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Found 80 results

  1. As many of you would be aware, Kingdom Hearts coded was recently released with the P-01A mobile phone in Japan. No videos or pictures of the game have been revealed since its release, however one Japanese blogger, Akira-san from The Light in Chaos, has posted a blog about the game. You can view a translation of this blog at Kingdom Hearts Insider.
  2. More footage of Kingdom Hearts coded has been released. This covers the Olympus Coliseum episode. You can view the footage below. Thanks to 2ch for creating the footage.
  3. Kingdom Hearts Re:coded is a remake of Kingdom Hearts coded, released on the Nintendo DS in Japan (October 7, 2010), North America (January 11, 2011), Australia (January 13, 2011) and Europe (January 14, 2011).
  4. Kingdom Hearts coded is a mobile puzzle game that was released exclusively in Japan on November 18, 2008. Kingdom Hearts coded would be followed by an HD Remake released worldwide on the Nintendo DS as Kingdom Hearts Re:coded.
  5. Hi. I'm new to these forums. And I can't believe how long it took for me to find such an amazing thing exists on the interwebz. A place where you can talk all you want about Kingdom Hearts? Sounds like dream heaven. And so with that, I will start my long intro/rant thing. Probably gonna type this up over a few days, just because it's gonna be a looong post (and hopefully not too boring). So what exactly did I want to do for my first post ever? Make a review. Not just any short and crappy review; a review on every single KH game that I've played. So as you might expect, y'all who are reading this are in for a long one. Another incentive is because I've literally had people **** on my opinion before because they think *insert KH game* is the best, and apparently I'm the devil for not liking it or something. But hey, that's the internet for you, so I guess there's not much I can do about that. Therefore, I've chosen a forum full of people with the same nerdy addiction as I do to talk about these games Now keep in mind many of these things are heavily opinion based, so feel free to comment on your own opinions. For simplicity, let's go in chronological release date order (or something close to that, I don't remember the exact release dates for all the games). Also for simplicity, I'll be considering all Final Mixes and their original counterparts as one game, so if I say KH2, I'm also referring to KH2FM (PS2). However, I will be having a separate section for Remakes/HD Remasters (i.e. ReCoM, 1.5, 2.5). So yeah. Let's start. I guess. KH1 Hey look at that, I used bold and underlined font for organization. I am officially better at organization than 90% of the internet So yeah, going first with the game that started it all. The game that got me into this series, and perhaps even gaming in general. And it's pretty clear to see why; it's a good game. I think the most charming part about this game for me is the story and nostalgia. The story was so simplistic, yet you feel so involved in the Disney Worlds that it's as if you're actually in them, interacting with all your favorite Disney childhood characters. Combined with nostalgia, it makes this game unforgettable. And I'd say lots of people would agree with me. The gameplay is simplistic, but it shows that you don't need complicated game mechanics for a game to be good. Many people refer to this game as a button masher, and in some way, it was. However, it wasn't the "mash one button for senseless destruction" kind of button masher, but more so "mash one button carefully with strategy (or at least some degree of it)". The game was difficult. Exceptionally difficult as a child, and even now, it's not easy to go through the thing on Proud Mode. Yet, you learn stuff as you go on, and conquering fights always has this odd feeling of satisfaction to it. Remember Riku 2? Remember Dragon Maleficent? We've all failed those fights so many times as a kid that we've literally memorized the cutscenes. I remember jumping out of my chair and freaking out when I finally beat Riku 2 (despite having to grind several weeks to beat him). And something about that feeling of happiness and accomplishment will never leave me, which is perhaps why I love this game so much. So KH1 isn't flawless, and it does receive a fair amount of criticism from others, especially people who've just played it for their first times in the 1.5 HD Remaster. And it is completely understandable why too: the story pacing, looking at it now, is pretty bad. They throw you in the game, you know absolutely nothing, then you learn a little bit about who you are but everything is still really vague. Then you learn little to nothing for 20 hours of gameplay until you reach Hollow Bastion, where they just dump the story at you. So much story. And then you have some emotional scenes, get even more story, and then you reach the end of the game where it feels kind of rushed. Suddenly, Kingdom Hearts! Wait...what was Kingdom Hearts again? The game fails to explain to you clearly, and it leaves many questions unanswered. King Mickey makes his only debut in the final scene of the game, and it happens all so fast that when the credits roll around, many people are left confused and wondering what the **** just happened. Gameplay isn't perfect either, but this part is a bit more opinionated. Some may despise the button mashing feel the game has, but I for one love it and the feeling of senseless destruction you can have when you're overpowered. There's also strategy involved in it too; mashing X will not get you through the game on Proud Mode. World design is pretty wonky *cough cough Agrabah cough cough* and controls can be a LITTLE bit clumsy feeling (lol Atlantica). So I can see why these things can turn people away from the game. However, for me, this will always be a favorite of mine purely because of the fact that it was such a nostalgic factor in my childhood that even now, I'll never forget the fun I had playing through Kingdom Hearts 1. KHCoM/KHReCoM I'm gunna combine these two into one section, but I'll be talking about them separately (sort of): So firstly, GBA CoM. The fact that this is a handheld game turns people away from it. I've seen way to many people say "I never played original CoM because it was on the gameboy". However, if you haven't played it, I'd suggest giving it a try; especially if you've played and enjoyed ReCoM, because it is similar, but at the same time, different from ReCoM. Believe it or not, I like the original GBA CoM better than ReCoM, and I'll get to that in a bit. The general public's view of the Chain of Memories games are negative. People in general despise the new "card system", saying it was bad or poorly implemented, and that attacking things were too difficult in comparison to KH1. Yet, I've seen the same people complain about KH1 being a button masher. Wtf guys? Make up your damn mind. I liked the Chain of Memories games. Actually, I enjoyed them so much that I'd say it's on par with how much I like KH1. I loved the new card system; it gave the battle system a strategy and you needed legitimate skill to plan out your every move, unlike KH1 which had a more button mashing type of feeling. Some people don't like this type of gameplay, and that's completely fine. I for one, love the fact that you have your own choice of different attacks and cards. Mashing X will not get you through this game; instead, you must learn to strategize. That's another genius part about the CoM series: how they teach you to use your resources. I have to admit, this is easily the best game in the series in terms of how they introduce you to the card system. Every player starts off confused, but once you get past that stage, you start learning an unbelievable amount about how you can manipulate the cards to your advantage. And it's not like the game tells you everything; but the fights and enemies are designed in such ways that you're pretty much forced to figure out a way to go through the game as efficiently as possible for you. The story is very well done too, and the pacing was far better than KH1. After every floor, you learn a bit more about what the mystery of Castle Oblivion is, and as you near the end, the information comes a bit more rapidly. It was very well distributed, and made story enthusiasts keep wanting to play the game to find out what happens. So I've addressed the pros, now to move on to the cons: The gameplay does get somewhat repetitive, I'll give it that. For the most part, it's "go through rooms, get key cards, and progress on with story." Therefore, there's not much replay value in it. However, it's still fun to play once in a while. There are also balancing issues in ReCoM. In CoM on the GBA, sleights were powerful and used, but there was no one sleight that can overshadow everything. In ReCoM, there are quite a few overpowered chosen slights that will basically make other sleights obsolete, i.e. Lethal Frame, Sonic Blade, Ars Arcanum, Firaga/Blizzaga, etc. This argument however, can be countered with the fact that abilities like Sonic Blade and Lethal Frame