Kingdom Hearts, Now More re:dundant and de:rivative

Mickey's not allowed to read...

I didn’t even think it was possible. How does a franchise that relies on Disney star power (and, to a lesser extent, Tetsuya Nomura-based FF star power) become so derivative that it is shamelessly copying copies of itself?

I found out this last week, when I decided to push my way through the DS game KINGDOM HEARTS RE:CODED. Having completed all games in this series (save for Birth by Sleep, which I’m assured is a far more original adventure than, say, Chain of Memories), I can safely say that Re:coded brings the series’ “plot arc” (if you can qualify such a thing) to a new low.

Here’s the setup: remember those journals Jiminy Cricket keeps during your time playing KH and KH2? The entirety of Re:coded takes place inside the first of those two journals. And when you’re playing as Sora, you’re actually playing as the data which describes Sora in his adventures through the first Kingdom Hearts.

Without the charm of the voice acting, there's little to love in the dialog.

The game opens with Jiminy noticing that there are some strange writings in the first journal, and that the original things he wrote are disappearing. Mickey, with the help of Chip and Dale, hook up the journal to some crazy magical/scientific device with a laser, so they can begin analyzing the data and look for the corrupted data. They are led forward by new phrases discovered: couplet rhymes about ending the hurt and pain for the people of that (journal) world. So, Mickey calls on the Sora of that journal to find the answers and defragment six specific worlds (Destiny Island, Traverse Town, Wonderland, Olympus, Agrabah, and Hollow Bastion).

The adventures through these realms are … different. You’re not re-living the actual adventures of the first game. You’re just going to the same places and working with the same people. The whole plot is a strange inciting incident to lead to KINGDOM HEARTS: DREAM DROP DISTANCE (3DS). There’s also some indirect ties to the PSP entry, Birth by Sleep. But the whole adventure feels unnecessary.

For as unnecessary as it is, the game is surprisingly fun to play. As we found in 358/2 Days (also DS), the keyblade-swinging, magic-casting heroes in Kingdom Hearts manage to function quite well on handhelds: almost as well as their PS2 forefathers. Re:coded adds a variety of new gameplay elements, including some side-scrolling and first-person-scrolling sequences that lead to boss fights. The entirety of Olympus, also, plays out like a simple traditional RPG (think Super Mario RPG, including the timed hits for criticals). The growth system is absolutely fantastic, as well. I loved the “play tetris” stat boards of 358/2 Days, but Re:coded takes the cake with an FFX-sphere-grid-esque board to fill in with chips. Once a chip is placed, you can’t remove it, but you can switch it with others. Chips are powered by CPUs, and when you connect two CPUs with a line of chips, everything between them goes overclocked (essentially, doubled). That includes your “Level Up” chips, as well as various stat-up pieces. There are also “blank chips” you can use to extend further along this new stat board, but they’re best to use in areas that never get the overclocking bonus (this is clearly defined by the color of the templated slot: gray can be doubled, brown cannot). Finally, there are spots you have to unlock with debug chips. Again, think of the spheres from Final Fantasy X and the various, hierarchical “level” locks in that grid. A leveling system of this type is strangely addicting, always pushing the player to go the extra step, find more chips, and see how much more powerful they can become.

Re:coded is, actually, a port of a game that was exclusive to Japanese mobile phones once upon a time. Hence the “Re.” It used to be Kingdom Hearts Coded. Now it’s Re:coded (like Re:chain of memories on PS2). But that didn’t come with any graphic enhancements for the dialog sequences. Developer h.a.n.d. took still images of the PS2-rendered versions of characters, doing various expressions, and then uses these images (with no transition or animation) during dialog. It looks … awkward. I’m not a fan.

To sum up: surprisingly fun and relatively short game, but with precious little added to the ever-stupidly-complex timeline of this franchise, and a mixed bag on the visuals (in-game combat is good, non-FMV dialog is awful). I wouldn’t recommend paying more than $20 for this game; even dire Square Enix nuts, like myself, may want to just consider renting. As soon as I beat it, I traded it in for newer and better games (hi2u PORTAL 2).

Played: 15 hours
Platform(s): Nintendo DS
Price: $34.99