Hello hello, and welcome to the 5th installment of A Month of Keys: So Much Kingdom Hearts That You're Probably Sick of it.
Now, you're probably wondering "Why 2 reviews this time?" And it's simple. While 358/2 days was a very fleshed out game with a unique story and interesting gameplay, Coded/RE: Coded was basically Chain of Memories 2.0...minus the cards. It's really not worth giving its own full review because it brings very little new to the table as far as things go. Is it fun? Sure, it actually is at moments, but as I said...it's basically Chain of Memories 2.0 without the card mechanic involved and instead Cyberspace is the big mechanic.
So without further ado, let's get to it.
You might be a little surprised that I'm reviewing these games in release order, yet 358/2 Days was released a year earlier...and the original Coded was episodically released on phones in Japan starting in 2008 (though the DS release was in 2011). This is because not only are they on the same platform, but also because they're the only 2 games that never got a remaster/remake to consoles...instead only getting "Cinematic remakes" to where you can only watch the different scenes rather than getting to play them. On top of that, one was a big story game that was a parallel to Chain of Memories but basically had the same end result (basically, nobody remembers it), and the other was a much more blatant Chain of Memories rehash, though somehow more simple as well as switching out the card mechanics for a cyberspace appeal.
That's also why I'm reviewing them both together, as while 358/2 Days was a bit more complex and fleshed out, RE: Coded really isn't that complex or extraordinary enough in the series to warrant having a full review. So while this review will mainly be geared towards 358/2 Days, I'll also be reviewing Coded as well.
Story358/2 Days: You play as Roxas, whom you may have first met in Kingdom Hearts 2 if you played that first (if not, here's your introduction!). Unlike every other KH barring the two prequels (aka Birth By Sleep and Union Cross), you're actually not controlling Sora at any point in this game, nor any of his allies as, as I mentioned earlier, this is a parallel story to Chain of Memories...so Sora and crew are currently busy with that. This game centers around your time in the Organization, and a mysterious new Keyblade wielder named Xion (pronounced Shee-yahn). As you progress, you learn there's more to Xion than meets the eye, and leads up to something that threatens to make you leave the Organization behind for good.
RE: Coded: Jiminy Cricket is looking through the journals of his journeys through events of the KH1 and 2. However, the book from the first game events is still empty with a single page: "Thank Namine" But as he courses through, a new line he doesn't remember writing is there saying "Their hurting will be mended when you return to end it" (originally was "We must return to free them from their torment" in Coded). With the help of Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Chip and Dale, they expand the Journal to see the worlds inside is riddled with bugs. So they enlist a familiar hero in data form to clear the bugs from the journal.
Okay, right here there's already a problem. In writing 358/2 Days' story summary, I had to simplify a lot because there really is a lot going on in this story. This is about Roxas getting to know the Organization and making his friends in both Axel and Xion as the game really focuses on developing them on characters. It's a game completely about friendship, hurt, betrayal, and in ways is a game about finding your place and learning who your friends are. Despite many of the worlds being revisits from KH2, the game is more focused on you figuring out your place in the Organization as well as figuring out what their plans are...and not necessarily in a "spy on the inside" type of sense as much as just trying to figure out whether you're really doing right by being with them kind of sense.
RE: Coded on the other hand is basically as simple as it's described. Sure, there's little side stories in the worlds and yes, there are some interesting story elements beyond those...but in the end it doesn't amount to a whole lot because the main focus of the game is clearing bugs and "unlocking" the journal. If anything, it was a pretty half-assed story to explain the letter in the bottle at the end of KH2. The only really good thing story-wise in this game was the secret ending that sets up the next game (but instead of it being KH3 as people were hoping with the revelation it gives, it was instead referring to Dream Drop Distance).
Overall, one was a really well done story, the other was half assed. But how about the gameplay?
Gameplay358/2 Days Much like previous games (barring CoM), the gameplay is very much the same in this category...though there are differences. If you remember me talking about Deck Commands in Birth By Sleep, that was basically a much more simplified version of the Panel system of this game. You're given a grid system, and everything from magic, to skills, to armor, accessories, weapons, items, and even level ups are turned into different panels of various sizes.
At the start you'll have a limited set of panels, but can obtain Slot Releasers through gameplay/story progression/buying in the stores to open up new places for panels. But this is an interesting mechanic since it not only limits your magic/skills that you can use, but goes so far as to limit your
level and weapon/accessory use. Even items can make you rethink your grid, and once you use an item panel it disappears. It's just a really interesting, but admittedly kind of annoying system that I'm glad they did away with in Birth By Sleep.
On top of that, if you've ever played an early Final Fantasy title, you'll know about the next addition: Limit Breaks. Much like say, Final Fantasy 8...your character can perform a limit break when they're low on health by holding down A. This will let them do a special attack for extra damage. On top of that, there's a "Final" Limit which increases the attacking power a bit more.
