February 6, 2022|

Filed under: Editorial

Dispatch from the Dive Chapter 5: 13 Floors (and Nothin’ On)

Throughout January, I dug deep into Kingdom Hearts, a game with a lot of fame and not a ton of things that immediately appeal to me. Nevertheless, I ended up finding it easy to enjoy and explore, though a frustrating and exhausting ending did taint the experience. With that done with, it’s time to explore its first sequel.

January 30: Started Kingdom Hearts RE: Chain of Memories.

The introduction to Kingdom Hearts RE: Chain of Memories is a bit… weird. Instead of showing a single second of the game itself or anything representative about its content, every bit (and the song) is from Kingdom Hearts I, a montage to both psych you up and bring you up to speed. It’s weird seeing it days after having such a trial with the ending to that game, but it’s also weird in general. An intro is essentially a theatrical overture. It’s trying to create hype, but it’s also trying to set a mood or tone for the events to come. Structurally, this intro doesn’t do that at all, though it actually is, in its own way, representative of the whole.

Chain of Memories is an odd duck for Kingdom Hearts. It was the second game, coming out a year before Kingdom Hearts II, and as far as I can tell, its goal is essentially to find a way to spend time with Sora before the sequel in a way that doesn’t impede on that game’s plot. So, what we’ve got is Sora, Donald, and Goofy exploring a castle filled with the memories of their former adventure, in the unlikely hopes that they’ll finally find King Mickey and Riku. It’s weak sauce as premises go, even side stories, but I also don’t think it’s bad. Going back to the Disney worlds that made the first game strong is a sensible move.

The other thing that distinguished Chain of Memories was its gameplay. By virtue of being on the Game Boy Advance, it couldn’t copy the action-RPG combat so directly. Instead, it became an odd and inventive card-based game that apparently made it quite the divisive entry. However, I’m not playing that game. Instead, I’m playing Re: Chain of Memories, a 2007 remake included in the Story So Far collection that synthesized the mechanics and system into the engine of the first two games. It also has more content, voice work, and 3D graphics. I’m sad to lose the (sometimes but not exclusively) isometric pixel art of the original version; it has a really nice art style to accommodate the loss of the high end graphics and poorly used voice cast.

On the note of that cast, I was very happy to hear how well Haley Joel Osmont has improved since Kingdom Hearts I. Sora’s robotic voice was such a weak point and oddity of a game that at least gestured at emotional storytelling. His evolution in this (and I’m assuming KHII) is significant; it’s still not an actually good performance, but it’s, you know, fine. To follow up on last week, I’d call it a growth from Paul Walker in The Fast and the Furious to Paul Walker in Tammy and the T-Rex, but technically, the second movie did come before the first one.

With all that said, I only played for about twenty minutes on the default difficulty before coming to two conclusions: that this battle system is wonderfully imaginative and unique, and that I am never gonna be able to handle it. Basically, instead of whacking his Keyblade directly, Sora makes each swing by playing a card from a deck he has on his person. Once you’re out of cards, you have to summon more, but each successive summon takes longer. Compared to the modern Paper Mario games, my only card RPG experiences, it seems more interesting and complex. And I do really appreciate a system that’s better at letting you keep your thumb on the movement stick. But it’s just way too much for my brain to handle, especially in motion. I kept struggling to remember which card I was on in the tutorial battles.

When I next start (which I assume will be tomorrow), I’m going to turn down the difficulty to Easy. I’d like to see where this game goes, but I also do recognize my limits. If worse comes to worse and I really can’t handle it, I’ll watch a YouTube playthrough and take notes. But I do want to see the story. And I especially wanna see what makes Castle Oblivion tick, because its antiseptic off-white color scheme is creepier than the ominous sense of death throughout Hollow Bastion.

January 31: Attempted the intro again, on Beginner Difficulty.

Yeah, this isn’t gonna work. First move I did was to accidentally try to ask for more cards. In a fully turn-based game, your Fire Emblems or what have you, it’s not a problem, but in most real time action contexts I’ve got a veritable trigger finger. It’s not easy to break that habit, and the ones that do it best tend to be stealth games like Hitman, not games with frenetic battles like Kingdom Hearts. I’ve been told that this worked better in the GBA version, with a generous forced perspective that made the fights easy to see. But while the used price I found on Amazon for that version is surprisingly affordable, I’d rather not pay for a second version of a game I still might not like, especially with this being a regular series.

Now, the question is what’s next. The YouTube playthrough will have to be for Re: CoM, not the original CoM. It’ll be easier for me if it’s got that there voice acting. Looking on YouTube, I found one that’s eleven hours. That’s a lot, but I can break that into chunks.

