A little over a year ago I decided to make a conscience effort to fight through my back log as much as possible. To try and stop replaying the same games over and over when there are so many I hadn’t played. One major thing I’ve learned is I will never be able to play every game I want to play before I die. We only have so much time and sometimes you just need to know when to call it and say this game just wasn’t for me. While Kingdom Heart Final Mix was definitely for me but unfortunately the follow up Kingdom Hearts Re: Chained Memories was unfortunately one of those games I had to call and end it early.
The main reason for this is while I in no way think it’s a bad game, I don’t know why they completely changed the action rpg gameplay to a card game you play to battle. I really gave it a fair shot but it just wasn’t a fun or engaging experience. I believe there is a reason Kingdom Hearts never again went back to this type of gameplay in the other dozen or so entries in the franchise. Not only does the gameplay not really hit with me but it felt way to unnecessarily grindy. Between the RNG of the cards you receive and needing certain cards to open certain doors I just didn’t have the patience or want to to finish this game.
I want to continue my journey through the Kingdom Hearts series so I watched a in depth video about the story of Chained Memories and I’m so glad I did because I don’t think I could have played the 25 or so hours of playing cards it would have taken to beat the game. Again I’m not saying this is a bad game or saying I don’t recommend it, just that it’s not for me and that if playing a game of cards to swing your sword against your opponent doesn’t sound appealing it may not be for you either.
Games of 2024 Ranked
https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2024-ranked-1/
The main reason for this is while I in no way think it’s a bad game, I don’t know why they completely changed the action rpg gameplay to a card game you play to battle. I really gave it a fair shot but it just wasn’t a fun or engaging experience. I believe there is a reason Kingdom Hearts never again went back to this type of gameplay in the other dozen or so entries in the franchise. Not only does the gameplay not really hit with me but it felt way to unnecessarily grindy. Between the RNG of the cards you receive and needing certain cards to open certain doors I just didn’t have the patience or want to to finish this game.
I want to continue my journey through the Kingdom Hearts series so I watched a in depth video about the story of Chained Memories and I’m so glad I did because I don’t think I could have played the 25 or so hours of playing cards it would have taken to beat the game. Again I’m not saying this is a bad game or saying I don’t recommend it, just that it’s not for me and that if playing a game of cards to swing your sword against your opponent doesn’t sound appealing it may not be for you either.
Games of 2024 Ranked
https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2024-ranked-1/
The card system is pretty fun, the game has a pretty good story, and my favorite villain in the series, but it definitely is not for everyone. Sleights are absolutely busted when you have a good deck.
when I was in high school, one of my ex-friends created a facebook page called "ade can't beat riku in re:chain of memories and it's hilarious." i've beaten riku several times and that guy is now a rapist. joke's on you, guy
Made a potentially ill-conceived choice that I’d go and play through all the Kingdom Hearts games, this time including the ones that I previously skipped out on for one reason or another, and while KH1 ended up being a game that became a masterpiece in my mind, playing Re:Chain of Memories did not leave me with similar feelings. To put it simply, this game is deranged, and also a total mess, taking the framework of a GBA game with more similarities to a beat ‘em up than anything else, and trying to implement the core card-based mechanics of the game into KH1’s combat engine. This leads to the game in a constant state of feeling entirely at odds with itself, trying to mash two systems that had vastly different dynamics associated with them into one package at the cost of both sides of this coin being severely hampered. Fortunately, despite how awkward everything is, there are some interesting ideas to go alongside all the quirks, both narratively and in the combat itself, that serve to occasionally make this a weird, but interesting game, rather than consistently being a bore.
At its core, I’m very much not a fan of the card system and its implementation in either of the campaigns here. To have an attack be successful, you need to use a card with a higher number than your enemy, and then they need to not respond with a higher number than yours, otherwise your attack will be rendered ineffective. While the deckbuilding element is meant to encourage a more strategic approach to combat, due to the way most enemies function, this ultimately contributes to a system that makes standard KH1 combat feel worse and more annoying in most cases. Encountering wave after wave of heartless as you make your way through the labyrinths quickly becomes tedious, with the constant chance of enemies breaking your attack and wasting your time as a result being a slight, but increasingly frustrating thing to encounter with each fight. Triangle spamming to use sleights will resolve some of this issue, by almost always leaving you with a number high enough that enemies can never break through since it’s a combination of 3 card values and basic enemies don’t have the 0 cards that guarantee a card break. However, this doesn’t get around the fact that aerial combat is awful regardless, with a lot of special attacks being unable to hit airborne enemies. This causes Re:Chain of memories to have the worst aerial combat in the series bar none due to how drastically your options get reduced, further contributing to the fodder heartless fights being a slog to get through.
The boss fights fix certain problems with this setup but introduce and highlight their own set of issues. The vast majority of the bosses have access to 0 cards, letting them break through your attack regardless of how strong it is, which forces the player to more carefully pick and choose their moments so they don’t waster their strongest attacks. Any humanoid boss also has access to their own set of sleights, further increasing the chance of your attacks being interrupted, along with introducing some extremely devastating attacks. The issues with this framework surface in 2 main ways, both being equally annoying. Since the player is able to nullify enemy attacks with the right cards, a lot of attacks in the game straight up are not designed with the idea of being able to dodge them in mind. This detracts from the sense of variety that a lot of bosses could have, since learning patterns and dodging is not something that ever happens really, it’s just that you need to nullify the attack to stop it from happening in the first place, leading to most bosses being dealt with in the exact same way. This issue is compounded with the extremely binary outcome of most of these fights, either you steamroll them and don’t let them ever hit you, or you get demolished without the slightest modicum of hope. If you build your deck to just have a bunch of powerful sleights, it’s extremely easy to stunlock the bosses despite the mechanics that were put in place specifically to try preventing this, and it’s mainly caused by there being no revenge values of any sort, so there’s no way for them to retaliate if you keep spamming them with attacks that momentarily stun them. The one exception to this that I found is the final boss, which is honestly really good and is one of the only times that I felt like the card system was being used to its full potential.
The one positive about this is that it’s honestly pretty fun to break the game with an overpowered deck, and there are a lot of way to do this, whether it’s with sonic blade, lethal frame, ars arcanum, or even level 3 magic spells, there’ll never be a shortage of different ways to obliterate the game balance to suit any given situation, and it’s satisfying to build around facilitating such situations, just an unfortunate fact that it comes at the cost of doing almost anything else throughout the game. Riku’s story tackles a lot of my complaints by making the player use prebuilt decks and not giving them access to a bunch of overpowered abilities that are easy to trigger, but then it goes and introduces its own flaws instead. Bosses can no longer be utterly steamrolled in the same braindead manner, but the duel mechanics which let you use a strong attack if you use the same value card as an enemy gives you an almost equally easy and dominant strategy. The fights still end up being a bit trickier and more even, but the core issue of things being built around nullifying attacks instead of learning how to properly deal with them is still present, and the regular heartless fights are made even more tedious by not being given options to destroy everything on screen within a couple of seconds, making the journey a massive grind.
