Worldly Weekend: Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories (PS2/PS3)

And so begins Kingdom Hearts's foray into befuddling names. Admittedly, Re:Chain of Memories is hardly as ridiculous and pretentious as the goofy titles we'll become acquainted with down the road; if anything, I'll grant the "Re:" here actually makes sense -- the involved prefix meaning it's another attempt at a previous title -- but its sudden intrusion before the subtitle has always irked me. Still, it's of little consequence.

Really, what I find more fascinating is the brisk turnover between the original Game Boy Advance game and this remake for PlayStation 2: for those not aware of the dates involved, the original Chain of Memories launched at the very end of 2004, while this 3D remake -- a bonus game packaged alongside the Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix re-release in Japan -- released in Spring of 2007 (it received a standalone American release at 2008's end). I struggle to think of any game redone in such a short span of time, and I am never not impressed by this probable record and at Square-Enix's brilliant marketing strategy (what, KH2 with additional features isn't enough for you? Okay, then here's a GODDAMN 3D REMAKE OF A GAME BOY GAME)

Worldly Weekend: Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (GBA)

Not even one game later, and we arrive at the embryonic stage of Kingdom Hearts' ultimate folly: "bridge" games released across multiple platforms. The Disney/Square-Enix saga was not to continue just through numbered mainline entries, but through what series director Tetsuya Nomura described as games that would "bridge" -- or rather, set the stage for -- said numbered entries together. Kooky executive antics and Nomura's own over-ambition would eventually drive this direction out of control, as evidenced by the fact it's been twelve years since Kingdom Hearts II first launched in Japan and we've only just recently received a tentative date for the long-awaited third entry.

But we'll get to that mess when it comes. Really, what I want to talk about is how undeserving Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories -- the first of these bridge games, which arrived on Game Boy Advance in 2004 -- is of this blame, for I daresay it is perhaps the very finest title under the Kingdom Hearts banner. Not because it possesses the very highest highs of the series -- although quite a few are present here -- but rather in how it is the most consistent: what we have here is a game that not only recognizes its purpose, but is aware of its limitations and tries its damnedest to work around them to provide one of the most compelling JRPGs on the platform.