What Coded Did Right

I know okay. I know. Many of you are probably writing your counter from just seeing the title alone because pfffffft why wait till someone’s finished right?
Well before any of us jump the gun let me explain myself. Okay?

I know many of you loved at least one of the kingdom hearts handheld entries while hating Coded for not being “dark” enough or melodramatic. Many consider it a stupid entry, a pointless one. However can any of you really sit and say any of these handheld titles weren’t damaging?

Better yet can any of you think of reasons why I’d think Coded was the best side game?

Yes it doesn’t have some melodramatic storyline, yes there’s no tragedy, yes most of the things covered in it are told in other titles and yes the dialogue is lighthearted.
You see, while most of you look at these aspects as flaws I see them as strengths.

Let me give you a break down here. A “side story”, side game, whatever you wanna call it, is a story that looks into events or shows something that is happening or happened alongside, before, after or during the main story.
That’s what they do. They give you something to sate your desire for the main story while giving the creator time to stretch the main story forward. In some cases they even become their own story or be a prequel or extra epilogue to the main one.

Point being they’re something that expands on the story but doesn’t really define it or move the main story along. They’re meant to be enriching, extra, something fun while you wait. Something Coded does perfectly. Something that Days was meant to do before the revival stuff and Xion was put into it and KH3.

(think of it like this, the main story is a novel but the comic can cover a minor character from that novel)

That’s where the Kingdom Hearts story and Nomura fail in this aspect. You see the side stories of KH don’t enrich the main line story. The handheld titles have done something no side story should do, something that is ultimately damaging to a franchise and its fandom, these side stories defined the main story line.

Now that's debatable to many, I know, but let me continue.

You see that is a big no-no. Bad writing or perhaps it’s more accurate to say bad planning. Worse yet these handheld titles did so in a repetitious fashion.
Most of them are the same. There’s a trio that is a near carbon copy of Sora, Riku, and Kairi from Kingdom Hearts 1. There’s always some melodrama between these characters which brings their maturity or in worse cases intelligence into question. Then, lastly, there’s some sad event in which they all die, fade away, disappear, however you want to phrase it.



I can hear the angry typing right now so why not just stop a moment and ask yourself this one question;

“If these characters didn’t have a sad story would you care about them?”

Literally. Would YOU care about any of these people if their story wasn’t wrapped in melodrama and a sad ending? How much of your attachment to these characters is defined by how bad you feel for them at the end?

I can hear some of the backlash now, that it was all planned, that these people have personalities outside drama and tragedy. Well you’re not wrong but you definitely aren’t right.

For instance, much of the fanbase will pull Nomura’s interviews or game reports for this argument but I can do that too and honestly it's a mixed bag.

This isn’t the only one. Depending on which ones you read you’ll get a varied commentary that Nomura basically has ideas for one game while making another, kinda like a step by step, but at the same time you’ll find that, like in the quote above, entries such as Days, Coded or even Chain of Memories weren’t initially planned.
Hell the Chain of Memories one is right here if you don’t believe me;

The next response is typically “you’re wrong I’d love these characters regardless!” Well..would you really? Just think about it. The answers I usually see are one of two:

1) You don’t know because you’ll never know a world where these people weren’t tragic or dramatic.
2) Simply no since imagining without their tragedy makes them dull or hollow to you

This is where Re:Coded triumphs over the other games. It breaks their mold. It doesn’t force some drama or sadness on you, it doesn’t make the characters look stupid just so the main villain will look brilliant, it doesn’t even add anything to the story you’d need to know. (at the time I typed this anyway)

It's just a fun entry in a series that's kinda bloated up upon itself in ways. It has flaws (like where the fuck is digital Kairi?!) but it’s not serious. It doesn't define anything you'd need to know later.



No "sad" characters that died and need to return, no unnecessary things like Ceremonies or "True Masters", and lastly nothing it adds needs to be known nor does it hurt to know it. Just a fun enriching entry which is what a side game should be to a mainline story.

It's the kinda game something branched off should be but weren't what the other games were. Granted there's nothing wrong with deeper stories or even tragic ones. My issue is that this was done in repetitive fashion. The stories I got were not only made relevant but the characters kinda had a similar story focused on sadness and tragedy.

I also acknowledge it wasn't entirely Nomura's fault. Nintendo was behind Days, Disney caused Coded and SE/Nomura was what shifted BBS from a console title to a PSP title.
Not everything can be helped when it's a game company focused on money. My only real issue these days or rather what I find a tragedy is that rather than just having fun he damaged the story in ways. Experimenting with combat systems is fine, making games you can't help, also fine but- well you get the idea.

 

Bump because I didn't realize the sources were broken. #fixed

 

^ That was definitely a perk. I didn't like every gimmick boss fight but I appreciated the attempts at all gameplay and didn't mind some. It was the only time I didn't mind the command deck too.