Video Game / Kingdom Hearts coded

aka: Kingdom Hearts Recoded

It's a PLAY-full world!

Their hurting will be mended when you return to end it.

Kingdom Hearts coded (yes, that is exactly how it is capitalized and punctuated) is the fourth game in the Kingdom Hearts series, first released as a Japan-exclusive episodic mobile game between 2008 and 2010.

The game is set shortly after the events of Kingdom Hearts II. While organizing the records in his journal from his travels with Sora and his friends, Jiminy Cricket's curiosity about the line "thank Naminé" results in him finding a message that he did not write: "Their hurting will be mended when you return to end it." To investigate this message, King Mickey digitizes the contents of the journal and goes into the simulated world to investigate, awakening a virtual Sora on Destiny Islands to carry out the contents of the journal to uncover the identity of "them". However, the virtual Sora encounters "bugs", which take the form of red and black blocks. The plot takes Data-Sora through seven worlds from previous games.

The game was later remade for the Nintendo DS as Kingdom Hearts Re:coded, using the same engine as Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, released in Japan shortly after the original game’s completion in 2010, and given an international release in 2011. Re:coded adds a new multiplayer mode called the Avatar Menu that allows some communication between games, implements aspects of the Command Deck system from Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep for combat, and a new system called the Clock Program that gives temporary buffs as the player fills up the Clock gauge by dealing damage.

Like 358/2 Days before it, Re:coded received an HD cutscene Compilation Movie for the Compilation Re-release Kingdom Hearts HD II.5 ReMIX in 2014. Once again in lieu of gameplay, cutscenes are rendered for all the major story events with text recaps filling in some minor gameplay-related details, and a new secret ending leading into the events of Dream Drop Distance is added. A novelization was released in 2019.

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This game provide examples of:

• Absurdly High Level Cap: The level cap is 99, but you will probably finish the main game in the Level 50 area. That said this is Downplayed compared to other Kingdom Hearts games because of the Post-End Game Content: the optional post-game system sectors pit you against powerful enemies, beating the final boss gets you the Oathkeeper keyblade that eventually gains the Exp Boost ability, and each level you gain is technically two levels if you put them on the paths between CPUs. Thus level grinding is nowhere near as tedious or time-consuming as past games, and the final optional system sector at Hollow Bastion has a recommended level of 80, but before that are level 70 and 60 sectors, so you can work your way up gradually.
  • The Command System is also an example because of how it was retooled from Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: instead of having to fully level up a command to get it ready for command melding (which also meant every command in that game had a fairly low level cap) in Recoded converting comands is how you level them up: you first need to gather enough command points to fill the bar of each command you intend to merge, and once they are fused together the bar will reset to be partially or completely empty depending on the quality of the components. Every command can be leveled up to level 100 (represented by a Crown), which means even basic starting commands can remain competitive with end game ones with enough grinding... But it also means it takes forever to level up every command to max level, even with the in-game cheat that gives you more CP in exchange of less XP.
• Action Commands: In the turn-based battle system of Olympus Coliseum, you can make combos out of your regular attacks and block to reduce damage from enemy attacks with well-timed button presses.
• Adaptation Expansion: The movie version of the game in HD II.5 ReMIX places more emphasis on the What Measure Is a Non-Human? aspect of the story, on the friendships Data-Sora makes, the emergence of Data-Sora's heart (foreshadowing that hearts can be grown, as revealed by Xemnas in Dream Drop Distance), and adding scenes connecting Re:coded to Dream Drop Distance and even χ [chi], further foreshadowing Kingdom Hearts III.
• Advertised Extra: Kairi appears on the main art for the game, but there is no Data version of her at all, and the real one's only appearances are in a flashback and the ending, and she doesn't have any lines in either scene.
• Always Accurate Attack: Targeting Scopes makes it so that your attacks will always hit, ignoring any distance between you and your target.
• Ambiguous Syntax: "Would a single one of you suffice if what you faced was not a single one of him?" We thought it meant they had only faced "half" of Xehanort before, and next will be the whole. No, it means there are thirteen of him.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Clearing sections of the Avatar Sector in Re:coded earns you cosmetics to use in the Avatar Menu.
• Arbitrary Mission Restriction: System Sectors in Re:coded will provide optional challenges on each floor that reward extra SP if completed. Some of these are outright restrictive, such as limiting how many blox you're allowed to break or asking you to use nothing but a specific category of Deck Commands.
• Arc Welding: The end of the game ties the plots of 358/2 Days and Birth by Sleep into the series' present with Data-Namine's revelations and Mickey's letter to Sora.
• Arc Words: The phrase "Their hurting will be mended when you return to end it." ("We must return to free them from their torment" is in the cellphone version) pops up frequently. Mickey's desire to discern the meaning of the phrase is what jumpstarts the plot.
• Are We There Yet?: From Sora, upon entering Layer 20 of Olympus Coliseum's unlockable 30-layer challenge. (And right after that, Hercules comments that getting through the place is a labor in itself.)

• Actually Four Mooks: Olympus Coliseum runs on this, with one overworld Heartless representing anywhere between 3 to 9 actual mooks in battle.
