358 1/2 Days and Coded Movies

[ultimateplatypuz]

So I got a PS3 for Christmas, along with 1.5 and 2.5. I was so excited to play 358 1/2 Days, as it was one of my favorites, and Coded because I had never played it. So I decided to start with coded, and noticed the cutscene was very long. Like, abnormally long even for KH. After a while, I noticed I could have easily played parts of the cutscenes in the game. So I looked it up, and discovered it was a movie. So I tried 3581/2 Days but it was the same thing. I actually hated this, as it wasn't even a very good movie. But on reviews I've read, everybody seemed to love it. So am I the only one that hated this.

 

[Lonbilly]

Days movie is really nice if you don't think of it as a movie but Remastered cutscenes. However, to think of it as a movie definitely points out it's flaws, like little to no fight sequences, poor transitions, random parts that are just text on a picture, etc.

Coded did it better, but still left a few things to be desired.

To be fair, however, all the advertising for 1.5 and 2.5 said that Days and Coded were movies/cutscenes and not playable games, although I do understand your anguish at them not being playable.

 

[ultimateplatypuz]

To be fair, however, all the advertising for 1.5 and 2.5 said that Days and Coded were movies/cutscenes and not playable games, although I do understand your anguish at them not being playable.

Oh, I never saw many advertisements, I just knew they were coming out. My bad.
...It's still stupid though.

 

[Lonbilly]

Oh, I never saw many advertisements, I just knew they were coming out. My bad.
...It's still stupid though.

The reason they were cutscenes instead of full games is because it was deemed that remaking the games for the PS3 would have taken too much time away from KH3, which makes sense. Days and Coded weren't like the PS titles which could easily be transferred over, or even like DDD, which is built on the same system that they built Birth by Sleep. So remaking them would have essentially been like making a new game per collection, which was time they did not have.

Would Days and Coded have been a welcome addition as games? Of course, especially Re:coded since the gameplay was probably my favorite thing about that game. Sadly, it was not meant to be.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

If I remember correctly, Nomura once stated that remaking Days as a fully playable experience would have taken a whole year or more (and the same would probably hold true for Coded), which is time that is better spent on KH III itself rather than the DS titles.

 

[Blackdrazon]

(and the same would probably hold true for Coded)

I don't want to understate the amount of time it takes to develop video games, but I'm not so certain of this for two reasons. 1) A Days remake would have to account for Mission Mode in some way or another, probably porting over every one of the playable characters, something coded doesn't need to scratch. 2) After porting Days, the engine and team would be in a good position to remake coded.

I'm still not surprised they didn't port them, but given the inter-connectivity of the projects, I think if we ever did see a Days remake post-KH3, a coded remake would be right on its heels a few months later. If not bundled together, Kingdom Hearts: Dawn of Souls style!

 

[Sephiroth0812]

I don't want to understate the amount of time it takes to develop video games, but I'm not so certain of this for two reasons. 1) A Days remake would have to account for Mission Mode in some way or another, probably porting over every one of the playable characters, something coded doesn't need to scratch. 2) After porting Days, the engine and team would be in a good position to remake coded.

I'm still not surprised they didn't port them, but given the inter-connectivity of the projects, I think if we ever did see a Days remake in the future, a coded remake would be right on its heels a few months later, if not bundled together, Kingdom Hearts: Dawn of Souls style.

That's not really the main reason.
Both Days and Coded were from a system so weak in comparison to the PS3 that they would have needed to make practically a new game from scratch for both Days and Coded on PS3.
You cannot simply "port" the assets from the DS to the PS3 because there would be too many differences.

Coded also has the complex gameplay assets like the Stat Matrix, overclocking system, upgradeable Keyblades, System sectors etc. which would all need to be made anew from scratch for a PS3 version.

Regardless how you look at it though, Nomura and the development staff decided that remaking the two DS titles completely would have been too time consuming and thus made them into cutscene compilations/movies instead.
One could also argue that the four games that are crucial to the story are those that are playable, while Days and Coded are presented in a way that still gets their main role in the whole setup across.

If there's ever anything like that, it should probably be bundled with something in regards to DDD, which so far is the only entry in the series missing in the "preparation stage" for KH III.

 

[Blackdrazon]

I know it's not the "main reason," but I was never talking about the main reason. I'm sorry if I changed the subject, I was just trying to comment on your suggestion that coded would take longer than Days: I feel if Days was already done, coded could be built on top of it and would take less time, because that's how the games were developed in the first place.

