Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories (KH CoM) originally came out for the Game Boy Advanced in 2004. As I didn’t want to spend the money on a game system for one game, I skipped over it. In 2005 Kingdom Heart II came out. When I played Kingdom Hearts II I was confused about much of what happened. Though looking through Jiminy’s journal provides some vague information on what happened to the other Organization XIII members, it makes absolutely no sense unless you know what went on in this game. Later, in 2006, when Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix+ came out in Japan this game was also remade for the PS2 and redubbed Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories. In 2007 Re: Chain of Memories finally came here to America. As of right now, 2013, we are still waiting on Final Mix+ to find its way over here. By the time Kingdom Hearts CoM made its way to America I had found an emulator of the original Gameboy Advanced version of the game and played it on my computer; but I bought this game anyway. Damn you Square.
I have to wonder if this game was
always intended, as it begins right at the ending of Kingdom Hearts, or if it was filler while we waited for the next
game to be ready. There are things about this game that I love and that I
loathe. Most of which involve the enemies and the fighting, which unfortunately
takes up a good majority of the game. Whatever the point of this game was
(either for story of for filler) one thing is for sure. If you skip over this
game, despite what Nomura san says, you will have almost no clue what’s going
on in the second game. All you will know for sure is that there was a game in
between the first and the second and somewhere in that game Sora ran up some
stairs, beat a guy with pink hair and a scythe, and then fell asleep for a
year.
(See Kingdom Hearts II intro)
(See Kingdom Hearts II intro)
When I set out to play this game I
had two goals in mind. One was that I would not escape from any battle no
matter how much I wanted to. The second was that I would open up every room on
every floor and fight every enemy within. This was a mistake. By the 10th
level I was ready to quit. I did quit for a time actually, but after a while I
finally bit the bullet and started again. I have played KH CoM several times by
now and every time I feel the same. Getting through Sora’s story is time
consuming and tedious. Sora isn’t really why I play this game though. While he
does have his shining moments, I prefer playing as Riku. He is the life of this
game. Sure he doesn’t have as much story as Sora does, but that, in part, is
what makes it more fun. I also find Riku’s story to be a much deeper and
rewarding experience than Sora’s story.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s
introduce the characters first.
We Can be Heroes Just for One Day
The Characters in this game, unlike
in the Final Fantasy franchise,
remain constant. More characters are added, however, as needed. This game has
many. Also it should be said that Sora, as he did in the first game, meets with
many Disney Heroes and Villains (and a few familiar Final Fantasy Characters. None of them are truly voiced though.
Only during battle do words come out of their mouth, and even then it’s only
previously recorded battle sounds from the first game. So with that said I’m
going to skip over them and focus on only the Characters in the game who are truly voice acted. We’ll start with the
heroes:
Sora
He is the main character of the story. Sora is driven to the caslte by some
mysterious guy in a coat. Inside the castle Sora forgets everything he ever
learned and has to play cards in order to survive. As he goes up the castle floors
he realizes that he forgot about someone he really cares about. While searching
for her, Sora goes mad and abandons his friends. He regains his friends soon
after, but not before a Riku fight that will make you rip out your hair. Once
the fight is over Sora takes on the keeper of the castle, putting him out of
his misery, but because his memories have become such a train wreck (best line
Riku has in the game), he has to go to sleep in order to remember everything
that he forgot. Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me either.
Sora is voiced by Haley Joel Osment,
who voiced him in the first game. The difference being that this game came out
after Kingdom Hearts II, which in
turn was five years after the first game. Because of this it’s an odd paradox
going from Sora’s voice in the first game to Sora’s voice in this game. It’s neither
a bad thing nor a good thing, it just is. One thing I will say about this game
is that the voice acting is a bit odd, and this goes for all the characters,
not just Sora.
But sometimes . . .
When the characters talk . . .
They pause between sentences . . .
And it makes it . . .
Hard . . .
To pay any attention . . .
To what . . .
They are saying.
I’m sure there is some logical
explanation to this. Personally my guess is crack, or maybe a batch of rotten
mushrooms. If you’ve ever played the older Final
Fantasy games some of the translations are just preposterous. It has long
been believed by fans that the people at Square who translate their games were
on crack. My guess is that Square never truly gave the crack/ mushrooms up,
they just use them less. Here’s my guess as to what happenend.