• Anti-Grinding: In similiar vein to its predecessor, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. Sure, you can grind all 49 level up chips on Destiny Island, but you won't have any space to put them in the Stat Matrix to actually raise your level. The size of the Stat Matrix is more of less a soft cap to how high your stats and levels can be at that point of the story, and the only way to unlock other parts of it is by completing a world.
• Ascended Extra: This is the second time Jiminy and his journal are actually important to the plot... and then he fades into the background about halfway through.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: The fight against the bugs inside Riku. However, Sora fights the battle instead of Riku.
• Big Bad: The equivalent to that of this game is the one who controls the bugs: the data version of Sora's Heartless, who here has become a Darkside.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Riku and Mickey fight Pete and Maleficent after Sora's Keyblade breaks.
  • Goofy saves Sora from Pete in Hollow Bastion.
  • Mickey helps Sora defeat Sora's Heartless.
  • Donald and Goofy snap Sora out of his depression in Castle Oblivion.
• BFS:
  • The Zone of Ruin Overclock Finisher creates a blade of light which is several times taller than Sora, which he then slashes enemies in front of him with, causing devastating damage.
  • Cloud's Buster Sword is still massive: far, far bigger than Sora's keyblade and he hits hard as a truck with it. Both when he is your ally and your enemy.
• Bonus Dungeon: Layers 6-30 of Olympus Coliseum and the extra system sectors, especially Hollow Bastion sector 2. Also Avatar Sector.
• Boring Yet Practical: Air Spiral and Aerial Sweep. Mediocre damage, but they're Spin Attacks that hit enemies over a decent area, reload quickly, and have low memory costs. Also, Mega Flare doesn't look half as cool as the other Command Finishers, but it does a lot of damage and hits every enemy on screen, and you just need to push a button.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Eliminators (red Defenders) appear like normal enemies, but they're far harder. They have massive amounts of HP relative to your current level, are shielded from all frontal attacks like their original counterparts, have projectile magic which can inflict any status effect at random, are themselves immune to all status effects, will not flinch from attacks, and can teleport, often right between Sora and where he needs to go. Oh, and they can follow Sora through the areas of the current system sector floor. About the only good thing related to them is that they can only spawn once the way to the next floor is open and the player is warned when one of them has spawned.
• Boss Rush: Several, most notably the series of bosses in Hollow Bastion — Pete twice and Riku three times — with you likely forgetting to change Keyblades/Commands because you haven't received any for the past hour or so and the fights against Sora's Heartless.
• Bragging Rights Reward: The Ultima Weapon of this game requires you to complete a Level 80, 13 floor system sector after you complete the game, the final floor holding the Superboss. The problem is once you get it, there's nothing left to do.
  • Unless you decide to take it into the Avatar Sector, fight Bugged Data-Riku, or take on the Bonus sector again with various Cheats turned on to make things harder.
  • This sector is also the only one from which stat chips can be bought repeatedly. However, if you're able to conquer it on top of fulfilling all of tasks, chances are that your stats are close to the max anyway and they will be useful only for the Technician trophy.
  • Speaking of trophies, they surprisingly avert this, since for every trophy you earn you get a Trophy Chip, which boosts all stats save Luck, equivalent to a Level Up except without increasing the actual level.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: One of the floor challenges is "Play at night." Cue much confusion (and for some, inconvenience) at trying to figure out how to do that until you realize that it's talking about playing the game at night in the real world, which the DS knows because it has a clock installed.
  • There is a version of this trope in the game itself, as Data-Sora arrives in Disney Castle... Except it's not the one in the journal, it's the one where Mickey and the other characters are watching the journal itself, complete with the monitor showing them watching the monitor...
• Breather Episode: For the series as a whole. It was released after the emotionally intense duo of 358/2 Days and Birth by Sleep, and before the fairly dark Dream Drop Distance. Notably, it's the only entry in the series to date where Xehanort does not appear at all nor is even mentioned except for The Stinger.
• Brought Down to Normal: This happened to Sora three times.
  • First after his Keyblade breaks.
  • Second after the bugs in Riku's memory steal his abilities.
  • And finally when memory Maleficent places a spell on him that disables commands and abilities.
• Butt-Monkey: The 2.5 HD ReMIX version reveals Iago's reactions to getting attacked by Data-Sora when it comes to reclaiming Genie's lamp and when it comes to attacking Jafar's lamp. Needless to say, he's not quite happy about what Data-Sora's doing to him.
• Call-Back:
  • Some scenes in the game are exact replicas of Sora's original quest.
  • "This world has been connected. Tied to the ____"
  • While talking to the newly-created Data-Sora in the Awakening, Mickey nearly quotes the mysterious voice from the original word-for-word. Which was him the first time too, according to Word of God.
  • Mickey's letter contains the phrase "I should have known there were no coincidences", paraphrasing the text "There are no coincidences in fate" used in the original trailer for Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep from Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix+
  • Roxas fights Sora, then happily recombines with his other half.
  • In addition to the standard Keyblade combos, this game introduces "heavy" and "light"-type Keyblades, which are identified by having the Impact Arts and Sonic Arts abilities respectively. Many of the combos used by these Keyblades are based on combo modifiers from previous Kingdom Hearts games, such as Sonic Arts Keyblades getting KH1 Zantetsuken and Hurricane Period as combo finishers and Impact Arts Keyblades getting Dodge Slash from Kingdom Hearts II as a ground combo finisher.