can only be obtained mid-late game, so you can't exactly abuse their powers. Plus, bosses technically had the ability to break your cards too, so these weren't always the best choice (maybe except for Lethal Frame). There's also the possiblity to restrict yourself from using such overpowered abilities, as that won't make the game unplayable, just slightly harder (unfortunately, this is something you'll see in recent KH games that I'll get into.) So yeah, that's my view on the CoM series. I enjoy GBA CoM a bit more just because of the slightly more balanced gameplay, which means that I can actually attack bosses with different strategy instead of being forced to spam Lethal Frame over and over again. KH2 Oh boy, here we go. The Kingdom Hearts game that got the lowest score from IGN out of all the KH games they've reviewed. Buut it's IGN, and that means that we don't listen to them. KH2 Vanilla may be mediocre, but boy oh boy, KH2FM is by far, and I mean BY FAR, the best Kingdom Hearts game that we have, and probably will ever have. (No seriously, if KH3 tops this, I'll be very very impressed, but I'm not counting on it.) People liked KH2 for the most part, but some people also seemed to hate it. Looking at the game technically, it is the best designed game in the series. The balancing in KH2FM is almost perfect, and the combat is beautiful, fluid, and just fun to play (although that last part is an opinion lol). The post-game is by far the best in the entire series, and I don't think anyone can really argue against that. It's just such a masterpiece of a game, and makes you wish that all other KH games could be like this. That being said, it does have its flaws. No game is perfect, and KH2 is no different. But yeah, let's delve into the nitty gritty details of this game and see what exactly makes it so good and loved by many people. Storywise, the game does fine. It's not the most intriguing story in the series, nor is it the most well paced (although considerably better than KH1). It's story, in my opinion, is sort of in the middle. However, it does wrap up everything nicely in the end, and it also introduces my favorite enemies in the series so far, which are the Nobodies. Also, Organization XIII is sick, and no other villain will top these groups of villains for me. But hey, that's my opinion, so many people may differ. I don't have much else to say for story. It's good, but not amazing. What makes this game for me is the gameplay, which is also, the most important part of any game. Let's start off with the combat options. By the end of the game, you are given a TON of different options: Attack, 6 Magic spells, healing items, 4(5 in FM) Drive forms, 4 Summons, and a TON of Limits. There are so many options to choose from, and the types of combos you can pull of is endless. Not only that, but there are also physical combo modifiers as Abilities, allowing you to enhance your combos even more. Don't like the normal combo? Time a press of Square the finish with the ability "Finishing Leap" equipped, and you'll create a shockwave that will send enemies spiraling into the air. Jump up and press some more Square with "Horizontal Slash" and you can slash the enemies rapidly, dealing enormous damage, then ending your combo with several finishers completely obliterating the foe. ...sorry, I may have gotten a little bit carried away there. But you can see that you have a ton of options with just physical attacks alone. When combined with Magic, Summons, Drives, and Limits, you are basically given this endless array of options that you can choose from for the best situation. This is done even better in the FM version since they added new finishers and abilities, as well as Limit Form (which I'm gonna mention, is soooo good). The gameplay is balanced. You'll notice I said something about unbalanced gameplay for ReCoM; meaning, some sleights are so good that it overshadows other attacks because of their power, making these other attacks completely obsolete and useless. In KH2, Square has perfected this system of balancing. No attack, out of ANY of the options you have, are extremely overpowered and can work for every situation. Every single attack has a form of use, whether it's for taking care of a mob of enemies, or just a single boss, or a giant Heartless that appeared out of nowhere. The closest thing to OP in this game is Reflega, and even then, you obtain it at the dead end of the game, and it spamming it will not guarantee a win for any fight. Boss AI complexity is at its culmination in this game for the series. You might've heard of these things called "Revenge Value" or "Flinch Count" before. These things are essentially in-game counters to force the boss to behave in a certain way. It provides a form of strategy; the bosses cannot be infinitely stunned (for the most part), and spamming one attack will not net you a win. The boss retaliates according to these in-game counters, and reacting accordingly is part of the strategy. That's what makes this game's bosses so satisfying to beat. Say you come across an exceptionally difficult boss; you get completely destroyed the first time around. However, the more you attempt it, the more you learn about it, and as the more you learn about, the more you see how the boss works and retaliates to certain combos, and how many hits it takes for the boss to retaliate, etc. To an experienced player like me, this is unbelievably intricate and makes the game so much more fun to me. I know how bosses work, so a lot of the strategy comes from me doing certain combos, then reacting accordingly to avoid getting punished. The fluid style of gameplay helps this a lot, and all this stuff just mashes up into a big ball of amazingness and fun. I cannot emphasize enough how enjoyable it is to refight the Data Organization members in the Cavern of Remembrance; the reaction speed that I need, and the amount of strategy put into the fight is almost absurd, and I love every second of it. There are flaws for this game too, don't get me wrong. So far, I've been basically fan-gasming over the game and ranting about how amazing it is, but I'll also address the flaws. The exploration factor of KH1 is completely gone; worlds are flat and linear. They sort of make this up in the Cavern of Remembrance in the FM version (which is also my favorite area in the game), but the fact remains that the main story worlds lost a lot of their exploration to it, which may be disappointing to some. Some also say the game is too easy, although I'd beg to differ on that. You have the option to challenge yourself, and I've known absolutely no one who has every played KH2FM Critical Mode Level 1 say it was easy, even the most experienced of players. The thing is, once you dive into the small details and really get to understand this game, you start realizing how much though Square Enix had put into this game, that they will never do for any other KH game after this one. Let's just hope KH3 has just as much thought put into it. To be completely honest, if KH3 can even come close to getting to the level of intricacy in KH2, I'll be very satisfied with my product. For now though, KH2FM is by far my favorite game in the series....no...of all time. KH 358/2 Days Having not played this game for quite a while, I'll try to keep this short and sweet. Days is, for the most part, praised for its emotional story, but crapped on for its boring and repetitive gameplay. After playing the fluid gameplay of KH2, I have to say, I agree with most of the people. The story is nice, but also badly paced. The middle of the game is filled with repetition, which is also reflected in the gameplay. "Roxas does mission. He finishes. He eats ice cream with Axel and Xion." That's like 60% of the game right there, explained in a few sentences. It does give us a nice view of the bond Roxas created with Axel and Xion, but otherwise, it felt boring and repetitive. The gameplay is very repetitive. Select mission, do mission (which is always very similar to each other), finish. Repeat. The combat options are nowhere near as intricate as KH2, although it is a DS game so I can't expect as much as KH2. However, I did think the Panel system was a pretty cool idea, even if it was a bit annoying that you had to take up space inside the panels just to level up. Days kind of pisses me off. The game had such an amazing amount of potential behind it, but the way they made it just doesn't make it a fun game. Just think of the potential this game had; you're literally playing as the villains, and you get to see what exactly happened within the Organization. It would answer all your questions about the Organization in KH2, and you would see how Axel and Roxas became friends, and it would be a blast and an amazing game. And the game does that...to a degree. It does well in explaining the events of KH2, but the other Organization members felt like side characters opposed to actual characters that was involved in the story. In the end, you really don't learn much about the Organization aside from Roxas, Axel, and Xion, and it makes the whole game's potential feel wasted. KHBBS