The Worst Game in the Series - Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep

I've been working on this video for upwards of a year. Rather, I've been ignoring this video for most of that time. I despise this game, and didn't want to spend 20-30 hours editing it, and yet, here we are.

Clips used in video, or other credits:

"I'm losin' the plot here" - Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

"okay I believe you" - Just a Pancake, Kingdom Hearts in a nutshell series

Cape physics clips - This is what happens in... Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest. [FE14 Plot Review] by Faerghast

Final Fantasy XIII clip - FFXIII speedrun by LewdDolphin (RPG Limit Break 2016)

KHBBS PC camera mod - Keytotruth on Nexus Mods

And most importantly - Tetsuya Nomura and all of the folks on Square Enix' Osaka team, whose failures give me life and happiness, and in all seriousness, a man and team that I respect and admire in many ways, and who I wish the most happiness in a hectic and impossible industry.

All gameplay footage from every game was captured by me.

[senescence]

I picked this video back up a couple days later and I was like "damn, maybe we shoulda let BBS's plot cook".

Then I remembered that this is Sight's categorically superior AU and the only thing BBS should be cooking is a bowl of cereal.

[YouCanCallMeIz]

It's never said that kairi "borrowed" a keyblade from Riku. He GAVE her one. It has a completely different design from his, and he never takes it back or anything. Also, Sora didn't get the ability to use a keyblade from Ventus. The kingdom key chose him, even though it was bequeathed to Riku. I don't mean any offense, neither do I want to start an internet argument, but it bothered me a little so I thought I'd correct that.

[jasonshannon]

You could have just made a 5 second video with an image of the mysterious figure but ok this works too

[Wandermidget]

Just a reminder that Aqua was about to kill 3 ultimately "innocent" humans (even if they are jerks) because she heard that they might have darkness inside of them.
But Terra is treated as the "bad" one because he got forcefully manipulated by a powerful sorceress to "kill" a princess.

[garfieldbuilder]

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep is NOT the worst entry in the KH games!

[elolawynladriel]

What do you think about Vanitas appearance?

Vanitas: I look like Sora because I am your other side and Sora was the part you needed to complete your heart again.
Ventus: WTF?!

[SuperSteve]

Remember when Keyblades CHOSE their wielders; now you can just go and get another one from Keyblades R Us.

[Haydawg]

i'm 5 minutes in and every complaint has been from a misunderstanding of Kingdom Hearts lore (even prior to BBS, lots of BBS lore was established in 2 if you actually beat it) or from a misunderstanding of things, I just got to the part where you say "It's not a competition between them so why are they fighting" It wasn't to see who was better it was to make sure neither of them would exploit darkness which is why Terra failed.

[SandwitchZebra]

I think the forgetfulness of Ventus’s story is only highlighted in the character selection. All three of their descriptions describe some personality traits before also describing an aspect of their characters outside of personality.

Terra’s says he feels compelled to find greater strength, which lines up. Aqua’s says her sense of right and wrong never wavers. Also lines up. Both of these describe a pretty crucial aspect of their journeys, with Terra wanting to become more powerful and Aqua’s consistency in her black-and-white worldview (even if it isn’t done well). Ventus? His says he holds his Keyblade backhand. Not some key part of his character or his story, just “he holds his weapon funny”.

[aaronammann]

okay, the protection charm was how Kairi was able to meld into Sora's heart.

Kairi touched Aqua's keyblade and it saw her as a person who shall wield a keyblade. hence why the keyblade she had received from Riku didn't leave her hand, with Leon and jack Sparrow it leaves their hand after a couple seconds not seeing them worthy.

[alsaiduq]

While i get that you dont like how the keyblade is less special as the series moves foward, i don't get it how is Retcon to have multiple keyblades or that was always finite.
By ReCom we are shown 3 active Keyblade wielders. By 2 that numbers goes up to 5 and starts to mention a keyblade wars and how there's clearly more keyblade wielders in the past.

[ilucasz]

Dream Drop Distance's glossary explains that the Keyblade of Heart is actually a third type of Keyblade, although we know almost nothing about it than it's type and that it IS a Keyblade. There are a total of three types: Light (which almost everybody on the cast uses including Riku, Sora AND Xehanort), Dark (Mickey's Kingdom Key D) and Heart (that one from KH1 that doesn't have much to do with the plot).

[_Ikelos]

