I don't want this thread to be focused entirely on Chain of Memories, but it was my first introduction to the Kingdom Hearts series, so I thought I'd write about it.
I first encountered Kingdom Hearts when I saw a PSP disk of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep at my local store. The cover art instantly grabbed my attention because I was surprised to see Mickey Mouse leading a bunch of JRPG-esque characters, but it was a somewhat pleasant surprise, mainly because I noticed how consistent the artstyle was, and the fact that Mickey had the same style of outfit and weaponry as the rest of the characters made him blend in quite nicely, and without looking out of place.
Nevertheless, it quickly went through my head and I haven't remembered about it for a long time.
My real expirience with the series began when I was around 14-15, if I remember correctly. I was browsing Coolrom for them Game Boy Advance ROMs to play on my smartphone and stumbled across Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories in the recommended ROMs section. I downloaded the game out of curiosity, just to see how good it could be.
I was not dissapointed. The game felt very fleshed-out in terms of pretty much everything, from graphics to presentation to gameplay. But the most amazing thing about it was the story. Call me crazy - but I enjoyed every last moment of it. To the point when I had to use cheat codes just so I could see the next cutscene and see how the story unveils. (I wasn't very good at RPGs at the time.) I didn't care that I wasn't familiar with the overall lore. I didn't care that I coudn't understand something. I didn't care that the original characters had weird hairstyles. I didn't care about the words "heart" and "darkness" All I cared about is to see more of it. And the mysteriousness of the original characters that I wasn't familiar with kept thing fresh and exciting for me.