The ungodly long Kingdom Hearts Megathread

[Caius]

Edit: As a final addition to this, I'm finally reading through all the spelling errors, gramatical errors, and missed information. I'm constantly updating it on my google drive, here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bquKJlBJLnK1ueyQX_qBN9HBejUJYpCkgCOCHvi3c6w/edit

Also known as:

Not simple, nor clean.
Darkness! Too much for my heart.
But who else will I have ice cream with?
Belts and Zippers, the new fad!
and my favorite,
The multiple personality guide to dealing with Tetsuya Nomura's BS

Welcome to the Kingdom Hearts mega timeline and information post. Why would I do this to myself you may ask? I have an interest in playing Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 again, but I don't have any of the other games anymore because a) they don't interest me, or b) they are unobtainable. There is so much information crammed into the Kingdom Hearts universe that it is IMPOSSIBLE to catch everything with a play through without knowledge of the other games. This time when I play through Kingdom Hearts 1&2, I hope to pick everything up that I possibly can, and at the same time, I felt that sharing what I know will help others interested in the series that just don't have the time or the patience to play through the MULTITUDE of games.

While yes, some games are on the Nintendo consoles, most of them are not. Therefore this is being listed under general gaming.

This post is not in order of the games release, but their respective timelines. I will be going deep into the BS that is Xehanort x50, and the nobodies. I'll just state right here I DO have favorite characters, and I DO have hated characters. I'm sure you'll be able to pick them out with each respective post, especially since I'm doing character bio's with each game. Yes, this can count as a read-along walkthrough if you're so inclined to use it as such. It's your choice, man. I'll only be going really into important original characters. I have no desire to sit here talking for eons about how Mushu is my homie. (he is)

With that, I invite you to buckle your seat belts, grab a snack, and begin to wallow in darkness. We're starting with Birth By Sleep. This isn't going to be a story guide. I'm going through this BY CHARACTER, since this is the only way I can think of to make this work fully. I don't feel like writing a general synopsis when SO MUCH happens to each person. That means yes! You're getting spoilers by character.

 

[Caius]

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
My rating: 4/5 Xehanort’s

I fight for my friends!

Terra
Our first character and story is a man of many names, and someone that is in the entire series, without many realizing it. He's a powerhouse of a person, being a mainly beefy guy, and also quite stubborn and headstrong. His story starts as all of our characters do, an apprentice with the dream to be a Keyblade Master. He was brought to the Land of Departure four years previously by Master Xehanort, who is interested in the darkness that Terra has in his heart. Through these four years, he's become exceedingly close with our other protagonists, Aqua and Terra. Friendship blah blah blah.

Terra acts as Ventus's rival through most of their childhood. Ven collapsed a few days into their respective arrivals to the Land of Departure, and Terra gives over a wooden sword to Ven, proclaiming them all to have the same dream. As I said before, blah blah blah friendship. They've stuck through thick and thin, and Terra has tried to tutor him, as it seemed Ventus had no idea about other worlds, or their futures meaning. Aqua gave both of them a charm called a Wayfinder during this time, a few days before their exam, to symbolize their friendship, hopes, and dreams. How cute.

Terra takes the Mark of Mastery exam with Aqua the next day, where he unwittingly makes a display of dark power before their Masters, Eraqus and Xehanort. This isn't a good thing, as Terra is supposed to be a beacon of light, as all Keyblade wielders are. Terra is unstable during his exam, and Aqua takes the title of Master, leaving Terra confused, and quite jealous. He sees Xehanort later in the day, who doesn't hate Terra's darkness, instead he tries to convince Terra to see reason, and accept it. There's no way it can be destroyed, but instead it can be used as a most powerful weapon. This lifts the kids spirits, and thus our journey begins.

But wait, plot rage! Eraqus calls the three kids in, to reveal Yen Sid had contacted them, warning of a new scourge of angry creature called Unversed that have decided to start taking over, and warning also that the princesses of heart are in danger. It's during this time Xehanort makes a mysterious disappearance, Terra wanting to find out where he went.

As Terra makes to leave, Ven calls after and tries to follow, but Terra's a jerk and leaves poor Ventus behind , which really isn't that great considering what happens later on. He takes off on his journey, and as his first stop, meets our first major disney villain. Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty), speaks to Terra, and reveals that she's spoken to Master Xehanort, and knows of the key blade and kingdom hearts. These are two things outsiders aren't supposed to know of, and not knowing that Maleficent lives well on through kingdom-hearts 2, he stupidly gets sideswiped and controlled by the evil witch, extracting Aurora's heart, giving it to Maleficent, and being generally facepalm enough for me to really stop paying attention by this point.

Terra doesn't feel too happy about what he's done and makes a promise to the first princess of heart that he's met, and killed, that he'll fix her up. He realizes that his darkness might not be such a good thing after all, which is a pretty obvious revelation, but important nonetheless.

The Disney mania isn't even close to over, and next on is the realm of Snow white. Terra seems to be really good at finding the evil doers first, because he asks the queen if she's seen or heard anything about Xehanort. She tries to make a deal with our dark-addled protagonist, asking for Snow White's heart in exchange for the information, but Terra already screwed up once, and knows better by now. He instead goes to ask the princess who doesn't have any idea, and returns to the queen to talk to her mirror. After a long fight that was generally one of the most annoying fights in this game, the mirror reveals a riddle, that Xehanort can be found beyond light and darkness where war was raged.

Terra apparently doesn't know jack about Kingdom Hearts history, and I really can't blame the guy. This game has more plot twists than Dr. Who. He continues on his merry way (after I play some mini games), to Cinderella's place. We go through the part of the movie where Cindy wants to go to the ball and her fairy godmother makes it so, after Terra plays the part of friendzoned good guy, that helps to keep her spirits up. Welcome to this games escort mission. Terra fights an ungodly amount of unversed to get the woman to the ball. Being a nice hero and all now, and not obviously going bad with good intentions, Terra asks what brought this on. A NEW CHARACTER APPROACHES: It's revealed a boy with a mask visited, and the Unversed seem to like the kid. He took off though so we're back to going on a road trip through space.

But wait! Aqua arrives with news for Terra, telling him Ven took off to look for him. Great job, hero. He's alerted to Xehanort looking for hearts of pure light, which are obviously the Princesses of Heart. We'll get on why later. Terra decides to visit Master Yen Sid, since he seemed to be the first to know about the Unversed. Yen Sid lets him know that the Unversed and Master Xehanort's actions are one in the same, and maybe he should take care of them.

Luckily (plot), Master Xehanort calls for him as soon as he leaves Yen Sid's tower, bringing him to the keyblade graveyard. Xehanort puts it on thick here, claiming his actions were to protect the Light from darkness, the very same darkness extracted from Ventus that makes up an entirely new character, Vanitas. His story goes that Master Xehanort extracted Ventus's darkness during training, but it ended up injuring his heart. It brings Terra back to when they first met, and how lifeless he had acted in the first few years. Xehanort also claims that he couldn't imprison Vanitas, hence why we're on this chase.

Terra leaves for Radiant Garden, a city of light, where he assumes Vanitas may decide to make an appearance. Xehanort is spotted after disposing of a mob of Unversed, and Terra made to follow the mysterious appearance, but he's distracted by Merlin being a derp and losing his 100 acre wood book. This is pretty minor but it's story so it's in here. This is getting really tedious. God my hands hurt.

