Kingdom Hearts Coded is an episodic action role-playing puzzle video game developed and published by Square Enix, in collaboration with Disney Interactive Studios, for mobile phones. Coded was a Japan-only release announced at the 2007 Tokyo Game Show. A Nintendo DS remake, titled Kingdom Hearts Re:coded, was released in Japan, North America, Europe, and Australia. A cinematic remake of the game was included in the Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix video game compilation for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows, and Nintendo Switch. The gameplay is centered mostly around puzzle solving, with action role-playing elements, similar to previous Kingdom Hearts games. Mini-games and platforming are also featured, with three dimensional backgrounds and two dimensional characters. In mid-2007, game director Tetsuya Nomura decided to create a Kingdom Hearts spin-off for mobile phones that would have a different gameplay style than previous titles and allow players to explore the game like a playground. The game was originally released in eight parts and one preview to mobile phone gamers from June 2009 to January 2010. To reach a wider audience, it was remade for the Nintendo DS and released internationally. Kingdom Hearts coded is the fourth installment in the Kingdom Hearts series and is set after Kingdom Hearts II. Jiminy Cricket's journal, chronicling Sora's fight against the Heartless and Organization XIII, is found to have two secret messages written by persons unknown, and after the journal is digitized for further analysis, the contents become corrupted. This leads King Mickey and his friends to make a digital Sora to enter and repair the journal so that the meaning of the hidden messages can be deciphered. The game received mixed reviews, with critics praising the graphics and gameplay variety, but panning the story, camera, and controls.
Gameplay
Kingdom Hearts coded is a puzzle game with action elements mixed into the gameplay, which is similar to the action-RPG style of the previous titles in the series. It also features a similar interface with fight, item, and "magic" in the command window. There are also minigame and platforming elements. The game features a mix of different graphic styles, with three-dimensional backgrounds and two-dimensional characters. The initial trailer showcased the main character, Sora, in dungeons with floating red and black blocks. Battles feature a "debugging" mode to remove the blocks and progress towards enemies. Blocks are also used to solve puzzles or reach higher ground. Kingdom Hearts Re:coded has an added system to incorporate multiplayer experiences called "tag mode". If other Nintendo DS players are nearby, they do not need to be playing the game and they will be registered in the game as "ghosts".
Plot
Setting
The game is set after Kingdom Hearts II and follows the story of Jiminy Cricket, King Mickey, Donald Duck, and Goofy in Disney Castle. In the game, players progress through a series of levels which are virtual representations of worlds contained within the digitized version of Jiminy's journal from the first Kingdom Hearts game, and are arranged according to the order in which Sora visited the worlds originally in Kingdom Hearts. These virtual worlds are based on various locales from many Disney animated films as well as original worlds seen in the first game of the series, including Destiny Islands, Traverse Town, Wonderland (Alice in Wonderland), Olympus Coliseum (Hercules), Agrabah (Aladdin), and Hollow Bastion. Castle Oblivion also appears as the game's final level.
Characters
The main protagonist and sole player character of the game is an artificially intelligent virtual avatar of Sora, occasionally referred to in-game as "Data-Sora", created from the data from Jiminy's journal entries. Because the game's setting is based on the first game, Data-Sora resembles the original Sora in his attire from the same game. Three other original Kingdom Hearts characters—Riku, Naminé, and Roxas—similarly appear as virtual avatars. Like previous Kingdom Hearts titles, coded features numerous Disney and Final Fantasy characters who have appeared in the first game. Some characters include King Mickey, Pluto, Jiminy Cricket, Donald Duck, and Goofy, the latter two of whom appear as computer-controlled partners of Sora in one of the game's levels. The main antagonists of the game are software bugs that corrupt the data of Jiminy's journal and Heartless that Sora encounters in the first game. Recurring series antagonists Maleficent and Pete also appear.
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