Developer: Square
Publisher: Square, Square Electronic Arts, SCE Europe
Designer: Yoshinori Kitase, Motomu Toriyama, Toshiro Tsuchida
Writers: Kazushige Nojima
Artists: Tetsuya Nomura, Yusuke Naora
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Rating: T(een)
Genre: Console roleplaying game, Adventure, Fantasy
Mode: Single Player
Platforms: PlayStation 2
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SCORE:
Graphics: A
Story: A
Gameplay: B-
Sound: A-
Fun: B
OVERALL: A

Final Fantasy X was chosen as one of the best games ever made for the PS2 and in my opinion it absolutely lives up to its top rank.
Both cinematic CGI and the game play animations are surpassing almost everything I've seen on this console and appear to be nearly hyperrealisic in some parts. The different choices of colors of the ambient light makes the whole atmosphere soothingly warm or desperately cold, depending on the accurate situation, which is very important for the various experiences a person goes through while playing.
Character design is always a high priority in all of Square Enix' projects and you can feel their
personalities developing during the whole game. The characters' physiognomy reflects a lot of that personality and they appear very lively/realistic, almost as if they'd pop out of your screen any minute.
The story is another very important, if not the most essential element of Final Fantasy X. You start off with very little knowledge about your surroundings and occurring events and learn about all these details as the game proceeds. With each fulfilled task the story unfolds some more, which means that you can't get bored that easily.
The background music fits in nicely without getting too aggressive and yet emphasizes the mood befittingly. Even the voice actors were chosen carefully suit every character, but sadly the sync itself wasn't done very well, because they often move their mouths without saying anything at all.
One of the very few thing I didn't like that much, was the camera/point of view. It changes ever so often and you have no (or very little) control over it which can get confusing and unnerving at times (especially when you want to look around. The only thing that offers help is a little map in the upper left corner of the screen in which you can see yourself as a little yellow arrow that is pointing in the directen you're walking in.
Another part that made battles rather undynamic was the RPG combat system (Conditional Turn-Based Battle > CTB) in which you have to choose one attack per character at a time and that clearly slows down the whole process... I simply prefer the bashing style a lot more.
And level(ability and other) upgrades are unnecessarily complicated and confusing (with sphere grids you gain after defeating enemies)
All in all I had (& still have) a lot of fun with FFX. All fans of Kingdom Hearts, other FF parts or RPG's should definitely give it a try! After playing it through you'll get this wonderful feeling like you've really accomplished something.
A game worth its price,

So on with the Review:

I had doubts at first, because I couldn't imagine how they'd be able to transfer the supreme game play and atmosphere from the first 2 games for the PS to a simple game boy advance. And even though it is not up to par with the quality of the real thing, I can't say that Chain of Memories is a complete failure, quite the opposite to be honest.
For the given capabilities of the small game boy console it provided some of the best graphics I've seen so far. And I really liked the various emoticons of all featured characters while they were talking, that made the conversations a bit more enjoyable. But sadly it took way to long for a screen change (while walking through various worlds you have to collect cards by defeating heartless and other enemies in order to open doors which you have to pass to move along)
Which leads us to the troublesome card system that is resident during the whole game... you have to battle with cards, open worlds with cards, heal with cards, it's all about cards. Makes you almost believe that you're in Yu-gi-Oh! Especially the battles were tiring because in addition to all those cards your perspektive changes  from aerial (/from above where you can move in all directions) to a lame worms eye (/2D) during the whole fight and as you have many enemies these things take up a lot of time.
The story itself isn't half that bad. You have to collect all character cards (of people who you forgot about) in order to get your memories back. Axel takes the role of your guide for a relatively considerable time.
All in all I think you shouldn't have very high expectations towards CoM, if you want to play through it you gotta have loats of time and nerves of steel because it can get repetetive sometimes and the small display won't make it any easier. But Kingdom Hearts fans should be able to enjoy it big time!