(no subject)
Sometimes I write about games. Usually this is in a reasonably straightforward fashion. This is not one of those times. This is a little bit more like this: http://suedeheadspike.livejournal.com/285103.html. Because if you didn't want a lol with your game review, you'd be looking at meta-critic.
I finished Kingdom Hearts re:Coded last Friday. It was pretty neat. But probably I should say more than that.
Replay.
I want to start by pointing out that the last Kingdom Hearts game to've been released in the US, was the stellar Birth By Sleep. It merits mentions by virtue of the fact that Birth by Sleep is really the series' highpoint with regard to gameplay, graphics, sound design and plot. Frankly, Birth by Sleep is one of the best games I've ever played. Why do I bring that up is this, a review of Kingdom Hearts re:coded? Because compared to Birth by Sleep, even the PS2 entires in this series can seem a step behind.
Contrasting re:Coded with 358/2 Days, the previous Kingdom Hearts game on the DS platform, makes a little bit more sense for a variety of reasons. Among them being that if you're a Kingdom Hearts fan and you own a DS, being disappointed by that game is the most likely reason you're not already playing re:Coded. Luckily, as a game, re:coded succeeds in almost every way that 358/2 failed. This fact is doubly impressive when you consider that it's a remake of a cellphone game that, as a direct consequence of the story, reuses assets, plot and dialogue from previous games in the series.
The gameplay is better than 358/2 Days!
Like the aforementioned 358/2 Days, re:Coded suffers from being an adaptation of a franchise that originated on a console with several more buttons on it's controller than the DS possesses. However, as the original Coded was a cellphone game, the sequences that would have suffered the most (boss battles, mostly) take a bit of a different tack. Rather than being played from the series-standard 'behind the player' 3rd person camera, re:coded is structered so that after you've completed the 'questploration' phase of any of the 6 in-game worlds, you enter a new phase based around varying gimmicks determined by which world you're in. The Olympus world, for example, sees you teaming up with Cloud Strife from FFVII and fighting turn based battles in the style of that game against the heartless there.
Nearly every world you visit has a gimmick of some kind, and most of them are quite effective. One of the later worlds in particular has a gimmick based around another Kingdom Hearts game (how meta!) that led to one of the most personally-fulfilling moments I've had with the Kingdom Hearts series' plot. I suppose I should also mentioned that there was one that I had a great deal of trouble with, a Space Harrier clone that was quite fun to start, but it got a bit too hard on the setting I was playing. This should have been remedied, but the game's enormous set of customization features threw me a bit under the bus by design. My the time I did manage to clear it, I came within inches of giving up on the game.
Options, options everywhere but not a toggle to switch.
So after a statement like that, I wouldn't fault you for thinking that re:coded must be a supremely hard game, but actually Kingdom Hearts re:coded is only as hard as you want it to be. Via a mechanic known as the circuit board, and born from the magnificent The World End With You, re:coded lets you configure such things as Sora's max HP, enemy HP, enemy strength and overall difficulty from within your characters status screens. There are various in-game bonuses afforded by playing the game with the hardest settings cranked up, in the form better loot and more munny; but in a really surprising choice, you can unlock everything in the game without ever cranking the toughness up. Even the secret ending can be unlocked on the easiest settings this time around. It's a wonderful marriage of convenience for those that want to play the game without being overwhelmed and challenge for those that crave it.
Unfortunately, you can't access these menus mid-battle or event... so if you start an event with the difficulty settings too high, you're pretty much forced to keep replaying that battle or event until you luck into victory, or restart from your last game save. It's not a dealbreaker exactly, but it's a really questionable design choice in a game that's obviously gone to great lengths to keep things accessible.
Better looking than a cellphone port should be.
(Image from IGN)
... Hikari/Simple & Clean. Again?
Everyone's Sora!
No, actually, the story might be the only way in which I found 358/2 to be better than re:Coded.
In 358/2, the payoff to the story was getting to know who Roxas was, and understand why the first four hours of Kingdom Hearts 2 is really, really sad, and why the music in Twilight Town is so meloncholy. It's brilliant, and understated in a really satisfying way. While 358/2 has a fair share of problems as a game, I really do view it as an integral part of the KH canon for the sake of its story.