Birth by Sleep is loved by so many people. It is definitely ranked, by most, as one of their top KH games. The first time I played through BBS, I loved it. It felt so fun, all the different combat options, even if I had no idea what I was melding at the time. The Command Styles were like pseudo KH2 Drive Forms, and there were so many options that I couldn't hate them. And yet....something seemed off. The second playthrough of the game felt significantly less exciting for me. The game begins to feel repetitive, even boring... And then I played through Critical Mode, and the game just turned outright tedious. I barely finished that playthrough before I decided to never play the game again. What happened? What happened to this game that I thought may be competition for KH2 on my first playthrough, what exactly made me get tired of it so much more quickly than KH2? Well let's start off from the story. The story of BBS acts as a prequel to KH1, 10-11 years before the events of KH1 occurred. There are 3 main characters: Terra, Aqua, and Ven. The issue with these main characters are that...they aren't exciting. Perhaps its because I've stuck with Sora for so long, but I didn't have an issue with accepting Roxas as a good pseudo-main character; mainly because he had so much backstory and was a genuinely interesting character. Yet, I just can't seem to get myself to LIKE even one of the main characters in BBS. Aqua is a girl. A Keyblade master. Nothing more to it. Ventus is a boy, whose darkness comes in the being of Vanitas, and that he's somehow a chain between the legendary X-Blade. That's it, no deeper backstory or emotions. Terra, by far the most interesting, is nothing but a young lad that has darkness lingering in his heart. He's gullible, and eager. That's all we know about them. Compared to Sora, who we learn as the boy from Destiny Islands, chosen by the keyblade, with a personality of eagerness and courage, powerful, a true hero, happy, and all these other personalities, these 3 characters seem significantly more mundane. They don't feel like they're in the story at all, they're just sort of...there. For the story to work. The story also begins introducing ideas of previous Keyblade Wielders. Its really at this point that the idea of "wielding a keyblade" started to bother me in the direction it was going. I've seen people make this analogy before, and I'm gonna try to connect it here. Ever watched Dragon Ball Z? The Super Saiyan was a legend passed down milleniums. Goku manages to ascend to this level, this supposed legendary status that grants the Saiyan who obtains it an unbelievable amount of power, and the only supposed reason for his ascension was because of his unique peaceful personality and his compassion, added with his anger of losing a friend. This makes him special, and different from the other coldblooded and murderous Saiyans. It gives him this status, of being the only one who is able to achieve this, thus making Goku special. It makes the main character so much more intriguing, and really brings them to life. And then, as the show went on, more and more people began being able to transform into this "Super Saiyan". By the end of the Buu Saga, you see 7 year old kids transforming into one when having a sparring match with their mothers. And it sucks. It makes this supposed "legend" not very legendary, and makes the main character seem...normal. Granted, in DBZ, Goku does surpass everyone even more with even more absurd transformations "beyond" the level of a Super Saiyan, but I'm not gonna get too much in detail about that. After all, we're talking Kingdom Hearts here. So this BBS section has gone on for a long time and I haven't even began on story, so I should probably hurry this up a bit. Simply put; BBS did the same thing as DBZ with the Super Saiyan thing, except this time with Keyblades. In KH1, I loved playing as Sora because of the fact that he was special; he was a Keyblade wielder, the only one in the world with the power to vanquish the Darkness. And yet, in BBS, we discover Sora isn't special at all. There are literally thousands of other Keyblade wielders, that may or may not have done even greater deeds than Sora has. He's no one, just a normal one in thousands of others. This ruins my image of Sora's character, and makes me despise BBS for bringing something like this in. So those aren't all my issues with the story, but it's the general idea. The fact that characters are boring and uninspired, and the fact that it messes up my image of Sora, the main character I actually (used to) liked, just makes me hate the story of BBS. I will give it this though; even though I don't like the direction it took, it does act as a decent explanation of what happened before the main story of KH1 and KH2, and why everything happened the way it did. MOVING ON TO GAMEPLAY: So remember those balancing issues in ReCoM that I said KH2 has fixed and almost mastered? Well, they screwed it up again for BBS, and even worse this time. The reason why I felt the game got more and more boring the more I played it was because that I realized there were certain commands that were so good, that there was no use for using any other ones. The notable ones are: Thunder/Fire Surge, Magnet, Mine Square, Ignite, Sleep. That's all you need to beat the game. No fancy big commands that take up 2 slots; why would you bother making those when something cheaper, easier to make and find, is better in almost every way possible? Using the argument of "just don't use these commands" is a bad argument because the game offers you these options, therefore expects you to use it. What's more, is the fact that the game turns UNPLAYABLE on difficulties like LV1 Critical Mode without these commands. It's like the game is edging you on to spam these certain commands, just to make the gameplay more repetitive and boring. The reason why ReCoM doesn't suffer from the same problem is the fact that the game is playable with restrictions; opposedly, BBS turns impossibly tedious and difficulty without these overpowered commmands. The more I play this game, the more boring it gets, because of the fact that I'm just repeating the same actions over and over and over again, just to avoid dying on higher difficulties. Underneath all these types of commands that you can create and use, only few are useful for actual gameplay. The game gives you a false impression of how much combat option you have, and that, to say the least, kind of annoys me. Just a bit. Complex AI from KH2 is completely gone. Bosses randomly retaliate for no reason. Vanitas, one of the most infamous for this issue, is a stupid fight. Why? The fight goes like this: hit once-twice, dodge. Wait for opening, hit once or twice, dodge. Wow, what a fun boss that's so innovative. There is no strategy involved; you can't even learn from experience because the entire fight is completely random. That's just one example of the AI complexity being gone, but you can see how majorly it affects the gameplay. The fights went from strategic and adrenaline rushing to a clusterf*** of attack a few times, dodge, attack a few times, dodge....and all this makes you want to use these overpowered commands even more, just to end the fight quickly so you don't need to sit through this reptitious bull****. BBS makes me angry as you can see (lol), because, like Days, its combat system and story had so much potential, which was wasted in a badly designed and messy Command Deck. Unfortunately, the Command Deck doesn't stop here...a few other KH games after BBS seems to have also fallen in love with this system. KHRe:Coded I've actually never played Re:Coded before. Yeah I know, I know, there's gonna be thousands of people at my house's front door the next day burning my house down, "YOUR NOT A TRUE KINGDOM HEARTS FAN, HOW DARE YOU CALL YOURSELF ONE OF US?!?!??!?!" In all seriousness though, because I haven't played the game, I can't exactly judge it. However, from what I've heard, Re:Coded actually does the best job with the Command Deck in any KH game we've seen so far; it's far more balanced than the other KH games with the Command System, and actually has some interesting Commands. The story is the story, and yes, I know its insignificant and has little to nothing to contribute to the actual lore of Kingdom Hearts itself. Sooo that's that. Nothing more to say, as I can't exactly judge for myself. Maybe one day I'll get my hands on this game and play it, and then I can make a final judgement about how much I like/hate the game. For now though, I'm gonna keep silent. KHDDD Ohhhh boy. Dream Drop Distance. This game is a woozy, I'll tell you that. It also happens to be my least favorite Kingdom Hearts game! WOO! Basically, imagine all the issues I have with BBS. Then add "Confusing and stupidly complex story", "screwing up my image of Sora even more", "even WORSE balancing issues than BBS", and "even WORSE Boss AI than BBS", and you have Dream Drop Distance on a silver platter. I'll try to make this brief, as I explained most of my issues with the Command Deck I had in the BBS section. STORY! Time travel. Why why why