• Camera Centering: Tapping the R button centers the camera so it faces where Data-Sora is facing.
• Cap : One of the few games Kingdom Hearts where it is possible to reach the cap of various stats without grinding for an absurd amount of Stat Boosters: Max possible HP is 400, max Strength, Magic and Defense 200 and max luck 14, which can be temporary doubled through obtuse means in the Avatar Menu alternative game mode to 28.
• Cast from Hit Points: The Two-Edged Blade ability on Oblivion increases the damage dealt by normal attacks and attack commands, but causes Data-Sora to lose some HP every time he successfully hits.
• Chaos Architecture: The worlds inside Riku's memories get very screwed up by bugs.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The mysterious figure Sora meets at his awakening is Data-Roxas, who shows up at the end of the game.
• The Chessmaster: Naminé/Data-Naminé, to set the stage for Sora to awaken the painful memories of Roxas, Xion, and Ventus inside him and to ultimately set up for their rescue, and the rescue of Terra, Aqua, Naminé, and Axel.
• Chewing the Scenery: Even Data-Sora gets in on the action this time.
  Sora: I never would have made it here without the three of you. But it's my turn now. Let me be your light, and I'll show you the way home!
  Donald: Um, isn't that hamming it up a little?

• Continuity Nod: The appearance of Leon and Yuffie.
• Covers Always Lie: Riku is shown in his KH1 appearance in the original cover art, but only the real one, appearing in flashbacks shown by the journal and in the character logs, appears as such, and as his older self in the game's ending. Data-Riku on the other hand is only ever shown in the black coat the real one obtained at the end of Chain of Memories, though he usually keeps the hood up.
• Cut and Paste Environments: Play through enough System Sector rooms and you'll start to recognize them by layout after a while.
• Cutscene Incompetence: The blocks which trap Donald and Goofy in Hollow Bastion are the same type that they were easily breaking just moments ago.
• Dark Is Not Evil: According to the Castle Oblivion segment, the pain caused by empathy can cause someone to fall into darkness. However, the story comes on the side of it being a worthwhile risk when the alternative is safely abandoning people who are suffering.
• Death from Above: The command Flame Fall allows Data-Sora to launch a fireball upward and it will come crashing down on an enemy position, dealing massive Fire damage.
• Defeat Means Friendship: After being defeated, Roxas stands down and stops acting like an asshole, revealing that the whole thing, up to and including his attitude, was a test to see if Sora could deal with the hurt buried deep within his own heart.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: Inside Data-Riku. In fact, when episode 7 was released, it was actually believed to be the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, since episode 8 had yet to be announced.

• Droste Image: In Re:coded and II.5 HD Remix, when Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Data-Sora and Jiminy Cricket see the image of themselves on the monitor in Disney Castle, it repeats at least twice.
• Dual Wielding: Data-Roxas, just like his real counterpart, dual-wields Oathkeeper and Oblivion.
• The Easy Way or the Hard Way: The Castle Oblivion segment offers this choice. Does Data-Sora protect his heart and stay in the light by abandoning the people around him to their suffering? Or does he allow himself to bond to them and feel their pain, but risk falling to darkness? This also foreshadows the plot of Dream Drop Distance.
• Equivalent Exchange: All of the cheats. You can boost CP at the cost of EXP, raise item drops at the cost of your max HP, raise prize drops at the cost of increasing enemy strength, or lower enemy max HP at the cost of your own. The last is the purest example, as the HP reductions are literally a 1:1 ratio, all the way down to one point.
• Excuse Plot: The whole story with the bugs, Data-Riku, and Maleficent and Pete, is just about a curiosity in a journal and the whole thing is reset anyway. It does, however, force Mickey, Donald, and Goofy to consider the value of the life of a created being, and sheds new light on the nature of Keyblades and hearts. The final chapter in Castle Oblivion also features foreshadowing of Dream Drop Distance and Kingdom Hearts III.
• Experience Booster: The CP Cheat lets you toggle how much CP you receive by lowering how much EXP you earn.
• Fighting from the Inside: Data-Riku, after being corrupted by bugs, is forced to fight Sora against his will.
• Fighting Your Friend: Pete infects Data-Riku with bugs and forces him to fight Data-Sora three times in a row. Later on they turn into a fake Data-Riku that you have to fight while inside the real Data-Riku trying to remove his bugs.
• Filler: The game is commonly accused of being this compared to other games in the franchise. While it does have a role in the overarching Dark Seeker Saga, it is relatively minor, mostly serving to explain a plot point in Kingdom Hearts II that many fans believe didn't need a whole new game to explain, as well as to set up a Sequel Hook connecting II to Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance]. Later connections are formed retroactively through later installments, such as connecting the Datascape to the Book of Prophecies, but this wasn't the case when the game first came out.
• Final Boss: You thought it was Sora's Heartless, but it was actually Data-Roxas once you use all the cards once in Castle Oblivion.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Data-Roxas uses Data-Sora's good nature to trick him into meaninglessly experiencing the pain of others—pain that causes a weakness the darkness can use to seize Sora's heart. Data-Riku tells him earlier on, however, that even if this is harmful to Sora, it's possible for him to heal, and in the end everyone around him will be better off. This basically describes the plot of Dream Drop Distance and the lead-in to Kingdom Hearts III.