Your companions are whatever Organization Member you're sent with at the time, though by completing certain conditions you can unlock more including Sora by completing everything in the game and purchasing the right item in the shop once you've done that.
Outside of that, gameplay still focuses on the exploration aspect, though less of a degree than previous games. Unlike every game minus CoM, there is no gummi ship/world travelling. Instead, you're given a new "Mission" each day at your base. At first, you'll be exploring more parts of the same world for a bit and doing more dangerous stuff with each mission. Once you've beaten a boss monster-type heartless of that world, the days will skip ahead a bit and you'll be sent off to complete missions in a new world.
Battles still play out the same, though they can be a bit tougher since you're relying on a mix and match type of system with the Panel System, and might have to play with some choices a bit.
This was also the first game to properly introduce Neverland, letting you see more than just Captain Hook's ship. On top of that, even many of the revisited worlds from previous games are expanded on a bit, giving you new areas to access as well as throwing out the familiar ones.
RE: Coded: Coded's battle system is similar to Birth By Sleep's with some caveats. Once again the Command Deck makes an appearance, but there are some changes to it. First off, commands can be grouped together to alter them a bit before they're permanently merged, such as changing a command into its Fire-type version by combining it with a Fire command. So you can level up skills to their highest level but still get a perk by combining them beforehand. Secondly, there are no crystals that you merge with them for a secondary effect. Finally, like BBS your command slot amount is limited at first, but can be increased over time. However, the way of getting it is very different since this game introduces something known as the Stat Matrix.
So this game has three types of Matrixes: the Command Matrix (mentioned above, it's for equipping, combining, and melding together commands), the Stat Matrix, and the Gear Matrix. The Gear Matrix is where you'll switch out your keyblade and accessories. Leveling up your keyblade will unlock new abilities/skills for it as well as of course just overall make it better in battle.
However, the Stat Command is where you'll be spending a lot of time, mainly because this is how Coded decided to handle leveling (though arguably I like it a little more than 358/2 Days' way).
Rather than leveling up, you'll instead buy or obtain different chips that pertain to a panel. Some will up your strength or magic, some will give you an extra accessory slot, and once again some will even go towards leveling you up. However, this time the changes are permanent rather than temporary since you're installing the chip into a block on the matrix. What's even more interesting though is some of the larger sections (or Cheat Tuners) you'll run into, such as a gauge to change the difficulty at any time, one that affects enemy drop rate or how often prizes appear, and even one that alters enemy's maximum HP. However, each of these tuners has a consequence for using it. Altering an enemy's drop rate for example will push down Sora's HP, and likewise raising the prize rate will make enemies even stronger.
But let's talk about what actually makes this game a bit enjoyable: The worlds themselves. Yes, it's absolutely unfortunate that this is another game where you're revisiting worlds...but like 358/2 Days, many of them are expanded on. It was really nice being able to explore a bigger Wonderland even if the areas were still mainly the Forest and Queen's Castle. But honestly, I liked that Queen's Castle was expanded to the actual hedge maze rather than it being painted on a wall.
But there are two things that make them even more enjoyable: The Data sections, and the "Inner" sections. The Data sections themselves are basically areas that you find via a sort of hot/cold sensor that you have. You'll walk around the world itself when you hear the beeper go off, and then press a button on the DS to open a pathway once you reach the spot. You'll then teleport to a Data section with some admittedly nice music going for it, and fight some enemies. Each section has its own number of floors you have to go through before you clear it completely, and the enemies absolutely range in difficulty from easy to difficult.
The reason you have to go through these sections is because during points of your world traveling, things may get glitchy. Card soldiers patrolling the hedge maze may suddenly start going outrageously fast making your stealth maneuvering much more difficult. So when these glitches happen, you have to fix them...and going into the source of the glitch (aka the Data sections) and clearing them out fixes the problem.
the "Inner" sections are basically bigger types of Data Sections that have you going through a manipulated version of the world you're currently in. For example, the normally easy walk through a short Olympus Colosseum turns into a long arduous road of random turn based RPG battles, or the side-scroller bit with Traverse Town. Basically it alters the gameplay for a bit for the duration of this.
The unfortunate thing is that there's less worlds explored in this game as opposed to 358/2 Days. Whereas that game had 11 worlds that you go through, this game only had 7.
Overall, I liked the GP aspect of Re:Coded for the most part, even though I was disappointed that there was less to explore, so in ways it felt a little shorter.
GraphicsSo graphically, they aren't amazing games...though they're slightly better than the original Chain of Memories (but that being on GBA doesn't say much). They both use some footage from previous games in their cutscenes for their intros...which is really nothing special. 358/2 Days uses KH2 footage, though stops at each Organization member and gives a moniker while saying who they are and what number they are (which was actually pretty nice. RE:Coded uses KH1 footage, and a whole bunch of numbers and letters scatter about and do different things at the same time while the footage plays (which was "meh").
In game, once again it's nothing special...but I have to give 358/2 days props because in ways it was a bigger game, so graphically it actually wasn't bad.
