Well, if I were to guess I'd say;



And Kingdom Key? It'd be more fun to use Hidden Dragon or even Sweet Memories

Oh you silly people and your challenges. Why can't you just play a game for fun? =P

And I still need to get everything for my Gummi Ship.

I do the challenges for fun

As for my gummy ships, on KH1 I've finished it insofar as it matters.

I'm missing a few rare-drop blocks on KH2 and a couple of level 3 S ranks and them I'm done there as well

Next you need to do Halloween Town. DO IT I SAY!

I've pretty much finished my exams (next one that I care about is at the end of June), so back to weekly updates

~~

Platform 2 of Exposition Station has some Kingdom Hearts 1 spoilers. Unfortunately, the only way to avoid this, is to skip this section entirely.


It's that castle I mentioned earlier. I'm sure I didn't make it up. That was the castle where Sora used the Keyblade to free Kairi's heart.
Oh, yeah! When I turned into a Heartless!

A Shadow to be more specific.



Uh-huh... and it's called Radiant Garden Hollow Bastion.

You forgot? Well, I remember it perfectly.
What was the castle called, then?

I already answered that, and it was called Hollow Bastion then as well.

Easy! It was...

You don't know, do you Donald?



...Really? I've only said it twice. Maybe you'll remember later in the game? Nah. That's not gonna happen.

Every letter! I finished off the first volume right before we got to this castle.

I coulda swore I finished it before the final battle with

.



Oh mon dieu! ...Wait, why do I care? This means a whole new journal to fill in, which means more perfectionistic tendencies get to shine through!



Is it weird that I find it funny that Jiminy looks like he's going to cry? It's just a book.

What kind of castle is this...

What kind of question is that...

Anyway, time to see what Donald and Goofy has to say about this.



So, let's head on up to the third floor (making progress now!).

During the transition;



Now, doesn't she look familiar? Hmm... nope, can't remember.

Anyway, back with our heroes on the third floor:


Maybe it's not just stuff we write down. Goofy said we've been to some other castle. But I don't remember it at all. None us really do. Maybe... Maybe we don't remember because those memories are gone.

Is Sora actually being a decent character two updates in a row? Shame it's not going to last, but it's good for now.



And if you needed any more reasons that Donald is the worst character in the game, there you have it.

Wait! Remember what that guy in the black hood said? "In this place, to find is to lose and to lose is to find." He was talking about memories!

Well, I can't argue with that. Jiminy's slowly losing his crappy status I must admit, the intro doesn't do him justice.



Hmm...

Main Entry:
obliv·i·on Listen to the pronunciation of oblivion
Pronunciation:
\ə-ˈbli-vē-ən, ō-, ä-\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin oblivion-, oblivio, from oblivisci to forget, perhaps from ob- in the way + levis smooth — more at ob-, levigate
Date:
14th century

1: the fact or condition of forgetting or having forgotten ; especially : the condition of being oblivious
2: the condition or state of being forgotten or unknown

Yup, makes perfect sense... if you look up what oblivion means in the dictionary that is.


What if we forget everything and can't get it back?

As long as you forget how to be a bad game character I'm content with that.



That's the least of your concerns, I can tell you that.

Just because one character being awesome and logical isn't enough for the cutscene, there's another!



Sora, when you turned into a Heartless, did you forget about us?
Of course not! I'd never forget you!
Well, see, there ya go! No matter what happens, you won't forget your friends.



Now that is why Goofy is the best character (we've met) in the entire game, by far.


So let's go!

For once, I'm inclined to agree with Donald. Just this once though.



Time to get Goofy's input again before continuing.



...Right, a repeat of what you said in the scene. That's just plain lazy.

Our next destination:



Ta-ta for now.

(The hypocrisy! It burns!)

True dat!

I think I've spent too much time here; I've caught the VALVe Time bug

E; that said, I'm off to go work on it now. If it's not up by the end of tomorrow, Balla'll nag me til it is. Don't worry about that

Okay, now this time I promise that I'll be updating regularly... and I mean it. If I don't, I know at least one person will get angsty

~~



I'm half-tempted to reference Marilyn Manson going into this. Maybe it's for the best if I don't.



Or Vampires, or Mummys, or Lycans... Who knows what creatures we'll encounter in an eternal Hallowe'en setting? Probably not flowers though; that'd be stupid.



