My thoughts on Terra's story in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep

So I recently got some steam money as an early Christmas present, so I decided to purchase the 1.5+2.5 Final Mix collection on Steam. I already had it on ps4, but when I went off to college I was unable to take the ps4 with me, as it is my family's, not mine. I instead opted to take my ps3, which has been pretty fun. But back to Kingdom Hearts, I beat 1.5 all the way back in 9th grade (I'm a college freshman now), and immediately after got to the final boss of Re:Chain of Memories,, promptly saying "fuck this" and moving onwards to Kingdom Hearts 2.5. No clue how far I got in that one, but I'll probably end up replaying it maybe. In addition, the first game I ever played on my 3ds, which I got for my 6th birthday, was Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, which is quite the game to start with, given how late in the series it is.

Anyway, I felt I was ready to play Birth by Sleep, which I had played a teensy bit of back when my psp worked, but hadn't touched it since then. I booted it up on my steam deck, and played it during my downtime on a cruise I went on (a Disney Cruise, funny enough). I ended up beating Terra's story, which from what I understand is the one that's supposed to be played first, and then accidentally overwrote my Terra clear data with Ventus. Feeling pissed off that I made a dumb mistake, I decided I wouldn't continue Ventus' story until I had clear data for Terra once again. So I would say I'm pretty familiar with the gameplay of Terra's side of BBS, as I played it twice in the span of a week.  The cutscenes, however, I only saw once, but for the most part can remember what happened.

Starting with gameplay, the feel of Terra's moveset was amazing. I typically don't care much for magic in Kingdom Hearts, so it's no surprise I enjoyed the physical-based character. I especially liked how the Ventus D-Link gave me haste, so I did a ton of damage in a sort amount of time. I didn't find any of the boss fights to be that annoying, which is always a good thing. The worst fight in this path was Braig, as he's ranged-focused and kept teleporting away, which I assure you is a blast as a melee character. I really enjoyed the final four boss fights, as they seemed to focus a lot on playing defensively, with parrying attacks rather than just going in and mashing attack. Sad part about those fights though was I didn't get much use out of Ars Solum, my fav command (except against Vanitas that dude couldn't handle the Ars Solum heat). Terra's unique  command style, Dark Impulse, was very fun to use, though I wish Zero Gravity spells worked on bosses, so I'd get more use out of the spell and not just use it to switch to Dark Impulse.

The racing minigame was also fun, but not something I'd want to do a ton of. Luckily you only need to do the one race unless you're going for 100% completion, which I may end up doing, but probably not. I never got to make any of the ice cream, so I have no comments on it, but I do eventually want the Frozen Fortune command style.

As for the story, I really like how Terra struggles with finding the line of light and darkness, with his unique command style being channeling the darkness rather than fearing it like Eraqus does. Especially with how he uses darkness inside him to defend his friends, showing that the darkness isn't solely evil, but can be used for the right reasons if the right intentions are held. The final fight being Terra's mind not giving up, even after losing his body and heart, was really awesome, especially since I love the keyblade armor and got to use it in battle outside of the Mirage Arena, and the few times you fight enemies on the keyblade glider. I really liked the scene where Terra shows Riku his keyblade, it was really sweet. My favorite world (excluding Keyblade Graveyard) was the Olympus Colosseum, because Terra realized Hades was trying to deceive him, and you get to fight Zack from Final Fantasy 7 (I still need to play Crisis Core). My least favorite world was Deep Space, as I don't have much personal attachment to Lilo and Stitch other than when I asked a girl out in 11th grade with the amazing line of "Will you be the Lilo to my Stitch" (she said no but we are still friends so I'd say it worked out very well).

Overall, I enjoyed Terra's story, didn't mind replaying it, and am now in Ventus' story, which I will write my review of once it's done.