's like what? And they're like, cuz you have this giant key that you can use as a sword, right? So then this kid goes to different Disney movies and kills all the monsters. They're called Heartless, and like, they eat people's hearts or something, because they represent the darkness or something like that. And when it eats your heart, you become a Heartless too. And there's this guy named Xemnas, who wants to turn everyone into a heartless, because then he can find this giant moon in the shape of a heart called Kingdom Hearts, because it'll fill the world with darkness or something.

But after they kill him, it turns out, um, no, the Heartless aren't things that don't have hearts, they actually are the hearts that got eaten, and the bodies that have no heart that get left behind are called Nobodies. And like, they can be monsters, but they can also be human and crap. And Xemnas wasn't Xemnas, he was actually a guy who wasn't Xemnas' Heartless. And his nobody is called Xeonhart. And like, he has twelve other nobodies that look like people, and they want the heartless to be destroyed so that they can go to Kingdom Hearts and get their hearts back, I guess. And they like, don't have emotions, but they can remember how to act, or something. And the kid's best friend also turns into Xemnas, except not, and then his girlfriend gets a keyblade, and they go and fight Pete and Sephiroth and stuff. And like, the kid and his girlfriend have nobodies too. But because she's a princess and he's the hero, they're good, while the others are bad. I think. And so they come together, and the kid is actually a Heartless.

Oh yeah, and the kid gets cloned like twice. And one time it was a girl. And his friend got cloned too. And his friend also wears a hula skirt. And Donal Duck casts magic.

And just by what little I've been non-spoilered so far, it looks like this installment is going to be no different in that regard. So no way are we going to be able to handle this installment without our brains exploding, right? Especially since it seems like it was designed to help us make sense of the chaotic mess which is the Kingdom Hearts canon.

As I mentioned, the story of BBS is basically the same story throughout, but it's told through the different viewpoints of the characters. It seems like a lame padding tactic when said out loud, but from what I've seen of the story so far, we need it. If you haven't guessed, I've decided to play a little bit of each character's story at the same time instead of finishing one before the next one, and I'm actually quite impressed how each character's role in the storyline is handled.

Terra's story (poor man) centers around discerning the KH cosmology, as he runs most frequently into such questions as what is light and darkness? What direct effect does one have on the other? If we need both, why do we struggle toward the light? What is our obligation to keep the balance? And so on and so forth. Ven's story follows the classic KH flair of making friends, exploring all the quirks of the world around him, and helping people who need help for the sake of being good. And he embraces his task with such raw enthusiasm and kindness that despite being set up to be the linchpin of the next batch of mind-screw insanity, one can't help but find him surprisingly charming rather than expectedly annoying. And finally, Aqua's story handles the actually canon events and heroics of the story, so much so that when one plays her story, one can't help but feel like she's the game's "true" protagonist. She's thus far been in charge of taking out not one, but all three main badguys of the three worlds I've thus played, and single-handedly took on one of the most dangerous recurring bosses. Awesome.

The cast itself is wonderful this time around, and once again, I'm really finding myself growing attached to a lot of the characters, no small thanks to the amazing vocal cast. Mark Hamill did a wonderful job with Master Eraqus, but Leonard Nimoy's portrayal of Master Xehanort absolutely blew me out of the water. Master Xehanort blends KH's traditional big, loud, in-your-face villain with it's traditional sharp, grizzled, wise-but-a-know-it-all mentor. It's a brilliant combination, and Nimoy nails it right on the head. Combined with a surprisingly classy design (dammit Square, stop designing jealousy-inducing impossibly cool coats) and his omnipresent evil slouch, he's quickly on the road to becoming my favorite villain of the series.

In fact, BBS has a lot of great villains this time around. I've seen preciously little of Vanitas (who's true identity got revealed surprisingly quickly in this installment), but from what I've seen, he's big, he's fun, and absolutely unapologetic. No complex motivations or sympathetic backstory or heartbreaking desire to regain memories or find his own identity or be good. Vanitas is just pain evil. And it's an evil that's so obnoxious and in your face that it crosses the line twice back into guiltily endearing. That and he's got a kickass battle theme.

Of course, our band of heroes is just as much of a treat. I was wondering how I was going to warm up to Ven, having the appearance of a this-can't-be-anything-but-plot-significant Roxas clone. However, he manages to stands out as his own character, and a very endearing one at that. He's perfected the aesthetic of cheer and optimism, even more so than Sora. And while Sora's burdened by the Shonen Hero dilemna of having motivations for his friends hindered by saving worlds, Ven's motivations are friendship alone, making him hit the theme harder and stronger than Sora did. Combined that with a still present reckless determination and a troubled but good-hearted attitude, he has a character execution that I find myself really enjoying.

Also, I'm happy to report that Aqua is easily the best written girl thus far in the series. Not only is she really strong and really competent, but she's been following an interestingly progressive writing style Square has been following lately-not making it an issue she's female. Really, the fact that she's a girl comes up very rarely in the game, and when it does, it's off-handed and generally irrelevant. And she's got an attitude that I really like-a knight in shining armor through and through. She's by no means spunky or rebellious, but if she sees something wrong, she fixes it by herself without question, and won't stop until the job's done. With recent mad love for anti-heroes, hot bloodedness, and deconstruction, seeing such a good-motivated maturity in it's purest form is oddly refreshing. She makes for a badass character in the non-traditional traditional way.

