Well, this game was certainly...fine? Truthfully I haven't finished the first game, but this wasn't something I'd call outwardly bad like some others would, it's just really awkward.
I'll address the big one here - the card battle system. I'll admit when I first started this game, it was really cool. I'm a fan of card games, and something I'll certainly give this game is that it really gave me a feeling that I was constructing a personalized deck. Combat was feeling good for the first few worlds, and it was gratifying going into battles for a while. However, there is a certain novelty that the card system has that really wears off after a while. Sleights in this game get super broken (shoutouts to Tornado and Sonic Blade for making pretty much every standard encounter go down without any fight at all once you have them), and all you need to do is just grind for them, which you'll probably do anyway to get stuff like map cards. By the end of the game, I was actively avoiding standard enemies, I was that sick of combat (also I was quite overleveled, about 66 when I'm told this game is beatable about at level 40), and that is the sign of a very flawed system to me. Maybe if they made using sleights have more of an inherent drawback (item cards can easily restore the cards you lose once you get them, making their one drawback moot), I think the system would be more balanced, but as it is, I can't say in honesty that it was totally fun.
As for the story, it's certainly a mixed bag. The Disney stuff is beyond boring, basically just retreads of the stuff in KH1 (which were themselves retreads of the original films in that game!) and entirely skippable. They have a glimmer of something interesting early on when Sora eventually recognizes Leon and Aerith, but that isn't touched upon again, so it's just left as wasted potential as every other world goes by like he's going through these worlds for the first time. Now, the stuff about the Organization is pretty interesting. Granted, a lot of their stuff is literally just talking in the same room over and over, but there is some genuine intrigue about the members and how their gambits all pile up. There are only about 4 of them in this game, which isn't really saying much (I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of them weren't even developed at the time of this game's release), but I will acknowledge that something was there, especially with Naminé. She really only sits in the background until the end, though, so like the rest of the game, she kinda felt like wasted potential that future games would pick up. Overall, I wouldn't say this story is bad, just too sedentary and like a rehash of the first game.
Some other notes:
-The sprite art for this game is pretty top-notch for GBA, I think it holds up well, even today (though some of the portraits look a little wonky).
-The music holds up well, too. Granted, it's not Shimomura's best work (Superstar Saga ate this game's lunch a year before), and it is mostly rehashes KH1's soundtrack, but it's certainly not a bad version of it.
-I didn't play Riku's story, since I was so burned out playing Sora's story, but I doubt it'd sway my opinion of this game.
So yeah, eh game, and while I didn't regret playing this game, you're better off just watching the cutscenes and just going to KH2.
I'll address the big one here - the card battle system. I'll admit when I first started this game, it was really cool. I'm a fan of card games, and something I'll certainly give this game is that it really gave me a feeling that I was constructing a personalized deck. Combat was feeling good for the first few worlds, and it was gratifying going into battles for a while. However, there is a certain novelty that the card system has that really wears off after a while. Sleights in this game get super broken (shoutouts to Tornado and Sonic Blade for making pretty much every standard encounter go down without any fight at all once you have them), and all you need to do is just grind for them, which you'll probably do anyway to get stuff like map cards. By the end of the game, I was actively avoiding standard enemies, I was that sick of combat (also I was quite overleveled, about 66 when I'm told this game is beatable about at level 40), and that is the sign of a very flawed system to me. Maybe if they made using sleights have more of an inherent drawback (item cards can easily restore the cards you lose once you get them, making their one drawback moot), I think the system would be more balanced, but as it is, I can't say in honesty that it was totally fun.
As for the story, it's certainly a mixed bag. The Disney stuff is beyond boring, basically just retreads of the stuff in KH1 (which were themselves retreads of the original films in that game!) and entirely skippable. They have a glimmer of something interesting early on when Sora eventually recognizes Leon and Aerith, but that isn't touched upon again, so it's just left as wasted potential as every other world goes by like he's going through these worlds for the first time. Now, the stuff about the Organization is pretty interesting. Granted, a lot of their stuff is literally just talking in the same room over and over, but there is some genuine intrigue about the members and how their gambits all pile up. There are only about 4 of them in this game, which isn't really saying much (I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of them weren't even developed at the time of this game's release), but I will acknowledge that something was there, especially with Naminé. She really only sits in the background until the end, though, so like the rest of the game, she kinda felt like wasted potential that future games would pick up. Overall, I wouldn't say this story is bad, just too sedentary and like a rehash of the first game.
Some other notes:
-The sprite art for this game is pretty top-notch for GBA, I think it holds up well, even today (though some of the portraits look a little wonky).
-The music holds up well, too. Granted, it's not Shimomura's best work (Superstar Saga ate this game's lunch a year before), and it is mostly rehashes KH1's soundtrack, but it's certainly not a bad version of it.
-I didn't play Riku's story, since I was so burned out playing Sora's story, but I doubt it'd sway my opinion of this game.
So yeah, eh game, and while I didn't regret playing this game, you're better off just watching the cutscenes and just going to KH2.