More details from the Famitsu interview with Tetsuya Nomura...
- "We had originally planned to make Coded playable on a wider variety of mobile phones. However, we wound up supporting far fewer than we first envisioned, and in the end it was released on nothing at all in North America. As a result, we decided to release Re:coded on the most popular hardware out there so more people can play it. It also helped that the game was designed for non-analog controls from the start."
- "We originally planned for a straight port from the mobile-phone version, but due to differences in resolution and so forth, everything except for the movie scenes had to be rebuilt. After thinking over the capabilities of the platform, we decided to redo the game sections in 3D and keep the text-based events in 2D. In 358/2 Days we built realtime events with low-poly character models, but they didn't have as much impact as we thought considering the amount of work that went into them. We really wanted to show off the characters here, so the event scenes work as they did in The World Ends With You. There's a wide variety of expressions and poses to each character, so even though it's 2D, the visuals still have a real depth to them."
- "The concept of the battle system was to take Coded, add 358/2 Days and Birth by Sleep, and incorporate all of the parts that made each of those games special. Mixing all three together resulted in something completely new, so I think even people who played Coded already can enjoy this."
- "One of the concepts of this project was to aim for something casual users could enjoy. We concentrated on core users in 358/2 Days, and we received feedback that the game's controls were hard to use. With this game, we retained the simplified controls from the mobile-phone Coded -- there's an auto-jump feature, and you'll automatically move toward enemies even if you're a little too far out of range to attack. I think that makes the game more exciting to play than 358/2 Days. Tai Yasue, co-director on Birth by Sleep, is balancing the battle system in this game, and the same team's reworking the maps as well."
- "Instead of multiplayer, we're concentrating on local-based online content. Coded allowed you to use avatars from [the mobile-phone only] Kingdom Hearts Online, but these avatars will also appear in Re:coded as part of the online interface. Most of the avatars we've released so far will be in there, so you can use Birth By Sleep's heroes or Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII if you like."
- "It's over 80% complete. We made people wait a while between announcing Birth by Sleep and releasing it, but that won't happen this time -- we'll announce a release date soon."
- "(Kingdom Hearts 3DS)It's not a remake, but a wholly new project. Sora and Riku are the two heroes this time, and we're selecting new worlds for the game now. 3D is going to be the next step forward for the series after 358/2 Days, BbS and Coded."
- "I can't say yet (what the story will be like) but it'll be something that player won't expect, something that tears down story developments that have been going along with expectations up to now. There are a lot of hints put into Re:coded along those lines, so if you're interested, I hope you can give it a try. We'll release it as quickly as we can -- I can't say anything more at this point."
"Their (Sora, Jiminy) hurting will be mended / when you return to end it" (in Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded)
- "Over the past half year, we haven't been particularly forthcoming with information, but for these two titles (Re:Coded and The Third Birthday), starting this month, we'll be constantly sharing detailed information until release."
- "There are other games that have yet to be announced, and at this Fall's Tokyo Game Show there will also be new announcements, so please look forward to it."
- King Mickey digitizes Jiminy's report on the situation, but Sora can't get it due to some weird corruption going on in the Disney world
- strange blocks have popped up all over the place, and King Mickey has tasked Sora with figuring out what's going on
- the Heartless are slowing taking over Disney castle
- dialog has been changed around somewhat since the cell phone release
- will feature auto-jump option for those that want it
- some side-scrolling stages
The following information is from composer Yoko Shimomura...
- three songs for Re:Coded
- says Normura's orders for the game aren't too tough
- Shimomura created 2 songs for the original Re:Coded release
- Famitsu listened to the song for "Data World", which has a chiptune vibe that still pays tribute to the Kingdom Hearts style
- contains a large number of songs from the Kingdom Hearts series
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