Square Enix brings us once again into the magical world of Kingdom Hearts in this PSP prequel to the popular series, Birth by Sleep.  Fighting alongside the likes of infamous Disney characters, it’ll prove to be an action-packed but fun-filled adventure for anyone new to the series.

          In the first two games on the Playstation 2, Sora wielded the magical powers of the Keyblade, but long before Sora and Riku earned the right to call himself a Keyblade master there were others.  One day one of these masters, Xehanort, and his apprentice suddenly disappeared.  Aware that a great danger was about to befall them, another master sent his three apprentices to seek out the lost master and his friend.

          Birth by Sleep sends us out on this adventure with these three new characters, Terra, Ventus, and Aqua, to find the missing master and his cohort.  This prequel focuses much more on the mystery of the Keyblade itself and less on the Disney Kingdom.  However, that’s not to say that our childhood companions will be taking a leave of absence from this game.

          Birth by Sleep introduces some fantastic new attack features to add a bit of edge to those traditional moves and a new shoot-lock system to give it that added feel of a shooter for all you FPS types.

          This new release keeps in line with the first two games on the PS2 in terms of visual style and gameplay.  The control system also is very similar to the system used in the previous games but even if you haven't played these, you'll be sure to pick up the controls in Birth by Sleep easily.  The analog stick is used to control your character; the 'X' button is used to jump; the circle button is used to attack; the square button is used to guard and evade quickly; the D-pad is used to select menu commands like magic, special moves and potion, using the triangle button excutes the command; the 'L' button is used in conjunction with the analog stick to manually control the camera.