With a face like that, I can't take Donald seriously. I can't at the best of times, either, but this is just an outright impossibility.

You know, I've been thinking: maybe all the hatred I give him isn't justified. Maybe he's actually a good character who's useful and I'm just biased against him for whatever reason. Maybe I just hate ducks. Then I remember that's wrong, and the reason is simple: he tries hard to be funny, and he tries to be useful in combat... actually, it's purely because he isn't Daffy.




I don't, but then again I can say what's coming for certain. I'm sure most other people can as well, and agree that even not knowing what's coming in this case isn't scary. In other cases, knowing in advance can make it much, much worse.



Mysterious shadowy figure... being welcoming? There's a paedophile joke there somewhere, but either I can't find it or I'm not looking hard enough.

Anyway, who is this mystery man? Might as well find out;



By flicking a lightswitch? That's not exactly dramatic, and it's not scary either you two three.



I'm half expecting him (not Donald; the floating skull) to start reciting Shakespearean prose for some reason. Can't be anything important though.



You don't get out much do you Jack? Considering you're in your 20s -- if not more -- you must have a good nightlife or something.


Stop the bad puns, and just do your job properly. I mean, really, this is getting ridiculous! You hired me to flaunt.... erm, I mean you're doing this to entertain people right? I think they'd have left by now if they weren't dedicated!

Did I just get sassed by a fictional character?


Sorry, I haven't even introduced myself. I'm Jack Skellington! Halloween Town is my town. I'm the king of nightmares and the master of terror! If you wants chills and horror, you've come to the right place!

Really? If I wanted chills I'd rather go to the local-

Is that going to be a pun?

...It was. Now, I'll just wait until I'm needed again.



At the moment, we've got a little problem in Halloween Town.
What kind of problem?
Well... a problem like this!



Did he just summon Heartless? That's not what I expected from the Pumpkin King.

Anyway, new world, new heartless;



Remember what I said about flowers? Yeah, they're here. As you can see, I haven't edited my deck since the end of Olympus Colliseum; this doesn't make the fight any harder. The difficulty of the game is fairly constant throughout really, until near the end where it's noticably a bit more challenging. 3 specific boss fights in particular... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The heartless encountered here are Wight Knights and Creeper Plants. The Creepers are pretty much stuck in one place, but are potentially a threat (as much as is possible) if you don't have a 6 or higher. Wight Knights are a bit more fun to deal with, but are easier to kill (to me at least). Contrary to what you'd expect, neither is weak to fire.



I didn't call them. In fact, I'd love to get rid of them.

Wait, you didn't call them...? But you acknowledged them as a problem, then moved your arms as if to summon them and they appeared. Either your a bad liar or horribly unlucky but it doesn't matter, since Sora'll believe you anyway.

The Heartless go around attacking people, instead of scaring them.
Why are they here?

Same reason they're any where: the darkness in people's hearts attracts them. This is basic information Sora! If you don't remember this, then... your memory is fried already.

I was just going to ask Dr. Finkelstein the same question. I'm heading to his laboratory right now. Follow me!
Sora, what should we do?

If I know Sora, you'll end up going regardless of the possible dangers.





I like to think my hate for Donald is justified after things like this.




Terror? Sounds like a new ability. I wonder what it does:



...Another one of them? Jeez, it's like they try and get you to stun the enemies so badly by making it an integral gameplay mechanic but trying to stun anything in the actual battle usually doesn't work anyway so it's redundant.

Requirements:



The initiated of you will have noticed there's an alternate way to activate this sleight, but that way requires some optional cards than can't be acquired for a while, so I'll save that til we can do it.

As for Jack? Well, he is our first world specific friend card, and I'll go over his abilities and such sometime in the next update. Ta-ta for now!

Jack is a pretty useful friend card, since he's a world-exclusive variation of Donald. Without being sleighted, he can cast Thunder, Blizzard or Gravity (the latter of which I can't cast via any other means at the moment). When 2 are sleighted, he can cast 2 of Thundara, Blizzara and Gravira (by that I mean any combination of one and another or two of the same), and when three are sleighted it's a possible 3 Thundaga, Blizzaga, Graviga or any combination of them. I probably won't demonstrate these for a while though.