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Coded actually wasn't bad either for the DS. Despite it not being as big of a game in ways, it still looked pretty good for what it was. I'm sorry though, but I hate the whole characters-sliding-a-side-of-the-screen-to-talk thing. You know, when it cuts to a picture of the place you're at and a character just slides in with text, and then responding characters slide in from another side with text. For some reason, coming back from games like CoM and hell..358/2 days that kept more of a focus on text boxes without resorting to that...it just felt like a creatively lazy choice.
On the flipside, I do appreciate that RE:Coded had more originally made CG cutscenes, whereas 358/2 Days had a couple...but most were footage from KH2/KH2: Final Mix.
Overall, they both looked pretty okay despite being on a handheld device. 358/2 Days looked better in some ways, and Coded looked better in others...though overall I think 358/2 days was better graphically. It's a shame these got thrown to Cinematic Only re-releases on the consoles, because these would have been a blast to play through with a proper console KH coat of paint.
MusicSo first off, let's get the main title music out for both games:
Dearly Beloved (358/2 Days)
Dearly Beloved (RE: Coded)
First off, I'll give some props to both for changing how it opens, though for some reason I particularly liked Coded's method a bit more. However, the main reason I liked Birth By Sleep's version is a reason I also kinda liked 358/2's version: In a way, it gives you an idea of the kind of game you're going to be in for. It's slower, a little more solemn, but has a nice sound to it at the same time throughout that somewhat solemn tone. It's much less on the depresso sounding scale than BBS was, but it's still a nice introduction for what's to come. Whereas the only great thing about Code's version
is that opening. The rest of the song sounds like generic Dearly Beloved, which I guess in a way is also a hint of what you're going to get...generic Kingdom Hearts with some haphazard changes here and there.
Outside of that, much of the music you'll know already from the games that they come from. However, 358/2 days does introduce a new song or two including a lovely character song (though the HD version is better), and a questionable world-choice song for Neverland (which was thankfully thrown out and redone in Birth By Sleep).
Xion's Theme
Neverland (358/2 Days)
Neverland (Birth By Sleep)
Overall...yeah 358/2 Days has the better edge on music, as even the returning songs were already better than the ones in Coded.
Sound/VoicesEverything was fine here for both games, and nothing really stuck out. Voice wise, there wasn't a lot except for occasional characters going "haha" during a text bit or making a sound...and voices used in the CG cutscenes on occasion. I will say that Coded again did have more of these CG cutscenes, but aside from Maleficent, Pete, and Riku, everyone else was pretty "Eh..." Whereas with even the few new CG cutscenes in 358/2 days, I can't think of one scene where I hated how a character sounded.
ReplayabilitySo, this is a tricky area for both games.
358/2 Days has no secret endings unlike previous games, so really only a completionist would push to actually completely the game 100% since there's unlockable players for multiplayer mode...but that's really it. Aside from that, there's really no end game content.
RE: Coded, however, does have a secret ending for beating the game and getting 20 trophies, so there's more of a reason to want to actually beat the game. Or if you decide you don't want to play Coded, the secret ending is also accessible on the console version at the start just by watching through the whole thing (or you can just watch it at the start).
Oddly enough, the Cutscenes-Only version of Coded for consoles actually even has a
second secret ending. Simply just watch the entire Coded story, and poof...you'll get access to it. This is the one that teases a future game, but the game it teases is actually Dream Drop Distance.
Again, other than that though there's really nothing in Coded worth working toward, especially since the Cutscene-only console version gives you all of the secret cutscenes for free.
Overall358/2 Days: Great story, nice use of places, great character interactions. Subpar gameplay compared to previous games...and I really dislike that they keep changing everything up so much in the handheld games, but I suppose this is where they experiment to see what will work in the next big title. That being said, overall I thought this was a great game that even looked as good as it could have, and had some nice soundtrack additions to the already fine soundtrack from previous games. While a cutscene-only edition of this exists in Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix for consoles, I do actually recommend giving this one a try just once for the full experience since the end-game rewards aren't worth a second playthrough.
RE: Coded Subpar story with a somewhat weak plot that seemed like it existed only to be a weak bridge to later games. That being said, the revisted worlds were perfectly serviceable and sometimes entertaining with the random gameplay changeup, especially when it came to the Data/Glitch sections...including the "mini game" parts of each world. It felt like less of a chore and also a little less of a challenge (but offered ways to up that factor) compared to 358/2 Days...and I was actually okay with the fact that it had more original CG cutscenes than the previous DS title, but the weak story really dragged the game down a bit. That being said, the music was still fine since KH1's soundtrack was pretty good, and again...the gameplay was surprisingly fun. Again, while a cutscene-only edition exists in Kingdom Hearts 2.5 Remix for consoles, I recommend giving this odd title a try once...although if you just want the story without the gameplay, the cutscene-only version on consoles is ideal and even has not just the original but an added secret ending just for watching.