why why. WHY OSAKA. WHY WOULD YOU INCLUDE TIME TRAVEL. Time travel was NEVER hinted at before in any games, so therefore, its a great element to add to the story right? No Osaka, it makes it seem like you're desperately grasping on to an idea just to extend the story even more. The complexity of the story in DDD is absurd, and even I, as a seasoned KH player who has played MOST of the games in the series multiple times, barely understand what's going on. There are plotholes, inconsistencies, and nothing makes sense. The story worsens my image of Sora further. So it turns out he isn't a Keyblade master after all. HAH. I've been playing as a joke the entire series? Thanks Osaka, really appreciate it. So according to DDD logic, you need to take the "Mark of Mastery" exam to become a "true Keyblade Master". Otherwise you're just a wielder. And anyone can be a wielder, as shown by the thousands in BBS. Oh yeah, also Lea is a Keyblade Wielder now. WTF?! Sora conquered thousands of obstacles, saved the world multiple times, defeated thousands of Heartless, took down an ENTIRE ORGANIZATION of powerful Nobodies, and now you're telling me that he has to take a Mark of Mastery exam to be truely qualified? Must I remind you that Aqua became a Keyblade Master by attacking balls? This is absolutely ridiculous, and it reduces Sora to nothing but a normal person. And why would I want to play as a normal character with no unique characteristics anymore? It's like they turned the "special-heroic Sora" from KH1 to a "BBS character", and that angers me to no end. Oh yeah, you know what else was never before mentioned in any games? Organization XIII had hearts. It was all a LIE. I'm not gonna even go into detail on that one, I think it's pretty self explanatory. GAMEPLAY! Balloon Balloon Balloon. No enemy can withstand it. No command is better. No combat option is better. Level 1 Critical is impossible without Balloon. Good game design Osaka, take BBS and make it even worse. Didn't think that was possible. Bosses all have brick wall now, meaning they cannot be staggered. They're like a chunk of rock, just sitting there taking damage and attacking. This prompts you to use Balloon even more, because Balloon is like one of two commands in the entire game that has a high stagger rate. It's as if Osaka team was like "hey, lets create the game in such way that everything revolves around this one move, and that if you don't have it, then lol have fun dying." IT. DOESN'T. MAKE. THE. GAME. GOOD. *By Osaka, I'm referring to Osaka Team, aka the team in Square Enix that created ReCoM, BBS, DDD, and the HDRemixes. I also affectionately call them as "Downfall of KH-Team". I get a bit emotional when talking about DDD, because it pisses me off so much. So apologies for the anger, let's move on now shall we? KH1.5 HD ReMix KH1 is relatively unchanged, aside from the addition of EXP Zero in Proud Mode, which, as the name suggests, you don't gain any EXP with the thing equipped. This makes it possible to do a Level 1 playthrough of the game, and it is quite challenging, but also somewhat tedious as bosses can take a very long time to beat. It's pretty obvious to see that KH1 was clearly not designed around having to play at Level 1 (unlike KH2). Also KH1 has cutscene skips now, so that's awesome. ReCoM is unchanged too I believe, so nothing much to say there. Days cinematics was cool, although I wish they included some fight scenes in there. Luckily, they fix this in the 2.5 version of Re:Coded. One thing that does bother some people however, is the stability of the game. In the JP version of KH1.5, 1FMHD is very prone to crashing. This isn't a disc problem like some people claim it to be; it happens in all copies of the game. It's pretty obnoxious to most people, especially if they made a lot of progress without saving. All this is a result of poor porting and just carelessness/laziness from Osaka Team. KH2.5 HD ReMix 2FM has finally been released in America, and now every gets to experience the full glory of this wonderful game. Unfortunately, the game is plagued with crashes, glitches, bad loading, bugs, and instability. Sure, they're minor issues, and most likely won't interfere with most people's view of the game, but it still does take away from the full experience that KH2FM gave to players. Flaws, however minor, are flaws nonetheless, and can be fixed through testing and not-being-careless. Once again, lazy porting from Osaka Team. I really wish they weren't in charge of KH3.... BBSHD retains its issues that the original PSP had, but it is an upgrade in graphics and controls are significantly better and more responsive. They also buffed EXP Zero in the game; due to complaints about Level 1 chip damage in BBS PSP, the HD version now has some hidden properties of EXP Zero, like in KH1. For example, certain combo attacks deal more damage with EXP Zero equipped. However, they did go a little bit overboard; to the point where certain attacks are so powerful that not even Beginner Mode can top it. If you've never seen Peter Pan D-Link's Swordbill finisher, look it up right now. It's pretty ridiculous. Overall, I like it way better than the PSP, but that doesn't eliminate its issues. Re:Coded movie was nice, and had some nice cinematics. Cool addition. KH2.8 HD ReMix One can only hope they at least attempt to fix the issues with DDD. And don't make it worse. If they nerf Balloon but don't do anything else, that'll make the game impossible to play on Level 1 and make it even worse. KH3! In my wildest dreams, this game tops KH2FM. But alas, only time will tell. And FINALLY, I am done. This is literally the longest post ever (I better get a world record for this); I was not expecting this to go on for so long, but here we are. I spent approximately 4 hours on it. Hope you guys have a fun read (or not because it's so long). Let me know of your opinions. With that, I need some sleep and rest for my fingers, peace ~
  6. KH13.com are proud to announce that we have completed our video archive for Kingdom Hearts coded. For the original Japanese release of the game, all cutscenes and boss battles have been recorded in the best available quality. These are available to download in our video archive, linked to above. In addition, trailers for the game, as well as for Re:coded, are available to view or download. Lastly, Re:coded is scheduled for a October 7, 2010 release in Japan. KH13.com would like to announce that, upon the game's release, we will record each cutscene and boss battle in the game as soon as possible. Please look forward to this.
  7. The latest issue of Dengeki PlayStation magazine has included an interview with the director of the Kingdom Hearts series, Tetsuya Nomura. Here, Nomura discusses the English version of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, revealing some of the game's additions. Kingdom Hearts Media have translated the interview, which can be read below. Q: The North American version of BBS is to be released soon? A: Yes, it will be released on September 7. Even though we've added many things, the story has changed a little. Mark Hamill will be voicing Master Eraqus, and the voice of Master Xehanort is Leonard Nimoy, from Star Trek. A new mysterious enemy has been added. It's terribly strong, so winning is an achievement. You meet it twice, and the debugger had to try twenty times before defeating it once. Q: Is it stronger than the Vanitas' Sentiment? A: We took a survey, and some people thought it was a little stronger than the Vanitas Sentiment, but others thought it was far stronger. Like the Lingering Sentiment of KH2FM+, its attacks are hard to predict, unlike Vanitas' Sentiment, which has movements that are fairly easy to read. The new enemy will use nefarious tricks. Q: Is the new character also involved with the story? A: As with the Lingering Sentiment, at the time of KHBBS I can't reveal that. Q: And the other major changes? A: Mega Flare proved too strong and violent, so we've weakened that ability. In addition, there were complaints about the reward for defeating Vanitas' Sentiment, so you will now receive his Keyblade as a prize. Such a modification is a fun novelty that fits well in KH tradition. Q: Is there a new secret movie? A: No, sadly there is not, because we didn't have additional time. Instead, look to Re:coded to prepare you for the secret movie. Please look forward to that, as NA gets no mobile content. We considered many things, including KH:Days in the making of the secret movie.
  8. Although Kingdom Hearts news has been slow recently, we will be updating our website with extra content from time to time. This update comes in the form of new Kingdom Hearts coded videos. ハトスケ from ニコニコ動画 have updated their coded playthrough, and as a result, we have more cutscenes to share with you. If you head over to our video archive, and specifically the coded cutscenes page, you will see that we have updated with cutscenes from Episode 7 and 8 of the game. You can either view or download these from their dedicated section, or simply watch them below. Please enjoy this, and check back soon for more additions.
