Chain of Memories is easily my favorite entry in the franchise and the only entry to crack my Top 100. I love the story and the fact this is probably the last entry where Sora and Riku ever received any meaningful character development before Sora started being turned into the KH Messiah and Riku became a brooding angst machine who pops up every few games because he's stupidly popular. Course I'll say the same for Axel, who never quite regained his trickster edge like he had in this game, though 358/2 did him some justice, but we'll get to that later. Namine is also a pretty intriguing character who never really got the chance to shine beyond this game sadly. Speaking of, this is probably the best game to feature Orgy XII, as it really laid down the idea of a group of powerful individuals who had their own secret motives and desires before the whole thing turned into the Xemnas show with KHII. Of anything, I think the biggest issue I have with the plot of the game is that it raised my expectations for the rest of the series too high. KH just never delivered for me what I felt the Deep Dive trailer and CoM promised.

The gameplay is also one of my favorites as I really enjoyed building decks in Sora's game while working around Riku's decks in his portion of the game. The real treat here for me is that the game is just better balanced. Magic and Summon finally have weight after feeling like an afterthought in KH1 and 2. Boss battles are actually really challenging and will push your prep skills far, the interface was better for techniques, and I really enjoyed the party summon mechanic and the different ways you can combine cards for special effects. The combat just has more variety and enough challenge to warrant it. The worlds could have been handled better, but considering the nature of the plot, it's understandable why we only got two new settings in the game and no new Disney worlds, though losing Tarzan's world was a bit odd.

The funny thing for me is that I've yet to play the 3D Remake, I just can't imagine it would improve anything from the GBA version which is why I've never made it a point to pick it up. I do own it now since I did get one of the Collections on PS3 as a gift, so maybe I'll strike it up the next time I feel like playing the game.