Bob Bucholz: “Haley, you need to
take a breath before you say the next line.”
Haley Joel Osment: “No I’m fine.”
Bucholz: “That wasn’t a request.”
Osment: “But it’s one sentence. And
there’s not even a period. Why do I need to . . .”
Bucholz: “We don’t pay you to
think.”
Osment: “I know but . . .”
Bucholz: “Don’t argue with me
Haley.”
Osment: “But I don’t get it why do
I have to . . .”
Bucholz: “Just shut up and do what
you’re told,” (throws down stack of money
next to Haley Joel Osment.)
Osment: “ Yes sir!”
As for real Riku, he somehow finds
himself inside the Castle Oblivion’s basement. The game says this is due to the
“darkness” which I think is a code word for bullshit, but hey, who am I to
judge? At any rate, Riku goes through the base levels of the castle. As Riku
travels through the worlds he is plagued by the darkness within him. Near the
end of the game Riku learns that it’s okay for him to be both light and dark,
and that he shouldn’t fear either.
Namine is the one messing with Sora’s
memories. She is the girl Sora thinks he remembers on the island and thinks he
made a promise to, when in truth Namine made it all up because she was lonely
and when she gets lonely she fucks with people’s heads. Namine is being held
against her will by the villains of the castle. Eventually though, one of the
villains lets her go so that she can find Sora and apologize. Sora still wants
to be her friend even though she totally screwed him over and made him forget
everything he ever learned. In the end she convinces Sora that he’s tired and
needs to take a yearlong nap. Meghan Jette Martin voices her.
Kairi
She makes several appearances in
Sora’s levels, and a few in Riku’s as well, but she only ever talks during
Riku’s scenes. She is voiced by Alyson Stoner. I will not compare Alyson Stoner
to Hayden Panettriere as Kairi in this game has like one scene which she shares
with Meghan Jette Martin. However, in 2007, Hayden Panettriere was wanted in
Japan. I won’t say that’s the reason why she didn’t record, but, you know, food
for thought. 
Diz acts
as a guide to Riku. He appears only in Riku’s campaign and plays no part in
Sora’s story at all. Diz acts as Riku’s acting voice, getting him moving inside
the castle. He later reveals himself, telling Riku that he must choose light or
dark. Riku says he’s going to do whatever he wants so Diz can get the hell out
of the way. Diz’s intentions in the game are never fully clear. He appears at
random times and tries to tell Riku what to do. In this game Diz if voiced by
Corey Burton who does a pretty awesome job actually. I say this because in Kingdom Hearts II Diz is voiced by
Christopher Lee, who has one of the greatest voices on this good green Earth,
in my opinion. 
You’re fighting Larxene, a lighting
based enemy, and you are about to beat her. A Donald card appears, you use it
hopping Donald will light her a flame or freeze her, or hell, even heal you,
but nope, he uses thunder twice, which recovers much of Larxene’s health and
causes you to die.
So yeah, Donald is kind of hit or
miss. Tony Anselmo voices Donald once again. I have to admit, while he does a
good job of voice acting, something about Donald’s voice in this game sounds
different, though I can’t quite say why. Maybe it has to do with the microphone
or something, I don’t know.
Goofy
also acts as comedic relief. He and Donald follow Sora throughout the entire
castle. It’s never really clear what Donald and Goofy are supposed to be
“remembering” if anything at all. In battle, Goofy is really helpful. He can
hit several enemies at a time with his spin attack. He also has a “reaction
command” style attack which you will likely fail at every time, and one other
attack called “Wild Crush” which brings he, Donald, and Sora together. The
attack is fun to use when there are a lot of enemies around you, but it’s hard
to control and next to useless against single enemies. Bill Farmer returns as
Goofy’s voice actor. I have no qualms with Mr. Farmer’s voice acting. His
microphone seems to work just fine.