Overall, Chain of Memories is just an utter mess of a game that will either be deeply frustrating, or comically easy without anything in between, which I think is a shame, since in theory, a lot of these mechanics could be really interesting, bizarre, but interesting, it’s just unfortunate that the game almost never utilises them in a manner to bring anything interesting out of it. I still don’t really dislike the game either though, the narrative is cool enough and I got enough enjoyment out of figuring out a bunch of different ways to break stuff, but it just goes on forever with so much padding in between the cool stuff. A fascinating experiment, but not much more for me, I don’t see myself wanting to return to this one again.
At its core, I’m very much not a fan of the card system and its implementation in either of the campaigns here. To have an attack be successful, you need to use a card with a higher number than your enemy, and then they need to not respond with a higher number than yours, otherwise your attack will be rendered ineffective. While the deckbuilding element is meant to encourage a more strategic approach to combat, due to the way most enemies function, this ultimately contributes to a system that makes standard KH1 combat feel worse and more annoying in most cases. Encountering wave after wave of heartless as you make your way through the labyrinths quickly becomes tedious, with the constant chance of enemies breaking your attack and wasting your time as a result being a slight, but increasingly frustrating thing to encounter with each fight. Triangle spamming to use sleights will resolve some of this issue, by almost always leaving you with a number high enough that enemies can never break through since it’s a combination of 3 card values and basic enemies don’t have the 0 cards that guarantee a card break. However, this doesn’t get around the fact that aerial combat is awful regardless, with a lot of special attacks being unable to hit airborne enemies. This causes Re:Chain of memories to have the worst aerial combat in the series bar none due to how drastically your options get reduced, further contributing to the fodder heartless fights being a slog to get through.
The boss fights fix certain problems with this setup but introduce and highlight their own set of issues. The vast majority of the bosses have access to 0 cards, letting them break through your attack regardless of how strong it is, which forces the player to more carefully pick and choose their moments so they don’t waster their strongest attacks. Any humanoid boss also has access to their own set of sleights, further increasing the chance of your attacks being interrupted, along with introducing some extremely devastating attacks. The issues with this framework surface in 2 main ways, both being equally annoying. Since the player is able to nullify enemy attacks with the right cards, a lot of attacks in the game straight up are not designed with the idea of being able to dodge them in mind. This detracts from the sense of variety that a lot of bosses could have, since learning patterns and dodging is not something that ever happens really, it’s just that you need to nullify the attack to stop it from happening in the first place, leading to most bosses being dealt with in the exact same way. This issue is compounded with the extremely binary outcome of most of these fights, either you steamroll them and don’t let them ever hit you, or you get demolished without the slightest modicum of hope. If you build your deck to just have a bunch of powerful sleights, it’s extremely easy to stunlock the bosses despite the mechanics that were put in place specifically to try preventing this, and it’s mainly caused by there being no revenge values of any sort, so there’s no way for them to retaliate if you keep spamming them with attacks that momentarily stun them. The one exception to this that I found is the final boss, which is honestly really good and is one of the only times that I felt like the card system was being used to its full potential.
The one positive about this is that it’s honestly pretty fun to break the game with an overpowered deck, and there are a lot of way to do this, whether it’s with sonic blade, lethal frame, ars arcanum, or even level 3 magic spells, there’ll never be a shortage of different ways to obliterate the game balance to suit any given situation, and it’s satisfying to build around facilitating such situations, just an unfortunate fact that it comes at the cost of doing almost anything else throughout the game. Riku’s story tackles a lot of my complaints by making the player use prebuilt decks and not giving them access to a bunch of overpowered abilities that are easy to trigger, but then it goes and introduces its own flaws instead. Bosses can no longer be utterly steamrolled in the same braindead manner, but the duel mechanics which let you use a strong attack if you use the same value card as an enemy gives you an almost equally easy and dominant strategy. The fights still end up being a bit trickier and more even, but the core issue of things being built around nullifying attacks instead of learning how to properly deal with them is still present, and the regular heartless fights are made even more tedious by not being given options to destroy everything on screen within a couple of seconds, making the journey a massive grind.
Overall, Chain of Memories is just an utter mess of a game that will either be deeply frustrating, or comically easy without anything in between, which I think is a shame, since in theory, a lot of these mechanics could be really interesting, bizarre, but interesting, it’s just unfortunate that the game almost never utilises them in a manner to bring anything interesting out of it. I still don’t really dislike the game either though, the narrative is cool enough and I got enough enjoyment out of figuring out a bunch of different ways to break stuff, but it just goes on forever with so much padding in between the cool stuff. A fascinating experiment, but not much more for me, I don’t see myself wanting to return to this one again.
If Kingdom Hearts 1 still was fun despite its flaws, Rechain Of Memories is just plain terrible. I played the game on the 1.5 remix collection on ps4 and my experience can be summarized as either a boring slog or a painful mess mixed together.
Let’s get the one single positive that gives this game the rating: the story. The story is actually surprisingly good. It is more complex than kh1’s story, but it doesn’t delve into overcomplicated. The characters (including Sora) are all written well with my favourite characters (Axel and Marluxia) getting their introduction here. Organization 13 also gets introduced here, but that will play a more important role in kh2. Speaking of, Marluxia manages to somehow have a threatening presence despite that sweet anime hair and blossom scythe. His boss fight is also excellent. You feel invested in the conflicts happening between Sora, Donald and Goofy as well as within the organization itself. It was the sole reason why i dragged my feet until the end TWICE for this garbage (Riku gets a side story, which is more engaging than the primary story of this game, since it helps to flesh out Riku and his conflict with darkness)
Now, for the negatives…oh boy. The gameplay is just awful. The combat has shifted from action RPG to a card-based system. It seems like a neat idea at first, but it quickly falls apart once you realize how easily you can break it, making every encounter boring as shit from the 3rd hour in an essentially 20+ hour playthrough. It isn’t helped by the fact that every world (except for 100 Acre Wood) is the same exact boxy design with a different coat of paint, making it feel like you’re doing the same thing OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. The card system also serves as a method of progression through these worlds, meaning that if you don’t have the correct cards that the game requires from you TOUGH SHIT GRIND AND HOPE THAT RNGESUS BLESSES YOU!!! This extends to the boss fights as well (excluding Marluxia) which are either frustrating with how many 0 cards they spam or piss easy with how much you can break them using your card decks. The balance doesn’t exist. The presentation is also extremely lazy, probably due to the cheap budget. Character models and animations are all recycled from either kh1 or kh2 (since this remake came out after kh2) with probably the sole exceptions being the organizations member that never appeared in neither games. The voice acting is also pretty bad. With the sole exceptions of Axel, Larxene and Marluxia, the rest don’t even try to give a good performance. It’s painfully obvious the english dialogue was put over the japanese lip-syncing, resulting in a lot of long pauses between sentences or just words not properly synced. The music doesn’t stick with me as well. Comprised of either 80% recycled music from kh1 and 20% new stuff that is very repetitive or meh, it just is…okay i guess.
Overall, a good story doesn’t save a game where every other aspect of it suffers extremely from poor design choices, cheap production values and just overall being boring or frustrating. It’s better to just watch the cutscenes or a recap on youtube than playing this game. I wish i could be like Sora at the end of the game and erase this game from my memories.