Anywho, Terra chases an unversed he's spotted and meets up with the brogade, Aqua and Ven. They've both been doing some serious work and chasing the unversed as well. They go team-mode and defeat a combination of the unversed that threatened the city, and Ven gives him a lifetime pass to disney town, which is actually pretty fun and good for mini game breaks. Terra discovers that Ven encountered Vanitas, which is apparently no good, and he tells him to go home. Aqua gets pretty upset at Terra, claiming that he's embracing his darkness too much, stuff goes flying off the handle, and it's revealed Master Eraqus sent Aqua to spy on him. He ditches the duo, and takes off with woe is me deep in his heart, thinking Xehanort is the only one he can trust. I bang my head on the counter to you, sir.

He meets a man named Braig on his travel, who is a pretty okay dude, but he claims to have captured Master Xehanort, which turns out to be true. Xehanort is all locked up, and all Braig wants is a key blade of his own to release him. During the fight Xehanort encourages him to use his darkness, and he loses control, tearing up Braig's cheek and leaving him missing an eye. Braig does what anyone in his situation does, and takes off while Xehanort goes to check on Mr. Control Issues. Xehanort offers Terra a place as his pupil, doing more darkness encouragement which can't possibly go wrong. He reveals his master plan finally, to bring peace and balance to the force, I mean, to bring balance to the worlds, and defeat Vanitas. Terra begins to doubt Eraqus, and joins the dark side- I mean Xehanort, the bond being sealed when he's referred to as Master Terra.

Sorry for the Star-wars references. You really can't avoid them.

Stuff goes down in Disney Town which really doesn't matter since it's mini games and only there for plot reprieve which is the opposite of what I'm doing here and I don't really care about chip and dale or Queen Minnie. After that more unimportant stuff happens at the Coliseum, where Zack (FF7) is infused with darkness from Hades and defeated in a fight. Zack goes all hero mode and begins seeing Terra as a hero, yadda yadda yadda crisis core references.

More stuff happens in Deep space, where Terra's taken in by the Galactic Federation for passing a ship. Terra breaks out during an unversed attack, frees Dr. Jumba, and gets his charm from Aqua stolen by Experiment 626 (Stitch). Terra pretty much gives the 'I fight for my friends' speech to stitch who gives his stuff back, and Terra takes off.

He heads to Neverland, gets swindled by Smee and Captain hook, saves tinker bell, saves the lost boys from unversed, and learns absolutely nothing.

Now, we're getting back to the plot. Terra finds himself being called to a new world, discovering a Paopu fruit growing on the island. The fruit had been a topic of discussion for his friends, claiming it to be good luck, which causes him to think about how much of a jerk he's been. He's pulled from his musings as he meets a very young group of boys, who will be extremely important no matter how much I don't like them later on. He speaks with the older of the duo, Riku, who tells him all about how he wants to go to other worlds. Terra does something stupid because it can only end stupidly, and names Riku as his successor when he's old enough to wield a keyblade. Riku came across as protective, claiming he has things to guard, and terra sees the similarities they have. TOO MUCH IN MY OPINION.

 

[Caius]

Terra's called to the keyblade graveyard once more by Xehanort, who informs him that Ventus has learned what he shouldn't have known about Vanitas, and is in grave danger from Master Eraqus, who the boy ventured off to see about it. Terra freaks the hell out, goes to 'rescue' Ventus at the land of departure, and.. actually finds there to be some merit to what Xehanort told him. He throws Ventus into a portal to another world, and fights Master Eraqus. There's a bunch of wobbling about who's fault it all is, but it's pretty short lived because Master Xehanort decides to show up and finish him off.

Xehanort destroys the land of departure with darkness, tells Terra to meet him in the key blade graveyard and takes off, Terra hot on his heels. Aqua and Ventus meet up with Terra as well at this point, where things are explained, apologies are made, and tears are shed. Ventus has a bit of information about something called the X-Blade, which to be created, requires him and Vanitas to fight. The little pow-wow goes on for a bit, before Xehanort shows up, pretty much destroys all of the trio in a fight with Vanitas fighting at his side, and summons Kingdom Hearts.

At this point Terra takes off on his own, enraged by Xehanort freezing Ventus solid and dropping him off the cliff. Xehanort is a jerk though, and in the middle of the fight orders Vanitas to kill Aqua to create the X-Blade. At this point I don't really remember what the X-Blade is, so I'm going to assume it's an ultimate weapon. Terra has to finish the fight with Xehanort, being coerced into using all his rage, sorrow, and feels, and releasing all of his darkness.

The fight is hard as hell, but easier than what is to follow. Xehanort of course, is on the brink of losing. A red light shoots up, Xehanort claiming that the X-blade is forged. Xehanort unlocks his heart, explaining a new vessel is needed, a younger and stronger one… aaaaaaand… Terra is possessed. Terra's armor is discarded, but wait! Terras mind joins his armor, which is used as a vessel to fight his possessed body. He knocks Terranort out, but is unable to kick him out of his body. While Terra's mind remains in his armor, his heart resides in his original body with Xehanort. Though he fights back, he loses every time. Terranort gets fed up with it, and tries to unlock his heart again… and is rendered with amnesia.

Now that we've reached the end of Terra's story, I can touch on some other details. Master Eraqus is sealed within Terra's heart, who promises to hold Xehanort at bay.

So we have a major crisis of identity here. Eraqus is within Terra who is merged with Xehanort and all sharing a body. Must be pretty crowded. There's much more to Xehanorts story than this, and I'll definitely be going into it, as Xehanort in some shape or form is the villain of all games, with varying degrees of tan.

Our other two heroes stories will be a bit shorter, as Terras was the most important, and much of the information after this is redundant.

 

[Caius]

Ventus
Considering Ventus is our second story canonly, I'm doing his story second. I don't know if I've stated it before, but I really don't care for Ventus as a character, and it will be reflected in the information about him. He is important though, so lets get on with it.

As stated in Terra's history, Ventus's heart is severely damaged by Xehanort extracting the darkness from his heart to create Vanitas. He served as an apprentice to Xehanort for the time four years prior to the main story, and was very close to Xehanort as he tried to forge the x-blade, and refused to use his darkness. Xehanort just got butthurt at him and created Vanitas to do it instead. He was left almost comatose and left on Destiny Islands to die.

On Destiny islands he meets a very young Sora, where he connects on a heart-to-heart basis with him. Sora repairs his heart and keeps him alive. He's able to summon a keyblade which surprises Xehanort, who then takes him to the land of departure, where he's meant to train under Master Eraqus with Terra and Aqua.

Ventus doesn't remember his past, collapses, and as his heart mends he grows closer to the duo that would be his friends for the rest of the game. He doesn't know anything about other worlds, and can't grasp the concept from Terra. He'll learn, trust me.

He's given a good luck charm by Aqua, said to have an unbreakable connection and the three friends do friend stuff. During the Mark of Mastery exam the next day, orbs of light attack Ventus, even if he's not involved in the exam, and he's forced to fight. After they're defeated things continue without a hitch. Vanitas visits Ventus at this time while the others are busy, telling Ventus all about how Terra will become a different person. Ventus goes to tell Terra what he's heard, because he's worried, and Terra ignores him as he's taking off. Well, that sucks.

Because of Terra not being a bro, Ventus decides to take off and follow him. He meets with Snow White first, learning that Terra met her, and later sets with the old queen. The queen claims that Terra threatened her with the keyblade, which we know is true and false from his bio, but Ventus doesn't believe her and becomes worried, trying once again to find his lost friend.