In re:Coded, on the other hand, the payoff is that we get to know what was in the letter King Mickey sent to Sora at the end of Kingdom Hearts 2.* Theres also a lot of really cool dialgoue between Sora and his various allies from the different worlds, and then there's a really great scene with Sora and Roxas where Roxas explains to Sora what he gave up in reintegrating with Sora. ....except since these conversations all take place between Data-Sora and his Data-Friends, so there doesn't appear to be any real payoff to these interactions. Maybe in a future game Sora can go into Space Paranoids (Dear Squeenix, please do a Space Paranoids world for Tron : Legacy in KH 3. ty bbs) and download Data-Sora's experiences... but for now it's a bit like getting blue balled.
Reconnect.
So, it occurs to me that I could probably just make a chart to sum up this review. It would be called 'Aspects in which re:Coded is better than 358/2,' but then I'd have to do a companion chart called 'Aspect in which Birth by Sleep is the absolute best Kingdom Hearts game in the Series,' and that would be a downer. In truth, I really enjoyed re:Coded, despite its unfulfilling plot, and the momentary instances of what I found to be fucking terrible game design.
The variety of gameplay in each of the worlds eases the monotony of playing through Wonderland on Olympus for the 358/2nd time and the debugging mode, with it's wagering mechanic, is actually quite fun.
As I mentioned before, Birth by Sleep set the bar for the Kingdom Hearts series really quite high, and while re:Coded didn't quite live up to that standard, it was an interesting experience that improved apon just about every aspect of the last Kingdom Hearts game on this platform. Ultimately I'm glad to have played it, and the hidden ending (a franchise mainstay) has me already ready for the next Kingdom Hearts adventure.
--------------------------
* This is the complaint meme about Kingdom Hearts. Of course, since like 5 characters are Sora, or some aspect of him, or were at some point a part of his being/hidden away in his heart..... it's hard to argue.
* (spoiler- Ventus, Terra and Aqua are in danger, girl; and since them bitches done gave Sora the power to wield the Keyblade in the first place, per Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, it's about time for him to nut up and save them.)
* http://ds.ign.com/dor/objects/14354710/kingdom-hearts-recoded/images/kingdom-hearts-recoded-dated-in-japan-20100720092956108.html
I finished Kingdom Hearts re:Coded last Friday. It was pretty neat. But probably I should say more than that.
Replay.
I want to start by pointing out that the last Kingdom Hearts game to've been released in the US, was the stellar Birth By Sleep. It merits mentions by virtue of the fact that Birth by Sleep is really the series' highpoint with regard to gameplay, graphics, sound design and plot. Frankly, Birth by Sleep is one of the best games I've ever played. Why do I bring that up is this, a review of Kingdom Hearts re:coded? Because compared to Birth by Sleep, even the PS2 entires in this series can seem a step behind.
Contrasting re:Coded with 358/2 Days, the previous Kingdom Hearts game on the DS platform, makes a little bit more sense for a variety of reasons. Among them being that if you're a Kingdom Hearts fan and you own a DS, being disappointed by that game is the most likely reason you're not already playing re:Coded. Luckily, as a game, re:coded succeeds in almost every way that 358/2 failed. This fact is doubly impressive when you consider that it's a remake of a cellphone game that, as a direct consequence of the story, reuses assets, plot and dialogue from previous games in the series.
The gameplay is better than 358/2 Days!
Like the aforementioned 358/2 Days, re:Coded suffers from being an adaptation of a franchise that originated on a console with several more buttons on it's controller than the DS possesses. However, as the original Coded was a cellphone game, the sequences that would have suffered the most (boss battles, mostly) take a bit of a different tack. Rather than being played from the series-standard 'behind the player' 3rd person camera, re:coded is structered so that after you've completed the 'questploration' phase of any of the 6 in-game worlds, you enter a new phase based around varying gimmicks determined by which world you're in. The Olympus world, for example, sees you teaming up with Cloud Strife from FFVII and fighting turn based battles in the style of that game against the heartless there.