Let’s get the one single positive that gives this game the rating: the story. The story is actually surprisingly good. It is more complex than kh1’s story, but it doesn’t delve into overcomplicated. The characters (including Sora) are all written well with my favourite characters (Axel and Marluxia) getting their introduction here. Organization 13 also gets introduced here, but that will play a more important role in kh2. Speaking of, Marluxia manages to somehow have a threatening presence despite that sweet anime hair and blossom scythe. His boss fight is also excellent. You feel invested in the conflicts happening between Sora, Donald and Goofy as well as within the organization itself. It was the sole reason why i dragged my feet until the end TWICE for this garbage (Riku gets a side story, which is more engaging than the primary story of this game, since it helps to flesh out Riku and his conflict with darkness)
Now, for the negatives…oh boy. The gameplay is just awful. The combat has shifted from action RPG to a card-based system. It seems like a neat idea at first, but it quickly falls apart once you realize how easily you can break it, making every encounter boring as shit from the 3rd hour in an essentially 20+ hour playthrough. It isn’t helped by the fact that every world (except for 100 Acre Wood) is the same exact boxy design with a different coat of paint, making it feel like you’re doing the same thing OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. The card system also serves as a method of progression through these worlds, meaning that if you don’t have the correct cards that the game requires from you TOUGH SHIT GRIND AND HOPE THAT RNGESUS BLESSES YOU!!! This extends to the boss fights as well (excluding Marluxia) which are either frustrating with how many 0 cards they spam or piss easy with how much you can break them using your card decks. The balance doesn’t exist. The presentation is also extremely lazy, probably due to the cheap budget. Character models and animations are all recycled from either kh1 or kh2 (since this remake came out after kh2) with probably the sole exceptions being the organizations member that never appeared in neither games. The voice acting is also pretty bad. With the sole exceptions of Axel, Larxene and Marluxia, the rest don’t even try to give a good performance. It’s painfully obvious the english dialogue was put over the japanese lip-syncing, resulting in a lot of long pauses between sentences or just words not properly synced. The music doesn’t stick with me as well. Comprised of either 80% recycled music from kh1 and 20% new stuff that is very repetitive or meh, it just is…okay i guess.
Overall, a good story doesn’t save a game where every other aspect of it suffers extremely from poor design choices, cheap production values and just overall being boring or frustrating. It’s better to just watch the cutscenes or a recap on youtube than playing this game. I wish i could be like Sora at the end of the game and erase this game from my memories.
+the story is honestly a fascinating unreliable narrator tale with solid pacing throughout
+introduces many great Org XIII characters, many of which return later through story fuckery
+roughly speaking, the room card system gives the game a bit of a fresh roguelike feel.... I'm stretching here....
+riku's story cuts much of the fluff out of each disney world
-the card combat is terrible. there was no reason for them to try to juggle real-time combat with flipping through a card deck, it's just too frustrating
-to clarify: individual keyblade slashes are tied to cards. it directly contradicts the main component of kh combat, which is mashing X
-the worlds are all straight out of the first game, assets and all. even bosses are reproduced, though with different strategies (mostly)
-the disney stories have been pared down and their cutscenes are barely worth watching
-each world has a generic layout due to the room card mechanic, so virtually every world feels the same to move through
-there is no even gradation in strategy efficacy. you will either be destroyed by bosses or you will accept strategies that bust the game wide open
-heartless battles are tedious and lack any real danger. they are purely a way to grind room cards to synthesize upcoming rooms
-as implied earlier, each room in the game needs to be synthesized with a card or set of cards. some requirements require many cards and thus an uncomfortable amount of grinding
-some room card requirements require very specific cards as well, and without other room cards that can help ease looking for said cards, the grinding can become excrutiating
-riku's story strips any strategy out of the game and renders the card system pointless by using premade decks and making virtually every card an attack card
-some of the boss fights are repeated (I'm looking at you RR, six times in a single game is too much)
a frustrating and boring experience, but honestly necessary to understand kh2 at all. the main campaign had no right being 20 hours long, especially with another 6 hour campaign tacked on afterwards that is essential for plot reasons. thankfully, the good Org XIII members return as optional boss battles in kh2fm, so they haven't been completely wasted here. this may have been impressive or fun on a gba, but really does not hold up well as a 3d action game
+introduces many great Org XIII characters, many of which return later through story fuckery
+roughly speaking, the room card system gives the game a bit of a fresh roguelike feel.... I'm stretching here....
+riku's story cuts much of the fluff out of each disney world
-the card combat is terrible. there was no reason for them to try to juggle real-time combat with flipping through a card deck, it's just too frustrating
-to clarify: individual keyblade slashes are tied to cards. it directly contradicts the main component of kh combat, which is mashing X
-the worlds are all straight out of the first game, assets and all. even bosses are reproduced, though with different strategies (mostly)
-the disney stories have been pared down and their cutscenes are barely worth watching
-each world has a generic layout due to the room card mechanic, so virtually every world feels the same to move through
-there is no even gradation in strategy efficacy. you will either be destroyed by bosses or you will accept strategies that bust the game wide open
-heartless battles are tedious and lack any real danger. they are purely a way to grind room cards to synthesize upcoming rooms
-as implied earlier, each room in the game needs to be synthesized with a card or set of cards. some requirements require many cards and thus an uncomfortable amount of grinding
-some room card requirements require very specific cards as well, and without other room cards that can help ease looking for said cards, the grinding can become excrutiating
-riku's story strips any strategy out of the game and renders the card system pointless by using premade decks and making virtually every card an attack card
-some of the boss fights are repeated (I'm looking at you RR, six times in a single game is too much)
a frustrating and boring experience, but honestly necessary to understand kh2 at all. the main campaign had no right being 20 hours long, especially with another 6 hour campaign tacked on afterwards that is essential for plot reasons. thankfully, the good Org XIII members return as optional boss battles in kh2fm, so they haven't been completely wasted here. this may have been impressive or fun on a gba, but really does not hold up well as a 3d action game
this will probably be the most unjust undeserved unearned 3 stars i ever gave on this site because this game is a fucking mess but kind of a glittery intriguing piece of shit like you dont want to look at it but its so eye catching that you end up playing it for the fucking sake of it and regret it
i will be honest here i didnt enjoy this as much as i wanted to and the reasons can be led back to the gameplay as a whole but in particular to the battle system jesus fucking lord
played the 1.5 + 2.5 collection version btw
now kingdom hearts 1 had a battle system that i regard as pretty good ? its responsive as fuck super fun and incredibly customizable for a game like this and possibly the sole reason i even replayed it in the first place (see the review here somewhere i will put the link somewhere ok somewhere) whereas this one single handedly made me lose any interest in pursuing the kingdom hearts marathon i intended to do and honestly ? i dont blame past me he was right i actually got back into this game pretending that i would enjoy it better than the last time and i still ended up kind of despising it but its fine its alright its not like i hated every single part of this game
the card system is possibly one of the worst invention of this entire game and its honestly not about the card system in itself but how it's implemented and how its incredibly uncomfortable to get around to and yknow its just bad (random person: ok but ? if you master it its gonna get real good I swear its very fun. ok ? suck my dick I will never put any more time into this game IMAGINE mastering the battle system no ma'am im not that kind of psycho)