  9. Kingdom Hearts coded is a Kingdom Hearts title that has recently been released in Japan. In Japan, the game was distributed in the form of downloadable episodes for Japanese phones. Due to these phones not being available elsewhere, there is much speculation about whether or not coded will make it to North America and other English speaking regions. KH13.com have emailed the voice actor of Jiminy Cricket, which you can see here. Although this does not confirm coded, it shows that the content from coded will appear in English in one way or another. This could be in the form of some kind of English release of the game, or the content could appear in another form, such as a part of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. This is all speculation, but we can be sure coded's content will appear in English.
  10. The latest issue of Otona Fami magazine has included an article on Kingdom Hearts coded. This article contains an interview with coded's senior planner, Jun Kato. Final Fantasy Ring have translated Ameba's interpretation of the interview, and this can be read below. Asked about the future of the title, the last chapter was released a few weeks ago, he apparently confided his desire to be able to offer a wider audience, given that relatively few people are able to play on his current platform (mobile phones NTT DoCoMo). Alas, not clear if he means by this that he would like the title is available on a real console, or simply to other models of mobile phones.
  11. Episode 8 of Kingdom Hearts coded, Castle Oblivion, has released in Japan. This is the final episode of coded. HEARTSTATION.ORG have typed up a script of the final cutscene of this game, which can be read at our forum.
  12. Episode 5 of Kingdom Hearts coded, Agrabah, has surfaced online. Our playthrough, which can be seen below, has been updated to reflect this. The cutscenes at the beginning and conclusion of this episode, The Fated Rival and The Lost Key, are now available to view below or download from our coded cutscenes archive. Subtitled versions can also be seen below. The video is recorded by ハトスケ from ニコニコ動画 and translated by Nanani from GameFAQs.
  13. Square Enix have updated their official Japanese website for Kingdom Hearts coded. This update includes additions to the information section, as well as screenshots and renders from Episode 6, 7 and 8 of the game. Also included is information about how these relate to Kingdom Hearts Mobile. All included images are available to view below. Coded, Japanese website All images are from Square Enix's official website.
  14. Message from the KINGDOM has updated with a post from the director of the Kingdom Hearts series, Tetsuya Nomura, where he discusses the release of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. Kingdom Hearts Insider have translated this post, and it can be read below. Hello, I’m Nomura. Did you have fun on New Years? I was filling out papers, I ate and slept. And suddenly it was the New Year. The sunrise on the first day of the year was beautiful. Well, there was this and that and now it’s the release date. Thank you to all the fans who have been waiting for this day. Congratulations to all the PR staff, and the KH staff in Osaka who are currently on break. We’ve really made a fun game. I think there are a lot of people playing it right now, but I hope you play through it slowly and enjoy it. I thnk the battle system is extremely fun, but what do the rest of you think? Since there are many other parts of the game you can have fun with, I hope you’ll spend a long time playing it. Also, even if you finish it quickly it doesn’t mean you’ll have the true answer. I was interviewed yesterday, and I talked a lot to all the reporters about Birth by Sleep. “What was the meaning of that place?” “What was the meaning behind that line that was said?” they asked. It won’t be published in any magazine, but I answered as many things as I could. I explained quite a few different things that I had been plotting. So don’t ignore even the smallest thing in the game. There is a lot of underplot behind the words characters say and the actions they take. By the way, “coded”, released on mobile phones, will soon reach it’s climax. The other day I was playing the testing version of the final episode, and I hope you’ll all play it after finishing “Birth by Sleep”. I think you’ll find quite a few connections. Well then, please continue to have fun. Oh also, if you don’t watch all of the story that happens before the secret movie, and just watch only the secret movie, you won’t understand any of it. So please get there on your own. Until the next time Director Tetsuya Nomura
  15. The February 2010 issue of Famitsu PSP+PS3 magazine has featured an article on the upcoming Kingdom Hearts title for the PlayStation Portable, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. This article, which was scanned by HEARTSTATION.ORG, is high quality, reviewing everything we know about the game, as well as containing an interview with the series' director, Tetsuya Nomura. Kingdom Hearts Insider have translated the interview, which you can read below. Also, the article can be viewed below, in our gallery. Famitsu PSP+PS3 (February, 2010) Thanks to HEARTSTATION.ORG. Even people new to the series will be able to understand the story. -- So how is development going? Nomura: We’re putting on the last finishing touches. Right now we are fixing the text a bit. The story this time has a lot of things that might be difficult to understand, so we’re trying to make it flow better. We want to make it easier to understand for people who have never played another game in the series. But, when this interview comes out we’ll be finished with it. -- So who is responsible for the scenario writing? Nomura: Myself, as well as Watanabe (Daisuke) who worked on “Chain of Memories”, and Oka (Masaru) who helped with the scenario for KHII. “Kingdom Hearts” is always worked on by several people. -- There is a lot of underplot going on in the story, but can people who have never played any other game in the series really understand what is going on? Nomura: That question was asked quite a lot with “358/2 Days”. but I feel that if you play it from the view of the main character, you can play the game separate of all the others. But for some people, if they don’t know the whole story they will feel as though they are the only ones who don’t know something, and they will become doubtful and suspicious. In other words, they won’t be able to follow the small details. Those details are meant for the people who have played the rest of the series, but that doesn’t mean that new players won’t be able to have fun with the underplot. For example, this will be Ven’s first meeting with Lea and Isa. New players will be able to meet them along with him, and so long as they think “These are special characters” then that’s fine. I’d be happy then, if those people who start wondering about those tiny plot details and went back and played the previous games in the series. I think there are things that are interesting because you’ve played through the series, and things that are interesting because you haven’t played through the series. -- I see, so there are different ways the plot can be interesting. Nomura: Well, the “Kingdom Hearts” series has become a series where people have fun imagining what could be. Whether you’ve played the series or not, that doesn’t mean you know everything. Though people with a good head on their shoulders probably know what is going to happen. -- There are three different main characters this time, what order do you recommend playing their stories? Nomura: For the story I recommend Terra, Ven and Aqua, but I think it can be fun played from any character. For the gameplay, Ven is the easiest to use. Aqua has strong [?] and Terra’s movements feel very heavy, so I think Ven is probably the easiest to play with. The best and most exciting battles in the series. -- So how is work going on the action part of the game? Nomura: Well, we think that beginners won’t have to worry so much when they play the game. We’re finished now, so they are going through debugging, and it sounds like they are having a lot of fun. They say it’s a nice change of pace. Though right now they are getting exciting beside the programmers, I’m a little worried (laugh) [I honestly couldn’t understand what he was talking about in the last sentence. Anyone?] -- Even just playing the demo I could tell how exciting the battles were. I felt they were the best in the series. Nomura: Everyone is saying that. Even the debug staff have been saying that the battle system is the most interesting and fun in the series. Of course I think it’s fun thinking for yourself and choosing your own set of Commands. It started in “Chain of Memories” with the Card Deck system, then it was improved in “The World Ends With You”, and now we feel we’ve perfected it with the Deck Command system. -- Can people who aren’t very good at action games complete the game? Nomura: Yes they can. I think they’ll be okay just on Standard, but for people who lack confidence there is always Beginner. Then if they don’t feel that is difficult enough they