You open with "BBS has none of the nuance or theming of Kingdom Hearts" but every point you make is just you being bewildered and confused by actual nuance.
For one, the Unversed are Vanitas, taken shape through his negative emotions(and later other people's). Negative emotions are not darkness, and darkness in KH is not "Evil" in any way (See CoM, and Riku's story in general throughout the games), darkness is entropy and finality, which is made very clear just about everywhere in the entire series, with the exception of KH1 maybe.
Lines like "The protagonists should know the full scope of the villain's plan" make me wonder if this is your first KH game. That has literally never once been a thing in KH.
Or lines like "The Kai blade is a worthless object, it's formed and then it's destroyed 2 minutes later by only 2 keyblade wielders, 3 if you count Ventus fighting Vanitas in his own heart", like you really didn't get the exposition about the XBlade? I don't believe you. I think you're just trying to make it sound incomprehensible.
The Xblade is forged when pure light and pure darkness fight. Once it is formed, it is visually revealed that the pure light and darkness are locked in a perpetual fight inside it, which is what fuels it.
The one to actually break the XBlade is Ventus, by ending the perpetual fight, through Aqua's help, weakening Vanitas' body from the outside.
Obviously if the XBlade is forged and Xehanort gets a hold of it, that's it. That opens the door to the true Kingdom Hearts for Xehanort, so to say that it has no importance to the plot is obviously stupid, and I think you knew it was stupid as your voice shakes when you say it.
I mean some of the stuff you're saying is really over the top, sounds like parody. "The trio doesn't get any development from going through the disney worlds", is just plainly insane.
You could maybe make a very disingenuous argument about Terra learning to not succumb to darkness (by being obsessed with gaining power to defend his friends) through his interactions with the Disney characters being worthless because he technically ends up succumbing to darkness in the end anyway, but that's as far as you can push it.
Aqua learns that there's more to life than just following Master Eraqus' mission, and that other things, like Terra and Ventus, are more important to her. She learns to be more empathetic, caring and flexible by the end, when at the beginning she's ready to murder anyone who harbors darkness.
Ventus learns that he's actually very capable, earns confidence and builds character and his own set of morals. He's a baby at the beginning of the game, and only follows Terra like a puppy because he childishly wants to be considered a grown up like the others.
Other claims about the gameplay are even dumber, stuff like Terra not having a good dodge, when Terra is very obviously a stand-your-ground type character, who guards and counters better than Ventus and Aqua. Where Terra has dead recovery frames between dodging, Ventus and Aqua have those after guarding or countering. They're different characters and you're trying to play them all the same way. Moreover, any claim of difficulty in BBS is crazy when D-links exist and Peter Pan or Mickey oneshot almost every boss in the game on Lv1 Critical.
Agree on shotlocks, but that's quite possibly the lowest hanging fruit in the series.
Honestly I just feel stupid even responding to this.

[pikachufrankie]

It’s kind of weird to say that BBS is the worst KH game (barring the mobile game), since I’ve played it the most out of every KH game. But… it really is the worst. The combat is the worst the series gets, as it’s a broken, convoluted, exploitable mess. As for the story of BBS… yeah no. It’s the beginning of the end times. It’s not the WORST story in KH, as that goes to KH3, but it’s pretty bad. It’s a much worse Revenge of the Sith; it’s like all good aspects of the movie was stripped away, and replaced with cardboard cutouts to represent where those things WOULD be (such as the story and characters).

[themckinneyshimmy]

I respectfully disagree with a decent amount of this but you make very valid points, this was the first step in KH becoming overly complicated, but I think DDD was even worse about that and while I still love the games including these 2, I miss the simple times before Bbs

[plushytricker]

i disagree with everything you said somehow, huh

[GrandAngel]

The actual worse KH experience was Unchained X/Union X.
Nothing even comes close.
At least these aren't predatory with excessive gambling aspects.

[thewrongsorcerer]

I don't think keyblade "borrowing" in the pre-BBS games is as clear-cut as you make it seem. The scene with Jack Sparrow isn't meant to show that Sora can lend out keyblades. It shows that a keyblade can't be used by anyone that isn't its master and will immediately warp back to them. It's like an anti-theft mechanism. This is further backed up by the scene before the Sephiroth fight.
But then again, maybe Riku can?? Like, he clearly hands one to Kari. Where did it come from? How long can she keep it? idk. confusing stuff

[rayvonvelez]

One thing i definitely dont get about this games story is how eraqus isn't aware xehanort is evil. And how he just lets xehanort beam a evil darkness on his face. And eraqus does nothing about it. Instead he just wants to kill ventus and terra instead of handling his old friend xehanort.

[jetkirby]

Aqua and terra had already been learning under eraqus for 1-2 years before Ventus joined them, that's why they were allowed to take the mark of mastery test and Ventus wasnt, they are upper class men graduating and Ventus still has years left to train

The mark of mastery isn't a contest between terra and aqua, just because you are sparring with someone doesn't mean the outcome of the fight matters, they could both pass, they could both fail, or only one of them could pass as it turns out aqua did, the judges watch the participants on their form and composure to determine whether to graduate them, eraqus is blind like a fool about xehanort manipulating tera, but his decision to fail terra for channeling dark energy is understandable based on his metrics for keyblade master

You asking "who is this terra guy and why are they calling roxas Ventus?" Is no different than asking "where's sora?" At the start of KH2, you need to play the game(s) or watch the movie to understand the plot of something you can't knock a story because you don't understand the plot that hasn't been explained yet

It's fair to say Nomura is too mysterious or cryptic with full context of the whole story, most people would agree KH in it's entirety is too convoluted but it's not fair to say BBS is a bad story right out of the gate because you don't understand what hasn't been explained yet

BBS and DDD are set up for the pay off that was supposed to come from KH3, it's more correct to blame KH3 for not satisfactorily paying off what BBS started, and also Nomura for going back further to khux and dark road, which answers some questions but opens many more

You can also blame Nomura for not making KH3 the final game in the series and instead choosing to go to KH4 and beyond to answer questions

But you cant blame BBS for destroying the story because BBS was never meant to have answers or an ending it was always set up, it matters what they do with the set up whether the set up mattered