also they make it v clear that this game revolves 100% around cards by the fact that level progression is based on using some cards that fulfill some requirements (like 5> or 5< or 5= or maybe color red shit like that) the thing is this means you're gonna go through grinding and grinding and grinding to find that one card to go on the other level and this is just possibly the most frustrating part of this game forreal like why would you leave me here grinding for HOURS before even getting into 1 story cutscene whats this DISGAEA amirite (i never played disgaea)
theres attack cards magic cards friend cards summon cards other cards shit like that and they all have value and basically if you use a card of greater value than the opponent you will block their attack but i never did that because im stupid
the end but its actually more difficult to play than it sounds
however they actually make some efforts to give this battle system some depth or else it would get real old real soon and they put card combos basically if you use 3 specific cards together you will get a special ability and its value is the addition of all 3 cards so they get v powerful and all but anyway did this save the entire gameplay ? no they look cool tho and are a nice addition to this mess
AND ALSO i actually chose the beginners difficulty because i remembered that last time normal difficulty gave me trauma and caused me to quit this marathon entirely so i had to use some countermeasures which is the easiest difficulty and STILL it was very unplayable and very frustrating and they still kicked my ass for good not that id hate for axel to kick my ass SORRY DELETE HOW DO YOU DELETE
normal battles are kinda okay ish but boss battles . people theyre so stupidly hard why are they so hard larxene is hard axel is hard vexen is HARD and then its just them again and again and again o and also fighting riku for like 5 times because i guess thats what we are doing in this day and age beating the crap out of your best friends
to add more stuff in the boring ass department you will go through THE SAME worlds you encountered in kingdom hearts 1 i legit was gonna go crazy they just gave them the exact same stories just adding the “omg why did i forget X” because this is castle oblivion obviously but whatever this isnt the main reason why i like this game anyway so we can move on
musical department was always a strong part of kingdom hearts as a whole and i think this is where the real musical cohesiveness comes into life the artistic development since the first game is clear and powerful and the osts are emotional or threatening tear jerking or mysterious its just an amazing ost now RUN DOWN OF MY FAV PIECE YOU CAN SKIP THIS ONE
guys this version of dearly beloved could be my fav one i dont want to say lies but it COULD be my fav one i swear its so good and anyway most of the music stuff in here is reused from the first game idk if they did something to the osts in the meantime for this other game but i wouldnt know because i know zero about music so that being said the real stuff the juicy stuff is the ORGANIZATION music themes its just UGHHHHHHHHH how did they do that like the 13th struggle is such A GOOD song how do they do that honestly yoko shimomura can you tell me how you do that this is genius and like namines theme is incredible and also like the final boss theme yknow kingdom hearts has GOOD music you should play it just for that at this point yknow
the story in this one is what finally got me into kingdom hearts as a whole yknow the first one had a good story but this is where it all gets convoluted and kind of a mess but thats the cool stuff and also this is where the best thing in whole kh is introduced which is the organization ™ i love it i love them i love every single nobody in this thing and theyre all my children ok maybe not all of them but you get me
all in all the story is sora and friends get into castle oblivion and they begin to forget stuff because thats the main gist of castle oblivion and while this happens sora begins to remember a girl named naminé who in a way begins to replace kairi in his memories and SPOILER its because it was narminés doing and she was making fake memories to put into soras mind because she was forced by the organization and you will then try to save her from them and beat the shit out of marluxia which is not the head of the organization but like the head of the “lets make sora alzheimer” plan and after you defeat him naminés free and all the problem now is that to make sora regain his memories he has to be put into a pod like thing for a year or something while naminé reconstructs his lost (true) memories so they tell each other goodbye and promise they will be real friends when they meet again (i cry like a bitch) the end
AMAZING STORY PEOPLE I LOVED THIS ONE
and to top that off the characters introduced here are possibly some of my fav ones in the entire series like axel ? my sweet little baby my love and fiancee my husband i love him so dearly and then theres larxene shes waifu material i want her to treat me as badly as she treats everyone and then theres shadow riku . umh . skip ok vexen sucks im sorry i hate him and marluxia is v cute i love him actually i wanted him to have more screentime but its fine its fine ok whatever
+rikus route
reverse rebirth is rikus part of the story and its just him waking up in castle oblivion beating the shit out of zexion and lexaeus (other organization members as you can see from the X in the names) and meets mickey and naminé then he kills shadow riku and also ansem ? absurdly enough theres everyone in this game and yeah whatever then he just sets out with his new black cloak and king mickey (romantic interest)
also theres DiZ whatever hes too enigmatic for me to understand
gameplay: button mash-y af . skip
can't fucking believe they make you go through the same places of the first game not once but twice what the actual fuck yknow and also make you do the exact same thing of soras route this game is fucking insane i swear to god
that being said i liked this game as a whole but playing it was a pain in the ass and i dont want to touch this product ever again in my life and its incredibly unjust that you have to go through this to understand whats happening in kingdom hearts 2 but whatever (actually you couuuuld watch an online cutscene compilation but im too stubborn to do that friends say its because im a taurus i say its because i got generational trauma and am an ENFP)
all in all naminé is the love of my life great story and axel please fuck me im horny
the end HOLD ME WHAT EVER LIES BEYOND THIS MORNING IS A LITTLE LATER ON REGARDLESS OF WARNING THE FUTURE DOESNT SCARE ME AT AAAAAALL NOTHINGS LIKE BEFORE WHEN YOU WALK AWAY YOU DONT HEAR ME SAY PLEAAAAAAAA-
did they change sora voice actor or did he grow up he sounds so weird
why did they have to make me battle with riku that many times lord have mercy huh huh huh did they drain me
fuck that bitch vexen for the love of god
larxene please can you like step on me omg sorry i meant spit in my mouth omg thats so rude what i meant to say was can you sit on my face NOOOOOO OH MY GOD
in reality I hate the battle system because I can't do math
i like the final boss design a little too much for my own good maybe its because it reminds me of some shin megami tensei demon design or something like that some mother mary type shit + its a cool af battle and the FINAL BOSS BATTLE THEME IS SO FUCKING GOOOOOOOOD LOOOOORD also + it uses some interesting gimmicks that make me want to kms but at least theyre more interesting than the rest of the games entire usage of this battle system + "the cards will determine your fate" i love yu gi oh
i just noticed that every member of the organization got an x in their name . i was the smart one at school
can't believe DP is dark points and not double penetration
zexion is like the most final fantasy character in kingdom hearts till now
DiZ nuts
you and kairi smell the same sniffs pussy juice
the homoeroticism in riku x mickie is so tangible it can be cut with scissors
im still kinda confused by the fact that ansem got a stand
THE ORGANIZATION™️
why does darkness have a scent thats very omegaverse of you
rikus route is very persona 4 trust me
tornado golpeador im …….. i love you cutest heartless ever designed
nobodies can never be somebodies
NAMINE’ I LOVE YOU SWEET BABY OH MY GOF F’JISNFJID0F
this whole game is a meme
i will be honest here i didnt enjoy this as much as i wanted to and the reasons can be led back to the gameplay as a whole but in particular to the battle system jesus fucking lord
played the 1.5 + 2.5 collection version btw
now kingdom hearts 1 had a battle system that i regard as pretty good ? its responsive as fuck super fun and incredibly customizable for a game like this and possibly the sole reason i even replayed it in the first place (see the review here somewhere i will put the link somewhere ok somewhere) whereas this one single handedly made me lose any interest in pursuing the kingdom hearts marathon i intended to do and honestly ? i dont blame past me he was right i actually got back into this game pretending that i would enjoy it better than the last time and i still ended up kind of despising it but its fine its alright its not like i hated every single part of this game
