Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded – Review – DS

The newest of the Kingdom Hearts games to be released is an interesting title in the saga that is Kingdom Hearts. Coded was released on mobile phones a few years ago. It was updated and “re:coded” for the Nintendo DS in January. The story follows Jiminy Cricket who is looking through the two journals from Sora’s adventures; he notices a strange message that he doesn’t remember writing. He takes the journal to Mickey who then codes it to find from where the message came. A digitalized Sora is created to take the helm of the story and is the character that you control. As the story unfolds, more messages appear in the journal and other mistakes, called bugs, appear.

Gameplay: The gameplay for “Re:Coded” is fairly similar to Sora’s other adventures; it plays like a 3-D action RPG. For all intents and purposes it does get the job done. Something interesting they decided to do for this title was introduce more gameplay styles. For anyone who hasn’t played a Kingdom Hearts game, you travel to different worlds on your quest. The same happens in “Re:Coded” as you try to eliminate bugs in the journal. However, this time some of the world you visit will introduce a new dimension of gaming. For example, at one point in the game, it becomes a 2D plat-former, at others it’s a shooter, or a turn based RPG. These little switch-ups in the game keep you on your toes and mix it up for a bit of fun. For the most part “Re:Coded” plays almost like a mirror of KH1.

The only problem is that, at the heart of each world, you are still playing a 3-D action RPG. If they wanted to add these new elements, each world should have just been that; you don’t get much of a taste for the new gameplay type before it is usually over, except for the turn-based RPG which does occur during the one chapter. Towards the end of the game, the action starts to become really stale. You feel as though you’ve just been doing the same thing forever – which really isn’t true. Story wise “Re:Coded” is probably the shortest of the Kingdom Hearts games. It took me just over 15 hours without doing any extra. Even 15 hours feels a tad too long, which, for me, never seems to happen in a Kingdom Hearts game. The action just becomes way too repetitive and the controls are something that you just seem to wrestle with during the entire game – which brings me to my biggest problem with the game … the camera.

Most games try their best to have good camera controls when they are a platformer. “Re:Coded” took a step backwards from KH 358/2 days. In 358/2 on DS, you have the option to control the camera with the L and R buttons which rotates the camera during the action allowing for a smooth transition. In “Re:Coded”, R controls the camera and the D-pad swings the camera around which works fine if you’re standing still, but, when you’re moving, it is so tedious that it almost breaks the game in some places. When you are in a hurry and have to do some platforming and the camera is not centered properly where you want it to be, it just gets annoying. I understand that L was now a new menu and couldn’t be used for camera controls but some sort of option for smoother controls would have been nice. I can’t tell you how many times I died because I was fighting with the camera.

Overall I would give gameplay a 6/10.

Audio: All kingdom hearts games in some way or fashion always seem to hit a home run with their audio and “Re:Coded” is no exception. Every world has great music and the audio effects are top notch. During special cut-scenes you get voice-overs that are very clear and understandable. They help move the story along. The actors do a great job of giving life to characters’ voices. The musical scores are a mixture of songs from the first Kingdom Hearts and some original songs as well. It all mixes together very well.

Overall I would give audio an 8/10.

Graphics: The graphics for “Re:Coded” are great – especially for a DS title. They run very smooth and there is never a point where the game slows down. They also executed the illusion of movement well by cross-fading the drawn characters during normal cut-scenes. The characters are drawn really well and every world is well detailed. It is also a very colourful game. When you go into the data stream, it feels a bit like Tron, which I guess is probably what they were trying to do. A lot of special effects happen as well during gameplay which look really great.

The best thing about the graphics, for me at least, is the true dialogue cut-scenes. They look amazing. They are almost on the same quality as the cut-scenes that take place on the PS2 games. One weird thing I did find is that, when you are running around, sometimes blocks appear out of nowhere. It’s weird to see pop-ins on a DS game, but, seeing how smooth the graphics are, it’s not too surprising.

Overall I would give graphics 8/10.

Overall: “Re:Coded” overall is a pretty decent game. It is really frustrating at times and really fun other times. It helps to fill in some of the gaps in the story line. Personally I believe it is a welcomed game in the KH saga. It is just too bad about some of the choices that were made. It could have been an amazing game, but the constant fighting with the camera controls and a few other choices with enemies brings the whole of the game down.

Pros:
-Great graphics
-Great music
-Nice presentation
-Interesting gameplay

Cons:
-Terrible camera controls
-Strange difficulty curve
-Repetitive
-Confusing story

Overall Score: 7/10

A Nintendo DS copy of this game was provided from the publisher for reviewing purposes.

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