Might as well get the remaining enemies out of the way;



The two new enemies are a Gargoyle and a Search Ghost. Neither is particularly lethal, but Search Ghosts are very annoying since they like to teleport around during the battle making them a lot harder to hit than they seem. Whilst neither can pose a legitimate challenge, with the wrong set up (e.g. the one I forgot to swap out at first) they can take a while to kill especially the Search Ghosts for the aforementioned reason.

After the battle, I got a little something I'll undoubtedly use a few times;



I don't use this overly often (I've only used it about three times ever truth be told), but it has a very useful effect: it drains the damage Sora deals to restore his HP. In some fights, this is a bad use since there's another enemy card that does a similar effect only better, but against standard heartless this is a good alternative.

On the way to the next plot door, I used one of the few Calm Bounty cards I'd picked up since Olympus and recieved a somewhat-decent ability:





Again, the attentative will have noticed there's an alternate way to activate this ability, but - like before - I don't have a necessary card so I'll save that until later.

Whilst the effect this ability does seems very damn useful (restores the card draw number to 1 regardless of what it is at the time of use AND heals Sora), the last few words greatly nerf it: "and foes alike". It heals everything in the fight; the few times I'd even contemplate using this, it'd be silly to do so. Granted, it can break random encounters (even more) and it makes getting specific enemy cards a bit easier (you always get the card of the last heartless killed if you get one at all) but it's really not all that useful in the long run.



I believe this is the first plot door where 2 seperate cards with numeric requirements are needed. It's nothing particularly daunting to get past but it's new.

Behind this door is a laboratory;




Hold on a minute, is this the world with that subplot? I really hope I'm wrong, because it's ridiculously stupid considering...

Gawrsh! What's that?
Well... Have you ever stopped to think about "true memories"?

It is that subplot...

True memories?
Our hearts are full of memories-but not all of them reflect the truth. The heart isn't a recording device. Even important memories change with time. They warp or fade, leaving us with but a shadow of what we hoped to remember.

There's a very good reason why I dislike this world's plot; it's completely different to the original games, and not in a good way. Of course, that's not the only reason; the above monologue should help with that, but I don't wish to ramble on about this right now. I'll do so later... probably anyway.



It happens to everyone. Some memories grow ugly, and some become more beautiful. If we could recover our true memories, the world would seem completely different. So, I devised a potion from forget-me-nots that brings our true memories back.

If there's one thing Finkelstein knows how to do, it's make long winded speeches (his last two pieces of dialogue have each been three screens worth)... and aside from that very last sentence, everything he said about memories has been true for both the purposes of the plot and reality. It's pretty deep all things considered.



Most likely not, since his inventions almost never work... I can't think of an instance where they did work for that matter.

Well, that's the problem...
As soon as the doctor got a whiff of the potion, Heartless started popping up!

If that's what happened from the scent, I'd hate to imagine what would happen should someone drink the thing.

Sounds to me like the experiment failed.
No! My research is flawless! I just need another look at the potion to find out what went wrong! Unfortunately...it's vanished.
Maybe someone swiped it?
It must've been Sally! Jack, you've got to find her and get my potion back.
Leave it to me!

I can likely guess where she'll be already; it's not going to be surprising really.



I'm unsure on just how stupid that question really is. I'll gladly admit that it's the kind of thing Sora would probably say, but that doesn't make it any less ridiculous.

What for?
I want to know more about these "true memories" the doctor keeps mentioning.
Excellent! Let's go find Sally, then!

Looks like I know what we're doing next time!

Ah, THE iconic hill from Nightmare Before Christmas. Everyone who's seen that film should recognise it.



Well, I don't know where else she'd be. The only other plot door leads to the boss fight.



They're interested in true memories. You have the potion, don't you?
Well...yes.
Could you give it back?
I guess so, if you insist. But...I'm afraid. All the Doctor did was smell it, and the Heartless appeared. What if someone drinks it?

Hmm... Didn't I pose that very question before? The game thinks like I do!

Are you kidding? What could be more exciting?
I'm worried, Jack. Isn't there another way?



I can't for the life of me think of WHY Sora would be sullen looking. The situation isn't overly dire, and we haven't even met the antagonist yet which is surprising really.

I can't think of a thing.




Well, speak of the devil. Just, er, who are you?