Jiminy Cricket once again acts as the games chronicler. In his
journal he writes down everything that happens and every card you acquire. If
the player is so inclined he or she may look through the journal; though it is
not necessary to look through it at all. Other than being chronicler, Jiminy
also acts as a guide or to Sora or “conscience” for lack of a better term. He
appears on Sora’s shoulder several times in the game trying to help make sense
of all the insanity that is going on. Jiminy is voiced again by Eddie Carroll
who always does a great job. Sadly, he died sometime after the recording of this
game. You sir, will be missed.
Mickey
Mouse also makes an appearance in the game though only during Riku’s
campaign. He comes as a hologram at first, via Mickey’s magic, but later
appears for real. Mickey acts as a friend to Riku who otherwise travels the
castle alone. Mickey also helps Riku out when the darkness overpowers him.
After that, Mickey won’t leave Riku alone, but trust me, you don’t want him to.
He has the greatest attacks ever. Using Micky in battle will heal Riku, stun
enemies and reload your deck. There’s another attack he can do where he and
Riku spin around shooting out balls of energy that massacre all enemies. Mikey
is voiced by Wayne Allwine. He’s been voicing Mickey forever, so I can’t really
complain about it, but again, every once in a while, something feels off about
the voice. Unfortunately, Mr. Allwine is no longer with us either. Good bye to
a talented man. The only way I can get my voice that high is to down some
helium or get kicked in the nuts, and (while the former might be fun) I’d
rather not injure myself in that manner.
Me? My name is
Nobody.
Axel
Element: Fire
Weapon: Chakras
Organization number: VIII
Axel is your first organization
fight in the game. You fight him once more near the end. Axel is actually
working on orders of his higher ups to over throw the other organization
members who have taken up the castle as their strong hold. Axel is pretty
ruthless in this game and, in the original version for the GBA, he even swears.
It was edited out in the remake though. Both Sora and Axel swore in the
original. Axel is voiced by Quinton
Flynn who also voiced Rude in Final
Fantasy VII Advent Children. I only mention this because Axel looks so much
like him.
Vexen
Element: Ice
Weapon: Shield
Organization number:
IV
Vexen is the mastermind behind the
whole Riku Replica thing. Before testing it on Sora, he tests it on the real
Riku first. Vexen acts as the organization’s scientist. To put it simply, he’s
Dr. Frankenstein meets Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde.
Vexen is working with Zexion and Lexaeus, in the basement until he goes
up to talk with Marluxia and Larxene and ends up spontaneously combusting with
a little help from Axel. Vexen is voiced by Derek Stephen Prince. I think the
voice actor did a great job, but his lines are just aweful. Yes.
Larxene
Element: Bitch Lightning
Weapon: Daggers
Organization number:
XII
Larxene is voiced by Shanelle Grey.
She pleasures in making the player suffer. In the game you face her two times,
and each time she will rape you even harder than Replica Riku. Not only that,
but the second time you fight her is directly after being epically raped by
Replica, which means, of course, that when she rapes you, she rapes your whole
family, saving you for the very last. Larxene is really a class A bitch. Her
only good quality is that she dies, never to be seen or heard from again. The
only other thing I can say about Larxene is:
FUCK LARXENE FUCK LARXENE FUCK LARXENE FUCK LARXENE, FUCK
LARXENE, FUCK LARXENE FUCK LARXENE!
That pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter.
Lexaeus
Element: Earth
Weapon Tomahawk (axe/
sword thingy)
Organization number:
V
Lexaeus doesn’t say much but he
packs a punch. He is featured only in Riku’s section of the game. Like Zexion,
he is working to overthrow the organization using Riku. The only problem is,
Riku is too cool for them and can’t be bothered by following their plans.
Lexaeus is voice by Dave Boat.
Zexion
Element: Knowledge/
Cosmos or something, really I have no clue.
Weapon: A book?
Organization number:
VI
Zexion is voiced by Vincent
Corazza. It’s his plan to acquire Riku and turn him into a tool to use against
the Organization. His plan backfires when Riku finally realizes that Zexion is
a fake. After being spanked hard by Dark Form Riku, Zexion gets a visit from
Axel and Replica. Let’s just say Replica doesn’t like him very much. As you may
have guessed, Zexion is only in Riku’s quest.