On an unrelated note, today is Final Fantasy VII’s birthday, which fits given that game’s relationship to Kingdom Hearts. It’s also Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s birthday, which doesn’t have anything to do with Kingdom Hearts but is still pretty rad. Slightly more related is that since I was redoing the introduction, I skipped all of the cutscenes, which led me to noticing for the first time that really cute animation in the pause screen. It’s a really neat detail.

February 1: Watched the playthrough up to Agrabah, Wonderland, and Coliseum.

Here’s the one with which I went:

Obviously, this isn’t ideal as a way of experiencing this, but the more I watch, the more I realize even further how much I’d struggle through Chain of Memories. The idea of bosses with their own card deck is really cool – and, again, something I would not be able to do as a player.

Conversely, it’s also clearer to me that Re: Chain has other issues by the nature of being a remake. Again, the GBA version looked and played differently out of necessity, but it also looked (and apparently played) really good because of how it dealt with those restrictions. It was very much its own thing and gave Kingdom Hearts a wildly distinct and additive perspective. Take a look:

Original Chain of Memories. Crisp and colorful.

It looks so nice! It fits within that era of nice and visually sumptuous GBA games, stuff like Aria of Sorrow and Golden Sun and Kirby and the Amazing Mirror. It’s very colorful, but it’s also very bright in a way the original Kingdom Hearts wasn’t. This was an era where 2D was largely out, pixel art even more so, but the GBA (which couldn’t do much else) was doing very nice things with both. It’s cool that Square Enix was willing to make this, even if they really didn’t have a choice if they wanted to make a smaller Kingdom Hearts spinoff on a handheld – which they definitely wanted. You could imagine a game with this art powering a whole line of spin-offs instead of that… whatever Union χ tried to go for:

Kingdom Hearts Union χ. Like, this art style feels like a joke, right?

Despite being released way after it ended, Chain is kind of reminiscent of that era when games had “ports” that were just full-on remakes, some of which ended up surpassing the original version in acclaim or sales.

But the remake has to jettison that stuff for a few reasons. It’s got to reel in the card system to fit into the other games’ mold, market to a mid-Aughts PS2 audience that supposedly wasn’t looking for that 2D pixel art, and, well, not be too costly in remaking a three-year-old game. Re: Chain of Memories uses the same engine as the other Kingdom Hearts games – and with it much of the graphics, environments, and songs. But it also lacks a lot of the first game’s scope; there’s no voice acting for anyone other than Sora, his friends, and the mysterious cloaked villains (which is particularly unfortunate in the case of our new fully voiced villain, Axel). So it’s this weird thing where it feels like a cheap cash-in, especially since its plot is all about Sora reimagining his last adventure. Which isn’t fair, even if some of these repeat visits do ultimately feel redundant.

And finally, here’s the HD version of Re: Chain of Memories. You’d be forgiven for mistaking it for the first game.

Because I’m very intrigued about this plot, which has Sora losing some of his memories while diving into others in ways he can’t understand. No one remembers Hollow Bastion (not me, though. I’ll never forget Hollow Bastion), even though they know some of the things that went on there. There’s a third boring friend Sora had on Destiny Islands who might’ve been there all along? The dumb “to find is to lose and to lose is to find” koan is a bit too literal, perhaps, but it’s interesting that Sora is, passively or not, giving up on some things in favor of saving other things for a goal – finding Riku – that may not even be what he’s most invested in (that being Kairi, I’m assuming).

The thing that struck me the most was Aerith’s discussion with Sora in Traverse Town, where she openly admits to being a product of his memories. She can’t remember what she should, because she only remembers the aspects of Aerith that Sora knew. She’s not the “real” Aerith in any sense, just a satellite of this poor dope who got all of his memories brought to life without knowing. Sora doesn’t seem able to grasp the implications of this – which is tragic in its own way – and if there is a complaint I have so far, it’s that the game could stand to take it further. Especially with other products of Sora’s memories like Cloud and the Queen of Hearts having similar issues.

February 2: Watched Monstro, Halloween Town, the Larxene fight.

In the interest of expediency, I’ve also been consigning myself to some degree of skipping. Nothing substantial; I’m still watching all the cutscenes with an Eagly eye (and regularly rewinding when the dialogue leaves the screen too early for me), just tapping the right key that moves you forward five seconds. It’s mostly to skip lengthy scenes of building card decks, though I also tap it a bit during some fights or overworld scenes.

I can’t say I was happy to see Monstro again, with its upsetting and gross decor, but it was nice to have it finally hit me that this is Jiminy’s world. Since the first game started, I’d kind of quietly forgotten about his role in Pinocchio and only thought of him as Sora’s much more likable Navi. It was nice seeing him interact with Pinocchio and Geppetto, because that’s his own story and his own life. Sora’s home and friends are a big part of the plot, and Donald and Goofy have the broader connection of being from the “core” Disney world, but Jiminy Cricket sometimes feels like a pleasant but kinda empty sentient menu. This helped that a lot.

