Hello, everyone. Long time no chat.
I know this post is very overdue since I was planning for this to go out in March. Now it’s June. Oops. But as life would have it, I got busy. A particular hobby ended up taking over my life in a bad way and my brother got married last month. (I have since dropped said hobby because it was affecting my mental health in a way I did not like.)
Now that life has slowed down a bit, I would like to pick up blogging again, so thank you for being patient with me. It might be a bit before I can post on a more “regular basis” since I have to watch, read, and play things, but I’ll get there! (laughs)
Now that the preface is done, let’s get on with the post!
Update 10/2/24: Added a “Read More” line.
Take a musical journey through the world of KINDGOM HEARTS! Jump in the Gummi Ship and take off to find out what’s next for the Sora, Donald, Goofy, and the gang while showing off your rhythm action skills and defeating Heartless in your favorite Disney worlds. You don’t have to go it alone though – challenge your friends in Battle Mode, or team up for victory with Co-op. You’ll also get a helping hand from Disney guest characters such as Aladdin, Hercules, and Mulan. Remember, your friends are your power!
~ Summary taken from the Kingdom Hearts website
I honestly don’t know how to start this post since I didn’t grow up playing Kingdom Hearts. My brother and I were Nintendo kids, so PlayStation wasn’t a household name. Granted, my earliest memory of a PlayStation game was Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy, but not until I was in late middle school/early high school.
Right away, I was immediately hooked. It had all the JRPG elements that I liked, and not only that, the story was engaging and the music was great. The problem was, I didn’t have a means to play it.
So what did I do as a workaround? I went on YouTube to watch any cutscenes I could find. (laughs) However, watching the cutscenes only gets you so far, and it wouldn’t be until January 2019 when I would buy my first PlayStation console: a PS4.
However (x2), a lot of Kingdom Hearts games have come out since I was a teenager, and I was lucky for two of them to come out for Nintendo consoles that I did own. So my first Kingdom Hearts game was “Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days,” playable on the Nintendo DS. The second Kingdom Hearts game I played was “Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance,” playable on the Nintendo 3DS.
Embarrassingly enough, I never finished either game…
BUT.
I’m not here to talk about those games. I’m here to talk about「Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory」
That’s right, Kingdom Hearts has a rhythm game, and boy, do I love me some rhythm games. Needless to say, I downloaded the demo to see how I felt about it, and after playing a few songs, I noticed a slight problem that I was going to have if I ended up buying this game…
There wasn’t anything wrong with the game. The game was fine! Super fun to play, even. No, the problem I had was never having heard most of the songs before, so figuring out the timing was a bit of a challenge. I persevered though; to the point where I did end up buying the actual game, which is why I’m able to talk about it now.
While Melody of Memory can be played as the TL;DR version of the entire Kingdom Hearts series, there’s nothing like playing the games for yourself. That being said, Melody of Memory does a pretty good job of catching you up with the series. By the end of the game’s story mode, you’ll have a decent understanding of what happened, including the events that occurred in Kingdom Hearts 3 as well as a bit of what’s to come in Kingdom Hearts 4.
Now, I’ve really only played the game’s story mode (rightfully named World Tour), so at this time, I am unable to speak too much about the game’s other features (VS Mode and Co-op Mode in particular). It’s also been a while since I last opened the game, so yes, I do have the game open as I write this. (laughs)
First off when the game loads and you’re asked to “press any button to continue,” you get this beautiful jazz rendition of “Dearly Beloved.” I cannot tell you how many times I let the game idle on that screen just so I could listen to the song.
Aside from the three modes I’ve already mentioned above (World Tour and VS/Co-op Modes), there is also a mode called “Track Selection,” where you can freely play all the songs you’ve unlocked in World Tour (and a few extra ones). A great way to play your favorite songs without having to go through World Tour!
Another feature that I particularly think is fun (specifically for the collector in me), is something called the Museum. Aside from World Tour, I think the Museum is the game’s largest section. You can view the collectibles you get from completing songs in World Tour, watch the videos that play during World Tour, listen to the songs you’ve unlocked, and view the achievements you’ve completed. I really like the Museum and I’m definitely still very far from getting all the collectibles.
I couldn’t figure out where to put this because it’s kinda random, but also kinda important for the VS/Co-op Modes. …I think.
In case you didn’t know, you can play as four different teams in this game (as shown in the slideshow above):
- Sora, Donald, and Goofy
- Roxas, Xion, and Axel
- Ventus, Aqua, and Terra
- Riku, Meow Wow, and Komory Bat
You can play as any team in World Tour and they level up as you play through the different songs. You just have to make sure you switch to whatever team you want before you start the song. I wish I could tell you more about this leveling thing and how it pertains to the VS/Co-op Modes, but I can’t. Sorry about that. (laughs)
In terms of gameplay, I think that’s all I can really think to talk about. As someone who hasn’t played too many Kingdom Hearts games, this was a pretty nice entry into the series. And if you like rhythm games, I would suggest giving it a try. Eventually, I would like to go back to this game to try out the other modes, but my brain is currently taken up by the TTYD remake that came out recently. Perhaps I will write about that game next, but we will see.
And finally, we can’t end a Hiba post without talking about the music. Obviously, the majority of the music is just the soundtrack from the actual videogames, but I really want to showcase the jazz rendition of “Dearly Beloved.” It’s just so good!
Thank you so much for being patient during my long absence. It feels good to be able to write a post like this again. It’s been a really long time and I’m excited to get back into it. Please look forward to my next post!
Until next time! Bye bye~
🌸 Hiba
The Skylark's Treasure 