Marluxia
Element: Flowers (I’m
sorry to say I’m not kidding)
Weapon: Sythe
Organization number:
XI
Marluxia is voice by Keith
Ferguson. In the game he was apparently supposed to be a woman but the role of
evil Bitch had already been taken so they changed him into a man with the power
to control rose petals. Marluxia shows up at the beginning of the game to guide
Sora into the castle and give Sora a tutorial on how to defeat him. Marluxia
then disappears for the next five or six levels until he finally makes another
appearance, this time taking off his hood and staying a while. Marluxia’s
attacks are “death” oriented. He has
several countdown attacks that, if the timer reaches 0 then Sora is dead.
Chances are, though, that you’ll never get that far. To be honest I find
Marluxia to be a bit of a pushover compared to the Riku Replica fight and the
Larxene fight. Maybe the developers didn’t want the player to feel overwhelmed,
or knew that by this point in the game, players would be begging for it to be
over with. Whatever the reason, the fact is that Marluxia is pretty easy.
Of course in true RPG form, he
can’t just die the first time. His next to forms are very gimmicky and can be
very frustrating. As long as you keep a level head, you should do fine.
He is only featured in
Reverse/Rebirth. I am sad to say he is no longer voiced by Billy Zane, but is
instead voiced by Richard Epcar, who does as good a job as he can, though not
nearly as good as Mr. Zane. Basically Ansem is in Riku’s head making him think
nasty thoughts and screaming the words DARKNESS in Riku’s ears as often as
possible. It’s up to Riku to control the darkness inside him and fend off Ansem
from taking over Riku’s body again. This is the entire premise of Riku’s
campaign, trying to keep his darkness in check. The game doesn’t even try to
explain Riku’s appearance in the castle, but it does do a good job of informing
you that Ansem is trapped in Riku’s heart. He is also the only boss (other than
Larxene and Replica Riku and Axel number 2 fight) who poses a challenge.
Heartless
These are the enemies that Sora and
Riku fight in the game. They are there to piss you off and make you angry and
they succeed quite well. Most of the enemies are a rehash from the first game,
but there are a few new faces as well (shown above). The first one (on the far
left) has the ability to summon any heartless back to the field while the one
on the far right has the ability to shoot seeds at you, and when you’re trying
to reload your deck, it knocks you down and makes you lose all your moogle
points. The middle enemy is the lesser of the two evils. It just whacks Sora
while he is trying to load his deck. They can be a pain in numbers though. The
only other new enemy, not featured above, is the Neo Shadows who first appeared
in the Another
Side Another Story trailer. As the game progresses the health bar on these,
and all the others, becomes astronomically large; in fact it becomes so large
that you will find yourself trying to avoid fights. And by skipping said fights
you will make all the other fights, especially boss fights, superfluously
challenging.
If You Build it They
Will Come
While KH CoM has
many levels, they are all rehashes of worlds visited in Kingdom Hearts, and
what’s more is that they’re not real. You read that right. In the end Sora
realizes that he is just a character in a video game being manipulated by
someone with a controller. All of the levels in the game are figments of Sora’s
memory, and each level of the game is a room within the Castle Oblivion. In
other words, the castle is the only REAL level in the game. All of the other
levels are just there so that you have something to do.
Sora
starts out visiting Traverse Town where he meets with Squall, Cid, Yuffie, and
Aerith, who no longer remember him. The next few levels are up to the player in
which order they are chosen, but the levels are:
Coliseum:
where Sora enters a tournament and saves Hercules’s life by fighting off Cloud
(who becomes a summon) and Hades.
Wonderland: Where Sora helps Alice escape from the Queen’s
trial.
Agriba: Here helps Aladdin find Jasmine. This is the first
level where Sora receives help from a Disney
character.
Monstro: Sora helps Gepetto and Pinocchio escape.
Halloween Town: Here Sora helps create a potion that Oogie
Boogie steals. Sora has to fight to get it back. Jack Skellington joins you
here.
Atlantica: Sora is joined by Ariel to fight some heartless.
By this time in the game I was making up my own words and not paying any
attention to what was really going on. All I know is that Ursula is a pain in
the ass.
Hundred
Acre Woods: This level is a break from the norm and actually quite enjoyable.
