Kingdom Hearts Recoded Review

Kingdom Hearts Recoded was released on January 14th, 2011 for the Nintendo DS. As the Kingdom Hearts franchise marches on, there are undoubtable some gamers who are wondering if this new incarnation is a powerful new adventure in the Disney and Final Fantasy fusion world, or if the story is recycled and should be left on the store shelf. Let's look at the game, and maybe you'll reach an answer.

In classic Kingdom Heart fashion, you control the same protagonist from the other games, Sora. Unlike Kingdom Hearts 2, where Sora was outfitted with a new black outfit, he is back in his colorful attire. Also, in classic Kingdom Hearts style, you have to visit the Disney-themed worlds of Wonderland, Agrabah and Olympus.

So, what is the story? Jiminy Cricket, who chronicled your adventure in the previous games, has collected his old manual. But there's a strange addition to the journal, and he takes it to King Mickey and the techno-geniuses Chip and Dale to decipher the journal.

What they find is a mass of corrupted data that Sora has to delve into and fix. This is where the game begins, but let's turn our focus to the game mechanics.

Unlike Chain of Memories, where you used magic and items in the form of cards, you are back to using items and magic as they were in all the other games. A new element though is the ability to charge up your weapons during a fight. This occurs by bashing Heartless consecutively. Each weapon has a different attack, so you have more to think about than just the strength and magic of the Keyblades in this game.

When it comes to straight battling, the controls are pretty straightforward and easy to maneuver. However, the biggest problem here is that it is difficult to change the camera perspective.

There are also different game modes like a rail shooter and classic turn-based RPG fighting. Much like the regular battling, all of these new modes tend to have one imposing problem in its control.

Outside of battle, Recoded has included more platforming elements than the previous games. Again, we find a problem. The controls are difficult to use, and the camera perspective will leave you jumping at the wrong angles and having to go through large platform puzzles over and over again for a seemingly simple jump.

I said earlier that you visit Disneycentric worlds. Once again, there is a problem. The worlds in previous Kingdom Hearts were full worlds, which you could explore and have fun in. Recoded gives you a few rooms to the world and that's it. So if you liked the breadth of the Kingdom Hearts worlds, you won't find that here.

Leveling up is also different. You have to use chips on circuit boards to add more strength, defense and magic. This can also unlock cheats, like the ability to change difficulty or get better drops from enemies.

Story wise, beside using some of the same elements we have seen in previous games, Recoded is similar to the other games, but with much of the charm sucked out of it. The characters seem lackluster, the pacing is awful, and it just seems like a poorly recycled version of all the other games you're used to.

At 25 hours, this game isn't the worst I've played, but I don't think it deserves any accolades. Kingdom Hearts is showing slack, and they will either have to pick it up with the next game (if there is one after this) or just let the Kingdom Hearts series die in dignity.