Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory

The Switch is a very perfect system for this game in my opinion once you customize the timing to your liking, with the portable nature of the system meshing great with the gameplay style. It ties a very charming bow on 18 years of games, and even with its faults has been something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since I started playing. Honestly, as soon as I finish typing this sentence I’m going right back to playing more.

Considering I wasn’t a fan of KINGDOM HEARTS before I tackled Melody of Memory, I’m shocked by how much fun I had playing it. Not only did it bring back fond memories of Theatrhythm, but it made me more than a bit eager to dive into some other KINGDOM HEARTS games. This mixture of Square Enix and Disney is a novel idea in a world full of pale imitations, if nothing else. While the game isn’t quite perfect, it came pretty darn close. If you’re a fan of music games or just love KINGDOM HEARTS, you really can’t go wrong here.

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory may only be for a certain audience, but for that audience, this is as good as it gets.

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory uses one of the franchise's most defining features to expertly craft a love letter to the series. Whether you're a longtime fan or a newcomer to the franchise, the wealth of content included in this package is incredibly worthwhile.

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is an amazing way to pay tribute to not only the music of the series but also the story. It is a great way to prepare fans for the newest chapters in the series while also taking a look back at the journey we’ve all had with Sora and the others. Although there is a lack of new content, customization, and the pacing was a little off, the creative rhythmic gameplay is worth trying out if you love rhythm games! But if you don’t and are just wanting to buy for the story, it’s best if skip this one.

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is a great rhythm game that is sure to be enjoyed by newcomers and veteran players of the genre. However, if you’re buying it for the story you should probably skip this. This isn’t the Kairi game fans have been pining for since the Re:Mind DLC.

Kingdom Hearts debuts on Nintendo Switch with a musical game that is a tribute to the franchise and its legacy, with many collectibles, interesting multiplayer modes and a story that lets us understand that the series will continue in the future. An essential title if you are a fan of the franchise.

Is Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory for you? Well, that depends on a variety of factors. This is a game that’s obviously designed as a love letter to longtime fans of the franchise, but it also bears almost no resemblance at all to the gameplay that made the preceding titles such a hit. As a rhythm game, it’s a perfectly enjoyable and content-rich entry in the genre, but a substantial amount of its meaning and appeal will be lost on rhythm fans who don’t have a background with the previous games. Either way, we think Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is certainly worth your time. What we have here is a fun and engaging rhythm game with potentially hundreds of hours of replayability and a killer setlist of music to back it up.

If you like Kingdom Hearts, and you like the music of Yoko Shimomura, I would personally call Melody of Memory a must buy. Just don’t expect to find a blowout story reveal buried in this title, and you should find yourself bopping along to the rhythm and having fun in no time.

Melody of Memory is a great rhythm game which is only bolstered by the fantastic music of Kingdom Hearts and Disney. The way the gameplay is tied to the diverse soundtrack is impeccable, and Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is a nostalgic treat for fans.

For as messy as Kingdom Hearts is, for all of its flaws, the series has a lot of heart and emotion that’s been beautifully conveyed through the music over the years. With Melody of Memory, I got the chance to re-experience many of the tumultuous emotions that I’d felt since the beginning and reconcile them. This was a series I once adored and recently began to feel disenchanted with, but this game reminded me of joy I’d felt hearing each song for the first time over the years. And while the package could be better, and I wish I enjoyed playing it more, this feels like the only way to cap off the Dark Seeker Saga. Whether I’ll be back for the next Saga, I’m not sure, but Melody of Memory captures my journey with the series perfectly: we’ve had our ups and downs, but ultimately, Kingdom Hearts has been influential in my life, and I don’t regret seeing the series through.

While Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is far from perfect, it is nonetheless a great asset to the series.

What most winds up dragging down Melody of Memory, ironically, is that it tries too hard to be a Kingdom Hearts adventure rather than a cohesive rhythm game. [Issue #50 – January/February 2021, p. 69]

I haven't been as conflicted about a rhythm game as I have Melody of Memory. On the one hand, the rhythm game action itself is wonderful and the music, across 140 tracks, is sublime. On the other hand, being forced to play through a truncated and baffling summary of the Kingdom Hearts narrative just to unlock those tracks has done little to enamour me to the series, and there are far, far too many little additions that distract from what the game does best (i.e. the rhythm action). The grand sum of it is that Melody of Memory is much more a game for existing fans of Kingdom Hearts than it needed to be, and once again Square Enix has struggled to fully capitalise on the rich opportunity that the Disney license provides them.

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is a good mobile rhythm game, which has the downside of being sold at full price. Along with this, the original content is limited to just 20 minutes in a 10-hour adventure.

A love letter to the music of Kingdom Hearts and a fab way to summarise the story, but it can get rather repetitive at times.

While it’s very short on story, Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory is a neat celebration of the Dark Seeker Saga before moving on. With a huge selection of fantastic tunes and a fun yet simplistic control scheme, this game will keep fans busy until Kingdom Hearts IV.