Neverland: This level should be renamed Captain Hook’s ship.
There is no Neverland, there is only Zool.
Hallow Bastion: In this level Belle tires to convince the
Beast that she doesn’t love him anymore, but can’t hide her true feelings in
the end. Beast joins your party. Dragon Maleficent dies.
Twilight Town: A level that Sora has never been to but
somehow remembers.
The final level is the castle
itself. In Riku’s story, the levels are in reverse, with the acceptation of
Traverse Town. The reason for this is simple. The worlds Riku goes to first are
all levels he was featured in during the first game. When Riku reaches Destiny
Island, the game starts to really open up for him. Zexion uses Riku’s memories
to make him think that Sora has to defeat him. I have to admit, this would have
been a nice change. Riku should have had some kind of fight with Sora (or a
dark version of him, like in Neverland in the first Kingdom Hears). The fact that Riku doesn’t fight with Sora feels
like a missed opportunity to me. He does
get to fight with Replica in Twilight Town, the only level, other than Hallow
Bastion, where Riku receives more than one key (yellow) card.
The Deep Jungle, featured in the
original game is conspicuously absent from this game. All the other levels were
featured in the other games. In this game, the player travels to these levels
via a room card. Within the room the player must find and open the special (yellow
card doors) which usually lead to a cut scene or a boss fight. At the end of each
level the player reenters the castle at a different floor.
Within each level the player uses
“room cards” to access different rooms. These rooms can be anything from treasure
troves, to rooms with tons of Heartless or even save rooms. You don’t start out
with very many choices, but the game quickly opens up. Early on in the game you
will be given access to moogle rooms. These rooms are where you can exchange
your moogle points (mp), which you acquire by hitting random things throughout
the level. Exchanging these points will grant you some desperately needed card
decks.
There are three types of room cards
to use in Room Synthesis.
Green Room: The
green room cards are a kind of like gimmick cards. Some rooms give you friend
cards right away, other rooms let you stun the heartless for longer periods of
time, if you hit them before being forcibly sucked, via Final Fantasy I-X style, into the battle arena. This is one of the
things that bothers me about this game. I don’t like being forcibly sucked into
a random battle arena. In Final Fantasy
it’s fine, but not in Kingdom Hearts.
Why not just let Sora or Riku fight the enemies where they stand? Sorry,
ranting over.
Other rooms can make your, attack, magic, or
item cards more affective. These cards are fun to play around with and you will
likely find yourself using them much more often than the red cards, but not as
much as the blue cards.
Blue Room: These
cards will be the ones you use the most. They consist of treasure rooms, some
with enemies and some without, moogle rooms, and save rooms. There is even one
room called something like “mingling worlds” where the card actually says
“anything could happen” and it means it. It can open anything from a save room
(with no enemies) to a “Looming Darkness” room where you fight a shit storm of
enemies.
There are Yellow
and Gray cards as well. The yellow
cards
act as “Key Cards” to progress you through the game, with the acceptation of
the “Room of Rewards” which each level has hidden somewhere. In these rooms (which
Sora won’t be able to access until half way through the game) will give you
some rare cards and/ or abilities. Each floor is defiantly worth revisiting for
the rewards. The gray card is called
“Random Joker”. These rooms can literally be anything, similarly to the
“Mingling Worlds” cards, but they go even further. I once had entered an Agriba
world while in Neverland.
There is something to be said about
the detail that went into each room. There must be a hundred different cards to
choose from, and they are all different. Not one of the rooms looks the same
throughout each level. While rooms, of the same card, but in different levels
may have a similar feel it still is different enough to go unnoticed. In other words,
if you used a save room in Traverse Town and another save room in Olympus
Coliseum, the rooms will feel similar, but look totally different from each
other. Another fun thing to do is cycle through all the rooms before continuing
on through the story. This is a really good way to level up, however, by doing
this you sometimes miss out on having characters join your party such as
Aladdin in Agriba, or Beast in Hollow Bastion.
Other than the castle, the only
other “new world” in the whole game is “Twilight Town” which is a world “on the
other side of Sora’s heart”. And I use the term “world” loosely here, as
Twilight Town is also a figment of Sora’s memory, or the other side of Sora’s
memory or whatever. Also, if I didn’t mention it, this game will confuse the
hell out of you.
