Wow, is this an unpleasant game to play. So the game LOOKS great. Coming from KH1 remix, basically all of the same assets have been used, with some "smoothed over" cutscenes still from the PS2 remaster. However, basically everything else about this game is garbage. The card combat is clunky and abrasive, even scrub enemies can break your cards pretty easily (don't even get me started on Org XIII bosses...), and the story is pretty dumb. I put the time in to finish the first storyline, but I can't say I enjoyed myself. Maybe I'll play the second storyline and see if it changes my feelings at all, but I'd recommend just catching the story bits from this one in a video wrap-up.

Edit: Went back and played the Riku storyline, and it was good enough to raise the overall rating of this game, but not by much. The story was less than half the length of Sora's, with some good explanatory story bits instead of just "Oh noes my memories!". The pre-determined decks for every world took a lot of the tedious work of deck-building out, but could really suck if you were in a world with a bad deck (Wonder Land). The gameplay overall felt much faster and more dynamic, and reloading your cards with a simple button press instead of holding the button really kept the combat moving. Dueling sucked, to the point I just avoided it entirely, and the final boss was cheap, so it wasn't all roses. I would still recommend just catching the story bits in a video, but the Riku storyline is at least worth playing.

I could rant about this game for a long time if I wanted to, but I'll just keep it brief here.

The card system sucks and is either boring if you know how to play or frustrating if you don't, the story is mostly pointless and the retelling of the disney worlds really isn't that interesting. Music is pretty good but that's par for the course with KH.

Overall I just don't think I'll ever come back to this game, it was way too grindy and plodding for my liking.

I actually kind of like the card battling system and how it mixes strategy and real-time combat. Things like deciding to use cards for direct attacks or combo them to make something stronger, or holding onto certain cards to counter the enemy but in exchange not having as many slots in your hand for stuff you'll actually use was pretty fun. Trying to put together decks to match different situations was also neat, even if it's pretty easy to make something broken and Riku's story removes the deckbuilding aspect entirely. The kind of dungeon crawler-y aspect of building out each area as you go was also something I found enjoyable, even if it reused a lot of room layouts and the worlds were basically all just ripped from KH1.

This game is...not as great as I thought it'd be unfortunately. Chain of Memories is not a bad game at all, it just has ideas that falls flat to me. The story of the game follows up immediately after the events of KH1, which I really liked since not many games usually do that. The main area Sora heads through - Castle Oblivion, had a neat tie in with the story in which the rooms represent Sora's memories, but the more he climbs the more memories he loses and the more he claims new memories too. However, when you actually explore the worlds of Agrabah or Halloween Town, every world is bland to look at; nothing but cubic rooms all over the place instead of unique level design for rooms reminiscent to KH1.

The combat of the game however, I am very mixed upon. The game makes every action you do a card, with cards being the way you fight and use items. Cards have numbers and if it beats the number, they get to attack. You could also stack cards up into three to deal sleights that are attacks from KH1. While this was fun making decks out, later on I got bored of it and started to abuse blizzaga and firaga to get by.

Hell, one thing I like is how Riku has a plot too that's available after beating Sora's story. Sure the game plays the same, but the combat is much different, with Riku using pre-set cards and with his access to darkness mode that shreds enemies easily. Other than that, the game is okay, just not the best so far.

I'm gonna be real with you folks.

I really don't like this game. The only thing elevating it is building the group of antagonists that will haunt you for pretty much the rest of the series.

I kind of hate what they have done to the gameplay. The first game played pretty much like your typical real-time RPG combat system, but this game just went offboard so hard.
You see, this game originally came out for the GBA and had a turn-based combat system that suited the hardware limitations quite nicely - it made sense.
But for the Remake they wanted to keep the turn-based card system - while putting you in a 3D-Arena where you actually have to run up to the enemies, select your cards to attack, hope the enemy doesn't block or counter your attack WHILE dodging other incoming stuff. It's unnecessary convoluted and complicated.

The story is also kind of weird, Sora, Donald and Goofy find themselfs in a weird place called Castle Oblivion, which erases Sora's memories. The main antagonists, Organisation XIII want to keep Sora busy and plant false memories in his mind. So they send Sora to literally all the same locations you visited in Kingdom Hearts I and you will meet pretty much all the same characters in the same order.

And after you have beat this full length story you unlock ANOTHER story.

For me, this was just a very big letdown, I've played it for a couple of hours before dropping it. I know you can build an OP deck for Sora just after a few hours and pretty much spam Triangle, but right now I don't have the mental capacity to go back to this game.

This is the game that started the cesspool of Kingdom Hearts sidegames. You have important plot points required to fully understand Kingdom Hearts locked behind one of the most jank gameplay concepts of all time. Every single world is rinse & repeat of the same gameplay loops start to finish. No where in the game does it help you understand the mechanics of deck building, and while there are plenty of online guides the core gameplay is still frustrating & lacks momentum since you're constantly recharging. I'd say watch the cutscenes on YouTube for the story, but the story of KH is an absolute joke.

In 2004 Square Enix released what was basically a rogue-lite in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, then remade it for the ps2 and turned it from an isometric rpg into a more traditional ARPG.

its a card battler in the exact same vein as Slay the Spire - you can pretty much see StS' dna all the way throughout this game, procedurally generated card battler where you decide a route to your goal, all the while you can upgrade your cards, yadda yadda. the main difference of course being that this is an ARPG. conceptually, it's a novel idea! and its pretty weird as a direct followup/remake(?) to Kingdom Hearts.

the problem with this is for one, its a Kingdom Hearts game, which means that the plot is very Kingdom Hearts-y - vague and wishwashy. characters basically just recount events from the previous game and because every character has dementia, they're all surprised at every twist and turn as if i hadn't played the first game.

its not all bad, i was playing on hard or 'Proud Mode' or whatever they called it and the rush i got killing some of these bosses is something i haven't felt playing a game in yonks. after you figure out that you can just queue up cards so that nothing can interrupt them, the gameplay at least becomes tolerable. its just that regular battles become mind-numbing and you're pretty much just waiting for a new boss to show the fuck up every 45 minutes so you can start having fun again.