Nearly every world you visit has a gimmick of some kind, and most of them are quite effective. One of the later worlds in particular has a gimmick based around another Kingdom Hearts game (how meta!) that led to one of the most personally-fulfilling moments I've had with the Kingdom Hearts series' plot. I suppose I should also mentioned that there was one that I had a great deal of trouble with, a Space Harrier clone that was quite fun to start, but it got a bit too hard on the setting I was playing. This should have been remedied, but the game's enormous set of customization features threw me a bit under the bus by design. My the time I did manage to clear it, I came within inches of giving up on the game.
Options, options everywhere but not a toggle to switch.
So after a statement like that, I wouldn't fault you for thinking that re:coded must be a supremely hard game, but actually Kingdom Hearts re:coded is only as hard as you want it to be. Via a mechanic known as the circuit board, and born from the magnificent The World End With You, re:coded lets you configure such things as Sora's max HP, enemy HP, enemy strength and overall difficulty from within your characters status screens. There are various in-game bonuses afforded by playing the game with the hardest settings cranked up, in the form better loot and more munny; but in a really surprising choice, you can unlock everything in the game without ever cranking the toughness up. Even the secret ending can be unlocked on the easiest settings this time around. It's a wonderful marriage of convenience for those that want to play the game without being overwhelmed and challenge for those that crave it.
Unfortunately, you can't access these menus mid-battle or event... so if you start an event with the difficulty settings too high, you're pretty much forced to keep replaying that battle or event until you luck into victory, or restart from your last game save. It's not a dealbreaker exactly, but it's a really questionable design choice in a game that's obviously gone to great lengths to keep things accessible.
Better looking than a cellphone port should be.
(Image from IGN)
... Hikari/Simple & Clean. Again?
Everyone's Sora!
No, actually, the story might be the only way in which I found 358/2 to be better than re:Coded.
In 358/2, the payoff to the story was getting to know who Roxas was, and understand why the first four hours of Kingdom Hearts 2 is really, really sad, and why the music in Twilight Town is so meloncholy. It's brilliant, and understated in a really satisfying way. While 358/2 has a fair share of problems as a game, I really do view it as an integral part of the KH canon for the sake of its story.
In re:Coded, on the other hand, the payoff is that we get to know what was in the letter King Mickey sent to Sora at the end of Kingdom Hearts 2.* Theres also a lot of really cool dialgoue between Sora and his various allies from the different worlds, and then there's a really great scene with Sora and Roxas where Roxas explains to Sora what he gave up in reintegrating with Sora. ....except since these conversations all take place between Data-Sora and his Data-Friends, so there doesn't appear to be any real payoff to these interactions. Maybe in a future game Sora can go into Space Paranoids (Dear Squeenix, please do a Space Paranoids world for Tron : Legacy in KH 3. ty bbs) and download Data-Sora's experiences... but for now it's a bit like getting blue balled.
Reconnect.
So, it occurs to me that I could probably just make a chart to sum up this review. It would be called 'Aspects in which re:Coded is better than 358/2,' but then I'd have to do a companion chart called 'Aspect in which Birth by Sleep is the absolute best Kingdom Hearts game in the Series,' and that would be a downer. In truth, I really enjoyed re:Coded, despite its unfulfilling plot, and the momentary instances of what I found to be fucking terrible game design.
The variety of gameplay in each of the worlds eases the monotony of playing through Wonderland on Olympus for the 358/2nd time and the debugging mode, with it's wagering mechanic, is actually quite fun.
As I mentioned before, Birth by Sleep set the bar for the Kingdom Hearts series really quite high, and while re:Coded didn't quite live up to that standard, it was an interesting experience that improved apon just about every aspect of the last Kingdom Hearts game on this platform. Ultimately I'm glad to have played it, and the hidden ending (a franchise mainstay) has me already ready for the next Kingdom Hearts adventure.
--------------------------
* This is the complaint meme about Kingdom Hearts. Of course, since like 5 characters are Sora, or some aspect of him, or were at some point a part of his being/hidden away in his heart..... it's hard to argue.
* (spoiler- Ventus, Terra and Aqua are in danger, girl; and since them bitches done gave Sora the power to wield the Keyblade in the first place, per Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, it's about time for him to nut up and save them.)
* http://ds.ign.com/dor/objects/14354710/kingdom-hearts-recoded/images/kingdom-hearts-recoded-dated-in-japan-20100720092956108.html