Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories

Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories Review

Will_Ball gives this a solid "Rad" on the Ghost Scale

This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.

Will_Ball gives this a "Rad" on the Ghost Scale

This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.

I recently decided to jump back into the Kingdom Hearts world with Re:Chain of Memories. This was originally released as Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories for the Gameboy Advance (GBA) in 2004. The GBA version was a 2D role-playing game and card game mixed into one. Re:Chain of Memories is a 3D version that was created for the Playstation 2 in 2007. It contains the same core gameplay, but rather than being in a 2D world, you are playing it in a 3D world, using much of the same assets from the original Kingdom Hearts. The version I played was an updated Playstation 2 version that was made for the Playstation 4.

Chain of Memories is a very interesting game. It takes the... Read All I recently decided to jump back into the Kingdom Hearts world with Re:Chain of Memories. This was originally released as Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories for the Gameboy Advance (GBA) in 2004. The GBA version was a 2D role-playing game and card game mixed into one. Re:Chain of Memories is a 3D version that was created for the Playstation 2 in 2007. It contains the same core gameplay, but rather than being in a 2D world, you are playing it in a 3D world, using much of the same assets from the original Kingdom Hearts. The version I played was an updated Playstation 2 version that was made for the Playstation 4.

Chain of Memories is a very interesting game. It takes the Kingdom Hearts gameplay, restricts the game world size (more on that in a bit) and introduces a card game for the battles. The battles are really different. You still have the 3D movement along with jump and roll from the first Kingdom Hearts game, but to do actual attacks/most of the defense, you must play a card. You have different types of cards. There are magic cards, attack cards, item cards, character cards and monster cards. Each card has a number between zero and nine. Both the monsters and you play cards to attack each other. When a card is played there is a very small window for someone else to play a card. If the second player (you or the monster) plays a card that is a zero, equal to, or higher than the original card, the original card is thrown out. If a zero card is played first, it is the lowest card, but if it is played second it is the highest card. Zeros can break anything (this too will be explained in a bit). If the second player plays a card with equal value, the other player will be stunned. If they play a card higher than the first player, their card will also be acted upon.

On top of playing one card at a time, you can queue up three cards for a combined attack (their value is the total value of the cards). These three cards will do different things depending on what cards you play. If you play the right combination of cards you can act out a Sleight, which will do a special move. Only zero cards and a combination of three cards with an equal or higher value can beat a player playing three cards. This is where zero cards are really useful. They are quicker to cancel out three cards than building up an equal or higher amount of three cards to defeat what was played.

For creating decks, you have a certain amount of CP (I assume this means card points). Each card costs a certain amount of CP, so you have to try to maximize the usage of your CP to the best of your ability. When your character levels up, you have the chance to increase your CP by a certain amount. You can create up to three decks. Some deck builds work better than others for certain enemies. In the end I had to modify and create new decks on occasion to move past monsters/bosses.

Each character has a certain amount of hit points (including you). You end up winning battles when all the monsters have been defeated. You lose when all your hit points are gone. This is standard game mechanics here.

Overall the card game was hit and miss for me. On one-hand it was unique. On the other hand it moved too fast for me. It was hard to take in the battle field, where you are in your deck and what cards the monsters are playing. A lot of the time I felt I did not have enough time to respond to a monster’s play. For the most part, I would just put a decent deck together and spam the monsters with cards (and sometimes Sleights). Later in the game you really have to put more thought into what cards you play and the order you have them in your deck in order to get past some of the monsters and bosses.

In between battles you traverse rooms. These rooms are not all that big and get a little monotonous after a while. You do have control over what rooms you see though. As you exit each room, you are allowed to play a room card, which in turn determines the type of room you will see next. This was a cool gameplay mechanic that opens up replayability.

The story is the best part of this game. Chain of Memories picks up right at the end of the original Kingdom Hearts. Sora, Goofy, Donald and Jiminy run into a mysterious stranger. The follow this stranger into a castle and learn that their memories aren’t all that they are cracked up to be. The end result is a game that plays upon the character’s memories and really does a great job telling this story.

As for replayability, I feel this game has a lot of it. From the way you can define a room to the secret character that is unlocked at the end of this game, I could see myself revisiting it. The strong story helps too.

Overall I would recommend this game. It is a lot of fun to play. I am also curious to see the GBA version in action. I might end up tracking down a youtube video of the gameplay to see the differences. The Kingdom Hearts world definitely grew for the better with this game.