Before I get too far into the review, I want to make sure that everyone understands the history of the series. Disney teamed with Square Enix of Final Fantasy fame to make a video game. Disney wanted to combine some of the elements of the Final Fantasy series with Disney characters. In 2002, they made the original Kingdom Hearts; which turned out to be a big success. In 2004, they made a second game; this time for the Game Boy Advanced. In Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, they reused the original Kingdom Hearts story instead of coming up with a new storyline and introduced a new card system. The cards were used for fighting and as keys to enter new areas. In 2006, they made a sequel to the original; the aptly named Kingdom Hearts 2, which was an even bigger success.

Here we are again, waiting for a true sequel to come out but instead we end up with another remake. Only this time we are left with a remake of a remake. If you couldn't tell by the name, Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories is basically a PS2 port of the Game Boy Advanced Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories game. Sure they have enhanced the game with upgraded visuals, sounds and voiceovers but are they enough to make the game good enough to stand on its own? You will have to read on to find out.

For the uninitiated Kingdom Hearts is about Sora, a boy who leaves his home world and meets up with Donald and Goofy. Together the three characters travel from world to world cleansing each of all the bad characters, or "heartless", inhabiting it. In the original KH Sora and the gang travel to each world using a ship.

In KH R:CoM Sora and friends go to Castle Oblivion to try and find some friends that are missing after the original KH. Armed with the knowledge that something Sora needs is inside the castle, the trio trudges floor by floor to the top. Initially unknown, as the trio ascends each floor in the castle they lose part of their memories. These memories are captured in cards that are retrieved by killing enemies or by experiencing key events.

The castle is laid out in floors each of which has multiple rooms, shocking I know. To access a floor, Sora has to present a world card. Next, the floor and the first room in it become filled with Sora's memories that he has obtained from the world card. Inside of the room will be at least one door. To open this door, and every other door in the game, Sora must present the correct cards that the door asks for. Sometimes the door will require very specific cards, for events or boss fights, and the other times the door will require a card of a certain value. For doors of this second type, where the requirement is just a card with a certain value, the contents of the room you enter are dependent on the card used to open the door. For example, use a treasure card to open a door and in the middle of the new room will be a treasure chest and the room will have no heartless.

There are four types of cards, called map cards, that can be used to open doors: red, green blue and gold. Red cards affect the types, amounts and status of the heartless that will be inside. For example, a red card may make the heartless half strength or really drowsy. Green cards are similar to red cards but generally give Sora a leg up in battle. For example, a green card may make Sora's attack cards twice as powerful while in the room. Blue cards are for opening bonus areas. For example, a blue card may open a treasure room or a safe room where you can save your game. Gold cards are needed for opening boss battle rooms and for opening rooms where story events take place. I really liked this aspect of the game. It is neat that I can change what is going to be inside of a room based on the card I used to open the door.

Inside regular, non-bonus, non-event rooms enemies pop up out of the ground when Sora gets close and you enter into battle if Sora and the heartless touch. Once the enemies are defeated, (I cover battles below) Sora gains a card. This is the only problem with blue cards, in bonus rooms there are no heartless and if you don't defeat heartless you therefore don't get cards. It is not a big problem because you usually end up getting really useful battle cards in the bonus rooms. In those cases, the positive out weighs the negative.

There are six types of cards that can be used in battle: attack, friend, magic, item and enemy. Attack cards allow Sora to attempt to attack a heartless one time. So for each attack, one card from your deck is used. I say "attempt" because it is possible for an attack to fail due to distance. For example, Friend cards allow Sora to borrow the help of a friend to help in battle and are one time use cards. Magic cards allow Sora to perform magic, like fire or heal, or to summon a character to assist in battle. This can be of particular help when battling many heartless simultaneously if the summoned character has a multiple target attack like Simba. Simba has a roar attack that strikes all surrounding enemies. Item cards allow Sora to gasp, use an item in battle and are one time per battle use. Enemy cards provide unique effects during battle and also are one time use per battle cards that stay in effect for varying amounts of time. For example, after beating Jafar, you get a Jafar enemy card that, once used, makes it impossible for the enemy to perform a card break against the next twenty cards that you play.

