Gameboy Advance - Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

Format
Gameboy Advance
Publisher
Square Enix
Developer
Jupiter
Country of origin
Japan
Release date
December 7, 2004
Genre
Turn-based strategy

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

By Eric
29th Dec 04

Kingdom Hearts fans were suffering from serious withdrawal. The ending begged for a sequel, but a year went by with nothing. But now, finally, we get Kingdom Hearts II! I mean...Kingdom Hearts 1.5!

Well, that's essentially what it is. Chain of Memories takes place between the first KH and the upcoming KHII. It reveals quite a few of those mysterious people in black raincoats and answers some seriously nagging questions. If you're a fan of the series, you'll have to play it. If you're not a fan of the series, then this probably won't change your mind, I'm afraid.

Don't get me wrong, this game is fun to play. I usually compare card combat to the anti-christ, but the card combat of this game is actually more action-oriented than I thought it would be. You have free movement, and all you have to do is select an action card (attack, magic, item, summon) and hit the "A" button to execute it. You can also stock cards for combos. It's easy to use, which means you don't have to memorize a bunch of rules. Just something about one-time use cards and numbers for card values. It's simple, but allows for surprisingly complex strategies.

Combat is always fun, but the game wrapped around it has a few problems. Most of the places you visit are recycled from the first game, with almost identical scenarios. Only this time around the focus is memories, not the heart. It also doesn't help that every world has pretty much the same layout. The only real difference is what background you happen to have. Then again, this is a GBA game, so I shouldn't expect much there. On a contrary note, there are CG scenes in the game...that's right, CG scenes that are almost as good as the PS2 version in visual quality. It's amazing.

The aforementioned problem I can forgive, but there's one more that really gets to me. The cards you earn AND buy are totally random. It took me forever to buy another Cloud card. But that's not as bad as the fact that you need cards to open doors. Usually you won't find a problem with this, but towards the end of the game you'll need a card with a specific numerical value and/or color. If you don't have it, you'll just have to keep fighting heartless until you get it. It can take quite a while.

These two things don't totally ruin the game, but they do tend to put a damper on it right when you're getting into it. Nonetheless, it's one of the better recent GBA games and worth a try.

Score: 8/10

-- Eric 29th Dec 04

Gameboy Advance Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories Images