the card system is possibly one of the worst invention of this entire game and its honestly not about the card system in itself but how it's implemented and how its incredibly uncomfortable to get around to and yknow its just bad (random person: ok but ? if you master it its gonna get real good I swear its very fun. ok ? suck my dick I will never put any more time into this game IMAGINE mastering the battle system no ma'am im not that kind of psycho)
also they make it v clear that this game revolves 100% around cards by the fact that level progression is based on using some cards that fulfill some requirements (like 5> or 5< or 5= or maybe color red shit like that) the thing is this means you're gonna go through grinding and grinding and grinding to find that one card to go on the other level and this is just possibly the most frustrating part of this game forreal like why would you leave me here grinding for HOURS before even getting into 1 story cutscene whats this DISGAEA amirite (i never played disgaea)
theres attack cards magic cards friend cards summon cards other cards shit like that and they all have value and basically if you use a card of greater value than the opponent you will block their attack but i never did that because im stupid
the end but its actually more difficult to play than it sounds
however they actually make some efforts to give this battle system some depth or else it would get real old real soon and they put card combos basically if you use 3 specific cards together you will get a special ability and its value is the addition of all 3 cards so they get v powerful and all but anyway did this save the entire gameplay ? no they look cool tho and are a nice addition to this mess
AND ALSO i actually chose the beginners difficulty because i remembered that last time normal difficulty gave me trauma and caused me to quit this marathon entirely so i had to use some countermeasures which is the easiest difficulty and STILL it was very unplayable and very frustrating and they still kicked my ass for good not that id hate for axel to kick my ass SORRY DELETE HOW DO YOU DELETE
normal battles are kinda okay ish but boss battles . people theyre so stupidly hard why are they so hard larxene is hard axel is hard vexen is HARD and then its just them again and again and again o and also fighting riku for like 5 times because i guess thats what we are doing in this day and age beating the crap out of your best friends
to add more stuff in the boring ass department you will go through THE SAME worlds you encountered in kingdom hearts 1 i legit was gonna go crazy they just gave them the exact same stories just adding the “omg why did i forget X” because this is castle oblivion obviously but whatever this isnt the main reason why i like this game anyway so we can move on
musical department was always a strong part of kingdom hearts as a whole and i think this is where the real musical cohesiveness comes into life the artistic development since the first game is clear and powerful and the osts are emotional or threatening tear jerking or mysterious its just an amazing ost now RUN DOWN OF MY FAV PIECE YOU CAN SKIP THIS ONE
guys this version of dearly beloved could be my fav one i dont want to say lies but it COULD be my fav one i swear its so good and anyway most of the music stuff in here is reused from the first game idk if they did something to the osts in the meantime for this other game but i wouldnt know because i know zero about music so that being said the real stuff the juicy stuff is the ORGANIZATION music themes its just UGHHHHHHHHH how did they do that like the 13th struggle is such A GOOD song how do they do that honestly yoko shimomura can you tell me how you do that this is genius and like namines theme is incredible and also like the final boss theme yknow kingdom hearts has GOOD music you should play it just for that at this point yknow
the story in this one is what finally got me into kingdom hearts as a whole yknow the first one had a good story but this is where it all gets convoluted and kind of a mess but thats the cool stuff and also this is where the best thing in whole kh is introduced which is the organization ™ i love it i love them i love every single nobody in this thing and theyre all my children ok maybe not all of them but you get me
all in all the story is sora and friends get into castle oblivion and they begin to forget stuff because thats the main gist of castle oblivion and while this happens sora begins to remember a girl named naminé who in a way begins to replace kairi in his memories and SPOILER its because it was narminés doing and she was making fake memories to put into soras mind because she was forced by the organization and you will then try to save her from them and beat the shit out of marluxia which is not the head of the organization but like the head of the “lets make sora alzheimer” plan and after you defeat him naminés free and all the problem now is that to make sora regain his memories he has to be put into a pod like thing for a year or something while naminé reconstructs his lost (true) memories so they tell each other goodbye and promise they will be real friends when they meet again (i cry like a bitch) the end
AMAZING STORY PEOPLE I LOVED THIS ONE
and to top that off the characters introduced here are possibly some of my fav ones in the entire series like axel ? my sweet little baby my love and fiancee my husband i love him so dearly and then theres larxene shes waifu material i want her to treat me as badly as she treats everyone and then theres shadow riku . umh . skip ok vexen sucks im sorry i hate him and marluxia is v cute i love him actually i wanted him to have more screentime but its fine its fine ok whatever
+rikus route
reverse rebirth is rikus part of the story and its just him waking up in castle oblivion beating the shit out of zexion and lexaeus (other organization members as you can see from the X in the names) and meets mickey and naminé then he kills shadow riku and also ansem ? absurdly enough theres everyone in this game and yeah whatever then he just sets out with his new black cloak and king mickey (romantic interest)
also theres DiZ whatever hes too enigmatic for me to understand
gameplay: button mash-y af . skip
can't fucking believe they make you go through the same places of the first game not once but twice what the actual fuck yknow and also make you do the exact same thing of soras route this game is fucking insane i swear to god
that being said i liked this game as a whole but playing it was a pain in the ass and i dont want to touch this product ever again in my life and its incredibly unjust that you have to go through this to understand whats happening in kingdom hearts 2 but whatever (actually you couuuuld watch an online cutscene compilation but im too stubborn to do that friends say its because im a taurus i say its because i got generational trauma and am an ENFP)
all in all naminé is the love of my life great story and axel please fuck me im horny
the end HOLD ME WHAT EVER LIES BEYOND THIS MORNING IS A LITTLE LATER ON REGARDLESS OF WARNING THE FUTURE DOESNT SCARE ME AT AAAAAALL NOTHINGS LIKE BEFORE WHEN YOU WALK AWAY YOU DONT HEAR ME SAY PLEAAAAAAAA-
did they change sora voice actor or did he grow up he sounds so weird
why did they have to make me battle with riku that many times lord have mercy huh huh huh did they drain me
fuck that bitch vexen for the love of god
larxene please can you like step on me omg sorry i meant spit in my mouth omg thats so rude what i meant to say was can you sit on my face NOOOOOO OH MY GOD
in reality I hate the battle system because I can't do math
i like the final boss design a little too much for my own good maybe its because it reminds me of some shin megami tensei demon design or something like that some mother mary type shit + its a cool af battle and the FINAL BOSS BATTLE THEME IS SO FUCKING GOOOOOOOOD LOOOOORD also + it uses some interesting gimmicks that make me want to kms but at least theyre more interesting than the rest of the games entire usage of this battle system + "the cards will determine your fate" i love yu gi oh
i just noticed that every member of the organization got an x in their name . i was the smart one at school
can't believe DP is dark points and not double penetration
zexion is like the most final fantasy character in kingdom hearts till now
DiZ nuts
you and kairi smell the same sniffs pussy juice
the homoeroticism in riku x mickie is so tangible it can be cut with scissors
im still kinda confused by the fact that ansem got a stand
THE ORGANIZATION™️
why does darkness have a scent thats very omegaverse of you
rikus route is very persona 4 trust me
tornado golpeador im …….. i love you cutest heartless ever designed
nobodies can never be somebodies
NAMINE’ I LOVE YOU SWEET BABY OH MY GOF F’JISNFJID0F
this whole game is a meme
It's definitely one of those "just because you can doesn't mean you should" type of remakes
Wow, talk about a gigantic leap backwards. I'll give points for having an interesting premise (the card battle system) and having a fairly entertaining story but that's pretty much all the praise I'll give.