Unimportant things happen at this point such as Ventus helping Cinderella and the mice gather stuff for her dress, blah blah blah friendship. Next on in the enchanted dominion, Ventus frees Aurora's heart, meeting Maleficent at the time. Maleficent tells him that Terra helped to steal the princesses heart, but Aqua intervenes and convinces him otherwise. He's asked to return with Aqua, but he refuses, wanting to find his friend and tell him about what Vanitas said.

Ventus finds himself on a chase of Vanitas that takes him to the Keyblade Graveyard, seeking answers from Vanitas, who only states the same he had said before about Terra. They fight, and Ventus, much to my ire at how difficult the fight is, loses and is left nearly dead. King Mickey arrives just in the nick of time to save the day and defeats Vanitas, before he disappears. Mickey shows Ventus about the Star Shard that allows him to travel to different worlds, which ends up taking them both to Radiant Garden. While trying to follow the king, he's intercepted by Aeleus and Dilan spying an Unversed. He's again interrupted by Scrooge McDuck who gives him lifetime passes to mini game land and Merlin, who tells him all about the 100 acre wood which is the worst place ever so I'm not talking about it.

As he finds the unversed he was chasing, he meets up with Terra and Aqua, where the pre-spoken-of friend brawl happens. He tells Aqua that she's letting becoming a master go to her head and takes off for Terra, but is once again interrupted. This time it's by a young boy who is being attacked by Unversed. Evan thanks him for protecting Ienzo, and lets him know he should look in the Outer Gardens.

He finally meets Terra, being told he can't come along, but reaffirming their friendship status. Aqua does the same when he asks if he can come with her, and stays in Radiant Garden for a while. He meets two friends Lea and Isa, making him ponder about what being a friend really means, blargh blah, more friendship crap.

More useless stuff happens namely at the Olympus Coliseum and Neverland. He's whisked off from Neverland to Yen Sid's tower where he meets Donald Duck and Goofy, who take him to Yen Sid. Ventus finds out that Mickey is in danger and goes to save him in the Keyblade Graveyard where FINALLY PLOT is happening. Master Xehanort as it turns out, is waiting for him there. He reveals his plans to use Ventus to create the X-Blade, which was his purpose all along and why no one wants him around.

 

[Caius]

Ventus returns to Eraqus, where he's almost destroyed upon Eraqus learning about what Xehanort has up his sleeve. He's saved by powerhouse Terra and sent to Destiny Islands, where he meets Vanitas again. He's taunted, and told to go to the Keyblade graveyard yet again, since it seems to be the place to be, on the price that if he doesn't Terra and Aqua will be killed. When he meets up with his friends at the graveyard, he reveals what he knows about the X-Blade, and requests to be destroyed if he has to fight Vanitas, which is when the evil duo arrive to screw up everyone's day.

Ven is encased in ice during the fight and thrown off a cliffside, only to be saved by Aqua. She's distracted as Braig arrives to fight her. Braig takes off and instead Vanitas knocks her out. Right before she's killed Ventus thaws himself out and fights his copy, where it's revealed where the Unversed come from. The unversed come from Ventus's negative emotions! gasp! After all that is gone through Vanitas and Ventus merge into their own little identity crisis and is fought by Aqua and Mickey, who are probably about as tired of this as I am.

They manage to damage the X-Blade, and Ven/Van engage in a mental fight where Vanitas tries to merge back to repair the blade. Ventus refuses, choosing to defeat Vanitas and destroy the X-Blade once and for all, even if it means he'd be destroying his heart in the process. Ventus loses his heart, and left comatose. Aqua places his body in a chamber in a very important locale later on; Castle Oblivion. His heart however, moves on to our dear young protagonist Sora, where it's kept with him.

This is not the last we'll hear of Ventus, but he does play a very important role in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 and Kingdom Hearts 2, only with a different name and a different personality. I have my own theories about this character and Terranort that will be touched on after the synopsis of Kingdom Hearts 2.

 

[Caius]

Aqua
Aqua has to be my favorite female protagonist in this series. I don't care for Kairi, even though there is a damn connection between the characters. I like Aqua for being someone that doesn't have to rely on everyone else to set her straight, and I fondly refer to her as the mother hen when it comes to the trio. I know the last synopsis was pretty bland, but it's for a pretty good reason. I like this character a lot more, so you'll be seeing a lot more effort.

I'm going to go ahead and skip ahead to after the Mark of Mastery Exam, where Aqua speaks to Master Eraqus in private. She's told to bring the twerp back and keep an eye on the derp, and maybe bring him back too since they are both really damn useless when it comes to common sense. Let's go ahead and skip ahead to Aqua's visit to Radiant Garden.

She meets Mickey, and also meets a little girl named Kairi. The young girl touched Aqua's keyblade and ACCIDENTALLY performs a plot ceremony.. aka a keyblade inheritance ceremony. She's protected from the unversed by Aqua and Micky, and gives Aqua flowers which end up turning into a key blade. Kingdom hearts nonsense is strong in this one. A protective charm is placed on Kairi for the future, and Aqua believes the meeting is fate, or whatever you can call plot coincidence in a Kingdom Hearts game.

She meets up with herp and derp who get into a fight, revealing she was sent to watch Terra, who doesn't take it well. Neither Terra nor Ventus agree to come back with Aqua obviously, and a lot of butthurt is spread wide and far. She goes to meet Merlin, and meets Vanitas in the process, who taunts her and fights her. Vanitas simply up and leaves after he's defeated, commenting on her being a backup plan. I'm pretty sure this is referring to the x-blade. Ventus appears, asking to go with Aqua, who promptly tells derp to go home, and takes off.

She heads to Neverland since once again it seems like the place to be, and once again after the Disney BS meets up with Vanitas. She's mocked, and battles the kid for the upteenth time, winning again but knocked out. She recovers normally and takes off, heading to Destiny Islands where NOTHING can go wrong. She meets Sora and Riku, advising Sora to help his friend if he ever falls into darkness, seeing a lot of similarities to them and her friends. Originally she planned on passing on the power of the key blade to Sora, but in the end she decides against it, as Terra had already done the same for Riku, and she refused to be responsible for what had happened to replay in the kids. Thus mother hen is THE ONLY ONE HERE WITH ANY SENSE.

Aqua encounters Mickey unconscious and floating in space because that's completely possible, and takes him to Yen Sid's tower, where she learns about Eraqus's death. From there she moves on to the Keyblade Graveyard to meet up with herp and derp, where the big battle takes place as usual.

As with Ventus's story she fights Braig, and is knocked out by Vanitas, only to be woken up by Mickey. She fights with the X-Blade Vanitas, who explains that THE WHOLE POINT is to unlock Kingdom hearts and reenact the keyblade war. She destroys the X-Blade and loses consciousness once again. At this point you'd think she'd stop getting hit so much.

She wakes up in Yen Sid's Tower with a broken Ventus who lost his heart. She takes his body to the Land of Departure on a throne, and uses Master Eraqus's key blade to change the land into Castle Oblivion just to keep him safe.

Afterwards she tracks down Terranort and finds she's unable to bring him back to his senses after fighting and defeating him. He stabs himself to try and get Terra to shut up, and falls into the realm of darkness, Aqua diving in after. She gives up her armor and key blade, to save him and send him back to the realm of light while she's stuck behind.

She's attacked by a heartless while in this realm, but is saved by Terra and Ventus's key blades, and has a friendship moment to herself. She continues on, where she reaches the castle of dreams shrouded in darkness. Oops.