  • When Data-Naminé explains to Mickey and Data-Sora that the real Sora's keeping painful memories of others deep within his own heart during the game's ending, Axel, Roxas, Naminé and Xion can all be seen as the source of the painful memories (alongside Terra, Aqua and Ventus), foreshadowing the plot twist in Dream Drop Distance that they all managed to gain hearts of their own.
  • One that is only visible with hindsight from Kingdom Hearts III: In the secret ending as Young Xehanort explains how Master Xehanort's Keyblade is the oldest remaining Keyblade, there is a closeup of Braig as he squints his eye. III reveals that Braig is Luxu, and so the Keyblade originally belonged to him.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: It's Implied that the reason Jiminy's Journal took the form of Riku is because it is the only person other than Sora that everyone is comfortable talking to.
• Gaiden Game: This game has less bearing on the main Story Arc compaired to to other games in the series.
• Gameplay Roulette: This game features rather heavy-handed usage of Unexpected Gameplay Change that's required at various points in the game to proceed. This includes everything from a 2D side-scrolling action platformer, to auto-scrolling rail shooter segments, to the entirety of Olympus Coliseum turning into a standard turn-based JRPG.
• Gathering Steam: The Overclock system is a derivative of the Command Gauge from Birth by Sleep. As Sora attacks enemies, the Clock Gauge will fill up, and once it maxes out it levels up and increases Sora's Clock Level. Each Clock Level will grant Sora a temporary new ability based on the specific Keyblade and chosen Clock Tree path. Once the Clock Tree reaches a dead end, maxing out the Clock Gauge one more time will allow Sora to perform a powerful Finish Command while resetting the Clock Gauge back to zero.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: As usual, Iago carrying Jafar's lamp.
• Glamour Failure: In Castle Oblivion, Data-Sora encounters characters from other worlds who seem to believe the current room is their own world. To Sora, they are simply rooms in Castle Oblivion with images of those other worlds projected on the walls.
• A Glitch in the Matrix: One way coded avoids being a rehash of KH1 is by having the worlds be affected with glitches that mess with the layout, often to wall off further progression through the world. Fixing them and restoring the worlds to their proper states is part of Data-Sora's mission.
• Guest-Star Party Member: While the majority of the game has you playing as Data-Sora all by his lonesome, you gain some party members at a couple points.
  • Hercules tags along during Olympus Coliseum and its Unexpected Gameplay Change to turn-based combat. Cloud can also join you if you find him while wandering through the labyrinth.
  • Donald and Goofy help out in Hollow Bastion after Data-Sora's Keyblade is destroyed. While the two are technically Non Player Characters, you have limited control over them via the Command Deck.
• Guide Dang It!: Once again, Melding recipes. The game at least tells you what commands are compatible with others and will let you preview the final result with the ability to set a sub-command, but if you're planning to execute a complicated chain of command melds to get to a specific result you had better have the internet pulled up.
• Guilt by Coincidence: Data-Sora blames a mysterious figure for causing the glitches before finding out it was Data-Riku under the hood, trying to ready him for the fight against the bugs in the journal.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Zero/One, a pixelated Kingdom Key with a variety of offensive abilities, won by defeating Sora's Heartless. The Oathkeeper is won from the final boss but has more defensive abilities dedicated to support, while the Lionheart, Metal Chocobo and Ultima Weapon are only available in difficult post-game challenges. And even when you have all of those, Zero/One may become a weapon of choice simply for its Targeting Scope ability, which no other Keyblade has and essentially gives it infinite range when there's something for it to hit for as long as the ability is available.
• Innocuously Important Episode: Aside from the Arc Welding and the Stinger, Dream Drop Distance's revelation that Nobodies could grow hearts makes more sense when you've watched Data Sora grow one and draw forth his own Keyblade from it in coded. And Maleficent's appearance in the Union X was how she learned about the legendary Books of Prophecies.
• Insane Troll Logic: Wonderland runs on it as always. The final area where you revisit it has you perform four good deeds for people before the Queen calls for you. She accuses you of stealing her memory, and if you screwed up one task and lied, she uses it as proof you're a criminal. However, if you do them all right she uses your good nature as proof you're hiding something, and if you do them all wrong she realizes you were at least trying to be good, so she decides the punishment should fit the crime and lets you go as a good deed, snapping "let's see how you like it!"
• Inside a Computer System: The entire game takes place in the Disney Castle computer, which has recreated several worlds from Kingdom Hearts so Data-Sora can try to fix the bugs in Jiminy's Journal. Sora will occasionally come across various glitches that impede his progress, requiring entering locations called System Sectors to fix the glitches and return the world to normal.
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!:
  • The data recreations of the characters are completely autonomous without any input from Mickey, just the Journal entries about them. Most of them proceed to act like they would if they were real, not realizing they're in a computer.
  • Jiminy's Journal itself gains sentience after being turned into data, choosing Data-Riku as its avatar.
• Interface Screw: The boss of Wonderland, the Trickmaster, has a habit of turning the camera sideways and upside-down during the fight against him.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia:
  • Glitches cause everyone in Wonderland to lose their memories.