The card battle system is horrifically unbalanced in your favor. Like, I'm someone who got his ass handed to him multiple times on normal difficulty in the original Kingdom Hearts, I played this game on proud mode and I barely died at all. There's really not much to it, you play higher numbers than your opponent - you win and can cancel out any attack they have. If they have a huge sleight super attack coming up, use a 0 card to cancel that out too. There's really nothing the enemy can do to you, and bosses absolutely fall to pieces when using certain sleights like Sonic Blade and Lethal Frame. Nothing really comes close to putting up any sort of challenge and by the second world you end up feeling drained because the game has nothing more to offer up its sleeve. It's the same repetitive crap over and over again, and it never gets any better from there. I basically had 2 decks I made throughout my playthrough with Sora - whirlwind spam which mopped the floor with common heartless fodder, and Sonic Blade spam which mopped the floor with any boss in the game. The overworld is also really terrible - every location feels the exact same in layout, just these bare lifeless dioramas that only exist to get you to the other bare lifeless diorama room and fight the same repeated enemy pushovers a billion times over. I tried putting on podcasts or listening to my favorite YouTubers when playing to take my mind off things but that didn't help much at all.
I then got to play Riku's story after finishing Sora's campaign, hoping that things would change and get a bit better with his gameplay, but it didn't. He has a set deck instead of you getting to earn and pick the cards he uses, but other than that not much else changes. It got to a point in Agrabah where the game froze and softlocked and I just couldn't take it any more. I still haven't fully finished the game, I just watched the rest of the cutscenes on YouTube to see how the story ended. I don't think I've ever done that for any game, and mind you I'm a guy who fully completed both Dante's and Lucia's campaign in DMC2 so I have a fairly high pain tolerance.
I don't even think the visuals are good, along with the boring diorama level design the stage aesthetics and themes are straight rehashed from Kingdom Hearts 1, on top of the music that isn't even the music from the HD version so it just sounds worse. Definitely skip this one, this was just awful
The card battle system is horrifically unbalanced in your favor. Like, I'm someone who got his ass handed to him multiple times on normal difficulty in the original Kingdom Hearts, I played this game on proud mode and I barely died at all. There's really not much to it, you play higher numbers than your opponent - you win and can cancel out any attack they have. If they have a huge sleight super attack coming up, use a 0 card to cancel that out too. There's really nothing the enemy can do to you, and bosses absolutely fall to pieces when using certain sleights like Sonic Blade and Lethal Frame. Nothing really comes close to putting up any sort of challenge and by the second world you end up feeling drained because the game has nothing more to offer up its sleeve. It's the same repetitive crap over and over again, and it never gets any better from there. I basically had 2 decks I made throughout my playthrough with Sora - whirlwind spam which mopped the floor with common heartless fodder, and Sonic Blade spam which mopped the floor with any boss in the game. The overworld is also really terrible - every location feels the exact same in layout, just these bare lifeless dioramas that only exist to get you to the other bare lifeless diorama room and fight the same repeated enemy pushovers a billion times over. I tried putting on podcasts or listening to my favorite YouTubers when playing to take my mind off things but that didn't help much at all.
I then got to play Riku's story after finishing Sora's campaign, hoping that things would change and get a bit better with his gameplay, but it didn't. He has a set deck instead of you getting to earn and pick the cards he uses, but other than that not much else changes. It got to a point in Agrabah where the game froze and softlocked and I just couldn't take it any more. I still haven't fully finished the game, I just watched the rest of the cutscenes on YouTube to see how the story ended. I don't think I've ever done that for any game, and mind you I'm a guy who fully completed both Dante's and Lucia's campaign in DMC2 so I have a fairly high pain tolerance.
I don't even think the visuals are good, along with the boring diorama level design the stage aesthetics and themes are straight rehashed from Kingdom Hearts 1, on top of the music that isn't even the music from the HD version so it just sounds worse. Definitely skip this one, this was just awful
i barely played this game but i dropped it pretty early on because the gameplay sucks cock
i only watched the cutscenes but this was still one of the worst games i've ever suffered through
played it for two hours then shut it off, how anyone can like it is beyond me. easily the worst game in the franchise, actual dogshit
I really wanted to enjoy this game and gave it several chances throughout my short time playing it but it really didn’t click well with me.
Taking the already decent combat from KH1 and grinding the entire flow of it to a halt with several mechanics you need to micromanage was horrible to try and play. The card mechanics could have been a cool idea as Square Enix have done good card games before but having to juggle what cards your opponents use, sifting through 20 plus cards just to get to the right ones and worry about the spacing of you and your opponents attacks in real time was to much layered on at once.
The combat just feels very restrictive and doesn’t flow well at all. The game also doesn’t do itself any favours since you can choose which world you want to go to first. This may end up meaning you pick one that you are way too under levelled for and end up needing to either reload a save because the boss has jumped up to 3 health bars or grind it out for several hours, both of which I wasn’t willing to do.
It’s not like I picked a late game world considering I based it off what worlds you go to in KH1 first so I chose Wonderland. Speaking of the Disney worlds near all of their story’s in this game are rehashed plot lines from KH1 with the addition of characters going “damn I don’t remember you but you’re called Sora” and that’s about it.
There was potential to have a cool setting with the Disney worlds becoming distorted and merging in their presentation to represent Soras memories being changed but the Disney worlds ended up not serving much purpose and only the Kingdom Hearts original worlds mattered in this game.
I have to preface that because I really couldn’t enjoy this gameplay I did watch all the cutscenes for the game as I am aware it is crucial to know these details for KH2 and a story summary didn’t really cut it.