During Riku’s story he travels
through worlds pretty much the opposite of Sora. This makes sense since these
worlds are the worlds in which Riku showed up in during the first game. The
other levels Riku travels too, other than Destiny Islands, which is more story
related, make no sense at all. Riku never traveled to these worlds in the first
game, so really, they shouldn’t be in his memory at all. Not even in Final Mix
did Riku enter these worlds. Unless he searched for Kairi there, but that’s
pretty unlikely. I think Daisuke Watanabe just wanted to add some extra fluff
to the game, personally.
Similar to the way that room cards
work, there are different color cards in the game to use during battle.
Red: Cards used mostly for attacking.
Blue: Cards used for magic or summons (such as genie.)
Green: These cards have variant uses. They mostly
consist of items, which unlike items in most games, they don’t heal you.
Instead they reload you deck. A potion card will automatically reload all your
attack (red) cards while an either will reload all your magic (blue). Your
friends such as Donald, Goofy, etc. all appear in the form of green cards as
well. Also during some boss fights there is a chance a “gimmick” card will
appear. These cards usually provide the player with something that will turn the
boss battle in their favor, though it only lasts for a short period.
You can also use sleights in the
game. These are a combination of various different cards from all attack cards
to a combination of all three. With slates, the value of all the cards are
added together to create a more powerful attack. There are literally hundreds
of sleights in the game. There were even more sleights added just for Re: Chain
of Memories. Though you can try, I can almost guarantee you won’t be able to
use every sleight throughout the game. Once you get Trinity Limit near the end
of the game though, you really won’t need any others. The only down side to sleights
is that you lose the first card used to create it. For example if you have
three 8 cards in your deck and you use all three 8 cards in a sleight, then
when you reload your deck, you will only have two eight cards in your deck.
This can be remedied, however, with an elixir. Another remedy is to use a
friend card first, if they are available.
In Riku’s story if you break an enemy’s
card, you have a chance of creating a massive sleight that pretty much destroys
all enemies. The chance of you doing this in the later part of the game,
however, is maybe one in a Billion Trillion Zillion Gazillion. Okay, I maybe
slightly over exaggerating. The reason I say this is because often, the card
you try to use will be the last in your deck, which means you have three
seconds to reload your deck and try to break the enemy card, which will likely
be a nine or eight, and you won’t have a card in your deck to break with until
your three seconds are up. When it works though, it works great.
In addition to attack, magic, and
item cards the player has a chance to get enemy cards as well. When you defeat
an enemy they sometimes drop cards. When you defeat a boss, you usually are
treated with their card. There’s one card for every boss and one for every
enemy. There are even cards for the organization members, some of which weren’t
featured in the original game. (As a side note, in the Japanese version of CoM,
which was packaged with Final Mix+, if the player acquired all the organization
cards then he or she can get some special bonuses in Final
Mix+. What are they you ask? Well, they’re . . . so cool that I don’t even know
what they are. The reasons being:
1, I don’t speak Japanese
2 I didn’t beat the Japanese CoM because I couldn’t
understand Japanese
3, I don’t read Japanese
4 Because I didn’t beat CoM in Japanese I didn’t have a CoM
save file on my save card
5, I couldn’t beat the game in Japanese because it was all
written in Japanese and since I don’t read, nor speak Japanese, I had no idea
what was going on, because all the game was in Japanese
VERDICT
I MUST LEARN JAPANESE.
So, with the enemy (black/ gray)
cards you can get various “gimmicks”. The Oogie Boogie card, for example will
give you a small amount of health ten times. Other cards will block enemy
attacks or help you survive a particularly nasty combo. Each card has a
different effect on you and they are worth experimenting with. What’s more,
Riku has access to all these cards no matter what where as with Sora, you must
equip them in a deck.