can switch and start again from Standard. With the battles this time, just hitting the buttons in sequence will allow you to naturally change your attack, and the three main characters fight with superhuman fighting skills, so even with just that I think you can have fun. -- How many Deck Commands are there? Nomura: Since you can put items in your Deck as well, it runs to over 100. -- With that many things to choose from, I would think it would be difficult figuring out what to put in your deck. Nomura: Once you’ve found Commands that you like, you can just keep using it. There is no need to use them all. In the end, you can just use what you like. There are a lot of different things to use as well as Deck Commands, like Shoot Locks and D-LINKs, but you can just fight using only Deck Commands if you wish. So you don’t have to think about it too much. -- With the D-LINK system, you can use King Mickey’s power, right? Nomura: He has the same Holy attacks and abilities that Minnie had in KHII. -- There seems to be many different types of Shoot Locks... Nomura: Yes, and each one has different levels, and depending on the ability there are different amounts of levels, and there are unique Shoot Locks for each character. -- In a previous interview you said that the main characters were too strong, but how did it balance out in the final product? Nomura: Of course we were able to balance it, but the difficulty level will change quite a lot depending on what Deck Commands you used. Just like I said before, you can use whatever abilities and attacks you like, but to get the best results you need to choose your Deck carefully. Also, there is a hidden boss like “Lingering Sentiment” in KHIIFM. Since the response to “Lingering Sentiment” was so good, we put an extremely strong boss in the game. But some say that “Lingering Sentiment” is more difficult. But that is because the difficulty really changes depending on the Deck you use. It was quite a lot of trouble fine tuning the boss exactly. -- Do you think you’ll be able to finish the game at a low level? Nomura: Yes I think you can. There were people on our Osaka staff who tried to finish the game at level 5. How you get through the battles and what Commands you use is all up to the player. -- What other elements are there? Nomura: There is the wireless. Normally you play Arena Mode with a few friends, but you can play by yourself as well. But if you play by yourself, the enemies will be extremely strong and it will be difficult. Possibly even stronger than the hidden boss I was just speaking of. -- I was very surprised to hear that in VS Arena Mode you could play with six other people. Nomura: We wanted to make it so that as many people could play together as possible, but in the end we could only do six. By the way, in the KHIIFM secret movie you can see Terra in his armor with a cape, but we took off the cape in this game. It was to make processing easier when you’re playing with six people. Processing of moving fabric can be slow, so the speed it runs at is completely different if he has a cape or not. -- Attacking each other and stealing each others Commands is quite unique. Nomura: We were thinking of Marluxia’s attack in “RE: Chain of Memories” when he scatters your Deck. If you get attacked a lot, the only Command you’ll have left is “Attack” (laugh) But the reason we thought of the rule was so that it doesn’t become a brutal fight against each other. -- It’s been announced that you can use each other as D-LINKs in the game. Nomura: The D-LINK system was originally designed for this. In the game the main themes are “bonds” and “connections”, so it is something we thought of as you don’t have any party members usually. But it was so much fun, we decided to use Disneycharacters as Links as well. Sea Salt ice cream in the Ice Cream Shop is... -- Disney Town makes it’s first appearance in this game, and it’s the same world as Disney Castle, right? Nomura: Yes it is. We wanted to make a lively, exciting world, so when it came time to think of where that should be, we decided on the city surrounding Disney Castle. The image we had in mind for it is something like Toon Town in Tokyo Disneyland. -- Do the residents really not know who Captain Justice and Captain Dark are? Nomura: No, they know quite well who it is (laugh.) I think you’ll get to know what sort of things Pete was up to before he got involved with Maleficent. -- In this game do we see Maleficent start working on the plans she put forth in the first game? Nomura: You’ll get to see how she started on the path to what she was doing in KH. What we want you to focus on is whether the enemy is Master Xehanort or Vanitas. -- What is Master Xehanort’s aim? Nomura: I think you’ll get to know that by playing the game. -- “Winnie the Pooh” appears this time as a Command Board, right? Nomura: Yes, this time the world of “Winnie the Pooh” appears only as a board. -- There are some dialog that makes us think that Yen Sid might be a Keyblade Master. Nomura: That is something that will be revealed in the game. I think then you’ll know where he stands. -- So there a shop where you can make your own ice cream? Nomura: This was the development team’s idea. You can change your Style instantly by eating ice cream. Also, the visuals for the ice cream are excellent and you should watch out for them. There are three different visuals for each ice cream. When you have to choose one of them they are so good that it feels like you’re wasting the rest. -- What about sea salt ice cream? Nomura: Unfortunately you can’t make sea salt ice cream (laugh) -- So is the Command Charge in this game like synthesis in the previous games? Nomura: Yes, it is just like it is in the previous games just with Commands. -- Are there enemies like the XIII Mushrooms in KHIIFM for gathering matierals? Nomura: There are no mushrooms this time, since there aren’t even any Heartless. -- Is Jiminy’s Journal in the game? Nomura: No Jiminy’s Journal, but there are Reports that have the same function. The secret events bring the story together. -- The main visual image that you drew (printed on page 42) has been shown. What is the concept you had for it? Nomura: I wanted to make a lively image, something where they were all jumping. I wanted it to feel like they were all moving forward, but the places they are going are different. -- Since the King is shown, does that mean he shows up quite a lot? Nomura: Well, he does show up quite a bit, but it’s nothing in comparison to the three main characters. Of course there are lots of events where he is involved with them. -- We’ve seen some scenes from the opening movie, what is the song that will be playing this time? Nomura: The same song we’ve been using, Hikaru Utada’s “Hikari”. Setting that alongside the movie, we put in scenes that echo the secret movie from KHIIFM, with scenes of their training, and scenes with them holding their charms. -- Why are the charms shining like that? Nomura: The charms are a symbol of their bond, and acts as something that can sustain them through difficult times. In the story, we see them look at the charms and gain strength and courage from them many times. -- In the pictures we’ve seen, we see King Mickey holding something called a “star fragment”, which was also shining. Nomura: The star fragments act as something that allows the King to go to other worlds. He has a different way of moving between worlds than the three main characters, and that is what he uses the star fragment for. At this time they call it a star fragment, but by the time of the first game they are called Gummi Blocks, which are used in Gummi Ships. -- We see the King come into contact with the heroine from the first game, Kairi. Nomura: Kairi’s story from before the first game isn’t something that can be ignored. But she won’t show up very much this time, and we won’t get to know much about how she ends up on Destiny Island. -- By the way, how many years before the first game is this game set? Nomura: About 9 to 10 years before. -- And we also get to see Organization XIII as humans... Nomura: Since we know from the previous games that Xigbar has met keyblade wielders before, we had to have him as well as other Organization members appear. But only up to number VIII, Axel, will be appearing. -- Braig looks quite a bit younger than Xigbar does. Nomura: That’s just your eyes playing tricks on you (laugh.) If you play, you’ll find he’s just the same. -- Braig has tied up Master Xehanort [?? what are they talking about here?] but was Xigbar ever after the power of the keyblade? Nomura: He has his own plans that he is acting out, but the details won’t be explained this time. It’s separate from the main thread of the series, so I didn’t feel it was important right now. -- So not only the members up to number VI were living in Radiant Garden, but Lea and Isa as well? Nomura: Yes that’s right. But at this time they were just two innocent boys who liked to play with a frisbee. -- Do all three of them get to meet up with Kairi and the Organization members? Nomura: You’ll have to play the game and see. -- We’ve seen scenes of events from the heart of the story, but I want to know if we’ll be fighting