If you've kept up with the Kingdom Hearts franchise, chances are you've got some stock in seeing the story through. As such, Square Enix's constant strategy of spreading the series across multiple platforms makes staying current a real investment, one that hopefully has a pay-off.
Unfortunately, Kingdom Hearts: Re:coded doesn't have one. The second installment to land on the DS, Re:coded is a complete rehash of the first game in the series with different cutscenes. In theory it was supposed to be a game that laid the ground work for future entries, offering insight as to where the story was going. In reality, it's a superfluous creation whose only purpose is to serve as filler between installments. The game isn't bad, mind you; there's just no need for it.
Re:coded takes place immediately after the events of Kingdom Hearts 2. It seems that the journal Jiminy Cricket used to catalog Sora and the gang's adventures has had a mysterious, cryptic note suddenly appear within it. He, along with Mickey, Donald, and Goofy, decide to investigate by digitizing the contents of the journal in the hopes they can more quickly discern the meaning of the note. The only problem is, none of them can interact with the virtualized worlds they've created. Also, the place is riddled with bugs and glitches, which manifest themselves as large black blocks, preventing them from accessing any of the information stored within. So, they call upon the Sora that exists within the journal to help.
The events of Re:coded's story never really pick up. The initial message is ample cause for intrigue, but the game never really makes good on revealing the meaning of it. Everything that happens up to that point is basically meaningless, as the slight re-tellings of previous events don't work toward anything. They simply exist to pad the paper-thin story. And the ending doesn't so much answer things as it does further complicate them. The reveal is hyped up constantly, but when it comes time to unleash it, the whole thing just falls flat, amounting to nothing more than another vague statement that's only marginally different than the original one.
I know I'm being no less convoluted here, but I'm trying not to explicitly spoil anything for those of you who have some actual interest in playing this. Suffice it to say, however, that a game as focused on story as Kingdom Hearts suffers greatly when that all-important component fails to deliver.
At least the gameplay is decent. It's standard series-fare, seeing you embark through various Disney worlds bashing Heartless while solving the problems of the locals. All very familiar if you've played Kingdom Hearts games past, but a workable formula nevertheless.
Combat is fast and flashy, though a bit shallow. A small command window rests in the bottom-right corner of the top screen. There, you have an attack option, and three other slots (to start with) where skills, spells (e.g. fire, blizzard, thunder, cure, etc.), or items can be placed. These skills can be used as much you want, but they need to recharge for a number of seconds after each use, thus encouraging judicious employment of their services. Useful though they may be (lot of them are great for crowd-control), your standard attack combo is enough to get you by. Strategy only shows itself through item and healing management, since you can only carry up to three recovery potions per slot into battle. And spells, well... yeah.
Through these slots, you can combine two skills together to create newer and more powerful ones. For instance: joining a simple dash move with a thunder spell adds that element onto the base skill. You're limited in the kinds of mixtures you can conjure, however, because there exist very few unique techniques. There's only a handful you receive throughout, infusing elemental magic being about the only change you can make, meaning you won't find much use for this particular feature as you progress. A greater skill repository would have given the feature more worth.
Heartless pounce in usually small numbers, all easily dispatched with some quick button mashing. The difficulty comes from the fact that enemies re-spawn a few times before finally being vanquished. It's not too high a challenge, mind you -- well, not so long as you keep your level high and haven't made adjustments to the difficulty level (more on that in a sec) -- but enough to keep you relatively on your toes. Your foes rely on the ol' bum-rush tactic, albeit rather lazily since they always give you at least a few good seconds worth of opportunity to pummel them with your keyblade.
The game's easy is the point I'm making, which is fine: Kingdom Hearts never has been one to challenge. That certainly doesn't stop Square Enix from trying to satisfy, though. Re:coded, you see, allows you to adjust your level to increase the difficulty level in exchange for rarer items. It works like this: you head into the stat matrix -- essentially a circuit board for applying stat boosts and level-ups via chip installation -- and head off to one of the many large contraptions placed about the matrix to make your adjustments.
There are a few different machines: one that dictates the difficulty level, one that dictates your level, one that controls the drop rate of more valuable items, among others. The constant between them is that they all tie in to your level. The lower it is, the higher the effects of the machinery's effects are. By making those alterations, you can more easily obtain better spells and skills from fallen foes. They can also be bought from shops or obtained by completing minor fetch quests.
The matrix also appears on the weapon side. Each keyblade you earn over time has it's own set of enhancements that activate as you raise the weapon's level through blugeoning foes. Getting it to level one, for example, could result in increased attack or defense power, or occasionally add elemental damage to regular attacks, among others. What passive abilities they enact are decided by the weapon's own matrix displayed on the bottom screen. You can select which skills become active by tapping on one of the three options available on each tier. A filled level gauge culminates in a powerful finishing move, such as Sora calling upon a batch of meteors to dispatch foes with.
Re:coded tries to keep things fresh throughout by working in other gameplay types, such as side-scrolling and rail-shooter-esque sections. There's even a whole level which plays as a traditional turn-based role-playing game. These brief departures offer up a splendid change of pace, invigorating the otherwise monotonous block smashing action. Variety is easily Re:coded's strongest asset, which makes it all the more disappointing that more isn't done with it.
At most, you encounter the different gameplay types twice. Just enough to get attached to them, but not enough to get your fill. And even then, the shooter and side-scroller sections are the only ones repeated. The aforementioned turn-based RPG construct is the most creative the game ever becomes. That single high-point then makes you wonder what other eccentric ideas the game has in store for you, as the game constantly mixes things up till then. But the game is quick to dash those expectations, instead sending you through the same worlds you just visited a couple more times for horridly contrived reasons while you constantly rid them of glitches.
That Re:coded is so fixated on revisiting old stomping grounds to the point of exhaustion is why it ultimately is a dull entry. This isn't the first time the series has recycled content, but it's certainly the most egregious. Where previous installments at least had strong story beats and semi-new locations to fall back on, Re:coded only has its brief spites of variety. Not nearly enough to carry a weak rehash like this. The Kingdom Hearts faithful will undoubtedly find something to like here, and for them, Re:coded may be worth a look. For everyone else, unless your absolutely starved for more Disney/Square Enix crossover action, you're better off just reading about whatever story beats might interest you online and skip the game entirely.