SuperSabin

Writing to express my hatred for a certain KH title by the name of Chain of Memories. This game hit the Game Boy Advance back in 2004. I feel it had ruined the potential the series could of had (well until Square learned their lesson with KHII, BBS, Re: Coded, DDS, and the upcoming KHIII) but what I mean to say, they could have been much better than what they are now, starting with KH II if it weren't for this game's existance at all. Let me tell you why I think this game is the worst of the series.

The game starts out with Sora and the crew chasing after pluto after the events of the first Kingdom Hearts when Sora asked pluto if he knew were Riku and King Mickey were. After a long run, they are asleep in the field and a cloaked figure appears before sora and he quickly wakes up and chases after it a bit. He noticed a fork in the path and the cloaked figure disappeared towards the path towards the right. Sora, Donald, and Goofy end up at this castle (which is really out of place imo) by the name of Castle Oblivion. This is where the storyline goes downhill.

Upon entering this ridiculous castle the trio are greeted by the same cloaked figure that Sora woke up to earlier. The trio are then getting ready to attack him and donald goes to cast some spells and eventually finds he cannot cast anything. The hooded person then explains to them that as soon as they entered the castle they have forgotten every ability they know and their other memories have also been erased. Eventually he beckons sora to the next room to train him with new abilites and learns that his friends won't be able to join him in their current forms but as summon cards.

The hooded man then trains sora in this horrendous battle system known as the card based system where sora has a starting deck and he must choose up to 3 cards to attack. If his number is lower or equal to the enemy's card his attacks will be canceled. This is one of my major pet peeves to the game. You DON'T add a card based system to an action game, let alone an action rpg. If this was a turn-based game i'd let it slide but this is far from ok. Its like adding a card based system to a zelda game, don't interfere with the the action of the player performing a hack and slash attacks against the enemy. If you want it to be interesting, beef up the enemy AI and give them unique moves.

Continuing on, after sora masters the basic training the hooded man gives him a world card. To explain how this works, basically, you get to a door, use a card based on the worlds you get and you get transported into the worlds. Just about all the worlds in the game are from KH1 so it's like re-experiencing KH 1 but in a more painful experience. You'll come to learn in each world that the disney character's had their memories stolen as well. You work your way through each world by using a card you obtain to get to the next room, there are at least 3 events in each world if I remember correctly followed by a boss fight. After the fight you get a boss card.

In between each world (ascending the castle) there will be an event where sora, donald, and goofy talk to each other, however, little do they realize that as they keep going up the floors of castle oblivion, they forget more and more of their memories (although at a future point in the game wouldn't they consider leaving if they end up forgetting why they're in the castle in the first place? ). You come to learn that Sora and co. are having fake memories implanted into them by a person named namine. This game also introduces you to the Organization XIII (not all of them I think). Along the way you'll fight some of them and you will also encounter a fake Riku. Riku is one of the people to tell Sora that he is remembering things that he shouldn't saying his mind is like a train wreck.

Near the end of the game Sora and co. visit a world that will eventually be visited psychically by them in KH II. Also, the hooded figure in the game is eventually revealed to be one of the organization members as well and he is the final enemy of the game. Sora and co. fight off against him and then at the end of the game, Sora eventually meets namine who apologizes for messing with his mind scattering his memories replacing them with new ones as she was forced to in the first place.

The last thing namine explains to them is that in order for Sora, Donald, and Goofy's memories to be restored, they had to be asleep in 3 separate chamber and just before sora went into a deep sleep he remembered all his friends and all his friends from other worlds remembered him. The best part about this game is that it didn't happen considering what happened in the end, its like they didn't go on this pointless adventure in the first place. There is a playthrough where you can play as riku and apparently he enters castle oblivion as well and he's on a journey to get rid of his darkside.

So that's why I hated chain of memories. It took KH's plot in a bad direction, the whole playthrough was meaningless, and the battle system was an entire mess. Nothing made sense, new characters were introduced at the wrong time. Even putting riku's story in there adds to the confusion. I STILL don't really understand what went on with this game other than everyone's memories were gone and then tampered with. KH II would have been MUCH better without this game, KH II was good but not as good as it could have been because of where CoM lead it, if anything's to blame, it's Chain of Memories!