Sora's level up menu in Chain of Memories.
Sora's level up menu in Re:Chain of Memories.
Statistics in Chain of Memories and Re:Chain of Memories refer to the player characters' personal attributes such as level, Hit Points (HP), Card Points (CP), Attack Power (AP), and Dark Points (DP). Chain of Memories is more simplistic than related games in the series as it lacks items or equipment to change the aforementioned statistics, and instead only lets the player decide which bonus they want upon leveling. Both Sora and Riku can level thanks to experience points (EXP), and both can gain HP on level ups, but only Sora can gain CP (and Sleights), and only Riku can gain AP and DP.
Experience Points[]
EXP in Chain of Memories has to be physically picked up, and is represented by blue diamonds, red rubies, and white pearls. The diamonds are worth 1, 10, or 60 EXP depending on their size, whereas the rubies are worth 5, 30, or 99 EXP. Pearls are always worth 1,400 EXP, but are only dropped by bosses. As EXP does not last forever it is imperative to pick it up when possible, although it is automatically gathered in Re:Chain of Memories upon completing the fight. The Sniperwild card's Draw ability helps if needed.
Bonuses per level[]
The maximum level for both characters is 99. Both also start with 80 HP, and can increase that by 15 per level, up to a maximum of 560, which is 32 levels worth of HP. Sora starts with a CP limit of 275 in both versions of the game, which can increase by 25 per level, with a maximum of 1,900 in the GBA version, and 1,625 in the remake. The remake thus allows you to max all stats, whereas the original lets you forego sleights in favor of more CP.
Attack Power[]
Attack Power (AP) is used to represent a character's base strength, which is then modified by the card that is played, any other active effects, and the enemies' passive resistances. Sora always has a base damage stat of 10, which can be grossly affected by his various cards and sleights. Riku, however, has only one attack card and almost no sleights to speak of, but he can actually increase it by 1 per level, for every three levels (much like how Sora can select sleights). Thus he can select AP boosts at 2, 5, 8, and so on up to 59, for a maximum of 30 AP, and a total of 20 boosts. Not choosing AP does not delay the chain, only postpone the currently available boost.
Acquiring all Attack Power boosts grants you the bronze trophy and achievement Hard Hitter in the 1.5 ReMIX version.
Dark Points[]
Riku's Dark Points are used to represent the duration of his Dark Mode form. DP starts at 8, and can be increases by 2 per level, with no maximum limit in the original, but with a cap of 99 in the remake. In the original Riku could also boost his DP before actually acquiring it, whereas the remake only allows it after you do so, except if you manage to reach a high enough level to exhaust the other two options.
Movement[]
Sora and Riku also have several minor jump, move speed, and dodge duration differences in Re:Chain of Memories (those of the original are not known). Note that the following stats are based on Sora's height of 1.5m. Sora's base jump height is 2m, while High Jump can increase this to 2.7m. Wight Knight's Float doubles the height to 4m and 5.3m respectively. Riku's base jump height is 3m, but only 2.7m in Dark Mode, and Float changes it to 5.9m and 5.2m, respectively.
Sora's base run speed of meters per second is 6.2m/s, while it is actually 10.5m/s if under the effect of Larxene's Dash (an increase of 70%). Riku's base speed is 6.5m/s, with a slight decrease to 6.0m/s while in Dark Mode.
Lastly Sora's duration of invincibility while dodging is only 0.2 seconds, whereas Riku's is 0.7 seconds.
Reaching level 99[]
The actual actual amount of EXP required to reach level 99 on both characters is 1,313,405 Experience Points.[a] A normal playthrough, without skipping too much content, will likely lead to a level of over 50, although this can vary a lot depending on how often the player decides to engage in combat, as the nature of map cards and rooms allow for both very much and almost no fights. In Riku's case the likely level you will end up with is even less; only around 40, because Riku has one less floor to go through, and less incentive to take his time fighting as he cannot build his own decks.
The only incentive to grind for a high level is to have an easier time in bossfights and for the newly added trophies and achievements in the 1.5 ReMIX version. Reaching level 99 as Sora and Riku grants you the silver trophies and achievements Level Master Sora and Level Master Riku, respectively.
Sora[]
As Sora you can go to either Destiny Islands or Castle Oblivion. The latter is somewhat problematic because Sora's most useful sleight for this purpose, Mega Flare, is unable to kill the Wizard and Red Nocturne enemies. Because of this it is recommended to go to Destiny Islands, while making use of the Teeming and Looming Darkness map cards. You can grind in Castle Oblivion by using the Tornado sleight, but it is slower and requires actual control, although the EXP gain might offset both issues.
Riku[]
As Riku you are unable to rely on sleights and should not grind anywhere but Castle Oblivion. Riku has access to the Lexaeus card's Warp Break that has a chance to instantly kill enemies on a finisher, which works well when using Dark Mode's aerial spin attack, as it counts as one. Using the Teeming and Looming Darkness map cards is recommended with this strategy. An alternative option is to open a Strong Initiative room and only kill the first wave of Heartless, followed by escaping and engaging in combat again. This strategy lets you reuse the room's fights over and over and avoid wasting time killing the enemies with full health.
Notes[]
- ↑ The actual required EXP per level formula is lvl × lvl × 4 + the amount you needed for the previous level. Note that only levels 2 and 3 are exempt from this.