Originally released for cell phones in Japan only, American fans were surprised to learn that Kingdom Hearts: Coded would be coming to the states in the form of Kingdom Hearts ReCoded, for the Nintendo DS.
This game takes place right where KHII left off, but from King Mickeys point of view.
Characters
Like previous Kingdom Hearts titles, Recoded features numerous Disney characters. Some characters include King Mickey, Pluto, Jiminy Cricket, Donald Duck, Goofy, and the Heartless. Sora does not appear as we know him, the game focus is on a digitalized reality of Jimminy Crickets Journal, there for Sora that players controll is not actually him but a digitalized version of him. As such its is also from Jimminy's Journal from the first game, and the duplicate one that was erased (Chain of Memories) with only thank Namine in it.
Riku, also appears as a digital apparition.
Plot
In the aftermath of Kingdom Hearts II, Jiminy Cricket is organizing his journals and is still curious of the "Thank Naminé" line, finding another strange line which he didn't remember retrieving. To investigate this second message, King Mickey has Chip and Dale digitize the contents of the journal, only to find the datascape filled with "bugs", which take the form of red and black blox. To deal with the bugs, Mickey has a virtual Sora deal with the bugs and the digitized Heartless as he traverses to other worlds to return them to normal. But a mysterious cloaked figure appears in the infected worlds, prompting Sora to follow him upon orders from King Mickey as Heartless suddenly appear in Disney Castle with him, Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy trapped in the room.
To their surprise, they are saved by Data Sora as the cloaked figure reveals himself to a virtual Riku who became the vessel to the uncorrupted data of Jiminy's journal, thus becoming the Journal itself, explaining how he imported Mickey and the others into datascape, unable to send them back to their world as hacking occurred. Sora sets off to give Mickey's group the means to return to their world, only to encounter Pete who also got digitized while spying on Mickey under orders from Maleficent who also arrives to make use of the datascape. Maleficent destroys Data Sora's Keyblade and summons Heartless to attack him as Mickey and the Journal save him before Maleficent spirits the latter away. Sora makes his way through Hollow Bastion, aided by Donald and Goofy. They encounter Pete, who traps the two before Sora, having evolved to more than just data, conjures the Keyblade. After defeating Pete, Sora faces the bug-infected Journal and manages to defeat him as he goes unconscious until the bugs are removed from him.
Mickey arrives and informs Sora that unless the bugs are destroyed, the Journal will never awaken. Sora decides to find a way to awaken the Journal, and enters Riku's datascape, losing his abilities in the process. The two visit various worlds from the Data Riku's memory and manage to eliminate the bugs before Sora finds his way back to Hollow Bastion and defeats Maleficent. After being returned to their world, Mickey discovers that once the Journal is restored, Data Sora's memories would be reset as if nothing had ever happened. However, Sora requests to save Pete and Maleficent, who are still in the data world. Sora finds them fighting a Darkside that seemingly erased them. Identified by the Journal to be a digitized version of Sora's Heartless, that evolved from feeding on the bugs and Heartless to the point that it now desires to enter the real world. Sora defeats his Heartless with Mickey's help, and finds out that Pete and Maleficent were rescued by the Journal through a "rift in the data". The villains and Mickey are then taken out of the datascape before it resets, with the Journal finding a new door to a new world. Mickey, realizing that this quest may be too dangerous for Data Sora as he has no memory of it, requests to be taken into the datascape once again.
Finding Data Sora in Traverse Town, Mickey takes him to Castle Oblivion where Data Sora is confronted by a young man wearing a black coat. He tells Sora that if he wants to know the truth, he must move forward on his own through the previous worlds he visited destroying bugs, losing his memory of his time there the moment he leave the floor. During this time, Data Sora realizes that even if he doesn't remember someone he's met, there's still the sadness of having forgotten them which the figure attempts to warn not to let it consume him. Sora disregards this message, as the pain is the only ties to those he has forgotten, and fights the figure, revealed to be a data incarnation of Roxas assigned to test Sora's worth. After losing to Sora and accepting the hurt, Roxas gives him a card and fades into the boy before Mickey appears. Sora opens the next door to find a data-based Naminé, revealing the bugs to have been an unintentional side effect of the real Naminé finding a mysterious set of memories during her restoration of Sora's memories. She then reveals Sora's nature as the "key that connects everything" through his ties with herself, Roxas, Xion, and Axel. Furthermore, as she would soon cease to be upon fulfilling her objective, Data Naminé tells Data Sora about three other figures (Terra, Aqua and Ven) also tied to Sora's heart who need his help. Mickey bids farewell to Data Sora and promises Data Naminé that he will inform the real Sora of this. In the final scene, he does it by sending Sora a bottled letter, containing the message found after the end-credits in Kingdom Hearts II.
In a secret ending exclusive to Re:coded, Mickey meets with Yen Sid to discuss their ongoing search for Terra, having a good idea where Ventus and Aqua are located. However, Yen Sid also presents a shocking revelation that the destruction of "Ansem" and Xemnas has restored Xehanort, and not just "a single one of him", which will also inevitably lead to the return of Master Xehanort. Fearing that one Keyblade Master alone will not be enough to counter the threat, Yen Sid orders Mickey to summon Sora and Riku to him, intending to put them through the Mark of Mastery exam to make them full-fledged Keyblade Masters in order to properly combat Master Xehanort.
This game was long and taxing, but fun and a nice filler to wait for other games. While I personally feel, that its is time to move forward with the series, I am a little over side stories that feature Sora in his KHI garb. And in that same aspect, KHIII is long past overdue.
Next up Picture Time, Kingdom Hearts: ReCoded. Followed by a review of new and hinted at titles within the series. Then I will analyze the continuing story of Kingdom Hearts.
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