Dont pass this game up simply because its on PSP and you cant play as Sora.
Birth by Sleep is a prequel to the first KH. The story tells of three friends, Terra, Ventus and Aqua, who go off on a journey for their own seperate reasons. Their paths occasionally cross during the adventure. The story overall is about freindship and the fight between light and dark. Each character will have to battle a new enemy called Unversed. Their not Heartless like in the last games but they do have similar features. The journey will take you to some new Disney levels such as Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beautys world. No need to worry about recycled levels here like 358/2 days had. I wont spoil the story but I will say that it answers a lot of questions that you might have had after KH1 and 2.
The battle system is the best part of this game. It might be the greatest battle system of the series. The commands are customizable, Instead of attack, magic and items. The commands can be arraigned to fit the situation. The X button carries out standard attacks while the triangle button carries out the command selected. You can put magic such as fire and aero into the command deck as well as devastating, but yet flashy, physical attacks. After you carry out a command, its gotta recharge. So you cant use it constantly. Everytime you attack, a gauge above the command deck fills up and when it fills all the way, you can carry out a limit like attack. The type of limit depends on what kind of attacks you carried out. It changes the command deck to commands that are a lot more devastating than your originals for a short time. The MP gauge has been replaced with a Focus meter. If you have your focus meter charged up to a certain point, you can carry out a Shot Lock. You press L and R to go into shot lock. Shot lock allows you to lock onto multiple targets and unleash a barrage of physical and magic attacks that look really flashy. The type of shot lock varies on which character. And finally, the last new feature of the battle system is the D-link. D-link allows you to swap out your commands with a character you met in the story thus granting you his or her abilities. Going into D-link also heals you. You stay in D-link until the D-link gauge goes down or you can revert. I hope that best describes the new battle system.
Birth by Sleep also features multi-player but its only available in ad-hoc. But if you do find someone who has a PSP and this game, it can be fun. You can fight each other one on one or team up to smash some baddies.
The good: Great and immersive story with superb voice acting from veterans like Leonard Nimoy and Mark Hamill. Each characters have a story that can be completed in 10-12 hours making it a total of 30+ hours. Great music. Graphics are on par with its PS2 counterparts. The draw distance, especially with the Enchanted Dominion level outside the castle, look impressive. Meet some familiar faces.
The bad: Long loading times, occasional framerate issues when to much stuff comes on screen at once. These issues can be nullified with an install option but I didnt have a big enough flash stick. No gummi ship style space battles. Only one Final Fantasy cameo (not really a big issue to me). And finally, you cant equip accessories like in the last installments.
Overall. I highly recommend it to fans of the Kingdom Hearts series and fans of RPGs. No disappointments here.