Kingdom Hearts Coded Has Launched!!!

The first of the three newest installments to to Kingdom Hearts series is now available…in Japan, at least.

Thanks to Akira-san at The Light In Chaos for this first-hand report and thanks to KH Insider for the translation

I’ve begun to play Coded, even though there are only 2 features to check out right now. I didn’t have a lot of time today, so I only played the Olympus Coliseum feature. Oh and by the way, the phone contained an email decorated with a Kingdom Hearts Mobile motif which contained information about the Coded preinstallation. I am looking forward to Mobile very much!

OLYMPUS COLISEUM

Sora meets with Hercules and Phil. At first there is no one around, but then after wandering a bit, Phil appears. However he shows up in a hurried tone saying, “Help me out!” As you’d expect, there are Heartless needing to be dealt with.

This time it seems like the battles are consecutive mixed with a tutorial on how to play the game. (Though I didn’t see where they explained how to use Jump.) Feels like the Heartless steadily increased in a pattern like this as you defeat them: 1>3>5>(for a moment it went back to 1)>8>100… I forgot to mention here that the 9 key or pressing a directional button twice does Dodge Roll and the 6 key does Guard.

By the way, when it returned to 1, I was fighting against a Large Body, therefore attacking it from the front was useless. Since there are no Magic attacks, I had to attack it from the back. Also, since the Large Body summoned the bug blocks, breaking them and avoiding attacks was necessary in order to not be hindered by them. At first a few would appear at the same time, making it so you had to Jump more often to move about.

When enemies are defeated, they drop debug prizes which are rarely HP balls, and when you break the bug blocks, HP balls are dropped. 100 points were earned after battling and then there was an ending event scene.

At first I forgot what buttons to press, so I only could Guard. (I’m a fool ;^;) So I started it once again from the beginning and it was easier to clear after that. As usual, the Large Body still repel attacks, lol.

The sound quality wasn’t the best, but for the time being it looks better than Chain of Memories on the Gameboy Advance. By the way, there were battle voices. Sora said things like “Ha!” and “Take that!” during the battles, and then things like “Ugh!” and “Ahh!” when he took damage.

But, sometimes the movement became slow and would stop suddenly, which worries me. ;^; Oh the capacity… I feel there is no hope for it.

Overall it took about 20 minutes to do. (And then afterward write this guide.) I think I’ll practice here until I am used to it.

After the battle in the event scene Hercules comes out, then at that time Sora says something about bringing a “certain thing.” (It has to do with the previous Kingdom Hearts.) I try looking for it, thinking “Is it that? It’s not that! Was it dropped?!”

Well, then after that Phil seems to have discovered it… Seems to be that the flavor is “salty, but sweet.” It’s other meaning makes me smile. …Then at once Hercules disappeared! In every sense!

Since the Traverse Town feature is there too, I think I’ll give it a try tomorrow.