Similarly, I like Jack, which is perhaps no surprise. Without the last game’s weird subplot of him experimenting on the Heartless, he’s just the Pumpkin King who scares out of love and takes his interests a bit too far. Which makes sense, since that’s the aspect of Jack that Sora (and those of us who saw the movie) cares about most. His deliberately scaring Donald was also endearing, and I loved his spiel about fear, that it’s an important part of life. I mentioned my love of horror last time he showed up, but morals about how one of our five main emotions is dangerous or unhealthy always rub me the wrong way. His level was also the most fun to see because of how much more different it was to the original Halloween Town than the previous worlds in Chain of Memories.

Also unsurprising is how well he fits that original GBA pixel art – though really, so does everyone.

We’ve got two main narrative thrusts going on: Sora digging into his memories and trying to identify the girl Naminé, and the members of Organization XIII (this is a spoiler, but the name was one of the first things I ever knew about this series, well over a decade ago) nefariously plotting against each other. In terms of interest, ain’t exactly an even contest. Sora’s emotional struggle is compelling, and the way it’s affecting his memories of each person – even creeps like Oogie Boogie – is just as compelling. And there being a second Kairi who also gave Sora the same kind of charm is a nice bonkers mystery. But a conspiracy of shadowy, manipulative, and identically dressed villains isn’t so much. Like, I love The X-Files, but the last thing a zippy game about Disney characters needs is a variation on the Syndicate and its Cigarette Smoking Man, Well Manicured Man, Crew-Cut Man…

The card where Sora and Donald use Goofy as a battering ram is incredibly fun – though it also seems incredibly unreliable. Also fun is the return of “c’mon, baby,” a delightful consequence of the remake reusing a lot of the first game’s voice acting.

February 3: Watched Atlantica, the Riku fight.

Well, color me jealous; Chain of Memories lets Sora just walk around Atlantica, not swim! Well, don’t I feel just a bit jealous.

I love how even Sora’s memories of Riku, his best friend and the subject of this entire quest, portray him as such a humongous tool. And that kind, thoughtful Goofy doesn’t assume this is just how he always acts despite all evidence to the contrary.

February 4: Watched Neverland, 100 Acre Wood, Hollow Bastion, Twilight Town, Destiny Island, the Larxene fight.

…Wait, didn’t we already just have a fight with Riku? And a fight with Riku? And a fight with Vexen (RIP Vexen, by the by. I’d seen that scene of him being immolated before, but it’s just as hilarious in context)? And a fight with Ri… okay, I’ll stop now.

It’s really cool how Jiminy’s come forward as a central member of the party. It makes sense that he’d be important in Castle Oblivion – where you can’t rely on your actively decaying memories but can rely on your conscience – but it’s very good nonetheless. The party doesn’t necessarily need a wise elder guide, but he’s a good tempering force to Sora’s shōnen protagonist clichés, Goofy’s dopey kindness, and Donald’s very loud incoherence. I never expected the weird Christ analogue insect from Pinocchio to become one of the stronger pillars of this series, so good on him.

Helps that Jiminy lies firmly in the better circle in the Venn Diagram of Chain of Memories’ story. He’s part of the drama of just having to find that one thing in the back of your mind, even if it’s hazy and opaque, and knowing that you’re also giving up something else to do so. Riku’s in the middle; as an ostensible product of Sora’s mind he helps explore the surreal premise, but his… Riku-ness (and the truth that he’s ultimately not even a memory, just a homunculus invented by the Organization) is way too deep in the overarching conspiracy. And at the other end is that very conspiracy, with Larxene and Axel and Marluxia and Vexen all spouting entirely unexplained goals and plots and terms.

But nothing represents both sides more than the entirely unsurprising but ultimately well told revelation that Naminé, in fact, never existed (or at least never existed in Sora’s life). Of course, she’s taking Kairi’s place in Sora’s memories; of course there was never going to be a fourth kid on Destiny Islands beyond Sora’s neighbors, inexplicably the cast of Final Fantasy X. This series, far as I can tell, isn’t really equipped to handle that kind of twist – not that that’s a bad thing. But I respect the game for taking the mystery seriously, and I respect it all the more for telling it well. I quite like Naminé. She’s naturally meant to be a more negative counterpart to Kairi, but she’s also more interesting and has far more agency and personality than the actual Kairi. And her relationship to Sora, non-existent and deceitful it may be, is still more deep and clear than anything anyone in Organization XIII is doing. It’s better at presenting Sora’s feelings than the first Kingdom Hearts was, and it’s better at challenging and legitimizing his beliefs than Hollow Bastion was, too.