Here are the numbers. First: Days. It's hard to tell how long it took to make Days, but there was a demo as early as December 2007, and trailers in September. We're probably talking about just short of two years. I agree with you that a remastering of Days would take about a year or more, but then we come to coded.

h.a.n.d. had to have started production on Re:coded after Days in May 2009, probably even after Puyo Puyo 7 in July. Given that coded had to have been done ahead of its October 7th 2010 release date to ship, that gives them a round year (year and two months if you ignore Puyo Puyo) to have built the game on top of Days.

Whichever game hypothetically comes first would definitely take longer because it would have to overcome the technical gap, I wasn't denying that, but whichever game hypothetically comes second gets to leech off its sibling's head-start and can't possibly take longer than the first game. coded may have extra subsystems, but compared to the initial engine-work, they're really not that daunting. Most of the things you listed - except the system sectors - are things I think I'd feel comfortable programming, and I'd give you a reasonable time estimate on them too, and SE has more and better programmers than me.

Now, there is another angle to this: Re:coded is the more mature game. I'd say that if I wanted to remake both, I'd start on Re:coded internally, not Days after all. Then the situation gets reversed and coded does take longer.

 

[ultimateplatypuz]

If I remember correctly, Nomura once stated that remaking Days as a fully playable experience would have taken a whole year or more (and the same would probably hold true for Coded), which is time that is better spent on KH III itself rather than the DS titles.

At first when I was thinking about this, I thought how this didn't make sense. I was just thinking, "Oh, but BBS was on portable too!" I failed to realize that BBS was still on a Sony portable, which probably made it easier, and the other two were Nintendo.

 

[Neyan]

I understand why SE turned those games into "movies" and I think it was the best way they could handle it without remaking the games from scratch, but I do wish they would've have executed it a bit better.
Alone the fact that they removed Roxas' fight with Saix from 358/2 completely was a terrible choice, and they could have used so many more of the "casual" conversations between the main trio or even the other Orgaization members to give the game a more completed feeling.
Re:coded did do it better, but there is still room for improvement. Especially the Castle Oblivion worlds felt kind of derpy to me with Sora just talking to the disney characters in a circle, without even hearing their voices or anything. They could have at least showed them acting normally while Sora felt weirded out by just seeing those white blocks all around.

 

[Deleted member]

At first when I was thinking about this, I thought how this didn't make sense. I was just thinking, "Oh, but BBS was on portable too!" I failed to realize that BBS was still on a Sony portable, which probably made it easier, and the other two were Nintendo.

Not really relevant... The difference is in the graphic quality and basic engines. BBS is made very similar to a console KH game and thus was relatively easier to port to the PS3, with some models being made at a higher res. Likewise, DDD, having the most advanced models, is also easier to be ported to the PS4. It has little to do with Sony vs Nintendo and way more to do with the way that all of the games were actually made. A playable Days or Re:coded, at the level of fidelity expected for a remaster would require a lot more work, animations having to be done from scratch, areas done over, coding needing to be changed, etc. A lot of work, basically.

 

[ultimateplatypuz]

Not really relevant... The difference is in the graphic quality and basic engines. BBS is made very similar to a console KH game and thus was relatively easier to port to the PS3, with some models being made at a higher res. Likewise, DDD, having the most advanced models, is also easier to be ported to the PS4. It has little to do with Sony vs Nintendo and way more to do with the way that all of the games were actually made. A playable Days or Re:coded, at the level of fidelity expected for a remaster would require a lot more work, animations having to be done from scratch, areas done over, coding needing to be changed, etc. A lot of work, basically.

Ah, fair enough. I'm not entirely educated in this area so my bad.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

Ah, fair enough. I'm not entirely educated in this area so my bad.

The PSP may have been a portable, but in terms of technology it was much better and more close to the PS2 than the old, original Nintendo DS, hence why it was relatively easy to bring BBS over as a playable experience to PS3 just like the actual PS2-titles while Days and Re: Coded would have required something completely new from scratch.

 

[VoidGear.]

I think some people were frustrated not to be able to play Days, iirc. TBH, I was fairly happy about that. I still don't like Days or its story, but I dislike it far less in the movie than the game itself.

 

[ultimateplatypuz]

I think some people were frustrated not to be able to play Days, iirc. TBH, I was fairly happy about that. I still don't like Days or its story, but I dislike it far less in the movie than the game itself.

Days is like my 4th favorite, so it frustrated me a bit. I think the reason I liked it so much was because the manga for it was really flipping good in my opinion.

 

[ShardofTruth]

Days and Re:coded are totally not console quality but a (probably?) more simpler HD port would have been cool too. If you upscale the DS games, they don't look half bad:

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