I’ve heard a lot of Kingdom Hearts fans say they aren’t sure if they’re going to get Re:coded or not… The excuse I’ve heard most often is, “It’s adapted from a cellphone game” which is fair… because it’s the truth, but those people are forgetting that “they” also sometimes put awesome games like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune on cell phones as well. I think they also forget how much better cell phones are than ancient Gameboy’s that also managed to be awesome.

So to remove the mystery from this review, I’ll start by saying this is probably my favorite Kingdom Hearts game… but the true meaning of this statement is locked into the details! Which is just me trying to trick you into reading the rest of my review… because I apparently care to have every word I’ve ever written to be read.

Now, to understand why this one was my favorite, is to understand the type of gamer I am. I love video games with my entire artificial heart, but I feel like a jerk playing them because they take so much of my precious, precious time… and this game worked with my schedule perfectly! The story is so simple that you can skip 90% of the dialog and still have a good understanding of what’s going on… and the gameplay, magic, and level up systems are equally comprehensive.

I don’t think it’s any secret that the story is a little thin, but to be honest, I’ve never really cared why I was killing a demon, just that I was doing it. That’s what I liked so much about old video games, the simple concept of, “which way are the bad guys” is all that you really need… I’m not saying that’s exactly what this game did, but that is how I played it, and I had fun… one final issue I’d like to address while talking about the story is, I realize that most Kingdom Hearts players are playing for the story, and I think that if that’s what you’re looking for, you’ll find that too… I found that the character interactions were very well composed, and the game literally takes you through the motions of the first game, while playing Sora, and gives you the opportunity to play Cloud… so they are definitely still giving the fans what they want.

Another good aspect of this game was that it didn’t only give you the traditional Kingdom Hearts game play. Some of the worlds had 2D side scroller maps, and one world was played like a true RPG, (Kind of a blend between Final Fantasy, and Mario RPG… which I think is such a good idea) and the Kingdom Hearts parts weren’t a drag either, there were plenty of boss battles, and it was high paced and entertaining. (Except for a short stint, when they take away your keyblade and you have to control Goofy and Donald by shouting at them… I thought that was kind of stupid.)

The magic system was good for the type of game it was… I mean, Sora didn’t go through as many changes and fighting styles as he did in Kingdom Hearts 2, but this game wasn’t long enough to merit that type of system… The fact that I never had to go back and level up was a good enough trade off.

This is the perfect game to play right before you go to bed for a few weeks… that’s what I did, I had about 12 hours of playtime, but I’m sure that it could be turned into thirty hours or more if you wanted to beat it perfectly, (which I plan on doing… There is some after game story, that I’ve already started on) I’m giving this game a rating of 8 out of 10. It was really fun.

You can get it on Amazon through this link Here!