KINGDOM HEARTS -HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX-

KINGDOM HEARTS -HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX-

56 ratings
[re:CoM] The Only Deck You'll Need; Lazy Guide
By GlitchyReal
re:Chain of Memories can be *very* tedious. But the story is very good.

As an achievement hunter for these games, I've played re:CoM for the KH1.5+2.5 trophies/achievements on PS3, PS4, and EGS versions and now I'm on Steam. I don't like grinding this game out, but over the long years I've come up with personal tips and tricks for getting through Sora's campaign as easily as possible. (Riku's story isn't nearly as challenging.)

These tips were discovered by me playing on Proud.
4
   
Award
Favorite
Favorited
Unfavorite
The Basics
- Don't play re:CoM like KH1. It will get you killed. This is a card game more than an Action-RPG.
Mashing X/A will not give you good results and it's easy to develop bad habits that will get you killed repeatedly by Floor 11.

- Cards are like bullets. Don't waste them.
Each swing is ammo. Maximize your swings by walking around to the side of the starting lineup of Heartless and hit as many in a single hit as possible. The 3rd and final hit in a combo has horizontal reach and hits multiple Heartless easily.

- Each Keyblade card does a set amount of damage.
Combo finishers will still do the same damage as the first hit and is entirely dependent on the Keyblade strength of the card.
Sometimes tapping one card is just as effective as a combo.

- Premium cards are the enemy.
They're shiny gold and cost less CP! But that means you can only use it ONCE and never reload it (without Item cards.) T roulette mini-game will even rob you of the ability to reload a card by inflicting it with cursed gold. These are intended for Sleights, super attacks, but if used too frequently, will leave you with no cards to fight with. Avoid them at all costs unless you have a SPECIFIC use for them and know what you're doing.

- Having no cards means you die.
All Sleights burn the first card in the 3-card attack and can't be reloaded. If abused, you'll have no cards to fight back with. However, this can be taken advantage of against enemies. Human opponents like to spam Sleights. So, all you have to do is keep an eye on when they stock 3 cards, get a 0 card ready, bait out the Sleight, and Card Break them with the 0. If done enough, they'll be stuck using single cards and reloading for the rest of the battle.

- You're here for EXP. Don't forget to pick it up.
Optimal Lazy Deck
All 9s. I'm serious. Get as many 9 cards as you can or as close to it. But leave room for Potions, x2 Cures, and up to three 0 cards.

Each Moogle Room will give you a free card pack and most rooms will drop MP from interacting with the environment. You can also sell ANY cards that are not contributing to this style of deck to get more cards. Higher floors will net you better cards. The bottom right pack will be a better yield pack with thicker belts representing how good they are.

Start your deck by leaving room for your Attack cards, and put one to three Potion cards at the end of your deck, followed by two Cure cards. Item cards always burn out and cannot be reloaded so use them as the start of a Sleight. Use Potion cards as low as you can, a value of 1 being optimal. Stock the Potion, then scroll to your two Cure cards. These two cards should have a value of 9 when combined. Stock those two after the Potion to get a value of 10. This Sleight cannot be broken by anything but a 0 Card and most (if not, all) Heartless do not carry 0 Cards. Worst case, you get a free reload, but no heal as it gets broken by a 0 Card. Best case, you get a free reload and consistent and repeated heals without resistance.

Earlier in the game, you may want to put a Simba summon card after a Cure (Potion, Cure, Simba; total value = 10) to do good AoE damage to most of the enemies. However, this will have diminishing returns very quickly, but can be nice to get through Floors 1-5 if you need it.

0 Cards can break any card or Sleight in the game if played after the opponent's card and therefore are more expensive than other cards, so only use Kingdom Key 0 Cards if you can help it to make them as cheap on CP as possible. I like to have three 0 Cards at the very bottom of my deck so they are always accessible by scrolling left past the Reload icon.

This bread-and-butter deck will see you through the entire game. My stack I've gotten a Platinum with looks as follows:

At.9 | At.9 | At.9
At.9 | At.9 | At.9
At.9 | At.9 | At.9
At.9 | At.9 | At.9
At.9 | At.9 | At.9
Po.1| Po.1|Po.1
Cu.4|Cu.5|At.0
At.0 |At.0 |

At.9 = Attack Card; value = 9
Po.1 = Potion Card; Value = 1
Cu.4/Cu.5 = Cure Card; Value = (total 9)
At.0 = Attack Card; Value = 0

I generally do not use Enemy Cards as they are expensive and have very limited use. If you are struggling, Oogie Boogie's Regen effect may alleviate some damage taken if Cures aren't coming in fast enough.

You can also add a third Cure card with a value of 9 so you can pull out an emergency Curaga (x3 Cure Sleight.) Only do this when you can spare the CP.

Also, values are not damage, just play strength. Swap out Attack cards for stronger Attack cards as you progress. You do not need more than 15 value=9 Attack cards with this strat.

13th Floor Strat
- On the final floor, you will unlock the ability to nuke the entire screen. ABUSE IT.
A Goofy, Donald, and Attack card Sleighted together with a value of 10 or higher (which will be easy with a deck of all 9s) will destroy or nearly destroy every Heartless on screen and often the following wave as it's spawning in while being completely unbreakable. Great way to finish battles quickly and effortlessly.