  • Sora's memories are deleted after Hollow Bastion because the journal resets to its former state.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: The strongest Mook in the game is the red-colored Eliminator, a more deadly reskin of the Defender Heartless. It has a high amount of HP, a shield to block any attacks from the front, can teleport around the battlefield to ensure hitting it is difficult, and its attacks are Status Infliction Attacks involving all statuses.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The moogle will tell you that you can check the tutorial section in the menu if you need a refresher on what licenses do, before adding that he has no idea what that menu is. Somewhat justified in that you're in a computer anyway.
• Leet Lingo:
  • Due to a glitch when entering Wonderland, Mickey's words will randomly have some letters replaced with corresponding symbols.
  • You can receive fixed avatars in tag mode, most of which have this as their username.
• Level Scaling: The Eliminator enemy always adjusts itself to match Sora's level, ensuring it will be a threat whenever it is encountered.
• Lighter and Softer: It can be serious when it needs to, but the game's tone is much more optimistic than both future and previous entries.
• Limit Break: Filling up the Clock Gauge lets you use an extremely powerful attack called an Overclock Finisher.
• Lip Lock: Affects the 2.5 movie version for the same reasons Re:Chain of Memories and Days were. Some notable, curious aversions include scenes with Hades and the "Signs of What's to Come" secret ending.
• Living Memory: Jimmy's Journal revolves around Sora, and so it collected his memories. When the journal is digitized, these memories become something like AIs that Mickey's group can interact with.
  • Castle Oblivion does this again. by creating illusions of memories from the journal. After completing each world's scenario, Data-Sora's memory of the scenario is erased after leaving the room.
  • Riku's memories are present here too, through a connection with Sora, even though Jimmy never wrote them down.
• Loophole Abuse: Several challenges can be completed using small exploits. A challenge near the end of the game has you running an obstacle course with your commands disabled, and to receive one reward you have to do it in under a minute. However, for some reason Glide is not disabled, allowing completion in under thirty seconds. In system sectors, there may be a challenge condition such as not using curative commands, or not jumping. However, keyblade abilities that restore HP are fine for the former, and commands and attacks that have Sora leap to attack are allowed for the latter.
• Lost in Transmission: Once Mickey, Donald, and Goofy realize that they've been sucked into the computer, they suddenly lose their communication with Chip and Dale because Maleficent and Pete noticed their arrival and severed the link to prevent them getting any more assistance.
• Low-Level Run: Like in Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, levels are earned, but only count if they're installed in a stat matrix. Thus, it's possible to go through all of the worlds with an effective level of one if you take out all of your level chips. There's even a trophy for going through the worlds under level 15.
• Manipulative Bastard: Data-Roxas. For those who thought Roxas was "badass" prior to this, his digital counterpart could have easily become a great villain at the level of Marluxia with a dash of Larxene successfully if he so felt like it. Thankfully he was just testing Sora.
• Meaningful Echo: Donald and Goofy remind Data-Sora of the original Sora's "My friends are my power" speech when they're about to be killed by Pete.
• Metal Slime: Gold Tricholomas appear only in debugged rooms of system sectors. They constantly warp all over the place and can blind Sora with their poison, but drop SP orbs every time they are hit and a bounty of them when slain.
• Min-Maxing: Stat panels can't be moved once placed, though you can swap them with another panel, and panels on a direct route between CPUs double in effectiveness. Thus the dilemma is what stats to prioritize getting the boost, and do you put off exploring a side path to a new ability so you can save panels for the main path.
• Mirror Match: Sora's Heartless turns into a dark version of Sora.
• Mondegreen Gag:
  • When Mickey asks what Maleficent is doing in the Datascape, she responds with "Date Escape?" She keeps calling it that for the rest of the game.
  • When Pete talks to Jafar about Glitches, he has no idea how the word is spelled or pronounced ("Gali-ches?"), and just assumes Pete's some extremely powerful sorcerer.
• Money Is Experience Points: SP is a currency used exclusively in System Sectors to buy special prizes. Once you bought them all, you can convert the rest into either Munny or EXP.
• Money Sink:
  • Want to get every last Debug Device Y? Hope you're prepared to grind for it outside Olympus Coliseum.
  • Ditto for Eternity Charm that provides Second Chance.
• Multiple Endings:
  • Olympus Coliseum has an alternate ending if you choose not to rescue Cloud and recruit him to your party.
  • Each segment of Castle Oblivion has three different endings depending on what actions you take or how well you do at certain tasks. The reward is a cameo from Leon and Yuffie who give Sora a Heat Sink Belt and a Debug Device: Y.
• Mundane Made Awesome: In the II.5 adaptation, the final battle with Sora's Heartless in its true form of a Shadow is done in the classic "dash, leap, slice" of a Single-Stroke Battle.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In Olympus Coliseum, Hades orders Cloud to "show Hercules who can really go the distance".
  • Also in Olympus, Cloud gets to use a few of his iconic catchphrases from Final Fantasy VII, such as "Not interested."