But what happens when you run out
of cards? This is where the tedium begins. Once the player runs out of cards he
or she is forced to reload the deck by holding down the X button. The problem
is that Sora must remain still for this (there is an enemy card that will let
you move, but I never bother with it as you can only use it so many times) and
while the player is re loading the deck Sora becomes opened for attacks. And
enemies WILL attack. What’s more, after the first manual reload, if the player
must reload again, he or she has to hold the button down twice as long (or even
up to three times as long) all while enemies chip away at your health bar. This
becomes especially irksome when you run out of cards and a boss (LARXENE YOU
BITCH) decides to use a sleight on you right then. If that happens . . . well
it’s called being fucked.
It’s only after this fight that you
are treated with Trinity Limit. This attack is just about the only attack I
used for the rest of the game. It causes an explosion of light that kills off
most enemies in the game. Yes, it’s that awesome. Where was this when I was
getting my ass handed to me by Riku and Larxene? DAMN YOU SQUARE DAMN YOU TO
HELL!!!
By
the time you get Trinity Limit most of the bosses are pretty easy. Axel will
probably kill you a few times, and Marluxia, well, you can’t use it against him
anyway after the first fight. In the three or so hours that it probably took me
to go through the last level, I managed to use Trinity Limit 60 times.
Riku, on the other hand, doesn’t “charge” cards per se, he sort of “reshuffles” them. This doesn’t take nearly as long, nor does the player have to hold down the button. The issue with Riku’s deck is that it is unchangeable. The deck itself will change for each new level, but sometimes, it just sucks. In Wonderland, for example, enemies have 6 cards. Riku only has cards numbered up to 5. Which means the player will go through his entire deck trying to break a card that cannot be broken. Meanwhile the Crescendo Heartless has already summoned in another Large Body to replace the one that you just killed off. This becomes even more tedious when the boss throws an eight card at you.
Riku, on the other hand, doesn’t “charge” cards per se, he sort of “reshuffles” them. This doesn’t take nearly as long, nor does the player have to hold down the button. The issue with Riku’s deck is that it is unchangeable. The deck itself will change for each new level, but sometimes, it just sucks. In Wonderland, for example, enemies have 6 cards. Riku only has cards numbered up to 5. Which means the player will go through his entire deck trying to break a card that cannot be broken. Meanwhile the Crescendo Heartless has already summoned in another Large Body to replace the one that you just killed off. This becomes even more tedious when the boss throws an eight card at you.
Another issue with Riku is Darkness
form. It’s great for bosses, sometimes. Each time you are hit, or break a card
the player is given a number of Dark Points (DP) which eventually turns Riku
into Dark Form. The problem is that this form is initiated by using a card. So
if you aren’t looking at your darkness meter, you’ll use a Mickey Mouse Miracle
card to try and heal yourself, but woops, you go to darkness form instead and
lose any hope you have of healing yourself until another Mickey card comes
around. Sometimes even the Sleight Charge (or whatever it’s called) ability can
be very irritating. Some enemies will have cards so similar to yours that every
other attack will attempt to initiate the command. And, every time it does,
Riku loses whatever lock-on he had. This can be frustrating, but if you can
pull it off somehow, then it’s really worth it. In fact, it’s great to use this
on bosses.
Unlike Sora, Riku only has 6
sleights he can use, 9 if you count Mickey Mouse’s attacks. Riku’s three Sleight
Charge sleights are:
Maelstrom: This attack has Riku spinning around and
hitting an enemy, knocking it into the air. Dark Maelstrom does the same thing,
only Riku’s blade splits apart to make it even cooler.
Barrage: This attack has Riku hurl his keyblade at an
enemy, via Strike Raid style, only Riku does it in air. In Dark Form he can
hurl several keyblades.
Riku’s dark sleights consist of:
Dark Fire: Technically it’s Dark Firagiahajoujdhou,
but that sounds stupid so I’m just going to call it Dark Fire. This attack will
be the one you most often use in Dark Form. It shoots fire at enemies. What
makes this attack even better is that it hurts even fire based enemies.
Impulse Break: Which has Riku landing on enemies
heads “via Reaction commands” causing awesome damage to them. This attack can
often fail if you mess up the button presses, but usually, if you can do it
once, you’ll get another try to do it right.
Dark Aura: This attack you should be quite familiar
with this. Riku/ Replica used it several times to rape you with. It’s pretty
amazing though when it’s on your side. This attack makes everything all better.