Jack, where are your manners? I'm just helping you put the potion to good use! You should thank me! Well, well. Just one sniff, and the heartless appeared. What would happen if I chugged the whole thing? THAT would be scary! Poor Jack! You can't hold a candle to Oogie Boogie. Halloween Town is going to taste pain and despair beyond any nightmare!

With his second piece of dialogue, Oogie manages to make the longest speech yet. It's 6 screens and there's nothing but . After words, however, he runs off leaving us to chase him.

On the way to the plot door, I manage to pick up one of my favourite sleights;




The requirement can be awkward, but since I have two premiums that add up to 12 (one's a Kingdom Key and the other is an Olympus) I can just use a card I picked up on my way to the last plot door: a 0 Pumpkinhead (the keyblade from this world) and it's easy enough to perform. As I said before, it's best to always open a sleight with a one-use card anyway since they're gone for good. I use Sleights fairly often from this point since they're convenient and normally outdamage a regular attack.

I also picked up this:



Out of all the enemy cards I use, this one is one of my favourites. Its ability, Incrementor, increases the value of all cards (apart from a 9) by 1. This is useful for the most part, it's very handy in a few fights where using high numbered cards helps immensely, but it wrecks your 0s, and can make a sleight unusable until the effect wears off.

As for the actual plot door itself, it's got a fairly different variation on what applies to the vast majority of regular doors:



As you may have guessed, the downward arrow indicates it has to be less than or equal to 3 (3, 2, 1 or 0). It's very easy to use, but - like before - it is a new requirement.



You fools don't know when to quit! Say...all this running around is making me thirsty!
Oogie! No!
Yes!
Oh, no...

Oogie then proceeds to drink most of the potion.

Ahh! Lip-smacking good! Now I can awaken my true memories!

There's one memory that he may not want to remember...

Agh! What's this?

...Too late.

What... Something's welling up deep inside me-something...scary!

At this point, Oogie starts convulsing. It really doesn't transfer well to screenshots.

Oogie! What's going on?
No! Get back! Stay away from me!

I'll explain my theory for this behaviour after the boss fight. Speaking of which, Oogie's attacks:



The dice rolls are always a 7-card. This isn't a direct attack, but it does determine what else he can do.



This is one of his most common attacks. It's also, unfortunately, really hard to dodge. It's always a low numbered card though (in the picture it's an obscured 0; I've never seen it above a 2) so it's not hard to break.



This is an attack that doesn't get used fairly often, but it can be pretty much any number. I've seen it as low as a 3, and as high as an 8 before. Fortunately, it is really easy to dodge so it's not overly troublesome.



His last way of directly dealing damage is to summon 2 heartless. They can be any type that appear in Halloween Town as far as I am aware. This may seem handy, but there's a catch: they don't drop any experience. This is a major annoyance, since it only exists to drain your recharges. This is probably the only reason you would ever use Gifted Miracle.



I've never seen him use this before. From what I can gather, it's supposed to heal his HP. How much? Not a damn clue. Does it make the battle last longer than it should? Probably not. I only found out he could do this by complete accident since my recharge took a bit too long.

For parts of the fight, Oogie is undamagable. During this part, is when he attacks. You gain the ability to damage him by card breaking his dice rolls (8+ or 0). Once you do, he runs around for what I think is a fixed period of time. After that time,



A giant red die falls from the sky, knocking Sora off the platform. The battle shouldn't last too long.

As you may have noticed, Oogie - unlike Hades - didn't have a deck, or the ability to use his own card. He has no sleights, and his card would make this battle extremely annoying. Another thing that's easy to pick up on, is that unless Oogie's dice roll is successful he will not attack. This means that, with a reasonably strong deck you should never take damage from this fight.


^ Click for video.

Oogie's card is my third favourite in the entire game. I've mentioned it's effect in the description of the boss fights already, but I'll elaborate now. It grants Auto-Regen; this is like the Drain ability from Search Ghost, only better. It will restore your health during the battle -- like a summon from the original -- but there's a catch; it only lasts for 10 uses. It's still exceptionally useful, however, since there's no boss battle where I would say you shouldn't use it. It's just as useful now as it will be later; I believe the amount of HP restored is proportionate to Sora's maximum but I could be wrong.



There are only a few drops left!
Sora, why don't you ask the doc if you can drink the rest?
No. I'd better not.
What, don't you want it? Too bad. It would've been a great experiment.

