I'm going to be honest while reviewing this, I'm not going to let my loyalty to Square-Enix get in the way of my opinion on Kingdom Hearts Re:coded. Re:coded falls short of all KH games to date, with few qualities.
The Graphics in Re:coded are one of the few things that are up to Kingdom Hearts standard. Think of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, and the graphics in that game were said to push the DS to the ‘limit’. Well, Re:coded has just broken that limit. In some parts of the game, Destiny Islands for example, you could swear you are playing KH1 on the PS2. The graphics are the best on the DS (I do realise that has been said about many games, but this time, it IS true).
The next thing, music: The tracks in Re:coded are quite simply taken from the rest of the series. Nothing new. The main theme in the KH series, ‘Dearly Beloved’ usually has a different variant of in every KH. But in Re:coded, it's just the same as KH:358/2. All in all, the soundtrack is boring.
The gameplay, one of the most important aspects of an Action RPG. The gameplay in Re:coded is just boring, and sometimes just plain stupid. For the most-part of the game, combat is not much different than any other KH. But in one specific part of the game, combat is turn based, which brought back memories of watching paint dry, except watching paint dry is ALOT more entertaining. They should have just left turn-based battles in Final Fantasy. There is also a side-scrolling stage, which is actually kind of fun. In the end, gameplay is a mish-mash of good, bad and plain boring.
The story is mediocre for Kingdom Hearts. It doesn't compell me to keep playing.
At the end of the day, Kingdom Hearts Re:coded doesn't offer enough to draw interest. It falls majorly short of its predecessors and doesn't live up to the KH name. But If you're a fan, play it, because you feel like if you don't, you won't be able to sleep at night, you'll feel insecure and you'll end up going crazy and convince yourself thet you're Sephiroth. We don't want that. That's about the only reason to play Kingdom Hearts Re:coded.