Square Enix’s beloved Kingdom Hearts franchise has retaken the spotlight in recent weeks, with the emergence of multiple trailers for the much-anticipated Kingdom Hearts IV as well as the announcement of an exclusive Disney+ series based on the gaming franchise. As fortune would have it, I actually began my relationship with Kingdom Hearts last month, having played the very first game in the series and enjoyed it for the most part.
As misfortune would have it, I also played the beginning of Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories, a PlayStation 2 remake of the 2004 Game Boy Advance game Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. I ended up walking away from the remake after roughly one hour of game time.
What’s the Point?
Chain of Memories replaces the real-time action-command combat system of its predecessor in favor of a card-based system that makes little sense and never feels good to play. It introduces a ton of new characters and lore that seem to have little connection to anything that happened in the first Kingdom Hearts. Also, since the opening hours seem to recycle most of the assets and characters of the previous game, whatever newness it brings takes a while to show itself.
After my brief attempt to play through this mess of a game, I saw little reason to continue with this unfortunate adventure and have decided to skip it entirely, with no regrets.
My many friends who love the franchise (including other writers and editors here at The Punished Backlog) have mixed feelings about Chain of Memories. Some love it, others don’t. A good number of these fans seem to believe, however, that regardless of whether CoM is a good video game — and I must assure you, reader, that it is not — it is required reading for the franchise as a whole. The game apparently introduces key (get it!) plot points and characters that anyone diving into the series must understand to fully grasp the totality of the story. I’m sure not everyone thinks this is the case, but I’ve heard it enough to believe there must be at least a kernel of truth to such a claim.
To that I say: Phooey! No more of this nonsense! I am 30 or 40 years old and I refuse to play “homework” games.
Banish This to the Shadow Realm
It’s not just Kingdom Hearts that does this. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, the (for better or worse) most dominant phenomenon in cinema over the past two decades, often encourages its audience to have a complete knowledge of all preceding films in order to “get” what’s happening in the latest release. Ahead of the release of this year’s Avengers: Doomsday, Marvel Studios and Disney+ released a list of FIFTEEN movies and television shows for people to watch before seeing Doomsday to fully understand the plot. That means if you want to really enjoy the latest parade of capeslop with far too much CGI and not nearly enough original ideas, you have to wade through forgettable dreck like Deadpool & Wolverine and BOTH SEASONS of Loki.
In fairness, it’s much easier to watch a bunch of movies than multiple 20-30 hour games, but the MCU still suffers from a similar plague that Kingdom Hearts does: Every spinoff or side project is lore-essential, regardless of its quality as a standalone product. It matters more that each new addition to the canon makes some kind of sense or maintains consistent narrative threads than that every new entry actually works on its own.
I know I’m sounding harsh about two media entities with rabid fanbases, but I simply don’t have the time or the patience for this anymore. At some point, I will play Kingdom Hearts II, and also possibly Birth by Sleep, Dream Drop Distance, and various other spin-offs. If there’s nothing compelling about any of these games on their own, I’m out. Maybe I’ll read wikis or watch YouTube videos for some context, but I’m not going to trudge through the muck just because fans say something that happens 80% into the game is “essential.”
The Cutscenes Can’t Be That Good
If other Kingdom Hearts games are good standalone experiences, that’s great! I’d be happy to play them. If they have good combat systems, interesting main characters and villains, a (somewhat) cohesive sense of atmosphere, and compelling villains, I’m all for it. If they expect me to accept mediocrity in exchange for kernels of lore that might not even be important in the next game, they can kick rocks!
The first Kingdom Hearts has a lot of mystery to it, but solving the mysteries wasn’t the source of the fun; the actual minute-to-minute experience was. Why am I in Neverland? Why is the Keyblade so important? What happened to Kairi? Regardless of whether the answers to these queries were satisfying, the journey to the answers themselves was undeniably worth it.
The cinematic boss battles, epic cutscenes, the secrets within each Disneyfied world? That’s what mattered to me. If the answers were the only worthwhile element, then the game might as well have been a PowerPoint presentation. It would have been, well, the homework before The Good Stuff. I’m too old for that.
Sam has been playing video games since his earliest years and has been writing about them since 2016. He joined The Punished Backlog in 2017 and became an Editor in 2022. He’s a big fan of Nintendo games and complaining about The Last of Us Part II. You either agree wholeheartedly with his opinions or despise them. There is no in between.
A lifelong New Yorker, Sam views gaming as far more than a silly little pastime, and hopes through critical analysis and in-depth reviews to better understand the medium's artistic merit.
Bluesky: @sam-martinelli.bsky.social