You know, he reminds me of that one guy we all know who thinks everything's just a game to some extent and never takes everything seriously. Only the Doctor thinks everything is a science experiment and can be tested enough times until it works. It's kind of like a less stupid version of Scientology.

Don't you want to find out about your true memories?
Of course-now more than ever. But there's this guy-Axel. I promised him I'd find the truth on my own.

This is the only time where an Organisation member is name dropped outside of the main plot... although considering this world's plot is like an offshoot of the main game it is explainable.

I just don't understand. When I inhaled the potion, Heartless appeared... ...and when Oogie drank it, he was overcome with fear. What could it mean?
It means the potion was a failure.
No! I can't be wrong! Oogie MUST have found his true memories!

This leads perfectly into my theory of Oogie's sudden fear of Sora. My guess, is that Oogie DID regain his true memories. One more vivid than the others (KH1 spoilers ahoy):



As we learned very early on, the world cards are formed from Sora's memories and as Aeris explained, Sora's memories have an affect on those who reside in the worlds.



Of course, this is all just a theory. Chances are there's a more plausible explanation but this is what I came up with during my last playthrough anyway.



Then...what about me? What happens when my true memories awaken?
Perhaps something even more terrifying... But this is all just a hypothesis. I can't be sure without further research.



Well, yeah-a little.
That's good to hear! Fear and insecurity are signs of a strong heart. Without that strength, your zest for life would fade... ...as would your taste for fear. And believe me, that would really ruin my fun.
Thanks, Jack. I'll remember that.
Then good luck, gentlemen! May you always enjoy being frightened!

The thing to remember from this world isn't as black and white as the one from Olympus, but I have an idea anyway, and it stems from a notion originally brought up in the original game: the heart is a lot stronger than it appears at first. This strength is what makes life worth living, as if the heart was weak you would feel eternally depressed. Or something like that anyway.

Now that Halloween Town is over, were are we headed next?

Wonderland,
Olympus Colliseum,
Agrabah,
Monstro,
Halloween Town

Do the bosses always drop their cards? I kind of forgot.

Yup; the boss cards are a guarantee (with the exceptions of bosses that you fight more than once, in which case you get a card based on that boss the first few time (one non-final boss exception comes to mind though) and their card on the last encounter). You could, in theory, go through the entire game and have the only enemy cards you get be the bosses. Ironically, most of the time they're the only ones worth using anyway.

Ah.

It's been a while, and I remembered not getting very many enemy cards, so I wasn't sure about the bosses.

Oogie Boogie restores a percentage of health based on how much you've lost, if I remember right. (so, less health compared to total = bigger recovery)

Well, to get the voting on track, I vote for Wonderland for no apparent reason

Pretty heavy on the KH1 spoilers here (mainly given by the game, but I mention some because it's relevent). Don't say I didn't warn ya. Also contains KH2 (and "KH3") foreshadowing.



Aww. If it weren't for the fact that it's Donald I might feel sorry for him here.

Why bring that up all of a sudden?
I just wanted to make sure I haven't forgotten about him.
And?

Well, it's quite clear he hasn't. He wouldn't be able to even MENTION the king if he had but I'm digressing.

I still remember perfectly! Goofy and I are on a quest to find him.
Yep! The king helped save the world by staying on the other side of the door to darkness.



Donald looks like he's 'ing

And me-I'm looking for Riku. He was with the king when the door closed. That was easy. I guess we really can't forget the most important memories.
I hope not...

And with that, this scene ends so before advancing let's check in with Goofy.



Taken out of context, this could be a Yaoi fan's dream come true...

Oh all right; I'll speak to Donald too. I may be biased against (using) him but this is plot-Donald. So... not that much better. Arguably worse.



Oh, you never know. Stranger things have happened before.

Between the floors;



A new (and awesome) blonde chick! This lass is probably my 3rd favourite member of the antagonist's group. My first doesn't exist in this game, and my second does but not for a very long time.

And you're not?
I haven't made up my mind... but I'd like to know what's on yours.
He become a Heartless, Larxene-and you know what happens to people who do.
People who lose their hearts also lose their minds, their feelings... They're consumed by the darkness.

Like Riku was at the start of Kingdom Hearts 1? Only he didn't become a heartless; just Ansem's puppet.

