Continuing my look at the Kingdom Hearts franchise for the first time I’ve reached the infamously long-titled “Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep -A Fragmentary Passage-” which came exclusively with “Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue”. Being just a “fragmentary passage” it’s a short one, just the equivalent of a single world from a normal Kingdom Hearts game, it does fill in a little continuity gap before we head into the final chapter of this story arc with KH III though, which I’ll look at early next year. Let’s take an equally short look!
Background:
Aqua’s word is turned upside down… Literally!
“Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue” was released on January 12th 2017 in Japan and everywhere else on January 24th 2017. Along with the new “Fragmentary Passage” it also included the HD version of Dream Drop Distance and a CG movie cut of the mobile game Kingdom Hearts X dubbed “Back Cover”. I did watch it, I was kind of confused from it, and maybe I’ll watch all the Union X stuff on YouTube at some point to better understand it and try to throw up a review but I don’t really know how I’d class it, so… maybe not.
Either way Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue was eventually bundled with the Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 Remix collections to form “Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far”, which is the collection I brought to do all the reviews so far (apart from the DS and 3DS titles, obviously…) There was eventually a compilation that included all of these and Kingdom Hearts III, which is even more of a hell of a deal than this already was! (not that my second hand copy of III and Melodies of Memory really added much cost to the Story So Far purchase, if I’m honest)
Gameplay:
Aqua… mid-attacking, I guess. Not really anything funny to say about this one…
Like most Kingdom Hearts games 0.2 is an action RPG, though due to its short length the RPG elements like levelling up your stats with XP and gaining new abilities are either barely there or fast-forwarded through. I mean you do still level up but you start at Level 50 and the increases aren’t massively worth it, and you do unlock new skills but quite rapidly as there’d be no point in unlocking a skill at hour three into a three hour game. There also aren’t any towns with NPCs or anything like that either, again it’s essentially a demo for Kingdom Hearts III but with a gameplay system closer to II and a canon story not featured in III… man this franchise can get confusing sometimes… Anyway, you have a health bar and a magic bar, both of which refill with dropped orbs or through healing magic (for health, not magic, that would be weird…) and you attack with a basic melee attack string or with Commands that act like they did in KH II rather than Birth by Sleep’s Deck system, so you just assign them and can do them with a shortcut menu. There are no summons or partners like in BBB but the Shotlock system of having a move where you can target a bunch of enemies and fire blasts off onto them returns from that game, although you only have the one type this time.
What also makes a return is the Command Styles, though in this case it’s called Situational Commands and there are only two Styles to change to, but again it is a very short game! In fact, that’s it really. You visit some areas, defeat a few bosses alongside the usual random mobs and there are a couple of puzzles mixed in. The gameplay is super fluid and after the other upscaled / HD-ified PS2 and handheld games the jump in graphics is very noticeable, so it made for a fun preview of what’s to come, if nothing else.
Graphics and Sound:
Some nice draw-distance! I didn’t mention you can “dress Aqua up” with accessories during the game, mostly because I didn’t really bother with it…
As mentioned the graphics are good, they certainly look more anime than Disney, which is kind of a shame but not the end of the world, plus this doesn’t really have many Disney world stuff in it so that may change (or has changed but I don’t know yet) in III.
The sound on the other hand is just as good as its always been, both what little background music there is and the sound effects. Voice acting is fine, Aqua’s voice is still on the dull and stilted side but I didn’t mind so much this time, I guess because she was wondering around in a timeless void so it kind of worked?
Story:
Aqua takes aim!
The story is focused on Aqua, who we last saw plunging into the Realm of Darkness and sure enough that’s where she is for the whole story (time flows differently there though so she isn’t walking around in a dark void for 10 legit years, which at least explains why she won’t be crazy when she’s found!). She deals with illusions of her old friends Terra and Ventus as well as a dark reflection of herself, and then meets King Mickey during the events of the first game, which was fun. Eventually she’s left deeper in the Darkness, specifically that beach we’ve seen before, where she finds Ansem the Wise. The prologue and epilogue (of the Prologue!) sees Sora and Riku being told about Aqua and what happened to her, complete with a hand-wavey excuse to explain why they were only told now, and that the BBB trio must be saved. Riku heads off to help Aqua while Sora, Donald and Goofy head off in a Gumi ship to Olympus Stadium (again!) to “regain lost hearts”, all setting up KH III. It’s fine for what it is: a prologue to the next big entry.
Thoughts Now:
Aqua fires! Blimey, I can just about make out her silhouette. I know it was a short game but I should’ve taken a few more screenshots in hindsight…
*Deep breath* Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep -A Fragmentary Passage- was a fun few hours return to the Kingdom Hearts franchise. Too short to be compared to any of the mainline entries I’d still recommend giving it a go if you’re like me and playing through the series for the first time, it’s got good gameplay and does indeed act like a prologue to Kingdom Hearts III, which I’m looking forward to finally breaking into soon. The game gets a 4 for what it is, but not a 4 compared to some of the full-length games that have got the same score in the past, it’s very much a “for a few hours as part of a collection of other things” based score…