Master Xehanort or Vanitas? Nomura: You’ll have to wait and see (laugh) By the way, each of the three of them have a different final boss. It will be interesting to see who fights against who. -- So who is the voice actor for Master Eraqus? Nomura: It’s Makio Inoue. We all know him from “Lupin the 3rd” as Goemon Ishikawa. I’ve been wanting to ask him for a lon time, and finally my wish was granted. -- Zack from FFVII appears as a guest character this time, but why did you choose him? Nomura: Since the story is set much further in the past than the series has gone before, we wanted a character that appeared in the past in an FF game, so we chose Zack. We remade him in the image of a 2nd Class Soldier, and he doesn’t use the Buster Sword. He is in his teens, but a little older than Ven. He wants to be a hero, so he has come to Olympus Colosseum to ask Phil to take him on as an apprentice. -- Will any other FF characters be appearing? Nomura: No, only Zack. We thought about talking about Cloud and Leon’s past, but we felt the story would become too complicated if we put in too many characters. -- So apparently there is going to be a secret event this time...? Nomura: I think the effect of the story will change depending on if you’ve seen not just the ending, but the secret event as well. How it will play out in the end I can’t say, but the secret event won’t only just connect to the next game, but will tie the story together. -- What sort of requirements will there be for watching the secret event? Nomura: Like always there are many different requirements. You can choose from three different difficulty levels, but the highest level has the easiest requirements. At the easiest level you won’t be able to see it at all. I hope you’ll play through the game, and be able to watch it for yourself. Tetsuya Nomura’s new games in 2010? -- I want to ask you questions about the videos you showed at the event at the end of the year. The mobile game “Kingdom Hearts coded” will soon be releasing it’s last episode, right? Nomura: “coded” has finally reached it’s climax. “coded” and “Birth by Sleep” have deep connections, and they both connect to the story after KHII. -- You mean they connect to KHIII? Nomura: Perhaps. But since we’ve had so much story up 'til now, I’m thinking it might be best to set it all out in a way that it can be easily understood first. Though I can’t say how that is going to turn out just yet. -- So, last of all, please give a message to all the fans waiting for “Birth by Sleep”. Nomura: I feel we’ve made an extremely exciting game, so I think you could even use it as a stress reliever (laugh.) I think people who like RPGs but aren’t good at action games can have fun switching and playing around with their Deck Commands, so I hope everyone tries it. If you’re interested, please pre-order the game.
  16. Volume 463 of Dengeki PlayStation magazine has featured Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, the upcoming Kingdom Hearts title for the PlayStation Portable, in an article. This article, which was scanned by HEARTSTATION.ORG, contains high quality screenshots, as well as an interview with the series' director, Tetsuya Nomura. The article can be viewed below, in our gallery, and the interview, which was translated by Kingdom Hearts Insider, can be read below. Dengeki PlayStation (Volume 463) Thanks to HEARTSTATION.ORG. The last part of our special is an interview with director Tetsuya Nomura. The man who created the series talks of this latest game in the series that has been waited by fans. “There is enough packed into this game that it is on par with a console title.” You have to watch the secret movie --- The release date is almost near isn’t it? First, I’d like to ask you some things about the story. Nomura: I really don’t think I’ll be able to say much (laugh). With the story we have this time, if I talk about it even a little bit it’s a spoiler. --- Well that’s a problem (laugh) One interesting point of this game is that you can choose which of three main characters you want to play with. But which order do you recommend? Nomura: Terra, Ven and Aqua is the best order. We wrote the scenarios in that order, and you’ll probably understand why while you’re playing it. Also, Ven is very easy to use, but Terra is a little heavier and moves slowly. So you could begin playing with the character that best fits your play style. But if you choose to play as Ven first and then go on to Terra, you’ll probably feel too slow. --- So the scenarios for the three characters are really quite different? Nomura: Yes, we set it up that way. If three friends were to play the game and choose different characters, after ten minutes the story would be completely different. If you choose to play as a different character than your friend, you both should be careful of spoiling each other. --- Instead of using one character until the end, can you play each character a little bit at a time? Nomura: For the most part yes, you can. When you first create a save, it creates saves for all three characters. But if you play them together it becomes confusing, and I wouldn’t recommend it. --- Alright then, now can you tell us what kind of characters the three heroes are? Starting with Terra. Nomura: Terra, as we’ve shown in trailers and screenshots, becomes [closer? entangled?] with darkness, which is the highlight of his story. But he doesn’t just fight the darkness in his heart, he tries to hold back his desire while being invited into the darkness. He can also use the moves that we saw from “Lingering Sentiment” in KHIIFM, so that will be fun. --- Next, I want to ask about Ven, the one everyone is wondering most about. Nomura: Since Ven has a lot of mysteries about him, I can’t really say clearly what sort of character he is. But when you play the game, you’ll find out more about who he really is. While the connections in the series haven’t been explained, we’ve made it so you can imagine who he is. Also, as I said before he will be an easy character to use for newcomers, since he is the quickest. --- And Aqua is watching over the both of them. Nomura: Yes that’s right. Aqua’s position is what I guess you could call their “guardian”. And unlike Terra and Ven, you can’t easily see how she connects to the series. I’d like for everyone to watch her to see what lies in her future. Since she is a magic type character, she has trickier moves than we’ve seen in the series to date. Also, like Final Form in KHII, she has a Style where her keyblade floats in the air. --- How will their Master be involved in the story? Nomura: Master Eraqus and Master Xehanort used to be fellow students. Their way of thinking is different, but deep down they are connected in some way. --- And what about the mysterious Master Xehanort and Vanitas? Nomura: Vanitas wears a mask and we can’t see his face, but eventually we will find out who he is. I want you to watch out for how Master Xehanort connects to Ansem the Wise’s apprentice Xehanort that was introduced in KHII. --- In screenshots we see Master Xehanort saying something about the “Keyblade Wars”... Nomura: The “Keyblade Wars” were something that happened quite a long time ago, so there is no one who actually experienced the war can explain more about it. They can only speculate on what happened. But that isn’t really what is important, what I want you to pay attention to is the “Mystery that is hidden within the keyblades” that is in connection with the war. The place where Xehanort is talking about it is close to the climax of the story, and all of the story’s highlights will be summarized there. --- We see quite a lot of characters that look like Organization XIII members in Radiant Garden, don’t we? Nomura: But they don’t have a lot to do in the story, they just appear as residents in Radiant Garden. Except for Braig, since you fight him and he is quite involved in the story. In KHIIFM and KH 358/2 Days there was a lot going on with him, and he is a character I think you should pay attention to. --- Of course you usually have a secret movie at the end, do you have one this time too? Nomura: Yes there is one. Except this time it isn’t a pre-rendered movie that gives a hint as to how the story will develop later, but is shown like an event scene. There is dialog, and in all it runs about ten minutes. It is set up as one episode. Instead of showing us what will happen in the future, it is more like a true ending. I would really like everyone to see it. There are characters that will only show up there in it as well. --- I wonder what sort of things will be required to see the event. Nomura: Of course there are lots of requirements. This time too, it depends on the difficulty. It’s pretty difficult to get on Standard Mode, and on Proud it becomes easier. On Beginner you can’t see it at all. Well, I’m sure fans of the series can imagine the requirements. An enemy even stronger than “Lingering Sentiment” will appear!? --- Even just playing it a little bit, I found the Deck Commands quite interesting, but in the beginning you can only equip three. Nomura: If you give lots of options in the beginning it actually makes things more difficult. It’s because you have that limitation