Right. But that didn't happen to Sora. He held on to his feelings, even as a Heartless. Only one other man ever managed to do that.

Axel is some kind of foreshadowing grand master I swear. You won't find out who that "other man" is until KH2 so I won't say anything about it.



I don't think Larxene is confused here; just thinking about who that could be.

So it's the strength of his heart that intrigues you--the heart chosen by the Keyblade.

This is probably a silly question, but why can't I use the keyblade here anyway? I get that I have cards that sort of are, and sort of aren't, Sora's keyblade with their various keychains but I don't get to use the real thing. I've never really thought about it before, but Sora should - in theory - be able to just pull out the keyblade and pretty much destroy everything here. Yeah, I remember what the Tutorial Guy said at the beginning but we only lost our abilities/spells; not out weapons as well.

What makes his heart shine like that? What sleeps in its most secret depths?
The heart is a mysterious thing, Axel.
Maybe so. But unlocking its secrets is the whole reason we, the Organisation, exist.

Hurray for enigmatic foreshadowing that has no meaning at all until the sequel!

Back with out "heroes"...



Hmm... I wonder what we just forgot. I can't think of anything guess I musta forgot it... But whatever it was, it must not have been that important a-hyuck!

Within that one piece of dialogue, Goofy went from to

Right, or else you wouldn't have forgot it.

"Forgotten it" Sora... why am I even trying to correct a video game character's grammar?



You can't see it very well, but Sora is holding the Oathkeeper pendant that Kairi gave him near the end of Kingdom Hearts 1. You'll get a better view of it later though. Since Sora promised to give Kairi back Oathkeeper, and that's an important memory, he'll never forget Kairi... or so the logic shown thus far would have you believe.



As a display of both good and bad timing, you can see Kairi here... along with the other blonde haired lass (the one from the intro cutscene).



And there she is more visible (BHL not Kairi).



You'll find out eventually Sora. Worry not.

Hello? You still with us?
Huh? Oh, nothing. Never mind.

That is Sora's answer to the question. I don't see the relevancy either but details...

And thus the scene ends; before heading off to the next level/dungeon/whatever you want to call it, might as well speak to Goofy (...and Donald);



Something tells me that won't be the only reason she'd be happy if Sora made it back to Destiny Island (with Riku)...



If Sora does that, he'd lose one of the best keyblades in KH1 (it's like the 3rd strongest as I recall).

Next time;



At last!

BHL? Is that intentionally similar to the BHK?

Yes it is (for those that dont know, BHK = Blonde-Haired Kid; he gets an actual name in KH2).

A level starting off like this can only mean good things... right?



Or, not... but if someone's in trouble why does Goofy look like he's happy? Schadenfreude?



I'm sure he can handle 5 Shadows. He has a Scimitar after all.

But, we do end up actually helping anyway (yes, this is a video link).

Just under half of this world's new Heartless types are prevalent in the video. The Green Requiems (pallette swaps of the Blue Rhapsody) are arguably the second most dangerous heartless in this world. Sure, they only heal but therein lies the problem: they can heal any heartless. They also absorb all elemental attacks so just bash them to death (like normal) or use non-elemental summons. I think they can use a card value of 4 but I've not seen anything higher.

As for the Bandit (the one with a turban and scimitar of its own), they're nothing overly lethal card-wise but their attack is strangely annoying to dodge. Highest card value I've seen them use is a 2 (...yeah) so they should never break you, unless you do something stupid and use a 0 before they attack.



Oh, I guess there's another fight to be had.

Guess we'd better see if the legends are true.

Or, not. I was hoping for another fight too...

Anyway, Aladdin pulls out a hard to see lamp and raises it in the air.

Magic Lamp, my first wish! Get rid of these Heartless!



And here's Robbie Williams

There ain't nothin' I can't make right as rain-well, if we HAD rain.

Wanna swap then? I'd like to have no rain for a while.

But enough dry jokes! One Heartless disappearing act, coming right up!

The Heartless vanish and there's more exposition-y goodness.



It's not that simple. You see-
I couldn't have said it better myself. But I will anyway!

Wait, what? Aladdin didn't say anything (seriously)

I'm strictly limited to three wishes per master. And no wishing for more wishes!
So you've got two wishes left? Better use them carefully.
I've got to get back to the palace somehow. But with all these Heartless...
Hey, Sora. We're headed that way too, so why don't we got with Aladdin?