Sora's deck is filled by you with whichever cards you deem most useful. The number of cards allowed in a deck depends on the cost of the cards, as well as, the amount Sora has to spend on the deck. As I have already stated, there are six types of cards. Each of the cards in these card types, except enemy cards, has a numeric value from 0-9. The higher the number combined with the type of card dictates the card's cost to have it in your deck. For instance, a healing card is more powerful than a regular attack card; so it is going to cost more than the attack card. In addition, if the number on the healing card is 9 it is going to cost more than if the number is 0. The game allows for three different decks but I ended up using the same deck the whole time. I can see that some might find that having a different deck for bosses than for regular use to be important but it just doesn't seem like a useful feature to me.

The amount Sora has to spend on the deck is low initially but every time that Sora levels up you get the chance to increase this amount. You can also choose to increase Sora's hp or learn a new sleight. A sleight is an attack that is performed when you use a certain card combination. The sleights are completely useless in regular battle; as you have so little time to mount an offense when there are so many heartless attacking. With a boss, you end up having more time to plan and strategize but I still didn't use them very often. Needless to say, I rarely chose the sleight option when I leveled up.

Battling in KH R:CoM is ridiculous and since it is the most common thing to be done; it flat out made me not want to play. Let me explain how to battle and then you can judge for yourself whether my claim is justified or not. Once in battle there will be a minimum of two but usually about five or more heartless to battle at the same time. Each time one of the heartless tries to attack the card they are about to use shows up on the bottom of the screen. During this time, before the attack, it is possible to counteract them by using one of Sora's cards with a higher value. For example, if a heartless uses a level five card and Sora uses a 6, then the heartless' attack is negated and Sora attacks. If Sora plays the same level card, then both attacks, Sora's and the heartless', are negated. The reverse can apply as well. If Sora uses a lower value card, then a heartless can use a higher value card and negate Sora's action. This sounds good on paper, and it is in execution if there are only one or two foes. If there are hordes of heartless, then all planning goes right out the window. Instead, the battle turns into a button mashing event to try and kill the heartless before they get the chance to attack. After a hundred or so of these encounters all of my enjoyment was gone.

After Sora uses up his cards, or for strategic reasons, the deck can be reshuffled and almost all the cards will again be available for play. I say almost all of the cards because the one time use cards do not come back and the one time per battle cards will not be available until a new battle begins. To reshuffle the cards the player has to hold down the X button for a limited time with the black number card selected. Each time the deck is reshuffled it will take longer to perform the next reshuffle.

My favorite aspect of this game was the boss battles. I had the time to plan an offense and a defense. That said, I do have a few gripes about boss battles. The camera is terrible. The camera is so tight vertically that I had trouble seeing what was above me most of the time. A perfect example was during my battle with Jafar. Jafar's bird is flying all over the room and I had a good deal of trouble tracking him down. Another gripe, this pertains to both boss battles and regular battles, is the targeting system. There were multiple times when I was below a flying heartless and used a key attack and I missed for no reason.

I walk away from this game wondering why. Why remake a game from a remake and then have a useless card game with a troublesome camera. I suspect it is for the usual reason: money, but I like to think it is for the fans. For fans like me that really enjoyed KH and KH2 and can't wait for KH3 and for fans who will still love the game despite all the glaring flaws. That is where they lost me. I enjoyed the story the first time and I even enjoyed hearing it replayed this time; but the card game battles threw me. I believe this game will appeal to those people who have not played it on the DS and that are big fans of the series.

Eds Note: This game does not appear to work properly on a PS3 via backwards compatibility.

Click Here to purchase Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories from Amazon.com