Too bad Riku can’t use it more often.
The other attacks are, Mickey Mouse Miracle which is described above. The only other sleights are Holy Burst, which has Riku and Mickey spinning around spraying enemies with light energy, and Inverse Burst which is the same thing, but mixed with dark energy as well.
The other attacks are, Mickey Mouse Miracle which is described above. The only other sleights are Holy Burst, which has Riku and Mickey spinning around spraying enemies with light energy, and Inverse Burst which is the same thing, but mixed with dark energy as well.
In the game, with both Sora and
Riku, you will face some enemies who guard your attacks. This means that you
can waste pretty much all of your cards and never actually do any damage.
Trying to get behind these enemies can be a real pain. Some enemies, like the
Shadows, do a similar thing where they crawl along the floor becoming
impervious to attacks. This never bothered me in the first game, but in this
game, where I only have so many cards before I charge again, it’s tiring. Some
enemies follow through with their attacks even if your card is bigger than
theirs. Darkballs are great at this.
Also not featured in this game is
Guard. Instead Sora and Riku both have Dodge Roll. And while I find Riku’s
Dodge roll to be helpful at times, Sora’s feels somewhat useless. It varies
really. On some fights it works fine, but on others I’d just rather have Guard.
While in Dark Form Riku’s dodge roll becomes Quick Run or Air Dash which I like
a lot better. Riku Also gets a double jump in this form.
Can you hear it thousands of souls lementing a hiddious death or maybe it's just me?
I was
going to use this section to talk about the voice acting in the game, and then
I went and talked it all up before I even got here. I guess I’ll just talk
about the music then. To be honest there’s not a whole lot new here. There are
only a few new pieces for this game. They all take place during the games story
events and in the castle. The only exception is the Twilight Town music. All
the other music in the game is recycled from the first Kingdom Hearts. Even
the intro and end music are just faster versions of “Simple and Clean”. The
music, while not bad, is rather uninspiring. There is almost nothing memorable
about it.
This fact is a bit disappointing
to me. Mind, the game did originate on the Gameboy
Advanced and I do not claim to know the limitations of the sound hardware
on that device. I will give this game the benefit of the doubt in the music
department as it is a prelude into Kingdom
Hearts II, which has excellent music,
and very easy to miss out on. With the Kingdom
Hearts ReMix 1.5 coming out on August 13, 2013, American players will have
a chance to replay both Kingdom Hearts
1 and Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of
Memories. Also included in the package is a movie based on Kingdom Hearts 358/ 2 days. All of which
are presented in glorious high def. I myself am waiting for Kingdom Hearts 2.5
Remix+ (name pending) featuring Kingdom
Hearts II, Kingdom Hearts Birth By
Sleep, Kingdom Hearts 3D (Dream Drop Distance), and Kingdom Hearts: ReCoded, which I played,
to my displeasure, all of which will be remastered in high def. DON’T DISSAPOINT ME SQUARE!
It’s difficult to choose. This game
is the result of a lot of anguish and punishment that I don’t think I deserve,
but in some odd and, not very rewarding way, I find myself having fun. I really
do want to like this game, I do, but I still can’t help to feel that there’s
something off about this game. I’ve played it many times but I can’t figure out
what it is about it that just makes me feel this way. It’s like there’s
something missing, or that something just isn’t right, like that feeling you
get when you walk into your house at night and realize that you forgot to leave
the lights on. You think: “ah what the heck, I’ll just keep ‘em off.” And five
seconds later you trip over something soft. Was it your dog? Was it your cat?
Was it a racoon? You’re passed out on the floor and won’t ever figure that out.
Okay, so the analogy sucked, but you get my point. That’s how this game is. I
don’t know why I like it. In fact by all accounts I shouldn’t, but I do, and
I’ve accepted that I’ll never quite understand why. Maybe it’s Riku. Maybe I
like torturing myself. Maybe this game isn’t as bad as I think it is. Maybe I
just play it because without this game Kingdom
Hearts II makes almost no sense. One thing is for sure though: this game is
a strange anomaly indeed.
Kingdom Hearts II here I
come.
All images stolen
barrowed from one of the following places
gamefaq.com
gamesradar.com