This is where Aqua's story ends in this game. Her story overall is not finished, but she makes some key appearances following along the storyline of kIngdom hearts 2 and up. We'll get back to her when the time is right.

Now that we've gone over our protagonists, I have a few more characters to touch on that will be VERY important coming up. They're not heroes at all, but every good story needs a villain.. or seven.

 

[Caius]

Xehanort 1.0
I'm calling Master Xehanort; Xehanort 1.0. There is a good reason behind this. The name will come up a billion times in the other games all referring to DIFFERENT characters. So lets touch on this jerk's history.

Xehanort 1.0 comes from Destiny Islands, the same place that all of the other little protagonists from the future games come from. He wanted something greater and wanted to leave, which is funny because this sounds ungodly familiar. He found a way out and left, meeting Eraqus on the way. They were like brothers during the time, and he learned all about Light and Dark, Heartless, Keyblades, and Kingdom Hearts.

Xehanort 1.0 believed without a doubt that Light was the more common of the two elements and that darkness needed to be amplified to have a balance. He decides to try to begin a key blade war to do this very thing. He believes that unlocking the heart of all worlds, or kingdom hearts will create a more ideal universe. The way to do this is to use the x-blade, a key blade capable of unlocking kingdom hearts and starting the war. He discussed his plans with Eraqus who disagreed with his plan, and fought him. Eraqus was left with a scar and Xehanort 1.0-less.

This took so long for him to realize though, that he became old and needed a new body to survive further. This is when he came upon Ventus, who he planned to use as a vessel, though it didn't work. Instead he deemed Ventus to be a better candidate for the X-Blade. Instead he took an interest in Terra, which brings us into the plot of Birth By Sleep.

I'm going to go ahead and skip ahead, considering this is all stuff you've read.

Terranort
A fond name for Xehanort 1.0 and Terra's fused form. I use this to describe the way that they interact internally, though this is not the name of the form I'm going to give the amnesic Xehanort. There really isn't much info to add here, besides Braig bringing Ansem the Wise and Dilan to Terranort, who tells them that his name is Xehanort, and is whisked into the castle in Radiant Garden by Braig and Dilan.

Xehanort 2.0
The amnesic Xehanort. Between Birth By Sleep and Kingdom Hearts 1, Xehanort becomes an apprentice of Ansem the Wise with Braig. Braig of course, realized that Xehanort looked remarkably like Terra, and believed the amnesia to be a lie, but soon figured out that it wasn't. Xehanort became immersed in Ansem's research on the darkness within hearts, and offered to use himself in experiments.

Xehanort 2.0 actually managed to unlock some memories at this time relating to his past self, and used Braig to manipulate the other apprentices into doing the same. Between them, they abducted many people and subjected them to experiments meant to force the mind to reject its sense of self… oops. They created the heartless.

Well, remember how I said this guy has a crisis when it comes to names? Xehanort 2.0 steals Ansems name begins writing reports on the heartless, uses a machine to create them and increase their numbers, and stepping into darkness to control them. Ansem of course told him to cut it out, but this guy doesn't listen at all. He found the heart of Radiant Garden during these experiments and collapsed the worlds boundaries.

Xehanort went completely nuts during this time, banished Ansem to the realm of darkness, continued to use his name, built a Chamber of Repose to house Aqua's Keyblade Armor and began speaking to it regularly to try and regain memory of his past.

Finally, he wrote his final report naming himself Ansem, and claiming to seek kingdom hearts. He struck Braig down with a keyblade, creating heartless from the apprentices as well as Ienzo and Even. This is when he learns that when the heartless is created, a nobody is as well. He does it to himself, creating his own heartless Ansem, and his own nobody Xemnas. They both go on to try and get kingdom hearts their own way.

After this, I'll be referring to the heartless as Ansem, as the real Ansem doesn't make an appearance in Kingdom hearts 1. But wait, there's more. (Kill me)

 

[Caius]

Braig
Not an entirely major character, he makes a pretty big appearance later on in KH2, so I figure it's at least impertinent to go over what wasn't touched on.

After Terra confronts Braig, he makes an attempt on Xehanort 1.0's life, failing of course, but put in his place. Some major changes to his appearance happen between then and the next time he's seen in the Keyblade Graveyard, namely his ears becoming pointed and eye becoming yellow. This is due to a part of Xehanort's heart being fused with his.

He continues to follow Xehanort 2.0 as a pawn, being turned into a nobody with Dilan, Even, Aeleus, Ienzo, and Xehanort, founding Organization XIII.

Nobodies
The nobodies of the newly founded organization XIII at this time consist of Xigbar, Vexen, Zexion, Lexaeus, and Xaldin along with Xemnas. The only thing you need to know at this point is that these were the founders, and though their Nobodies are accounted for, the only heartless that's popped up so far is Xemnas's (Ansem). Thus begins my conspiracy theories. Thanks Nomura.

It's important to note a Nobody is created when a heart is swallowed by darkness and becomes a heartless. What's left behind is the body, and the soul. These give the nobody life and form. It takes a strong will to create a nobody. They cannot feel emotions, and they don't truly exist.

Vanitas
Did you really think I'd forget about this little jerk? I left him for last because of a few reasons. One, this is pretty spoilery and I wanted to wait until everyone was savvy with this before posting anything about him. Since you've read this far, I'm sure you can take it.

Vanitas began as a faceless being, with red eyes. He was sad because of his separation from Ventus, but he became hateful and saw him as a weakness. Every Time he felt something, an unversed was born. When he tried to destroy the unversed, he felt pain, which was returned to himself, only to form another one in its place from the irritation.

Sora's heart touched Ventus's fractured one, which in turn Vanitas felt. Because of this contact, he took Sora's features for himself. He felt lost without Ventus, and in constant pain, which Xehanort 1.0 did nothing to stop. Xehanort used his pain to convince him to become the x-blade, which is the only way the pain would stop, and for him to be his true self again.

Vanitas dies in his fight with Ventus within his mind, and Ventus's heart is lost.

Summary and important tidbits
Terra, Aqua, and Ventus are almost exactly like the three main characters of the Kingdom Hearts series Riku, Kairi, and Sora. The main characters are gifted their abilities by these characters, and Xehanort's past sets the premise for Kingdom Hearts as a whole. We'll really be getting into things next game, which is where everything takes a turn for the worst so to speak. Keep in mind, this game came out YEARS after the first game, so you're basically getting everything from the beginning, something many fans didn't have the privilege of.

 

[Caius]

Kingdom Hearts
My rating: 5/5 Ansem's

So you have come this far, and you still understand nothing.

This game is my favorite in the series. It's the best done, it doesn't get too damn complicated, and it's got one of the best voice actors for a villain. For a kids game, the story can be downright cruel at times, but it all ends up working. Since the last game was done by character, it's not exactly fair I do the same for this one. The game follows one character, not three.

However, since I did go over the last game in detail, I'll be pointing out every little thing that connects from birth by sleep if I pick it up in the details.

This is the game that an absolute character hatred comes in. Riku. I do not like Riku at all. I feel bad if you like Riku and are reading this. I'm not kind to him, nor will I ever be. The minute I picked up this game, I thought 'I'm not going to like this kid' and I never have. I'm not too fond of Kairi either, but I've gotten over it considering she plays a lesser character and more of a love interest in this game.

With that, let's start on Darkness! Too much for my heart.

