Hands on with Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memories

Kingdom Hearts has had a special place in my heart for close to two decades now, and that's due in no small part to its music. Longtime series composer Yoko Shimomura, to me, stands at the absolute top of her field, with compositions ranging from whimsical romps through a fantasy land to powerful, emotional pieces that tug at the heart strings. Her music has masterfully set the tone of the series since day one, so it's no surprise that Square Enix went and made a game about it. If anything, it's a surprise it's taken so long.

Melody of Memories is somewhat of a spiritual successor to the short-lived Theatrhythm series. Where that series took a sidescrolling approach to mixing combat with rhythm action, Melody of Memories takes that concept and translates it to 3D. After having spent a little bit of time with the game's demo, I'm cautiously optimistic that it's been a good transition — but I'm going to need to see more.

When opening the demo, you're presented with an explainer screen and then a tutorial. It's a simple tutorial, it tells you everything you need to know and then waits for you to try it out before moving on. Make no mistake, however, Melody of Memories is quite a complicated game. There's a lot of moving pieces, a lot of different inputs and a lot of enemies to take note of (no pun intended). You'll be attacking with three different characters, jumping, dodging, and casting magic as you make your way through At first, it can be a little bit overwhelming, and I certainly wouldn't suggest the game's default mode for someone new to rhythm games.

Thankfully, there are more options. For those struggling with the default mode, you can switch to a fairly decent "one-button mode," which — as the name suggests — distils all of the necessary inputs to just one button, any button. It's basically an "easy mode," though you'll still need a decent sense of the song's rhythm to get through a song without depleting your HP. For veterans to rhythm games, there's a wealth of options for making the game more challenging; three difficulty settings for each song, plus a "performer" mode which throws in extra inputs throughout each song. At this highest difficulty level, in performer mode, things can get absolutely insane — just watch the video below.

It's worth noting that, in my time with the demo, I did struggle a bit with the delay introduced by a wireless controller. There are options to fine-tune the timing of the music with the required inputs, which can help, but it's a bit fiddly to dial in, so for the best experience you're probably better off playing with a wired controller — or on the Switch's handheld mode. I was stuck with the PS4 version, however, which doesn't have a handheld option, though I thankfully can confirm that it runs without issue on both a launch model PS4 and a PS4 Pro. I mean, of course it does, it's a cartoony game that I'd expect to run well on just about everything, but it's good to know that it's running smoothly, even in this demo.

The demo for Melody of Memories features four songs from the series — just a fraction of the 140+ songs that will appear in the final game. Two of them are from the first game in the series, one is from Birth By Sleep, and another is from — sigh — Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage. They're all decent songs, though I'd say the latter one (shown in the video above) is the only one with banger status. It also includes a co-op mode, which is a fun distraction but doesn't have a great deal of depth in the demo, and unfortunately you're locked into just the main three characters in the single-player modes: Sora, Donald, and Goofy. The main game looks to have a bunch more playable characters, but for now it's just those three.

Despite not having any included story, and being limited in its modes, the demo for Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memories is a nice little glimpse at what's to come when November rolls around. If you're on the fence, this is a good place to start — but be sure you're checking out each of the difficulty settings to find one that fits for you. Oh, and use a wired controller, you'll thank yourself later.