that it becomes fun. If you were able to equip lots of them in the beginning it wouldn’t be nearly as fun. You can have up to eight slots by the end, and probably the urge to get more Commands will give people more of a motivation to play. --- This time even the Finish Commands have levels, it seems that having to think about leveling them will make it a little confusing? Nomura: Even the our development team said as you go through the game that maybe there were too many levels. Well, I think that there will be some people who will get into having that sort of leveling system. But beginners can just have fun and don’t really have to bother thinking about all that. --- Using keyblades to move between the worlds looks quite interesting. Nomura: Unlike before with Gummi Ships, they aren’t a mini-game, but instead you can use the Keyblade Ride to have a race. Also, this time the worlds screen is like before, and you can choose which world you want to go to freely. --- I’m quite happy that when you play on wireless you can upgrade your Deck Commands, you can bring those over into single player as well. Nomura: We didn’t want to have a separation between multiplayer and single player. For KH 358/2 Days there were people who said that they couldn’t gather all of the Mission Crowns, so we were thinking about that. In “Mirage Arena” there are items you can’t get anywhere else, but you can get them all even if you are playing offline by yourself. Of course it is made for several people to beat together, so it would be quite difficult by yourself. The strongest enemy that appears in multiplayer is about equal to the hidden boss in single player. --- There is a hidden boss this time too!? Nomura: Yes there is. We wanted to make it even stronger than Lingering Sentiment. But, you can only defeat it by having a certain set of Deck Commands. You’ll have to wait until you see it. You could also say that if you don’t think about your attacks [or it’s attacks?] you won’t be able to win. --- Something even stronger than Lingering Sentiment must have taken quite a lot of fine tuning... Nomura: We had Debuggers who are really good at action games help us with it, so we were able to make it into quite a difficult boss. It is strong, but it doesn’t have high HP. It is just a battle of attack against attack. --- With both single player and wireless, I’m a little worried about loading times... Nomura: I very much recommend Data Install. There are three different sizes you can choose from, but please choose the largest one. It will change the way you play the game. You can also go into Config and change the speed and color mode. Braig is a Dark Horse! --- This time there will be quite a few things, I think, but in the story and battles what do you think is the highlight of each? Nomura: In the story, it’s the connections with the rest of the series. Since Sora isn’t the main character we didn’t give it a number, but there is no difference between this one and the PS2 games. I think the KH series has a story with lots of mysteries that the player can have fun imagining what will happen next. They don’t have to imagine something from nothing, there are lots of little hints left everywhere in the story. So everyone can take those hints and imagine what will happen. For battles, the actions using the Deck Commands. With Shoot Locks and Dimension Links, there are lots of different ways you can fight and have fun with it. --- So which character do you think people should be watching out for? Nomura: Definitely Braig. Everyone is thinking about all the other characters, but no one is watching Braig. But he will have quite an impact on the story. --- “KH 358/2 Days” had quite a sad story, but what about this story? Nomura: I’m sorry to say, this one is also pretty sad (laugh). The stories I make usually make the character sad, or they have lots of troubles along the way. But since the theme this time is “bonds”, I think the story connects to a bright and hopeful future. --- “KH coded” has reached it’s climax, so are you thinking of what is going to happen in the future? Nomura: Of course I’m thinking about it. But right now I’m too busy with “FF Versus XIII”. Of course it wouldn’t be any good to make our fans wait for years for it, so we’re planning something. But first I’d like you to enjoy this latest game. All the fans who are excited for the game, I think you ought to pre-order it.
  17. Episode 7 of Kingdom Hearts coded, titled Hollow Bastion: Part 2, has released in Japan. This episode is apparently the final chapter of coded, and ReBirth Wings have written a summary of it. Kingdom Hearts Insider have translated this summary, which can be read below. We left Riku asleep, not knowing what would happen. Sora says he is going to recover Riku’s data, and the King tries to stop him, telling him it is dangerous. But Sora tells them that he wants to save everyone. So Sora goes into Riku’s Data World. The light in the data world is dim. Suddenly crowns start to scatter everywhere. These are Sora’s abilities, and Sora will become weaker. Then Riku appears, but this is a “Separate Data Riku”, in other words, Data Riku’s final intention. This Riku entrusts Sora with the data (that “someone” had added) that wasn’t in the original Jiminy’s Journal. Except for this place, all the Bugs in every other area had been destroyed, and now all you had to do was connect the data together and revive the journal, and you’ll be able to unravel the mystery of the of the data. Riku says in order to destroy the remaining Bugs, he would be staying here. He says that Sora should hurry and go. But Sora says, “There is still time to save you.” and won’t leave. Of course Sora wouldn’t leave at a time like this, Riku understands this. So first Sora will have to regain all of his abilities. Beyond the door is all of Riku’s data, made from his memories of the worlds. If Sora can retrieve that data, he would be able to get back his abilities. And at the same time, he says, I hope you will be able to find out what is behind the Bugs. Bugs had invaded every corner, and it is a dangerous place. [walkthrough for visiting four different worlds in the data] Once you’re finished with all of the worlds, Riku appears and tells you what he did in each world. After Agrabah is completed, you return to the world of Riku’s memories, and he says “I met you first on the island.” So if that’s the case, then who was the black coated man who he had seen in the Place of Awakening? Was it a completely different person? A new world door appears, a door to Hollow Bastion. When he tries to enter the door, Riku tells him, “Don’t hesitate.” Sora doesn’t understand, but continues on into Hollow Bastion. In Hollow Bastion there is Riku, who has been infested by Bugs. To get your abilities back, you must fight him again. It is just like the battle in the previous episode, but he is a bit stronger. Then Sora returns to Riku. It says that “restoration is 90% complete” The world begins to rumble, along with the words, “The time to awaken has come...” [walkthrough for boss battle with Dragon Maleficent.] They return safely to Hollow Bastion, and the King and his friends will soon return to the real world. There they find out that something has happened. After Jiminy’s Journal has been restored, this world’s Sora and Riku will have had their memories erased. This was something that had to happen for everything to become “as it was before.” The King is sad, but Sora and Riku only smile. Then restoration is 100% complete, and an announcement says that “The data world will now be erased.” But Pete and Maleficent are still in “this world”. Even though they are evil, they can’t just leave them there. Sora goes after them. Sora arrives in a new place, a world that has been partially deleted. Mysterious words resonate in the air, "Lost in battle, the flesh wanders... Offering [their] flesh, the will of darkness cannot be resurrected." Sora feels as though he has felt this before. He continues on. At the end, Maleficent and Pete are there, along with an incredibly strong Darkside. Maleficent and Pete challenges it, but they only get erased. “Making everything into it’s power, eating everything.” It is Sora’s shadow, Sora’s Heartless. But it has become stronger as Sora has become stronger. Normally once hearts are released from Heartless they return to their normal selves, but in this world it is completely different. Hearts that have no where to return to are swallowed by this Heartless. Sora fights it. [walkthrough for boss battle with Darkside.] At the end, the King is returning to the real world, he holds Sora’s hand, and they smile at each other. Everything is finished... except they still don’t understand the mystery behind the words left in the journal. Riku then contacts them. Now that the journal has been completely restored, “A new world door has been opened.” It is the data world of the data that had been added onto the journal. But Sora has already forgotten everything about the journey he just had. It would be dangerous to let him go on his own. But the King asks, “I want you to take [him? me?] into the data world once again.”
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