• Necessary Drawback: Most Cheat Tuners on the Stat Matrix have some sort of penalty when active. The Loot Cheat increases the chances of random item drops but decreases Sora's HP, the Prize Cheat increases the prize drop chance but increases enemy damage, the CP Cheat increases the amount of CP awarded but decreases the amount of EXP that is gained, and the HP Cheat reduces enemy HP but Sora's is decreased by the same amount.
• New Game Plus: While it's not a "New Game" in the strictest sense, it is possible to replay all the worlds with the items, levels, and stat enhancers that were acquired later in the game in Re:coded.
• New Work, Recycled Graphics:
  • The original coded recycled cutscene and talking sprites from Chain of Memories. It also gave new ones to characters that didn't already have them.
  • Re:coded recycles a vast portion of its environments and models from 358/2 Days.
• No-Gear Level: Due to Maleficent destroying the virtual Keyblade, Data-Sora has to traverse part of Hollow Bastion without a weapon, much like the real Sora had to in the first game.
• Nostalgia Level:
  • The final world is Castle Oblivion and it's reminiscent of Chain of Memories.
  • The Olympus Coliseum labyrinth is a revisit of the Chain of Memories battle system adapted to a turn-based system with a party, complete with sleights.
• Not Completely Useless: Hi-Ethers — through most of the game, they're a waste of limited space, but when attempting a No-Damage Run for the Fatal Flawless trophy, they're lifesavers when combined with the Oathkeeper Keyblade. Using them will charge your clock level up enough to activate Auto-Life, which will save you if you take a hit. The rules say you must complete the episode with your HP capped at 1. There's no rule against using Auto-Life to save yourself.
• One-Hit Kill: The Zantetsu Prime ability makes it so that the Zantetsuken Deck Command has a chance to kill any normal enemy in one hit.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: One of the in-game cheats lets you reduce everything's HP, all the way down to 1 if you so choose. Sora is also subject to this debuff, so beware.
• One-Steve Limit: In Kingdom Hearts Re:coded, there are several obtainable Avatar Parts in the Avatar Menu and one◊ of them is based on Final Fantasy VI character, Terra Branford's Dissidia outfit, such as "FF6 Terra's Sword". She is not to be confused with Kingdom Hearts character Terra.
• Optional Party Member: You can have Cloud join your party during Olympus Coliseum, though you have to find him first.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: Going back to Olympus Coliseum via Questploration lets you fight mooks the standard way in the courtyard outside the main venue. This spawns a ton of high-powered enemies that are worth a lot of EXP, Munny and prizes in quantity such that you can be there for well over 3 minutes and still get more enemies. This naturally makes it a very easy place to grind virtually anything you need.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: The reason that Data-Roxas has been tormenting Sora throughout Castle Oblivion is both because he is a Nobody, meaning that he technically doesn't exist, much like data and because he wants Sora to feel the emptiness and hurt in his heart that he felt after he lost Xion - knowing that there was someone ever so important to you, but not remembering who they were or how they affected you. If you played 358/2 Days then the final boss fight is Roxas, or rather, his data-duplicate.
• Post-Final Boss: The fight against Data-Roxas at the end of the game is shorter and much simpler than the earlier one against Sora's Heartless. Data-Roxas has one form with a decent amount of health, while Sora's Heartless has 4 (technically 5) forms that each have their own health bars.
• Puppet Fighter: Sora temporarily becomes this in Hollow Bastion after Maleficent destroys his digital Keyblade. Sora loses the ability to fight, but he is soon joined by Goofy and later Donald who fight in his stead. While they are in the party, Sora still cannot engage in combat himself but can control Donald and Goofy's AI by using the A button to issue directions. Attack and Magic Commands that Sora has equipped become attacks for Goofy and Donald respectively, which he can tell them to use the same way he does. If either party member is KO'd, Sora must revive them by getting close and resuscitating them with the A button. If Sora fills the Clock Gauge with his allies' attacks, he can also execute a unique Finish Command alongside them.
• Rare Random Drop: It's possible for enemies to drop Chips, but these aren't easily obtained. You'll need to high up the difficulty to maximum and use the multiplier cheat if you want even a slight chance to see them.
• Random Drop: Enemies can drop Potions, Commands, and even chips.
• Remixed Level: Most of levels have two remixes, actually:
  • The first comes while visiting inside of Riku and debugging him, minus Olympus Coliseum due to how it works. You have to recover your strength and sweep out local sector.
  • The second takes place in Castle Oblivion, with word 'remix' being used here very loosely since you'll visit white rooms with screens of corresponding worlds painted on the walls and solving puzzles fitting their theme and featuring their NPCs.
• The Reveal:
  • After five years of wondering, speculation, and fanfics on the subject, the fandom of Kingdom Hearts now knows what is written in that oh-so mysterious letter-from-a-bottle that Mickey sent at the end of Kingdom Hearts II: it's to send Sora off on his next big journey to save Roxas, Axel, Xion, Naminé, Ventus, Aqua, and Terra from their suffering. If one has been keeping up with the in-depth information on the series, the contents of the letter was inferred by the "Reconnect. Kingdom Hearts" Secret Ending.
  • In the case of Re:coded's secret ending, the revelation that Xehanort has indeed come back in his complete form, and not by himself, if Yen Sid's theory is to be believed.