Dive to the Heart
All of the kingdom hearts games really start with this. It's confusing and I'm more than happy to explain it before we get to the nitty-gritty. A dive to the heart is a location. It's a world within a dream, and it serves as the tutorial of the game. A dive to the heart is a manifestation of the darkness within the character, where they're forced to face this manifestation in a form whether it be a heartless, or a nobody. The character chooses what's important to them during this scene, and sets the stage for your 'stats' gameplay wise for the game. That's all you really need to know.

Destiny Islands and the little jerk called Riku
Our main character of this game is Sora. He lives on an Island with jerk boy and Kairi. They're all friends bloop bloop bloop and have kid adventures and love each other. Sappy crap like that. They seek to leave the island (DOESN'T THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?) and Riku constantly talks about leaving despite how much I moan and groan at the game for it.

Sora is a fourteen year old boy. We don't see his parents, nor did I really remember he had any for the longest time. I don't think they're too worried about their kid in disney. Of course, the events of birth by sleep set the stage here as all three of the kiddos are visited by the three previous key blade wielders.

Before we get to the part where Sora's 14, lets touch his childhood in more depth. Sora is only FOUR when he meets Terra and Aqua. Terra of course, sees potential in Riku, and passes on his gift to him, while Aqua doesn't want to burden Sora with such a dangerous thing.

Because of Sora healing Ventus's heart in the previous game, when Ventus's heart goes to Sora, he sheds a tear and feels sad for an unknown loss. He encounters Ventus's heart which asks if it can join Sora's, who accepts as long as he can make Ventus happy again. I have to stop here because this is the cutest damn thing I've ever read.

Okay, back to story. A year later a girl named Kairi shows up from a different place. She's originally from Radiant Garden, but we all know how that ends up with Xehanort 2.0 being on the power gaming. She's adopted by the Mayor and quickly becomes friends with Sora and the jerk. Sometime during this Sora and Riku find a secret place on the island, a little cave which they talk about a meteor shower (Radiant gardens being destroyed) and Kairi's arrival. There's a door with no handle in the cave, and only has a keyhole. This is the key to Destiny Islands, and unfortunately the jerk is the only one to notice it.

Back to being older, Sora has a dream about a dark place, and battles with a dark creature (a heartless. Darkside to be specific.) The trio have plans to build a raft and set sail, leaving the island for good, but the night before they leave a massive amount of darkness along with a storm threatens the island. Riku decides to go all anti-hero and proclaims himself to not be afraid of the darkness, as Sora attempts to save him. Riku is sucked up not to be seen for a while (thank god), and Sora summons a key blade to battle the creatures that have infested the island. He runs to the secret cave, meeting Kairi, who disappears.

This is all sounding great isn't it? It's about an hour into the game so far if you're a slow gamer, and already Riku is 99% useless. Well let's talk about why all of this is happening.

Riku opened the door to the island, which allows all these heartless to invade. Since he's so OBSESSED with leaving, he pretty much leaves everyone on the island to be slaughtered without a care. Since I'd rather not talk about this jerk for a while, I'll just say that he arrives at Hollow Bastion (The destroyed Radiant Garden) and meets Maleficent, who corrupts him even worse, and turns him even more into a jerk. He's convinced that he's lost Sora as a friend to Donald Duck and Goofy and refuses to see reason at any time. At this point, Kairi has lost her heart to the darkness on the island in the incident, and Maleficent convinces him that the only way to save her is to abandon Sora, and help her to collect the Princesses of heart.

I can't make this up. This kid is a jerk.

Back to Sora, our adorable protagonist. Sora defeats the Darkside on the island, taking a corridor of darkness to Traverse Town, another world. He meets the two new sidekicks, Donald Duck and Goofy, who I really don't care about. They're from disney castle and searching for the key blade on King Mickey's orders. The king up and took off, so they decide to follow Sora for the time being.

Sora is on the search for Kairi, and at this point Riku hasn't found her either, but he's already with Maleficent. Unimportant butthurt going on right now.

Sora puts his quest to find Kairi on the back-burner, because he find that he needs to go to different worlds to lock their keyholes, to prevent the heartless from seeping through and destroying everything.

Let's stop here.

 

[Caius]

Heartless
I went over nobodies before, so lets go over heartless now.

A heartless is a living manifestation of darkness within people's hearts. There are a couple different kinds of heartless, pureblood and emblem. They're cruel creatures and act like they're devoid of emotion, much like the nobodies. They consume the person they come from, and are attracted to the users of the key blade. They act on the need to gain more hearts and consume, but they desire the heart of worlds. When they consume them, the remains of the world creates a new world, much like what Xehanort 1.0 wanted.

The heartless will obey those with a strong affinity for darkness, and can travel through corridors of darkness. Think of it like a portal between worlds.

A pureblood heartless is born from peoples hearts. They're found primarily in places that are close to, or saturated in darkness. When they die they just cease to exist.

An emblem heartless is a created being from a machine meant to recreate what happens when a heartless is created. They steal hearts and gain their emblem. These tend to be the heartless Xehanort 2.0 created himself for his own means.

Kingdom hearts 2 is where it's discovered why. So we'll get to that.

In which Sora does stuff and stuff happens
So, what's going on at this point is Maleficent is in the background with a group of bad dudes, while searching out the princesses of heart. The princesses of heart are essentially seven gals with hearts of pure light, who can gather and summon the final keyhole, which would allow whoever used them to access kingdom hearts. The princesses are Kairi, Alice, Snow White, Jasmine, Belle, Cinderella, and as we saw from Birth By Sleep, Aurora.

You can pretty much tell what worlds are going to show up based on this, while others show up on a whim. Unfortunately (ha HA) Riku screws up at this point and finds Kairi's body, but her heart is missing. Take that karma.

Sora and Riku meet up before this, inside of the whale Monstro, but it's pretty much a wild chase that doesn't end up with any new information and thus not important.

One of the big events is Neverland. It's near the end of the game, however, Sora finds Kairi being held prisoner on Captain hook's ship. Riku takes off with Kairi because he's an absolute JERK, but not before summoning a dark version of Sora, known as AntiSora. Not really a big deal, but worth noting.

The Jerk that Continued to be a Jerk
So that takes us to one of the final areas of the game, Hollow Bastion. As I've stated before, Hollow Bastion is the destroyed version of Radiant Garden, and swarming with heartless. During this fun little outing, Riku confronts Sora, arguing about how he's the true keyblade wielder. Why may you ask?

In Birth By Sleep, Terra actively gave his ability to Riku. He knew about it. Sora on the other hand, had no idea because of Ventus's heart residing within him. So, Riku's right. he just has a bad way of going about revealing it.

Riku steals the keyblade from Sora, in the ultimate jerk move, and leaves him with a wooden sword. It's symbolic of the last game as well. Terra gave Ventus a wooden sword to symbolize their friendship. This has nothing to do with friendship though, it's a complete jerk move.

Unfortunately, King Mickey ordered Donald and Goofy to follow whoever had the keyblade, so guess who they're following now. Beast, who had been there trying to retrieve Belle becomes my new favorite party member, as with a wooden sword you're completely useless fighting your way into the castle of Hollow Bastion. Donald and Goofy feel guilty over what they've done to Sora during their next confrontation within the castle walls. The Jerk calls Sora weak for his willingness to fight without the keyblade, but the keyblade doesn't take too kindly to being with a jerk.

Sora is able to recall the keyblade from Riku, and thus a fight ensues. I'm going to stop here. I hate this fight. I absolutely hate this fight. It's difficult and Riku really knows how to grind my gears. On the other side of things IT WAS VERY NICE TO BEAT HIS FACE IN.

