Finished this on Lvl 1 Crit for all stories on the PS4 version.

So the command deck is very much a PSP ARPG combat system alright. I think the idea of it is cool, making certain decks for bosses and group encounters, whatever the situation calls for. But the balancing in this game is pretty terrible, it's like the designers didn't even playtest anything on critical mode (and from what I've heard the other difficulties aren't far off from that assumption). You just spend some time getting second chance, leaf bracer, once more, and renewal block, and then after that you're practically invincible for most of the game. But once you reach end game it's like they specifically designed the rights for those abilities and they're some of the most tedious and repetitive ARPG bosses I've ever played, it's nothing but cure spamming and usually just spamming surge attacks and mines. The only time this changes is in the secret episode where for the final boss you spam ignite instead! There's no room for actual mastery of the mechanics because the only thing that matters is your deck, you're better off just googling the recipes for the best commands and using those until they stop working, then repeating the process for each fight. At least the level design is actually pretty great, not KH1 levels of intricate and explorable but they're the closest I've seen since (haven't played all the handheld games yet or all of 3 so we'll see if any top it) but I really enjoyed using commands to get things early and skip little segments of the level. I honestly wish movement with commands was emphasized more in this game, it would've added more of a fun skill ceiling and rewarded creative uses of your deck, at least there's enough instances of this to make it worth noting. The story is..well it's kingdom hearts you're either here for it or not it's up to you, personally I very much am. it's got some genuinely great character conflicts between the trio, and I especially found Terra's story to be the most enjoyable in that regard (even if he's a tad dense). I'd rank the stories from favorite to least in terms of gameplay as
1. Ventus
2. Aqua
3. Terra
And for story as
1. Terra
2. Ventus
3. Aqua

Overall I think the game has its moment and all, and I understand the need to change the gameplay to fit a PSP. But it doesn't really excuse the blatantly shitty design that made the game such a chore a lot of the time, I literally had to take multiple week long breaks throughout because it just got tiring sometimes. Anyways I'm also finishing Re:CoM and replaying Days, so I'll log those and give my thoughts (Spoilers: Days is my favorite KH game)

I was able to find a nice sound system at a goodwill for a total of $20, that by all reasonable means should've cost me over $100. I used this system in my last few sessions of playing Final Fantasy VII on my original PlayStation 1 console, on a Cathode Ray Television. This setup gave my ears the blessing of hearing the pure depths of the FM synthesizer score composed by Nobuo Uematsu for this game. The final boss alone gave me literal chills due to the pure sound quality I had attained...so yeah I'd say I liked the game it was pretty cool, the ending owned idk why some people don't like it lol

Old RPGs are what idle games wish they could be.
They place context and an explorable map around a simple loop of: 1. Grind 2. Get weapon 3. Use weapon to grind more.
The exploration is incredibly intuitive, I only resorted to GameFAQs on two occasions: Once to verify I was right (I was), and secondly because I was stupid and forgot to note down a hint (which you should do). The design of this game is so tight that if the philosophical idea of game design could be wrapped around a watermelon, said melon would explode.
Play dragon quest, you will enjoy it, if you don't, you just haven't gotten to a stage in your life yet where you will enjoy it.

I don't feel like writing a huge review because I plan on making videos about this whole series one day anyways. So for now I'll just say that I really dig a lot about this game, there's a lot of characters and smaller stories/ideas (Caim & Angelus, Eris, Urick, and especially Legna) that shine a lot. It's just the whole game with all the endings doesn't come together how it really should. There are moments where you can tell this game was still written by Sawako Natori, and they're great. Ending A and B each have a lot to say about violence, and how we use it as a tool at the cost of others and/or ourselves, but holy fuck Ending C just drops that for one of the most contrived endings I've ever seen in a game. It's disappointing that the game ends like that...but after all, Ending A is the only one with a Novella anyways (which is phenomenal) I'd say definitely don't skip it as it's still a valuable part of the series with some of my favorite scenes and moments of the series contained within, even with it's flaws there's a lot to appreciate here.