Kingdom Hearts Re:coded dated Down Under

With seven games across six different platforms, a manga spin-off, and over 12 million copies sold worldwide, the Kingdom Hearts series is one of the most successful in the action adventure role-playing game genre. The series is a collaborative effort between Square Enix and Disney, which has garnered critical and commercial success for its crossover of Square Enix's popular Final Fantasy series with beloved Disney characters and settings.

Kingdom Hearts Re:coded is one of the four upcoming titles in the series; a remake of an episodic mobile series exclusively for the Nintendo DS. Re:coded was first revealed by series director Tetsuya Nomura in July this year. Set after the conclusion of Kingdom Hearts II, Re:coded sees a digitized version of Sora revisiting events and characters from the previous games to solve a mystery discovered by Jiminy Cricket.

Originally slated for release this month in Japan and January 2011 in North America and Europe, Square Enix and its Aussie distributor Ubisoft have announced that the game will make its way to Australia and New Zealand on January 14, 2011.

Re:coded utilizes the same deck command system from previous titles, allowing players to execute over 100 different commands and attacks with just one button; the game will have side-scrolling boss battles, 3D shooting and command battles from the Final Fantasy series. Square Enix has also added a new growth system for Sora's abilities and powers called the stat matrix, in which players must collect different "chips" throughout the game to place into a colored circuit board and upgrade Sora's repertoire. Finally, Re:coded will allow for customized avatars that players can share and swap with each other via the DS's Tag mode, which will also allow the creation and sharing of player-created dungeons.

For more on Kingdom Hearts Re:coded, check out GameSpot's Tokyo Game Show hands-on preview.