Check your bargain bin cause this is one game that you MUST have if your a Disney/FF fan.
Genre: RPG-Action
Developer: Squareenix
System: Playstation 2
Total Score: 88/100
Value Score: 8.8/10
• Story: 9/10
o The storyline of Re: Chain of memories is pretty much exactly like the original chain of memories on the GBA. Sora and friends end up in a castle called Castle Oblivion after encountering a strange cloaked person after their adventures from KH1. They end up losing their memories once entering the castle, and being told that they would have to revisit each world in order to progress through the castle, doing so will make them forget their old memories and would make Sora regain some important memories that he may of lost in the past (or so the story goes). The game introduces to you the Organization members who are the main antagonists. Anyways, when you finish the main storyline with Sora, you will be given a chance to play Riku's story line, which is pretty much almost different from Sora's. Yes you will have to go through all the worlds again, but its not as tedious or long as Sora's.
• Characters: 9/10
o The characters are pretty much exactly like their KH counter parts, except for the part that there are less voice overs, that in mind, not a single disney character aside from Donald, Mickey and Goofy have voices. The Organization members have full voice overs, despite that, this game lacks the Disney voices which made KH1 so famous for. Regardless of that, the new character additions are a plus, however there are no character build up for the disney characters like they had in KH1, which is kinda of a letdown. Also they lack Tarzan due to licensing issues lol.
• GamePlay: 9/10
o Game play has changed dramatically, no longer do you get to spam the attack button doing combos, or using MP to summon or to cast magic. The gameplay is fully in control of Cards which you have to work on a deck just like if you were playing a Yu-Gi-Oh game. Yes you will spend a lot of time changing your deck in each world you go to, chances are you'll be working on your deck as much as you'll be traveling throughout a world. Though it's a bit tedious and time consuming to make the deck, a well made deck can help you out in the game overall. However nothing beats the KH1 game style, though COM does introduce to you Sleights which are skills you can use if you combine 3 cards together which is a pretty nifty feature. When it comes to Sora's storyline, gameplay is pretty much easy, but when it comes to Riku's storyline, you'll have a hard time especially when your in the Alice in wonderland world for Riku. His deck is random in each world you go to, which means you will not have a choice to change his deck. Leveling up is almost the same to the core, however you gather these orbs which give you exp, this is to replace the munny system from KH1 as munny does not exist in the game. Once you level up, you have a choice of increasing your HP or your CP (you are limited to how many cards you can carry depending on the CP you have, higher means more cards), or you can choose to learn a sleight. Also the munny system is gone from the game, so your stuck with something called Moogle points where you can trade the points to purchase cards from the moogle shop. Also when you go into a world, you use these map cards near doors to go through several rooms within the world, yes no longer are the worlds vast and full of exploring, everything is linear, you either go backwards or up.
• Graphics: 9/10
o The graphics didn't change as much compared to KH1, however if you played the original COM, you will notice this game is a entire remake of COM. Everything is 3D and not 2D. Pretty much the same graphic system as KH1. However you can tell they used less pixels in some parts of the game.
• Sound: 9/10
o There are no voiceovers at all for 97% of the disney characters, only disney characters are the main party members that Sora and Riku have (I.e. Mickey, Donald and Goofy). Sound effects are pretty much the same as KH1, however its such a letdown there are no voice overs for the disney characters.
• Music: 10/10
o All of the music is remixed of KH1, except for Simple and Clean which plays in the opening. A nice touch up though, the reason why the score is 10 is because this is pretty much the only aspect of the game that they did not recycle, which I am glad they didn't, other wise the score would have been a bit lower. Pretty much all of the music from KH1 is in this game along with some additions from KH2 and the original COM.
• Length: 8/10
o The game's length is a bit less than KH1, but you can say it can be a bit longer than the original COM due to the extra cut scenes, how they made them compared to the original COM's. The main storyline should take you a bit more than 20 hours which is pretty much like KH1. You should be able to finish the game if your at least in the 60s. Riku's storyline should take you about 5-6 hours at the most, and you should be able to finish the game around lv 40.
• Replay Value: 7/10
o Not much replay value in the game other than the fact that you can go back to the old worlds and unlock the special rooms, you can do Riku's storyline and finish his storyline to unlock cards for Sora's storyline to accomplish the 100% card collection. Along with that, a nice addition is the Theatre mode which was not featured in any of the KH games nor the original COM. Lets you see all of the cut scenes that occurred in the game, both voice over scenes and non-voice over scenes.
• Player Value: 8/10
o KH Re: COM brings out how COM should have been if it was released in a system other than GBA. If you're a fan of disney and the KH series, you will enjoy this, even if you finished the original COM, this game is still worth it, as its better if you play this game to understand how each character is like, also if your wondering how each organization member sounds like or how they fight in a 3D environment, this game is a must buy than. Don't expect anything new other than the Theatre mode though.