Anyway… non-story thoughts. There doesn’t really seem to be much in the way of puzzles in this game, which is a bit of a shame. 100-Acre Wood seems as inane as it was last time. I like the game referring to Beast as “the Beast,” since it makes him sound like a cool pulp hero who gives criminals the what-for on the streets of small town France. Maybe he can team-up with Quasimodo? And Twilight Town looks very cool (if not as distinct as 2004’s best video game burg with the same name). It better well be, given it’s this secret and probably false part of Sora’s life. After all of the crazier, more dramatic worlds, there’s something both attractive and ominous about a place that just seems… normal.

February 5: Finished watching the playthrough.

And we have a title!

And Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories ends the only way it could: returning to the status quo of our trio of heroes walking the earth like it’s a 1970s action show. I get why a fan might be frustrated with this story; it only moves the plot along insofar as to show the new, very uninteresting antagonists. We’re nowhere closer to getting Riku and Mickey, which, let’s be real, was never going to happen in a GBA side story. The main newcomer sidelines herself by her very existence, giving way to let Kairi return as nothing more than a motivating factor for Sora. It seeds in plot elements, but the story hasn’t “gone forward” in the conventional way.

But I find forward narrative momentum to be less a virtue than the consequence of better virtues, and I found this sojourn very compelling – more so, in some ways, than if it had been that more conventional sequel. It manages to let Sora be more interesting, partially by having a narrative with more themes than banal platitudes about light and darkness (not that there’s any dearth of that here, of course). And in Naminé they managed to craft a character with some depth who straddles the line between supporting character and outright antagonist. If the Organization members reminded me of some of the worst aspects of The X-Files, the overbearing conspiracy that compromised the show’s strengths, the plot as a whole reminds me of one of the show’s better self-contained “monster of the week” episodes. It’s just Sora and friends exploring this creepy part of the world, exploring the series’ themes in a unique way, and moving on.

Honestly, the biggest problem is that it’s not self-contained enough. The threat of the Organization is ultimately uninteresting at best and narratively concerning at worst, and it would’ve probably landed better if they were just some weirdos who Sora met once and never again. And while I’m sure it’ll be nice when we inevitably see Naminé again (which I know does happen), there’s something nicer about her and Sora’s relationship ultimately being this purely transient thing. He meets someone, they both get something out of that, and while he forgets all about it, she doesn’t and we don’t. There’s something pure about that kind of drama that may get diluted once it gets brought back into the macro plot.

As a side note, while I’m aware of a Riku mode that is its own complete game, complete with whatever’s going on with Mickey, I’m not going to watch it. I might look up details from it, but I’m only going to play – or watch, as the case may be – each game one time. This is mainly to keep the writing from covering the same ground too far, though I also feel that a player should only really be expected to play most games once.

I assume, though, that Riku indeed remains The Worst.

Final Thoughts: Another long chapter it is. The thing is, had I been playing Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories instead of watching it, all of these thoughts would’ve been stretched out over two or three or, hell, maybe another four weeks. Maybe my positive feelings on the story would’ve been tempered more by frustrations with the gameplay. Or maybe I would’ve managed to acclimate to the combat, though I doubt that would’ve happened. Regardless, for better and worse this was how I felt I could do this, and that way – an eleven hour video complete with deaths and extensive menuing – was not ideal, of course. It’s a game; it’s best experienced through being played. This won’t be the last time this will happen, since The Story So Far cut two games into movies (albeit as a more manageable three hours instead of this video’s eleven) in a way that excises most of their Disney content.

Regarding the story, I was kind of pleasantly surprised to see it improve as much as it did from the first game. I know people who think of it as one of the best (if not the best) games in the series, but it was still neat how well Chain of Memories worked at exploring ideas that Kingdom Hearts had kind of casually passed over. It does more for justifying Sora’s presence as a character and as part of the plot, and it suggests an ability for the series to grow and question itself.

I was going to say that Chain is good “especially for a side game,” but that’s the thing. There have been about eight or nine side games within the broader Kingdom Hearts “trilogy,” and all of them are presented as comparably important to the narrative. Maybe that’s just marketing copy (and if so, that’s not a problem – narrative weight is an overrated quality), but if that’s true, that’s pretty intense. I don’t think that’s usually a good idea for storytelling, especially with only three entries in the series having those numbers that indicate how important they are. But that will be for when we take a look at coded and Birth By Sleep and all the rest. For now, I’m happy to have experienced Chain of Memories.

Next week, though, we do jump back into gameplay as I challenge Kingdom Hearts II! I’m excited to get back into the playing of this series – after all, there’s only so much time I can spend in the Hisui region with my Bruce Springsteen-nicknamed Pokémon team.

Overall progress: After a short attempt at playing it, watched a playthrough of Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories.

Other games played: