Collection (Game Boy Advance)

"Great", then "Awesome" then "Alright" and finally "Meh". This is like how I felt playing this. At first the gyro sensor and rumble feature in the cartridge combined with the simplicity and charismatic humor make this game a nice experience. It eventually gets even better as you progress and the challenge increases and you start unlocking cool mini-games.

Then the whole thing starts to get tired and just seems gimmicky. Sure, its fun but nothing to keep you entertained for much time as you've already mastered most of the mini-games and most of the challenge is actually in find out what to do than actually doing it. Then you realize that like 90% of the unlockables are pure crap. Great game though, but no much replay value.

This is by far the GBA game I've played the most. I think I've spent (some might say "wasted") about 400 hours during 5 years. I love many things about it like the simple yet touching "Neverending Story"-like plot and vast option of jobs and missions.

The graphics look good with well detailed sprite models and the gameplay is balanced though far from flawless. The soundtrack and sound effects are OK but the music gets a little repetitive as this is a very long game.

I'm a great fan of the Kingdom Hearts series but at first I rejected this game because of its card-based combat system. Fortunately that didn't kept me from buying and playing it and damn this game was good.

While the other games in this franchise are quite easy, this actually takes a little more of brainpower to work. Sora has to build a decent deck to fight the various heartless and maybe have an alternate deck for many boss fights, sometimes custom an specific battle in order to maximize the odds of winning. The mechanics are quite good though not perfect.

Sora revisit the world from the original Kingdom Hearts and that can be considered good (if you're nostalgic) or bad (if you're looking for new content) and just a few new worlds.

But the plot is the highlight of Chain of Memories. Though nothing that could compare to a modern Final Fantasy, CoM's plot is really much more complex and multilayered than the original KH. And there's an awesome alternate mode which is unlocked after you beat the game : You play the story of Riku in Castle Oblivion during the Sora's adventure you've just beat.