Continuing on, Riku loses, and as Sora moves on, Riku begins to listen to the voice of a newcomer, accepting all of his darkness and being a damn idiot, as he's possessed by Xehanort 2.0's heartless.

 

[Caius]

Ansemku, the jerk to end all jerks.
Sora during this time is making his greatest attempt to defeat Maleficent, who has gathered all of the princesses of heart together. They succeed of course, but Riku uses a keyblade forged from the hearts of the princesses, and unlocks her heart. She transforms into a dragon which really made my day terrible, and os once again defeated. The heartless consume her, and Sora takes off again to find Ansemku.

By this point he's referring to himself as Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, which is alright with me because it's not Riku. He voices his claim to find Kingdom hearts, and once again I have to fight him in a souped up form. Sora wins, of course. It's here where Kairi is revealed to be a princess of heart, but her heart is trapped within Sora.

Sora gets the bright idea from this to use the Keyblade of hearts to unlock his heart. He sacrifices himself, losing his humanity and his heart to free her of her heart.

Now let me explain why this is a bad idea.

What do we know about stabbing people with keyblades and unlocking hearts?

From this Sora creates his own nobody Roxas, which bears a striking resemblance to Ventus due to his heart being within him. He also creates Namine, Kairi's nobody.

Moving forward, Sora is now a little heartless. He reunites with a very much awake and alive Kairi, who embraces him and uses her light to restore him to a human form. Crisis averted!

Let's pause here for a moment. Between all of this, after the dragon form of Maleficent died, Sora fights an unknown adversary, who states that he's familiar with the name Ansem. This adversary is Xemnas, who had come to Hollow Bastion and makes Sora recount many memories. He remarks that Sora looks like "him", which I'm going to assume to be Ventus, because of when this takes place. (Before Sora unlocks his heart.) Between now and the end of the game, Xemnas meets up with Roxas and explains what a nobody is, and takes him in to Organization XIII. Roxas however, doesn't know who he is. More on this later.

Kairi and Sora return to Traverse Town, get a bit of rest and move on to Hollow Bastion to seal the last keyhole.

Kairi entrusts Sora with a lucky charm at this point, a keychain for the keyblade Oathkeeper. He makes her stay behind as he takes off for Hollow Bastion, and after a fight with a nasty heartless (behemoth), he is able to travel to the End of the World. This area isn't literally the end of the world, but it's a place created from the heartless's destructive nature. They manage to defeat the demon Chernabog, and find a final area where a door appears.

The Darkness Drinking Game
Okay, I'm serious. A pretty fun game if you're of age is to take a drink every time Ansem says Darkness in the next part. Just a fun shout-out.

The door leads to what remains of Destiny Islands, where Riku shows up. Ansemku takes his real form of Ansem, and says darkness around 40 times in a single cutscene during his monologue which really doesn't have all that much to reveal. There's a fight to be had, and of course Sora wins. It's not over yet though.

The mountains of the islands split, Ansem escaping to the mountains, and Sora hot on his heels. Sora, Donald, and Goofy are separated as Sora battles not only Ansem and his servant, but a Darkside. Ansem then uses his power to send everyone to the Endless Abyss, where Kingdom Hearts resides.

At this point nothing is really plot relevant, Ansem fuses himself with a heartless ship, you fight him a few more times, reunite with the disney crew, and while on his final legs, Ansem opens the door to Darkness, proclaiming that kingdom hearts will fill him with the power of dark. Well that turns out to be wrong, and Ansem is blasted with light PRETTY hard, and obliterated by Kingdom hearts.

Unfortunately, Thousands of heartless wait behind the door, but it can't be closed. Riku is restored and makes an attempt to help close the door as well, but it's useless. King Mickey arrives, and with everyones help, the door is closed, separating Riku and Sora once again. Riku and King Mickey are locked within the Door to Darkness, but assure Sora there's a way out. There's a bunch of tears involved and the door is sealed.

The worlds begin to restore themselves, and Sora is separated from Kairi as she's sent back to Destiny Islands, and Sora, Donald, and Goofy are sent to Castle Oblivion.

Important tidbits
Now that we've come to the end of the game, there's some other information that can be added on. The next game in the list is Chain Of Memories, but I'm going to go over some other information first, such as a summary, and my own thoughts.

I've never really gone over what Kingdom Hearts IS. It's described as the heart of all worlds, and a source of power and wisdom. The X-Blade is supposed to be what unlocks it, so it's pretty safe to say by my assumption that the princesses of heart when joined can create the x-blade or something similar to it.

I'm pretty sure that kingdom hearts itself is the embodiment of knowledge and all things that all worlds have joined to create, thus how a false one can be created by Organization XIII later on in the series. In Birth By Sleep, the kingdom hearts seen is that created by worlds, while later on Organization XIII creates Kingdom hearts from the hearts of people. They're two entirely different things, but I'm not even sure they do the same things. perhaps they do.

While Maleficent technically died in Kingdom Hearts, she did not remain dead. She was sent to the Realm of Darkness, and could not rerun of her own free will. We'll be seeing her later on again.

Though Destiny Islands is destroyed, it's returned to its former glory when the Door to Darkness is closed.

 

[Caius]

Kingdom Hearts: 358/2
My rating: 1/5 Terranort's

But who else will I have ice cream with?

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 is the weakest of the series. It takes place between Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, and takes place at essentially the same time as Chain of Memories. I'm going to go ahead and do this game first to get it over with. There's a bunch of information included in this game, and I prefer to hit it before Chain of Memories for the fact there's certain characters I simply don't have to deal with. Birth By Sleep should also be pretty fresh in your mind, so keep it there, because a lot of information will hit back from there.

This game follows Roxas instead of Sora, and explains how he came to be with the Organization, and some of the deeper workings of that particular band of terrorists. It kind of gives a fresh outlook from the bad side of things. My reasons for not liking the game are many centered around my aversion to Roxas. It's not as bad as Riku, but it's still pretty bad. So with that, let's get down into the series of laugh-tracks on repeat that is 358/2.

Pre-Game, The Nobodies
By this time, Xemnas has gathered 12 nobodies to join the troupe. A few more on top of the ones mentioned in Birth by sleep. This is going to be touching on events in Kingdom Hearts 3D, as many of the stories of the nobodies didn't appear until then. Along with the originals, two characters that were in Birth By Sleep have joined the Organization. One being Isa, the other Lea. Now going under the names Saix and Axel, they're really the only ones that had other appearances of the few. There are also Marluxia, Larxene, Demyx, and Luxord now added to the mix.

Isa and Lea joined the organization at the same time. It's not explained how, but Xehanort 2.0, no longer amnesic was unlocking the hearts of others, looking for twelve empty vessels to hold his heart. They both became nobodies, and planned on getting their hearts back.

Roxas is found by Xemnas in twilight town, and is named the thirteenth member of Organization XIII. Because of who's nobody he is, Roxas has the ability to use a keyblade, and actually experience human emotion. Roxas and Xemnas spoke very briefly in the Dark Margin, where Xemnas recounted his visit to Sora in Hollow Bastion. This really serves to explain nothing plot-wise, but it's interesting considering it's a scene in Kingdom Hearts 2 that makes absolutely no sense without Kingdom Hearts Final Mix.

