After almost a year of waiting I finally broke down and bought RE:Coded for 20 bucks. When I got this game I knew exactly what I was getting myself into: rehash of the first game (again), weak story and a very problem rattled game. Any warning against the game has been heard and noted, but I still wanted to get it and play it anyway. Knowing how weak it was is one of the reasons why I got it so late (unlike 358/2 which I got on the first day. I regret nothing). So despite the lukewarm reception and obvious cash-in, is it really that terrible a game?

Follow up:

The basic plot is this: Mickey, Goofy, Donald and Jiminy Cricket are checking out the journals from Sora's two journeys, and discover that the messed up one (the one funktified by Namine in Chain of Memories) has revealed a new, unknown message. To repair the journal and figure out what's going on, they summon a digitized version of Sora to go through the Journal of the first game and fight whatever's messing with it. To be fair, this game was originally a cellphone game and thus doesn't have the same level of sophistication of the other games in either terms of graphics or story. A lot of it plays out like a visual novel and the story is Kingdom Hearts 1.

It's also very short. So far I've only been playing about 10 hours and I'm already 5 worlds in. The gameplay though, is a lot of fun. There are four styles you play through as you fight the bosses: traditional bash-with-the-keyblade-and-hope-for-the-best style, sidescroller, shmup and turn based RPG, and so far they are a blast. I had a fangirl moment in Olympus Coliseum when after beating Hades and Cerberus they used a FFVII-style victory dance. The glitch worlds are fun too, because a lot of the challenges and block puzzles require a lot of thinking. I can survive the somewhat dry-toast dull inbetween story because the end game and glitch worlds keep me going.

One thing that I do truly and venomously hate is the camera. Sweet cupcakes is that thing evil. the camera has been a nagging issue for the Kingdom Hearts games since the beginning. It was always hard to control and could cost you the game in the wrong moment. So what did they do? They made the problem a thousand times worse. First off, you cannot actually control the camera. They say you can do it using the touchpad, but they are so very wrong. If your clocking ability tree pops up you're screwed and even when it doesn't it's impossible to control, particularly in the middle of battle. The best you can do is used the right trigger button to turn forward to whatever direction Sora is facing. So if you are standing on a block and want to see what's around you, there is a very distinct possibility you will accidentally jump off right in the middle of whatever it was you were trying to avoid to begin with. For the most part I've been able to work around it, but it's causing a major issue in Agrabah, especially during the timed events.

One cool thing I do like it the matrix system for leveling up and getting new commands. You can definitely see they incorporated a lot of The World Ends with You into the system. I hope to keep enjoying the game, but this camera is causing a lot of problems.