This game gets any rating at all because of its story. It’s a really strong set up towards KH2 and all the new characters they introduced are extremely interesting and unique. Organisation XIII is a great group of villains so far and was what this series needed after KH1. As much as the Disney worlds are and feel like fun side adventures for the characters to go on the main crux of what makes these games interesting so far is the main cast and story that they have going on so an introduction to a primary villain group is welcome.
After trying to play this game I can see why it’s so polarising but if you really can’t stand its gameplay like me then I highly recommend watching the cutscenes, they only amount to 3 hours so it’s a much better use of your time than trying to slog through this game for 25.
4/10
Taking the already decent combat from KH1 and grinding the entire flow of it to a halt with several mechanics you need to micromanage was horrible to try and play. The card mechanics could have been a cool idea as Square Enix have done good card games before but having to juggle what cards your opponents use, sifting through 20 plus cards just to get to the right ones and worry about the spacing of you and your opponents attacks in real time was to much layered on at once.
The combat just feels very restrictive and doesn’t flow well at all. The game also doesn’t do itself any favours since you can choose which world you want to go to first. This may end up meaning you pick one that you are way too under levelled for and end up needing to either reload a save because the boss has jumped up to 3 health bars or grind it out for several hours, both of which I wasn’t willing to do.
It’s not like I picked a late game world considering I based it off what worlds you go to in KH1 first so I chose Wonderland. Speaking of the Disney worlds near all of their story’s in this game are rehashed plot lines from KH1 with the addition of characters going “damn I don’t remember you but you’re called Sora” and that’s about it.
There was potential to have a cool setting with the Disney worlds becoming distorted and merging in their presentation to represent Soras memories being changed but the Disney worlds ended up not serving much purpose and only the Kingdom Hearts original worlds mattered in this game.
I have to preface that because I really couldn’t enjoy this gameplay I did watch all the cutscenes for the game as I am aware it is crucial to know these details for KH2 and a story summary didn’t really cut it.
This game gets any rating at all because of its story. It’s a really strong set up towards KH2 and all the new characters they introduced are extremely interesting and unique. Organisation XIII is a great group of villains so far and was what this series needed after KH1. As much as the Disney worlds are and feel like fun side adventures for the characters to go on the main crux of what makes these games interesting so far is the main cast and story that they have going on so an introduction to a primary villain group is welcome.
After trying to play this game I can see why it’s so polarising but if you really can’t stand its gameplay like me then I highly recommend watching the cutscenes, they only amount to 3 hours so it’s a much better use of your time than trying to slog through this game for 25.
4/10
No
Riku can smell people and this game smells like shit
:(
Larxene is waifu material af
This review contains spoilers
If I was to tell you, out of every kingdom hearts game, I found this one the most underrated, would you believe me? Well you might if you knew me well but…I find this game to be the most hated by people, specifically the PS2 remake, but I just don’t understand why. I find it quite fun if not more fun than the original (in a way).
The story to this game is definitely the most interesting, you play as sora again and he’s joined by donald and goofy once again, as they go up castle oblivion, slowly losing their memories the further they go. I find the story of sora having his memories replaced with fake ones to be the most interesting as it shows he’s willing to give up everything just for someone he cares about…even if it means others will be pushed aside. Riku’s side is also very interesting, as he is helped by mickey and the mysterious diz which leads into kingdom hearts 358/2 days.
Now…the gameplay…I find it to be the most interesting aspect of the game. The fact your able to switch the cards and see what works for you is really cool, and bringing back abilities from the first game to be used as ‘sleights’ is a really cool idea…even if sonic blade and lethal frame are laughably broken.
Overall, I find it to be an underrated time which I advise people give a second chance. If you can’t take the gameplay then I understand, but please give this game a second chance.
Unique gameplay, excellent story, poor vexen.
The story to this game is definitely the most interesting, you play as sora again and he’s joined by donald and goofy once again, as they go up castle oblivion, slowly losing their memories the further they go. I find the story of sora having his memories replaced with fake ones to be the most interesting as it shows he’s willing to give up everything just for someone he cares about…even if it means others will be pushed aside. Riku’s side is also very interesting, as he is helped by mickey and the mysterious diz which leads into kingdom hearts 358/2 days.
Now…the gameplay…I find it to be the most interesting aspect of the game. The fact your able to switch the cards and see what works for you is really cool, and bringing back abilities from the first game to be used as ‘sleights’ is a really cool idea…even if sonic blade and lethal frame are laughably broken.
Overall, I find it to be an underrated time which I advise people give a second chance. If you can’t take the gameplay then I understand, but please give this game a second chance.
Unique gameplay, excellent story, poor vexen.
Absolutely no shade towards people who like this one but you're all insane. This is the nadir of RPGs; involving hours of mindless grinding just to win a two minute fight. Reverse/Rebirth is even worse, completely removing any semblance of strategy in exchange for mindless button mashing.
That's not to say there's nothing of worth here; the new narrative content introduced is shockingly good. The issue is that the new stuff makes up only about 10% of the game, the other 90% is just a mindless slog through rehashes of rehashes. Introducing Organization XIII is the best idea this franchise has, Nomura is often derided for his fashion choices, but he is SO GOOD at just writing a room full of bitchy gays to snipe at each other.
More so than 358/2 days, this is the game that should've been turned into a cutscene compilation, I got nothing out of wasting 28 hours on it that I wouldn't have just by watching it on YouTube.
That's not to say there's nothing of worth here; the new narrative content introduced is shockingly good. The issue is that the new stuff makes up only about 10% of the game, the other 90% is just a mindless slog through rehashes of rehashes. Introducing Organization XIII is the best idea this franchise has, Nomura is often derided for his fashion choices, but he is SO GOOD at just writing a room full of bitchy gays to snipe at each other.
More so than 358/2 days, this is the game that should've been turned into a cutscene compilation, I got nothing out of wasting 28 hours on it that I wouldn't have just by watching it on YouTube.
In theory, Chain of Memories has a smart way of Metroid-ing our main characters in preparation for Kingdom Hearts II. A way in which this gradual loss of memories and abilities is thematicallly relevant to the overall story. This is effective, and I can't stress this enough, ONLY in theory.
In practice, Chain of Memories is almost unbearable if not for the interesting and complex story developments that take place within it. The gameplay attempts to combine the hack-and-slash combat of the original with an obtuse, unorthodox card system that just does not do it for me at all. Although I can appreciate some balances, interesting mechanics and the great menu navigation, this game feels like a Frankenstein's monstrosity of two gameplay styles that do not mesh together, whatsoever.
Characters like Naminé, Axel and Larxene are enjoyable, with great moments that are only truly present in cutscenes. The story takes a dive for the intricate and complex, which may be incomprehensible to people who are not fully committed to it. Other than that, Chain of Memories is a slog I have absolutely no intention of going back to. I can't recommend this to anyone, despite the fact I did enjoy the story and some details in the design.
In the journey to discover my appreciation for Kingdom Hearts, this has definitely been a speed bump that I can only hope is aliviated with the next game in the series.
