Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (the Novel) is an adaptation of the video game of the same name, written by Tomoco Kanemaki with illustrations by Shiro Amano. In Chain of Memories, Sora and the gang must make their way through Castle Oblivion, a mysterious castle under the control of Organization XIII, in order to find those he’s looking for and recover the memories he’s lost.

Like the previous Kingdom Hearts novel, Chain of Memories condenses much of the game into a format that works better as a novel. The video game itself was always a bit weak; its story was good, but much of it felt like a rehash of the first Kingdom Hearts game. This adaptation suffers a bit from that, especially in the first part of Sora’s story. But once the second part of Sora’s story starts, and all throughout Riku’s story, Chain of Memories starts to find its own story and ends up being more of an engaging story than the first game’s adaptation was. Especially in the department of character development. Continue reading →