You just made that up. We've never said we're off to the Palace but it's a convenient lie to allow the plot to proceed so I'm fine with it.



Sora's fine with it too, so let's go!



Fat Bandits (the large thing with an orange... coat?) are this world's equivalent of Large Bodies. They're immune to all physical damage taken to the front so smacking them around from behind is the only way to kill them that way. Superior alternatives include: sleighting Blizzaga or Blizzard Raid. Yeah, ice wrecks their shit. They can use numerics up to, and including, a 6 so sometimes breaking them can pose as something of a challenge (well, insofar as it can be considered a challenge anyway).



Air Soldiers are able to dodge a lot of attacks by flying but they seem to only be able to use a card with a value of 4 so breaking them is simplistic. They have the best regular Enemy Card in the game, in my opinion, but getting it at this stage can be difficult since there's only four of them per battle and they all appear at the start, and then other heartless spawns (mainly Green Requiems). There's a good chance that if you can get the card at this stage then you're a good enough strategist to not need it; it's easier gained later when you can get encounters with just these in them.



Never mind then.

This card grants one of the best abilities in the game (the second best in my opinion) and I love it. I've barred myself from using it this playthrough though, since Reload Kinesis is exceptionally potent. It allows you to reload whilst moving; this is something most of the time Sora can't do and no bosses have that ability at all. It does, however, only have a 3 reload duration; not uses reloads, so if you use any item cards that affects it. If you do use this, I recommend not using it until the charge is at 3 since that's when it's most annoying to reload.



Yellow Opera. The last of the heartless with this appearance and just as strong as the others. It uses Thunder attacks (no surprises there), and absorbs them (again no surprises). Unlike Red and Blue, it doesn't have an actual weakness so all non-Thunder elemental attacks hurt it just as much.

The Calm Bounty treasure for this world is



A fairly useful/useless spell. It has its uses, and we can now use it outside Halloween Town, but it doesn't truly shine until we reach the end-game heartless and it's useless against bosses (like most things).



You can likely guess what this does already since we know what Blue Rhapsody and Red Nocturne do, If you can't guess, then you lack logical thought processes. Also: makes Cure spells heal more. Doesn't affect Donald's cure (or Auto-Regen) as far as I can tell.

Behind Plot Door #1;



It's this magic lamp I found in the Cave of Wonders. I need to get it to the palace right away! I'm lucky I made it back to Agrabah in one piece! The cave was crawling with Heartless.

So instead of wishing to be at the palace, you decided to walk there risking life and limb (and we know you got ambushed by Heartless at least once) despite there being a much easier way?

Wasn't there anyone else there to help you out?
I know how you feel, Master. I've been delivering happiness for 2,000 years. And what help do I get? I keep dreamin' someone will wish me outta this gig. But go figure the odds on that.
Well, how 'bout I use my thid wish to set you free?
Doth my pointy ears decieve me? Master, you'd do that for me?

What Aladdin said was a question, not a statement...

You're not just pullin' my topknot now, are you?
I promise, Genie. Anyway, there's only one thing I really want.

A girlfriend?

Then we'll just have to DO something about that, Al! Can I call you Al? So, what'll it be? Fame? Fortune? A herd of luxuy camels to call your very own?

...Luxury camels? Does that make sense to anyone? What the heck IS a luxury camel? There's something wrong with that, but...



I don't think Aladdin understands what he means either, and he's Arabian!

Well, there's this girl. Her name is Jasmine. She's princess of Agrabah. And...that's the problem. It's hard for a guy like me to get a chance to see her. That's how this all started. Jafar, the royal vizier*, said he would help me meet Jasmine.

* Also, the world's antagonist but this should be obvious since it's Aladdin's world and what he said. Doesn't help that vizier is a political position either...



I don't claim to be an expert in these things, but isn't that an infringement of free will? Surely, it would be in some way and I'm fairly certain that not even magical genies can dick about with that.

Well, I've got just the package for you! You'll not only meet the lady, you'll go in style...



Me, a prince! Can you really do that?
In an Agrabah minute!

How long is that exactly? A term like that really needs explaining...



I guess we can do that instead of wandering around... but it'll have to wait until next time.