Kingdom Hearts is always a toe tapper! (KH: Melody of Memory in review)

    Kingdom Hearts has always been a series to focus on the story, even when that story is confusing to say the least. Kingdom Hearts 3 took a definite step in a simpler direction, with the main plot resolution of that game taking place in the final hours, and this most recent game, Melody of Memory, takes that a step further as the only new plot here takes place in the last 10-20 minutes of this 10 hour or so game. I don't mean this in a bad way, it's clear that this game is a celebration of Kingdom Hearts as a whole series, and the sound track leads to some nostalgic and fun times. This title really plays nothing like the rest of the franchise other than a few rhythm based mini-games, but that is certainly not a bad thing.

Music of Memory

    I truly went into this game expecting a whole lot of exposition dumped on me as soon as I booted it up, but instead it just took me into a rhythm level of "Simple and Clean," the theme song of the original Kingdom Hearts game. Even before teaching the controls, it just throws the player into the game head first, and it worked pretty well, though I do wonder how people not familiar with rhythm games would handle it. From there it took me into the tutorial before dropping me off in the world map where (almost) all of the songs in the game are located. After playing Re:Mind, the DLC add-on to Kingdom Hearts 3 which came out in January 2020, I assumed that this game would begin with about 20 minutes or so of cutscenes like the DLC did, but there are shockingly not very many of them here. Sometimes after levels, Kairi will come out and explain the plot of one of the games in the series, then you move along to the next level and continue on until you're done. The soundtrack is great, as it's comprised of different songs from throughout the series, as well as some orchestral and piano arrangements of those pieces, and it's really amazing to hear all of this music from the nearly 20 year old series. On top of the songs from the games, they also have a few tracks directly ripped from Disney soundtracks. "Beauty and the Beast," and "Circle of Life," are both included with the original movie audio, meaning that you're defeating heartless while listening to Angela Lansbury belting out a song as an enchanted tea kettle. It's a bizarre feeling, but it works pretty well. Unfortunately, a lot of the Kingdom Hearts 3 soundtrack isn't in this game for whatever reason (probably licensing reasons), as well as a few of the worlds from different games.

Something's... missing...

    While it's incredible that so many songs are in Melody of Memory, there are some notable exclusions. Most of the music from the original game is around as far as I can tell, but when it gets to the sequel, there are definitely some worlds that don't appear, such as the Pirates of the Carribean world. It makes sense considering most of the music from that world comes directly from the movies which first started in 2003 and they didn't want to get the copyright for that, which is understandable. There was a level in Dream Drop Distance based off of the 1940 film, Fantasia, which also doesn't appear in this game. It seems strange that a level based on classical music wouldn't appear in a rhythm game like this, but again, I don't know how the complicated world of music rights works, so I'm assuming it has something to do with that. On top of these weird omissions, "Night on Bald Mountain" is not in this game, even though it has shown up in at least two entries in this franchise whenever you do battle with Chernabog, the demon gargoyle-bat hybrid, again from Fantasia. As someone who loves these old pieces, I would have loved to see more of that, as well as perhaps a bit of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," but I suppose that would be asking for too much, especially when the execution is so good overall. It could have just been because they didn't write those works, and this was more about focusing on the music of Kingdom Hearts as a whole.

    When beginning this game, I was most looking forward to some of the levels from Kingdom Hearts 3 as I had really liked the soundtracks, but unfortunately each of the worlds from that game only has one song to play through, and in the background it simply plays all of the cutscenes from each world. We do get a chance to play through, "You've Got a Friend in Me," from Toy Story, as well as "Let it Go," from Frozen, but there are many tracks here that were cut for some reason. I don't understand the reason why, as there are a lot of tracks that were written by the musical team involved in the series that simply capture the tone of the films to a nice degree but maybe it's a lot more complicated than that. This is really all speculation, and truly the reason could be something as simple as them saying that they have over 140 songs and calling it a day. There's certainly a lot of content to chew on here, after all, and what's here is really good.

Wasn't this supposed to be Kairi's game (spoilers ahoy)?

    This is a very minor issue with the game, as there is truly very little original story, but I got the impression from watching the trailers that Kairi was going to have a lot to do with this game. She does, but the fact that there's not much story here as I stated earlier is pretty sad since I'm concerned that this could be her best chance to be in the spotlight. I feel like Kairi is a really interesting character, and especially has been since the end of Kingdom Hearts 2, but she really didn't do anything in 3, and although she has been training to be a Keyblade Wielder, she's still fairly weak on that front, as evidenced in the end when Sora literally takes over the fight for her. I really hope that they continue to flesh out this character in the future, and I'm also excited for her to begin training with Master Aqua because hopefully that means she'll be much more important in the future. 

    In the meantime, however, the game ends with Kairi and Riku meeting with the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella and meeting a spirit with no body that allows them to go to another world where Sora has been since the end of Kingdom Hearts 3 when he vanished. Riku leaves for that world while Kairi goes to tell Yen Sid, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy about the issue, and Yen Sid tasks Mickey with the task of studying about this new world, potentially pointing to Mickey being the main character of a game sometime in the near future, while Riku is the main character of another game that was hinted at in the secret movie in Kingdom Hearts 3. It's a lot to take in, and again, it's mostly speculation, but it would be cool to have a Mickey-centric game, and I always enjoy the crazy lore and antics that are always involved in this franchise.

    Melody of Memory is a great game overall, especially for anyone who is into rhythm games, Kingdom Hearts, or both. It's a great celebration of the series, and it may actually be interesting to people who haven't played any of the games before, as Kairi is constantly giving you a simplified version of the plot. It does seem a bit steep to ask $60 for this title, as it feels about as deep as a mobile game, but it's a fun time, none the less. I would definitely recommend this game to friends, though perhaps with the caveat that they should wait for a sale. 

    Thanks so much for reading this post, everyone! I know Kingdom Hearts is not an incredibly popular franchise right now, but I still really love it, and I wanted to give my thoughts on it while this game is still fresh in my mind. I always look forward to this season of the year, and as we enter December and have passed Thanksgiving this past week, I'd just like to say that I'm thankful for my ability to write things, and I'm very thankful to all of you for reading them. It truly means more than I can possibly express. Thanks again, and I'll talk to you again next Friday.