It’s official ladies and gentlemen.  Kingdom Hearts: RE//Chain of Memories has officially been released on Tuesday of this past week (December 2nd).  Ace and I went straight to our local Game Stop and purchased it right after school on Tuesday, and since then, we’ve been playing it pretty much every chance we get.  It’s every bit as good as we hoped and expected.

Aside from being virtually the same game as the Gameboy Adavance version, there are a few differences.  Within each room, there are new breakable objects known as traps.  These traps can be thrown at enemies on the field to trigger certain status ailments in battle.  For example, throwing a box or barrel at an enemy in the field will make enemies in battle start off dazed.  Throwing an explosive box or barrel at an enemy in the field will make enemies in the first wave of battle start off with half of the HP.  Likewise, there are new boobytraps in certain rooms that trigger status ailments for Sora.  For example, in Olympus Coliseum, there are statues that fire arrows at Sora in the field.  If the arrow hits Sora, the controls get scrambled and you pretty much get confused.  It adds a level of challenge to the game that wasn’t present the first time around.

One thing that disappointed me was that the voice actors in the game are completely different.  It’s true that Haley Joel Osmond and David Galligher returned to voice Sora and Riku, as well as Quintin Flynn returning to voice the ever enigmatic Axel, but other than that, all returning characters are voiced by different voice actors.  They’re fairly similar to the originals, but for certain characters, you can clearly tell that the’ve had a vocal makeover.

An annoying, but minor feature to the game is the distinct lack of cutscenes.  True, there are cutscenes within the hallways between floors, but within the worlds themselves, all scenes take place through text bubbles which can get tedious to read after a while.  A nice addition to the game is the ability to skip scenes, like in Kingdom Hearts II, allowing players to avoid watching the same scene over and over if they get stuck on a boss.

All in all, I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played so far, and I’m sure that I’ll enjoy the rest.  It’s definitely an improvement over the Gameboy Advance version.

-KK out.