Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory review: Rhythm is a dancer

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory finally gives the soundtrack to this beloved franchise the spotlight and attention it deserves.

Title: Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory
Developer: Square Enix
Publisher:Square Enix
Platforms: PlayStation 4 (reviewed on PS5), Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Release Date: November 13, 2020

“How many Kingdom Hearts games are there, anyway,” my wife asked. I simply smiled as I rhythmically tapped the buttons on my DualSense to a song I had listened to dozens of times before on YouTube. Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is a very simplified retelling of the beloved, yet complicated fantasy series which, by the way, is now spread across 14 games total.

By now we’re all well aware of how needlessly convoluted the story of Kingdom Hearts has become. Melody of Memory doesn’t attempt to fill you in on every detail. It’s a very watered-down recap, adding very little to the story itself, save for the very end segment which features a segment that’ll surely get fans excited for the future of the franchise.

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory exists purely to celebrate the iconic soundtrack of the franchise. Japanese composer Yoko Shimomura has helped guide us through this nearly two-decade journey, capturing the heart and soul of Kingdom Hearts through music. And it’s about time she gets the recognition and spotlight she so much deserves.

The bulk of the gameplay exists in the World Tour campaign. You’ll travel across a map that represents the entire franchise in your Gummi ship, visiting the different worlds and playing through one or two tracks from each.

To progress through the map, you’ll need to collect stars by completing goals specific to each world’s soundtrack. Each song offers three goals that require you to do things like hit a certain percentage of notes, kill a certain number of enemies, and things of that nature. Although there are three difficulty settings for each song — and most can be completed on the easiest — some of the missions do require that you play on a specific difficulty setting (usually the middle or hardest).

The good news is you don’t have to complete every single mission. In most cases, you can unlock the next section of the world map by completing two of the three missions for each song in a world. And it’s pretty easy to do.

In addition to collecting stars, you can also earn and craft items like healing potions or experience boosters. These can help save you during some of the more difficult songs but, for the most part, they feel kind of useless and unnecessary. Unless you’re really struggling with rhythm, you’ll rarely need to use these.

As far as rhythm-based games are concerned, this one is pretty simplistic. Your three characters run along a railed track as enemies appear. Your goal is to defeat these enemies by striking exactly on the correct beat, which corresponds to the song itself. Obviously, this is far easier for those who are already familiar with the music of Kingdom Hearts, but I imagine it might be a bit more difficult for someone who has never heard these songs before. Regardless, you don’t need to be a fan of Kingdom Hearts to appreciate the score. It’s simply beautiful.

You can strike enemies using the X, L1 or R1 buttons on the PlayStation controller. You’d think they would correspond to the three individual characters running, but no. You can literally use X to hit every single note and the correct character will strike the enemy. There are some instances, however, where you’ll need to press two or three buttons at once.

The flow of the track sometimes disoriented me, making it difficult to discern when to exactly press the button. Admittedly, I’m not the most-skilled rhythm-game player but there were also times where it felt as though the game didn’t register my button press. It’s possible any sort of sync issue could be due to the fact I was playing on a PlayStation 5 and this game was released for PS4. Either way, having a streak ruined because of this — especially if there was a mission tied to it — was very frustrating.

Each segmented “game” culminates in a boss battle. These boss battles are presented a little differently and require a little more effort, as you must also use the directional buttons and sometimes hold notes, but for the most part, it feels the same.

There’s not a whole lot of variety in gameplay. Even though the whole cast of characters are available to play with, there’s little discernable difference between them as you progress through the songs. Their moves might differ but the outcome is always the same as long as you hit the note on time. Each trio of characters has individual stats like Strength and Defense but I didn’t notice any impact from those.

This lack of variety does lead to some repetitiveness in gameplay. But despite how stale it sometimes feels, I was consistently driven by my love for the franchise’s soundtrack. I can’t say for sure if that same nostalgia-fueled experience will hold true for everyone though, especially if you’ve never played a Kingdom Hearts game.

Once you finish the World Tour, there are other things you can do to keep you engaged with the game as well. There are a Track Selection mode and Museum mode that lets you revisit special scenes. Story Theatre lets you watch important parts of the story without having to play the actual game.

There’s also a multiplayer component although I, unfortunately, didn’t get to experience that. There’s split-screen co-op multiplayer which sounds fun but I, unfortunately, have no one in my house to play with. There’s also an online VS Battles mode. In this mode, you both compete for the highest score on a song but the catch is that you can use tricks, like blurring their vision or making their notes invisible, to trip them up. I attempted to connect to this mode multiple times but was unable to find an opponent. I don’t know if this is because I was playing on the PlayStation 5 or if everyone just prefers the single-player experience.

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is a love letter to the soundtrack of the franchise but you don’t need to be a fan of the Kingdom Hearts series to appreciate the package being delivered. While fans will undoubtedly get more enjoyment from the game, fans of music, in general, should experience this soundtrack.

A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click here to learn more about our Review Policy.