The animation is often too slow to be useful against human bosses due to 0 Cards being a thing.
Braindead Strats
For normal Heartless hordes, try to get a hit to initiate combat either by Keyblade environmental hazards. This will start the battle with some HP damage applied to the first wave of Heartless and stun them for a moment (or all waves on Lasting Daze rooms.)

Before you do anything, reload until it nearly hits the top then stop.

Go around to the side and start comboing to utilize Sora's 3rd and final strike to hit horizontally on as many as possibly to optimize your Keyblade "ammo". (Side strikes also work well when the target Heartless is to Sora's side triggering a "swipe" attack but is more difficult to pull off than is worth it most times.)

Target stronger Heartless first. They all have to share the deck so if a Shadow is attacking the Defenders and Large Bodies have to sit there and wait for their attacks to finish. If you kill the small fry first, this empowers the big ones.

When out of cards, stock (Triangle/Y) these cards: Potion (1), Cure (4), Cure (5) for a Sleight value of 10. Reloads and heals with Cura. Go through the deck again, then finish your reload with a single tap of X/A.

Use the Potion/Cure Sleight again if you need, but most Heartless hordes on Proud should be finished by now. If not, reload your deck as normal. I have up to four Potion (1) cards to spam this strat and maximize how many 9 swings I get to do while the Heartless get to do NOTHING.

Boring, yes, but I'm here to finish the game for the 10th time, not have fun.

---

For most human opponents/bosses, the above strategy will work fine. Take advantage of the green Mickey "Gimmick Cards" if you get them on Disney bosses. (And make sure you get at least one or else you won't be able to finish your card collection for the achievement!)

The first real pain in the butt is probably Vexen, since he can block attacks regardless of value if attacked from the front with his shield up, but this strat will work on practically all human bosses.

Let them attack first, then break their card with a 9 card. That's it. Break ALL their cards. You will either win and get damage, or tie and nothing happens. They'll get mad and try to pull off a Sleight. Remember, Sleights make the first card unreloadable! Let's abuse that.

The Sleight comes out, so quickly scroll left for the 0 cards at the bottom of your deck and break it. Now your opponent has permanently burned a card for nothing and your deck is still mostly full.

Keep doing this over and over until they have to reload. You can harass them now that they're stuck without cards. Only hit once and back off. When you hear the reload sound again, hit them again. The 3rd hit in Sora's combo will send them flying with no real benefit. The tap-stop-tap approach will debilitate your opponent and be kinda funny too.

Or you can take advantage of their reload time to get your deck ready for a reload or stock your Potion/Cure Sleight or clear out Friend cards that make scrolling to 0 cards slower.

Keep doing this strat over and over and your opponent will spend more time reloading than actually fighting you and you can do whatever you want to them.

Do beware that they do not get off an Item card that reloads unreloadable cards or else you'll lose that progress, but considering you have all 9s or 0s, you should be able to break it as soon as it comes out at any time.

Congrats, you can now beat any boss without a single brain cell.
8 Comments
GlitchyReal  [author] 29 Apr @ 8:13pm 
@Kingdom Key 2015
Huh, interesting. I always wondered how the game would handle that situation, I just never gave it a try. Sounds much harder to play that way though, since you wouldn't be able to heal. Does it count Enemy cards? I'd imagine not, but I do wonder now.
Kingdom Key 2015 27 Apr @ 6:52am 
GameChamp3000 showcased a challenge run in Re:Chain of Memories that requires you play through the game with only a single card in your deck. While having only one card in your deck is normally a death sentence, it comes with a buff: If you sleight your one card and use it in a sleight, it not only returns to you when you reload, it also takes effect faster. It takes significantly more brain thinking (flashbacks to Monstro's Belly Brawl and the OP as hell Card Soldier miniboss), but it's possible. As for how this is possible, there's a secret rule in deck building that requires you have at least one Attack card in your deck. This secret rule trumps the rules of even Premium Cards, which are supposed to be made unreloadable without items.
Lumind312 27 Jan @ 3:05pm 
Thanks for the guide! I was put off by how clunky the gameplay felt, so this brain-off deck really helped.
GlitchyReal  [author] 9 Oct, 2024 @ 11:26am 
Awesome to hear @Nail.
Normal 8 Oct, 2024 @ 11:47pm 
This guide actually saved my ass and made CoM so much more bearable to play, thank you so much for the tips mate carried me through the whole thing!!!
GlitchyReal  [author] 26 Aug, 2024 @ 12:56am 
@Selfen
I always go with Sleights first since there's a pretty quick cap on how many you can get, then alternate HP and CP while prioritizing HP.

Even though I don't recommend Sleights in most general uses, there may be a time you want to use one on a very specific instance you're having trouble with and that'll minimize grinding. Sleights soft-cap based on level and hard-cap pretty early (iirc 40s if you take them as you get them) and will gray out if there are none available.

When no Sleights are available, get HP since it hard-caps for me between Floor 10-13 (level 50-60) when prioritizing it over CP.

CP is just to make room for your deck. Once it's set up, you won't need any more.
FullGrognasse 12 Aug, 2024 @ 2:23pm 
What stat growth do you recommend ?
GlitchyReal  [author] 26 Jul, 2024 @ 12:00am 
There are ways to abuse Sleights to clear rooms in this game but if they mess up you're still left with not enough cards to finish the battle which is why I don't consider them reliable.

Plus, it requires more work to tailor your deck to different battles. The above strat is one-size-fits-all for the lazy gamer.