In practice, Chain of Memories is almost unbearable if not for the interesting and complex story developments that take place within it. The gameplay attempts to combine the hack-and-slash combat of the original with an obtuse, unorthodox card system that just does not do it for me at all. Although I can appreciate some balances, interesting mechanics and the great menu navigation, this game feels like a Frankenstein's monstrosity of two gameplay styles that do not mesh together, whatsoever.
Characters like Naminé, Axel and Larxene are enjoyable, with great moments that are only truly present in cutscenes. The story takes a dive for the intricate and complex, which may be incomprehensible to people who are not fully committed to it. Other than that, Chain of Memories is a slog I have absolutely no intention of going back to. I can't recommend this to anyone, despite the fact I did enjoy the story and some details in the design.
In the journey to discover my appreciation for Kingdom Hearts, this has definitely been a speed bump that I can only hope is aliviated with the next game in the series.
Very dull and shockingly lifeless. Couldn’t last more than a few hours before I dropped it and watched the rest of the story in a compilation. Keep it far away from me.
this game can suck the skin off of my dick
like goddamn I can’t believe I started playing this over finishing Stranger of Paradise
why did I do thaaaaaaat
worst decision I’ve made all year, fuck
like goddamn I can’t believe I started playing this over finishing Stranger of Paradise
why did I do thaaaaaaat
worst decision I’ve made all year, fuck
Chain of Memories hosts a unique card system and tells the tale of events that transpired inbetween the two first mainline games.
The main story sequences are boosted from its gba predecessor with both voice acting and great cinematography, while the disney worlds which are mostly recycled story treads only has text dialogues.
While the disney world really feels like simply recaps of what sora went through it works in the context of the story although it can be a bit tiresome if you've already played KH1, the main story is however very awesome and provides more context to what really happened in castle oblivion as well as more explanations of what some of the majour characters are going through, like Riku, Axel and Namine.
As for the gameplay, regardless of its quality, it doesn't leave much room for handholding. There's a few and vague tutorials at the early points of the game and from there on it's your call to call the shots, optimise and experiment your playstyle.
The card system takes a huge precedence over the entire game, and while there are similar mechanics to the mainline series there are rules and limitations that makes the battle system play out very differently.
When you learn how to properly make use of sleights, zero cards and enemy cards, Chain of Memories gameplay can be pretty addictive and satisfying to break through, at least once you clear past its bumpy learning curve.
Here's a few tips and tricks to keep in mind for the journey, as the game itselfs hardly conveys this to you.
-When levelling make sure to not overprioritize only HP.
CP (card points/amount of cards) and sleights are very crucial add-ons for the late game bosses.
-With high CP you can fill your deck with more high number cards and more powerful cards with three zeros tucked away in the very back.
-Dodge rolling is useful against normal attacks, but will rarely save you from enemy sleights as they have trajectory.
- If a boss throws out a sleight, flip backwards in your deck and use a zero. The bosses will each turn permamently lose their primary card in their sleights just like you would.
-Keep the zeroes close to your card shuffler so you can cancel attacks while reloading.
- make sure to check and use enemy cards, they are complete gamechangers.
-when in doubt spam the lethal frame sleight for bosses.
(you'll eventually learn that from the sleights toggle in the level up section)
-Do NOT premium any cards aside from the ones you use in sleights!
The main story sequences are boosted from its gba predecessor with both voice acting and great cinematography, while the disney worlds which are mostly recycled story treads only has text dialogues.
While the disney world really feels like simply recaps of what sora went through it works in the context of the story although it can be a bit tiresome if you've already played KH1, the main story is however very awesome and provides more context to what really happened in castle oblivion as well as more explanations of what some of the majour characters are going through, like Riku, Axel and Namine.
As for the gameplay, regardless of its quality, it doesn't leave much room for handholding. There's a few and vague tutorials at the early points of the game and from there on it's your call to call the shots, optimise and experiment your playstyle.
The card system takes a huge precedence over the entire game, and while there are similar mechanics to the mainline series there are rules and limitations that makes the battle system play out very differently.
When you learn how to properly make use of sleights, zero cards and enemy cards, Chain of Memories gameplay can be pretty addictive and satisfying to break through, at least once you clear past its bumpy learning curve.
Here's a few tips and tricks to keep in mind for the journey, as the game itselfs hardly conveys this to you.
-When levelling make sure to not overprioritize only HP.
CP (card points/amount of cards) and sleights are very crucial add-ons for the late game bosses.
-With high CP you can fill your deck with more high number cards and more powerful cards with three zeros tucked away in the very back.
-Dodge rolling is useful against normal attacks, but will rarely save you from enemy sleights as they have trajectory.
- If a boss throws out a sleight, flip backwards in your deck and use a zero. The bosses will each turn permamently lose their primary card in their sleights just like you would.
-Keep the zeroes close to your card shuffler so you can cancel attacks while reloading.
- make sure to check and use enemy cards, they are complete gamechangers.
-when in doubt spam the lethal frame sleight for bosses.
(you'll eventually learn that from the sleights toggle in the level up section)
-Do NOT premium any cards aside from the ones you use in sleights!
I would low key bang Larxene, but would I have to play fucking Yugioh just to get in her pants?
Not that bad tbh
blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz blitz
its the worst thing ive ever played
Despite his terrible concept of pacing, I honestly really enjoy Nomura stories for how it juggles concepts, especially relating to this one. It's a very interesting story surrounding memory this time around, leading to quite a few emotional moments that left me satisfied. It also still holds a lot of that KH charm, as well as some boss fights that are a bit interesting on their own.
That being said that's where the praise stops, the gameplay here is NOT good. In fact I'd say it's anything other than that. Other than the basic enjoyment of deckbuilding, the combat here is some very weak idea of spacing, then spamming either your broken deck setup (because ReChain has awful card balance), or just any set of attacks and you'll be fine either way. It's not even visually pleasant to fight which is something the series tends to be good at in spite of the lack of depth in most of its areas. The Riku story side does offer a neat twist in that the decks are prebuilt so the balance is fine tuned, but without the enjoyment of creating your own deck it's actually worse for it because Riku's decks are not fun to play around with either, other than the initial fight with each deck understanding where the card combos are.
It probably hurts that I tried out Slay the Spire this year and it makes this game a pile of trash. (4.5/10)
That being said that's where the praise stops, the gameplay here is NOT good. In fact I'd say it's anything other than that. Other than the basic enjoyment of deckbuilding, the combat here is some very weak idea of spacing, then spamming either your broken deck setup (because ReChain has awful card balance), or just any set of attacks and you'll be fine either way. It's not even visually pleasant to fight which is something the series tends to be good at in spite of the lack of depth in most of its areas. The Riku story side does offer a neat twist in that the decks are prebuilt so the balance is fine tuned, but without the enjoyment of creating your own deck it's actually worse for it because Riku's decks are not fun to play around with either, other than the initial fight with each deck understanding where the card combos are.
It probably hurts that I tried out Slay the Spire this year and it makes this game a pile of trash. (4.5/10)
he forgor
Its kind of remarkable, how many other devs do you see making fully featured total remakes of Game Boy Advanced games? The original has a charm but this almost feels like a full sequel - tho of course the card system causes some disappointment when the game now looks like the other games that had full combat.