  • At the end of the game, you could be forgiven for assuming that the cloaked figure in Castle Oblivion is Riku, who has been appearing to you in his black cloak all game, or even Marluxia, as was the case in the original Castle Oblivion visit. Then he transports you to an arena similar to the boss arenas from ''Re:Chain Of Memories'',^note (This particular one is called the Station Of Sorrow.) the music changes to a familiar tune, and he pulls out Oathkeeper and Oblivion. Yes, He's Back!. ^note Foreshadowing this, the shape of his hood is different from Riku, who himself suggested that he was not the same guy as the one who appeared in his dream at the start of the game. In the HD 2.5 ReMIX, the voice too is a hint.
• Regenerating Mana: Spell uses restore themselves.
• Sad Battle Music: The rather melancholy leitmotifs of Riku and Roxas play during Sora's respective battles with them.
• Save the Villain: Sora and the others try to save Maleficent and Pete from deletion in the seventh chapter. He fails to save them, but Data-Riku manages it.
• Sequel Hook: Re:coded has this, which sets up Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] by revealing that Master Xehanort will return and Sora and Riku are due to take the Mark of Mastery exam. Furthermore, Mickey opens this scene by telling Yen Sid he has a lead on where Ventus' heart is.
• Sequential Boss: You fight Pete and Data-Riku two and three times in a row, respectively; they don't change form, but pull out new moves in each battle.
  • When you fight Sora's Heartless, first he's a powered up Darkside, then he's a dark version of Sora, then he's three dark versions of Sora, then he's three super fast dark versions of Sora, then he's a Shadow.
    • Even longer if you count the Invisible during the 3D-World Runner-sequence just before the Darkside form.
• Shout-Out: Once the boss of the turn-based Olympus Coliseum is defeated, the characters do victory poses as the result screen plays. Bonus points for Cloud actually being the protagonist of a Final Fantasy game. He even uses one of his own victory poses from that game.
  • Also in Olympus Coliseum, when Hercules tells Sora and Cloud what the name of the giant, ornery, 3-headed puppy is, Cloud mentions that it sounds familiar.
    • More from Cloud: when you reach Layer 25, both Sora and Hercules are unable to define the Heartless that acts as its boss, but Cloud immediately identifies it as a Behemoth. Understandable, since he's familiar with a very similar creature.
  • The Japanese version has the upgraded forms of the Metal Chocobo take their names from the various incarnations of Final Fantasy VII's Bahamut (Neo, Fury, SIN, and ZERO).
  • What'd you think I was up here doing? Having a laugh?
    • By the same token, Tidus' fixed avatar has the username "4cedLaffer".
  • Ain't no getting off this train we're on.
  • "Getting through this labyrinth is a labor in itself."
• Single-Stroke Battle: The HD remake features several battle scenes done with cutscene graphics, but more than a few of them end as soon as Sora gets one good hit in. The classic "dash, leap, slice" is done with Sora's Heartless, entirely justified due to its true form as a Shadow being the one participating.
• Socialization Bonus: Finding a signal of another NDS of Wii when in Tag Mode in Avatar Menu will net you an Avatar Sector Floor and a Scratch card, both of which can bring some interesting bonuses for your saved profile. Subverted since even if you don't meet other people and even when you're offline the game will generate some virtual profiles for you randomly, though it will take much longer.
• Superboss:
  • Olympus Coliseum has three more bosses that can be fought if you go through the optional layers. The Rock Titan is found on Layer 15, a Behemoth Heartless is fought on Layer 25, and the Ice Titan is encountered on Layer 30.
  • At the end of the optional Hollow Bastion System Sector, a Bugged Data-Roxas can be fought. He has more HP, can buff himself over the course of the fight, and has the ability to inflict Clock Rewind with some of his attacks.
  • A Bugged Data-Riku is the last opponent of the 100 Floor Avatar Sector. He's basically the same as before, but stronger and has more HP.
• Spoiler Opening: The very first bit of the opening is the ending to Chain of Memories, followed by brief interspersed flashes of Terra's armor collapsing to its knees after the fight with Terranort, Ven in the Chamber of Waking, and Aqua with the ocean of the Dark Meridian visible behind her. It pretty much summarizes the events of Kingdom Hearts, Chain of Memories, and Kingdom Hearts II in a huge montage with lots of hugging, and concludes with the Kingdom Hearts II opening with bonus foreshadowing of Naminé being the last thing you see before the title flash. The development team probably went ahead and assumed that if you're playing this game, you already know this stuff, but the Birth by Sleep ones are a little surprising, considering it was still fairly recent on coded's release. Though, that's probably why they're such brief flashes — if you hadn't already finished Birth by Sleep, you probably wouldn't even realize what they are.
• Sprite/Polygon Mix: In the original coded, the world (and some enemies) is 3D but the characters are 2D sprites.
• Time Stands Still: Jafar gains control over time after Pete gives him a corrupted lamp.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Locking the Keyhole in some worlds leads to a new area with completely different game mechanics. Traverse Town becomes a 2D side-scrolling platformer that leads to a fight with the Guard Armor, Wonderland turns into shoot-em-up that leads to a fight with the Trickmaster, and Olympus Coliseum becomes a turn-based RPG reminiscent of the classic Final Fantasy games that takes place in a large maze. The Beginning of Hollow Bastion becomes a pure platformer due to Sora losing his keyblade and being unable to destroy Blox, and becomes more like Tactical RPG when later Goofy and Donald join you.
