Card battle games. I'll be the first to curse their existence. I have in the past. However, with the recent releases of games such as Baten Kaitos for the GameCube and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories for the Game Boy Advance, I might just have to bite my tongue this time. Might.

The first thing you'll notice about this game is the graphics. These are hands down some of the best the Game Boy Advance has to offer. The colors are vibrant and varied. The character sprites are big and detailed. They move fluidly, sharing many of the same animations of their Playstation 2 counterparts. Speaking of Playstation 2 counterparts, the real stars of the show here are the cutscenes, which were made using the Playstation 2 3D models and environments. These truly show what the Game Boy Advance is capable of, and the quality and clarity of these cutscenes far surpasses that of any of the Game Boy Advance cartoon videos out there. The only real downside to the graphics would be the environments. These static locales are all basically the same with different colors splashed on. Needless to say, they can get rather repetitive, but do not detract from the experience as a whole.

As far as sound goes, the music in this game mainly comes from its PS2 predecessor. There isn't much more than that, unfortunately. However, I did appreciate Hikaru Utada's "Simple and Clean" being played in its entirety during the closing credits. Now, we know the Game Boy Advance is capable of spoken dialogue, thanks to games like Max Payne, and the aforementioned "Simple and Clean." While the characters will speak somewhat during battle, mostly consisting of battle cries and the like, it is a real shame that the cutscenes are all played out through text. There are so few of these 3D movies that one would think SquareEnix could squeeze at least some speech into them. Unlike the environments, this does take away from the experience somewhat.

He shot a jellyfish at him...poor jellyfish.

Now we move on to the gameplay. Chain of Memories' claim to fame is its new card system that dictates pretty much every action in the game, from fighting enemies to unlocking doors to new areas. Many people complained that the previous Kingdom Hearts devolved into a simple mashfest with no strategy involved whatsoever. The card system was implemented to add some much needed strategy to the battle system. Does it work? Sadly, no. Ironically, this game falls into the pit of its predecessor. Even though each move you perform in battle uses up a card, the game still becomes a mindless button masher.

Once you have used up your deck of cards, you must then hold the A button to reshuffle it. The more you have to reshuffle, the longer it takes. You would think this would be difficult in the midst of a heated battle, as you cannot move while you are reshuffling. It's not. In fact, contrary to many other reviews that I have read online or in game magazines, this game is surprisingly easy. By just mindlessly mashing the attack button, you'll easily make it through most of the game with little trouble. There was only one boss battle where I actually had to come up with a strategy to win, and it wasn't even the final boss.

The use of sleights is all but nonexistent. A sleight is when you use three cards in conjunction to create a new, much more powerful attack. The catch is that the first card in the sleight can no longer be used throughout the match. In all seriousness, sleights were only good to break your opponent's attack, which would temporarily stun them giving you a free shot. And even then, you could just use a 0 card. But the trick with a 0 card is that it can break any card, no matter the value, only if it is used AFTER the other card is played. If it is used first, it is practically worthless, as any card can break it.

If this image could make any less sense, I'd be really impressed.

Probably the biggest annoyance in the game is the fact that certain cards act as keys to open locked doors. The "Map Cards" decide what the next room will be, whether it has lots of enemies, no enemies, dazed enemies which are easier to sneak up on, and many other possibilities. The problem with this is that later in the game, some rooms require specific cards to be unlocked. For example, you might need a card with the numerical value of 3, but you also need it to be the color Green. If you don't have it, good luck finding it. The only way to obtain these Map Cards is to battle enemies. After each battle, you are given a Map Card at random. Let me say that again, AT RANDOM. There is no way to determine beforehand what Map Card you will get. You could literally spend hours fighting enemies and never find that one particular card you need. This is, obviously, not fun.

So if the gameplay is crap, then the story must be absolutely amazing? Right? RIGHT?! Don't I wish. Sadly, this game's storyline is nowhere near the quality of its predecessor's. In fact, the reason why I waited until the end of the review to talk about the story was for fear of people stopping right there and not reading the rest of the review if I put it first. The story picks up right where the first Kingdom Hearts left off. In their search for King Mickey and Sora's friend Riku, Sora, Donald, and Goofy have come across a foreboding castle known as Castle Oblivion where everything is governed by cards (surprised?). In order to find King Mickey and Riku, the gang must venture deeper and deeper into the castle, however, this is all at the cost of their memories.

This is pretty much just a cheap way of having you play through many of the same worlds we've already played through in the original Kingdom Hearts. The story on the whole is pretty much just a rehash of the original game's storyline. This is understandable in some sense, because not everyone who owns a Game Boy Advance also owns a Playstation 2, but for those of us who DID play the PS2 game, this game's story leaves a lot to be desired. There are a few new tidbits thrown in here and there, but I'd bet money that it will all be summed up within the first ten minutes of Kingdom Hearts 2.

There is some hope though. Once you beat the game, you are then given the option to play through a new game with an entirely new character and a brand new storyline. While this second game is only about half the length of the first campaign, I found its story far more interesting. It certainly answers a lot more questions fans had about possible characters and events in Kingdom Hearts 2. I would even venture to say you should play through the initial game just so you can get to the second game.

So, on the whole, I have to say I was rather disappointed with Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, which is a shame, because it was one of my most anticipated titles for the GBA in 2004. Sure, the graphics and presentation are superb, but good graphics do not a good game make. It looks like I'll be scoffing at card battle games for a little while longer. Well, at least until I get around to playing Baten Kaitos.