This is still a terrible game
Roxas is placed under Axel's watch, and they quickly become friends. He visits Twilight Town often, and begins to try and understand the meaning of friendship. God this is corny. During this time he's trained by the other members of Organization XIII to hone his abilities, while going on missions for the group.

Now, not long after this, another nobody comes into the mix. Xion. Xion also wields a keyblade, and has a pretty striking resemblance to Kairi, as Kairi was at the front of Soras mind when she was created. Everyone sees her differently depending on who is watching her. Xion, is a replica of Sora created from his memories in case both Sora and Roxas proved useless to what Organization XIII had in mind. Because of her existence, Sora can not regain his memories.(Chain of memories)

Now back to the story. Roxas's job is to destroy heartless with the keyblade to release the captive hearts, with the goal of creating Kingdom hearts and regaining their hearts. It hurts to type hearts this much, I assure you.

Now I brought up Xion, because after a week in the Organization, Axel goes on a mission to Castle Oblivion, with a number of other Organization XIII members, and thus Roxas and Xion are paired together.

I'm actually going to stop this here because I HAVE to get into Chain of memories, since the game starts and ends while this game is still going on.

So without further ado.

 

[Caius]

Kingdom Hearts: Chain Of Memories
My rating: 3/5 Xehanort 2.0's

Chain of memories was an alright game. My beef was the battle system. Anywho, this one has a pretty short story, and one side follows Riku while the other follows Sora. I'm going to do this exactly how I did Birth By sleep.

Sora
After Kingdom Hearts, Sora wanders down the pathway from the end of worlds with Donald and Goofy, chasing Pluto on the way. Marluxia appears to Sora, and claims that on the road ahead is something he needs, however in order to claim it he has to lose something dear to him. Well, it's Sora. I don't think he has any issues with that at this point.

The pathway takes him to Castle Oblivion, where Sora is on the desperate search for his friends. During this time, Sora begins to forget Kairi, as her memory is overwritten by Namine, and instead it's Namine who takes Kairi's place in Sora's memories. During all of this, Sora visits Twilight Town, where Vexen is encountered, but doesn't last long. He's eliminated by Axel, who betrays everyone at Castle Oblivion.

It's revealed that Marluxia and Larxene are making an attempt to use Sora in order to overthrow the Organization. Axel convinces Namine to do what she thinks is right, and things continue on.

More stuff happens
If I remember right Sora separates from Donald and Goofy at this point, which really isn't a big loss. He reaches Destiny Islands, and meets Namine. If you can't tell already I'm not going to put the effort into putting the whisp over the e for her name, it doesn't really change anything so I'm not going to make the effort. Anywho, she tries to make Sora remember who was important to him, taking the form of Kairi. At this point there's loads of mental dilemma, considering Destiny Islands technically don't exist at all. Yadda yadda yadda.

Namine reveals she's been taking the place of Kairi in all of Sora's memories, and Riku appears pretty much asking for a fight. He's defeated and goes jerk mode as usual, attacking Sora again. Namine breaks his memories and he collapses for good. Larxene shows up, tries to kill them both, Donald and Goofy show back up, take her down, and it's revealed that it's not really Riku being a jerk at all, but Riku's replica.

Repliku
Repliku was an experiment by Vexen made to test Riku's strength and get him to return to the dark. It's a bunch of Kingdom Hearts dark dark dark stuff really, and pretty much is like Xion in the fact that he's not really his original, and manipulated via memories and Namine to exist. I'll be going over Repliku more later on, but he's not exactly a huge deal in the series to me. In other materials he's shown to have a pretty big attraction to Namine, making charms out of things that she's had such as food. It's pretty weird but hey, character development.

Back to Sora
Sora forgives Namine for being a giant neck breather and she promises to fix his memories when he reaches the thirteenth floor of castle Oblivion, which is where Marluxia is. Axel makes an attempt at killing him but Marluxia is a pretty big jerk and uses Namine as a meat shield.

Sora then defeats Axel which makes no sense to me but I'm going along with what I know, and Marluxia orders Namine to erase Sora's memories in order to make him into a puppet. Of course, after being used as a meat shield she doesn't really think that's a good idea, and neither would I. Sora orders her to do it anyway to protect her with his good guy complex, and Repliku steps in, saving Namine.

Marluxia goes all one winged angel in their fight, and he's defeated, obviously, because we still have more games left. Really, there's nothing all that important here. Namine asks that they step into Memory pods so she can fix their memories, but at the cost of forgetting everything that happened in this game. (Hence me not really thinking it's that important.) They go to sleep while their memories are restored, Sora having Kairi at the top of his mind to help the process, and they're not seen for many an update.

 

[Caius]

Jerkwad-- Riku
Sora's not the only main character of this game unfortunately. His story's pretty short here, but it's still worthy to note. Actually some people just really like the character and as much as I hate him he's plot relevant.

Riku wakes up in the basement of Castle Oblivion. He's apparently able to make it there following Sora's heart after the incident in Kingdom Hearts 1. He hears the voice of Answm the wise, who offers the jerk the chance to sleep and forget everything, or take a card and learn the truth. Riku, of course, has to know everything and takes the card.

It's not long after this that Riku meets Vexen. He asks if the nobody is with Ansem, meaning Heartless Ansem and not Ansem the wise or any of Xehanort 1.0's other thousand forms. Vexen responds that he's with another Ansem, aka Xemnas. Riku fights him, but that turns out to be moot as well. Vexen collects data to create Repliku, who is next up on the fight list.

Repliku is a jerk too. Don't get me wrong. He's kind of creepy too, but he's a jerk to Riku which earns my forgiveness. Repliku mocks Riku about his inability to accept the darkness, while he embraces it, and runs off after he's kicked.

Not too long after, Riku meets up with Zexion. Now, I don't really remember much about this since it was a key part of RE: Chain of memories, and really didn't have much of a place in the GBA game if I remember right. Zexion is a master of illusion, and lured Riku in for a fight. Riku sinks into the light and starts to fade, but Namine shows up and helps his crappy self esteem, letting him know that Light nor dark can't destroy him, and he really needs to get on the ball because he should be accepting both. Riku accepts that he's dark, beats Zexion, and that's all for what Riku does to him.

Zexion is actually killed by Repliku, who strangles him and drains his life force. Repliku was sent by Axel for finding out about his and Saix's plans to take over.

During all of this, the darkness inside Riku isn't exactly dark-dark, it's more on the lines of Ansem having merged with Riku at some point. Riku's scared of it because, well… it's Ansem and that's not weird at all. Note, sarcasm. Riku and Ansem face off at the very end, Riku finally not afraid anymore, and Ansem claims that he still lives within Riku, bringing us to his identity crisis. He sets off on the road to dawn.

That's pretty much it for Riku's story. He plays a big part in 358/2 though, which we'll be getting back to in a moment.

Important Tidbits
Castle Oblivion, where everything takes place was the original Land of Departure from Kingdom Hearts, Birth By Sleep. It was destroyed by Xehanort 1.0, and Aqua brought Ventus here to keep him safe, making the castle with Eraqus's keyblade after sealing the world.

Though we don't see anything of the Chamber of Waking during the game, it's implied it's still very much there and Ventus is still there as well. Along with that there's a Chamber of Waking, which houses Aqua's Keyblade and Armor.

Castle Oblivion was converted by Xemnas into a second headquarters sometime as a place to research memories.

Namine is pretty out of the blue in this game, It's not really known how she got to Castle Oblivion, but after the events of the game she teams up with Riku and DiZ (Ansem the wise) to fix Sora, Donald, and Goofy.