• Useless Useful Spell: Surprisingly enough, Cura and Curaga are these compared to the humble Cure: their main advantage over Cure is that they heal more HP, while their drawback is that they also take more time to recharge and occupy more memory space. The reason why Cure is superior is because it can be leveled up enough time to be able to always heal Data-Sora to max HP anyway, making its "upgrade" paradoxially worse, as their healing is overkill. In fact a fully upgraded Esuna can also heal a Data-Sora that reached his HP cap to half, on top of removing status changes.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: A data recreation of Castle Oblivion, which opens up after Sora's Heartless is defeated, and the Journal is fully restored to normal.
• Version-Exclusive Content: The movie version released with 2.5 added two cutscenes that add a bit of context to the overarching plot; one of these is Maleficent revealing that she knows about the Book of Prophecies, forming a connection to her appearance in Kingdom Hearts Union X and leading into her motivations in Kingdom Hearts III, and the other is a new post-credits scene that shows the Organization's founding members being recompleted after their heartless and nobodies were destroyed.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: In the data Castle Oblivion you're met with multiple illusions of the characters you've encountered, and you're given several series of choices that let you be a complete jerk to the characters (i.e. getting the White Rabbit's clock and not giving it back to him when he asks). The mysterious figure guiding you actually encourages this, reminding you that the people you're seeing are just hunks of data. Why should you feel bad for breaking their nonexistent hearts? Then again, being Sora, most of it is considered unintentional.
• Video Game Remake: Kingdom Hearts Re:coded. The remake adds updated 3D graphics, overhauls the presentation and cutscenes, modernizes the gameplay to the style of 358/2 Days with the addition of the Command Deck from Birth by Sleep, includes brand new mechanics such as the Stat Matrix and the Command Matrix, and cuts the Area Debug segments in favor of the new System Sectors.
• Voice Grunting: Dialogue in cutscenes will be punctuated by simple grunts or short phrases by the speaking character, instead of full line readings.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Guard Armor and the gauntlet to reach him are here to remind you that things aren't going to be the same as they were in previous games, foreshadowing the Reality Shifts of ''Dream Drop Distance.
• Wham Episode:
  • After Wonderland, when Sora runs off after the mysterious figure, the gang in the library hears a banging noise. Goofy thinks it's Chip and Dale coming back to rescue them...only for Data-Sora to burst in! Then, the mysterious man appears and it turns out to be Data-Riku who imported Mickey and the others into the datascape to help solve the mystery.
  • Agrabah, oddly enough. After Sora cleans the world of bugs as usual, Maleficent shows up and shatters Sora's Keyblade, and then kidnaps Riku after he and Mickey save him.
  • The ending wherein Data Sora and Mickey meet Data Naminé and find out the truth about the messages.
• Wham Shot:
  • After Traverse Town, as Donald and Goofy are discussing Pluto being apparently there and Jiminy saying he didn't write anything like that in the journal, A quartet of Shadow Heartless suddenly arrive much to Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Jiminy's shock. Mickey destroys them but find the doors are locked and they can't check the rest of the castle.
  • At Castle Oblivion, Data-Sora reunites with the hooded figure from the Dive to the Heart who acts as his guide. Once Sora states he is willing to accept the hurt in his heart, the figure challenges him to battle... and brandishes Oathkeeper and Oblivion, revealing him to be a data version of Roxas.^note Not so much in the HD 2.5 ReMIX movie because way before this moment, not only does his voice give him away, but his face is frequently visible beneath his hood.
• What Is This Feeling?: Data-Sora feels sad when he has to say good-bye to the others at the end and fade back into the data, but doesn't recognize it at first because he hasn't had any reason to feel truly sad on his journey yet. He asks if it's another glitch, but Mickey tells him that this is just what good-byes feel like.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Everyone is now computer data. According to Nomura, this trope is the main theme of the game — interesting that the cheeriest game in the series would address something so heavy. For an example, when questioned about the nature of Data-Sora's Keyblade:
  Nomura: It comes from the heart's connections with the data, hinting towards the story theme, "Can a heart be born in an existence made of data?"
• What the Hell, Hero?: Given to Data-Sora by the Queen of Hearts, of all people, in the Alternate Ending of Wonderland in Castle Oblivion. Since it's Wonderland, you get it for doing everything right.
  • Even better is that you get a What the Hell, Hero? of a different color if you do everything wrong. The Queen of Hearts almost says the trope name before coming to the conclusion that you were trying to be nice and simply failing spectacularly.
• What You Are in the Dark: Data-Roxas attempts to invoke this on Sora at Castle Oblivion. Since Sora can just go through each world repeatedly with different results — and nobody will remember anything when he does — everything is, "guilt-free".
• Where It All Began: The final level brings the confusion over Sora's memories and the journal's erasing full-circle when Data-Sora arrives at Castle Oblivion.

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"Sora, when Naminé's words are passed on to you,"
"When the day comes that you learn of this great unknown and mysterious adventure,"
"It's important that you understand, whatever you feel in your heart,"
"That's what "he" felt in his."