The only character I'm having a little trouble warming up to is Terra, who takes on a Riku-like role of needing to deal with the darkness within (especially compared to his goody-goody light filled friends), but lacking Riku's more sympathetic problems of personal ambitions hurting people you're close to, guilt, and dealing with the consequences of your actions. That and he thinks it's a good idea to seek the wise and honest counsel of Disney Villains. But the game is young, and his involvement with Master Xenohart and and Vanitas, he's still got time for interesting development.

Thus far, I only have a few small complaints in the game. The first, and biggest, is that while all the worlds are big and spacious, they tend to feel empty, with a lack of NPCs and activity. With woodlands and canyons, this isn't so bad, but when you go to the big damn Radiant Garden and don't see another soul around save for one lonely Moogle Shop, it creates a surprisingly eerie and disappointingly static environment. Also, while the graphics are generally top-notch, to the point where they can match the PS2's cutscenes, sometimes they do get a little rocky and slow down the system, most notably in Maleficent's Castle in the Enchanted Dominion. If I really wanted to be picky, I'd mention how sometimes the Unversed seem a little too nondescript for enemies, especially compared to the adorable Eldritch Abominations that were the Heartless and the creepy-cool Nobody designs. But at this point, I'm just being a bit of a fussbudget.

But all in all, Birth By Sleep is a wonderful game, and writing out this review only makes me want to go back and play it on my own. In fact, I just may go and do that. Once I'm done with class. And showering. And actually eating this week.

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_{Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep is published and distributed by Disney Interactive and Square Enix. Image credit to IGN, Gamespot, and Kingdom Hearts Ultimania.}

"A Separate Peace" Review

"Beginning with a tiny incident among ordinary boys, it ends by being as deep and as big as evil itself."

_{-Aubrey Menen, on A Separate Peace}

I first read this book when I was a junior in high school, when I was the exact age as the story's protagonists. So I'm sure that you can understand that my initial impression of it was a generously sarcastic "meh". In my opinion, it was okay, and it was certainly gay enough to satisfy my bouts of snark and enjoyment in corrupting the high school required reading. But it was uneventful and filled with every war is bad/growing up is bad/corruption of innocence plot that any high school kid was forced to read a million times before. I was expecting to feel the samefeeling of being appeased but unmoved when I returned to it for my Adolescent Literature class. To my almost guilty surprise, I realized that I had overlooked perhaps the most heartbreakingly beautiful book I've ever read.

In my past's defense, John Knowles' A Separate Peace is written very deceptively like the cookie-cutter YA fiction we've hated since grade school. The story starts with a young man, Gene Forester, who meets a new friend, Phineas, whom everyone calls "Finny". Finny is an extraordinary person who everyone adores, but seems to adore the unremarkable, quiet bookworm Gene the most. The two have a spat, and then tragedy strikes. This is then followed by more understanding each other and their peers, followed by things looking up, followed by another tragedy, followed by things looking up again, followed by the final character death at the end that suddenly transforms our hero into a broken adult.

We've seen this before and then some, right? This is the kind of thing us English Majors beat up Newberry Authors for. Coupled with this, there's no real exciting changes of scenery, no shocking plot twists, and even the final death at the end is unceremonious to the point of being contrived. Naturally, the internet has flooded with complaints of all those who were forced to read it in high school, founded it aggressively unremarkable, and retain a sort of vindictive bitterness that it remains as popular and well spoken of to it's day. So how can I, the champion fanbetch, dare to write a positive review of it?

Because you need to be an adult to understand this book.

It's a tragic irony for a lot of adolescent literature. This is a book that's not written for teens, but rather an adult (quite strikingly) remembering what it was like to be a teenager. And he does it so well, and so eerily clearly, that any teacher would assume that any teenager who reads this will be able to understand as well. But that's not what Knowles wrote this story for.

This book is about war and peace, but not in the traditional sense provided to us by World War II, the obligatory history that looms in the story's background. This is the story of the war of adolescence, the war each one of us had to fight. Being a teenager is perhaps the most violent point of time and space I have ever been a part of. It's a savage battle between every single person that you ever run into. It is a war against your parents, your teachers, your classmates, those in positions of authority, the immediate and the never met, and even your dearest friends, yet it is a war that seems not to exist. And it is a war that ones only ally is oneself, an ally that one knows nothing about save that this ally absolutely abhors you.

Stranger still, this story is about peace, and how devastating it is for these adolescent soldiers to encounter. Gene's conflict arises not by his peaceful adolescence being shattered by war, but by his vague and perpetual war being shattered by peace. His ultimate crisis is coming to terms with the fact that with everyone (seemingly) against him, and he not being the strongest, fastest, bravest, or surest to survive, someone out there cherishes him anyway. Indeed, someone stronger, faster, braver, and surer to survive in the world cherishes him, a nonsense so mighty that it sends Gene's world spinning out of orbit.

It is an overwhelming battle, one no teenager is prepared for. What's more, we see it through the lens of Gene himself, both past and future. We don't hear it from the voice of a helpfully omniscient narrator who can explain it in simple terms for all to understand, but the poetry and warmth of an adult, as well as the fright and frustrating vagueness of the teen. Only when you can understand both can you love this book. If you've missed out on either, you won't get it, and you'll be tremendously bored for your efforts. But if you can read A Separate Peace with this mindset, expect a tale that's rich with subtle detail, wisdom, cruel and simple pain, and an ending that fills the reader with loss and fulfillment. What an average teenager would call an empty and uneventful story will become a story that you can't put down, not by virtue of the edge-of-your-seat adrenaline that any other view would expect, but in the way that only a short, beautiful story lurking in all our histories can provide.