3.5/5 ★ – ValleyWind84's review of Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory.

It's not a great Kingdom Hearts game or a great rhythm game, but it's still pretty fun as fanservice. Players are given three modes to play with. The first, World Tour, is technically the Story Mode, but it's probably best seen as a Mission Mode. It mostly serves as a recap of the first 20 years of games as any new storytelling is reserved for the final level, and it's also the only way to unlock songs and characters. There's not a whole lot of variation since most stages are the same "Field Battle" mode (think Guitar Hero). Other stage styles pop up sporadically: a handful of Boss Battles (more or less the same but with more directional inputs and a charge system) and a few Memory Dives (a mix of the two others over an AMV). The missions for each song try to change up the play style for you, whether pushing you to play on a different difficulty or to challenge you to not use boosts and recovery items. It does ultimately comes off as an obligation than a fruitful mode on its own. The pacing wasn't great for me, for one reason or another. It's also incredibly easy to progress, so most of the challenge is self-imposed. Alyson Stoner is a great voice actor, but she's not given a whole lot to do with reading off plot recaps. As it is, though, it feels like the team didn't want to have just a free play mode, but they also either didn't want to progress the story too much or didn't have the budget to work on so many new cutscenes. Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, with just how many FF stories there have been, had the freedom to make short "quests" with branching paths loosely inspired by the games. Because KH is one large story, that wouldn't have felt as true. The online mode is unfortunately dead, likely due to the launch price of $60 scaring off any solid base this game would have had, but you can still play competitive tracks against the computer, which introduces "Tricks" to the gameplay, such as removing button guides or penalizing you for getting anything but an Excellent rating on your input. The reward here are cards for the collectibles section, which is essentially an art gallery. This is pretty fun if you get tired of the normal Field Stages or are just trying to easily earn collectibles. The Track Selection is probably the best part of the game, where you can replay your favorite songs to beat your personal best on every difficulty, very accessible for pick-up-and-play. There's also exclusive songs for this mode, thanks to the item synthesis in world tour. There's a lot of charm in playing Disney song stages, and I love that the Piano Collections albums get some representation here. There's also a co-op mode, but I haven't tested it out since I'm the only person I know interested in this game. It didn't bother me too much, since most levels are pretty easy to pass, but I'm not sure if the winding music paths during the Field Stages and the occasional character blocking the inputs (especially when Beast's blocky self is a guest character) is meant to be part of the intended difficulty or if it is just bad design. It does make certain stretches a little tougher, but it just feels annoying. It's also not clear at all what the leveling system does, so it just feels like a numerical representation of your favorite of the four teams (which could have been named SO much better). There are a lot of things I wish this game did differently. I wish it had a better filter system in Track Selection instead of just a sort. I wish the World Tour mode spread out the story, or at least moved the introduction of the premise to the first level instead of saving it for the end. I do wish it were more inviting so the online mode wasn't completely dead barely over a year after its release. Most of all, I wish it felt as full or solid as Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call on 3DS. But on the whole, it's still pretty fun and something I'm pretty sure I'll get around to 100%-ing, and taken as a rhythm action collect-a-thon that's also a prelude to the new phase of the series, it's not bad at all.