The whole thing with Riku really reflects what happened to Terra in Birth By Sleep. Riku is basically possessed by Ansems darkness, while Mickey's light keeps bringing Riku back to himself. It kind of pisses Ansem off. Instead of fully being taken over though, Riku accepts his darkness, and he gets a cool new form for it. Riku now has a purpose besides being a jerk, to get rid of Ansem forever. At some point between now and 358/2, Ansem continues to eat away at Riku, and he starts wearing a blindfold. He travels to The World That Never Was, on DiZ's orders in order to capture Roxas. But that's information on the next game.

I think that pretty much covers that.

 

[Caius]

Back to Kingdom Hearts: 358/2
So where we left off, Axel and a bunch of other Organization members had just been sent to Castle Oblivion, which is why I touched on what happened in Chaim of Memories. What really happened here though, is Larxene and Marluxia planned a coup, trying to use Sora with his memories re-written by Namine, to usurp Xemnas. This of course, fails, but Axel had his own plans. He and Saix were planning on taking over the Organization, which Zexion found out about, hence why he was killed. His entire job there was to eliminate the other members of the Organization for what they were all planning.

Roxas falls into a coma after Xion begins opening up to him, around the same time Sora is put to sleep to regain his memories. When he awakens, he finds out that everyone but Axel that was sent to Castle Oblivion has been destroyed. Xion, Axel, and Roxas start spending time together and form our new dynamic trio, made up of sea-salt ice cream above clock towers and replayed laugh tracks through the entire game.

At some point though, things go belly-up when Roxas begins seeing some of Sora's memories, which understandably starts to frustrate him, because no one seems to want to tell him why. He starts getting pretty doubtful of what's going on in the Organization.

At the same time Xion has a confrontation with Riku in Twilight Town, who suggest that Xion leave the Organization to merge with her original self, Sora. She wants to stay with Roxas and Axel. She has an identity crisis, due to her finding out she's in the same boat as Repliku, being a replica of Roxas created by Vexen for the purpose of Xemnas using her should Sora fall through. She starts to remember more about Sora, seeing some of his memories, and begins to resemble him instead. She leaves the Organization after an argument with Roxas and Axel, going off to try and be her own person. A little later, Roxas defects as well.

Xion spent some time with Namine who informs her that she's a Nobody, and that if she returns to Sora, everyone will forget about her. She wants to go back to Sora at this point, but she's interrupted by an Organization member that followed her. She's grabbed by Axel, who wants to use her to bring Roxas back, and on orders. She's defeated, and brought back to the castle, only to be reprogrammed by Xemnas to be able to use certain devices that will grant her power, and allow her to absorb Roxas.

Roxas and Xion meet up in Twilight town, showing Roxas what she looks like now as Sora. She explains that she has to absorb Roxas to become Sora, and keep him from waking up. It's a load of crap, of course. Xion ends up not revealing it, but it's explained in her secret reports that she knows Roxas will disappear if she sticks around, and she wants to force Roxas to absorb her, so that not only Xemnas gets screwed over, but Sora can come back.

Using the devices that Xemnas programmed her to use, she absorbs Soras memories, Roxas finally able to defeat her and giving her back her original appearance. Roxas can't remember who she is, and as she dies she explains to Roxas what's going on in the Organization, warning him about Xemnas. Roxas gets a new mission, remembering kind of who she is. He decides he wants to set Kingdom Hearts free to be with Xion again.

Riku is up to his usual antics, on a mission to capture Roxas so that Sora can wake up finally. Xion gains control of Roxas's body, tosses the Oblivion Keyblade at Riku and causing him to recall memories of Xion, and in this way she asks him to stop Roxas from battling Xemnas, because she knows he's not ready.

Around midway through their fight, Roxas begins having more and more trouble remembering who Xion is, and actually manages to knock Riku down. Xion projects herself to Riku, who uses his power to turn himself into Ansemku, because it's the only way he can stop Roxas. As he's knocked out, he loses his last memories of Xion.

Roxas is brought by Ansemku to DiZ, who brings him into a virtual version of Twlight town, where he would be safe from the Organization. At this time Roxas also forgot about Axel, and anything but his life in Twilight town.

Afterthoughts
As much as I don't like this game, it's really, really sad in the end. As far as the characters go, Axel's original intentions were to take over the Organization with Saix, however because of the time he spent with Roxas and Xion, he felt as if he could actually feel and have emotions, which causes him to break from that path and pretty much abandon the Organization in a less obvious double-cross.

During all of this Xemnas is acting in the background, sending Axel to find the Chamber of Waking in Castle Oblivion. Axel is never able to find it.

As an addition, once Roxas absorbs Xion he gains a second keyblade, Ventus's, which turn into Oathkeeper and Oblivion. Not exactly super important but it feeds one of my theories.

One of my theories always supported Roxas not being Sora's nobody, but Ventus's. With the information from this game I think it's safe to say that Ventus fully joined Sora's heart, which is what made only one Nobody from Sora with the ability to feel possible. I don't really think of Roxas as a nobody at this point, but a copy of Ventus. He can feel, and he acts the exact same as Ventus, so why not?

Things are hitting the fan
We're almost through this. Next is Kingdom Hearts 2, Coded, and Dream Drop Distance. Hopefully a little more will be clear by the end of all this.

 

[Caius]

Kingdom Hearts 2
My rating: 4/5 Ansemku's

Kingdom hearts 2 was a pretty great game. Most of the gameplay issues from Kingdom Hearts 1 were solved here, and the only issue people really had with it was the Organization coming out of the blue at this time. All people had to go on was the knowledge from Kingdom Hearts 1, and it was really confusing. A good amount of stuff happens in this game, and while I'm going to try and place it all chronologically, I'm probably going to end up flipping around a bit.

Once again we follow Sora on his journey, but by this point Sora's been locked away as of the end of Chain of Memories. He still hasn't regained his memories, so for the moment we're going to be following Roxas in the digital Twilight Town that the jerk and DiZ placed him into. But let's talk for a minute about DiZ. I said before that he was Ansem the Wise, but it's pretty important about all that he did.

DiZ
In Kingdom Hearts, Birth By Sleep, DiZ is the true Ansem. He lived on Radiant Garden and governed it in peace. He had a research group consisting of Braig, Dilan, Even, Aeleus, and Ienzo, which were of course changed by Xehanort 2.0 into the Nobodies that were destroyed in Castle Oblivion. (Excluding Xaldin and Xigbar)

Ansem had taken Terranort in when he was amnesic, which didn't last for very long. Ansem began running tests on Terranort's heart to try and unlock his hidden memories. It turned out that there was more to worry about than just some memories, as dark abilities began to rear their ugly heads. Well, Ansem being Ansem at the time didn't figure out, hey maybe I should STOP, and his apprentices began running tests on the heart and darkness within. They were ordered to stop, but Xehanort had already managed to open the door to the world.

Around this time King Mickey showed up through the door, becoming friends with Ansem. They discovered secret reports that were penned under his name, that Xehanort had stolen. In essence this is when Ansem realized that maybe he was responsible for what was happening. Well, this is when the apprentices produced heartless and nobodies, forming Organization XIII, and Ansem was sent to the Realm of Darkness by Xemnas.

While Ansem was in the Realm of Darkness he continued to write reports to retain his sanity, renaming himself Darkness in Zero, or DiZ. He gained the power of darkness, and found a way to escape. Once out he came to Twiling Town, and took refuge in a mansion. That's when he started really researching the Heartless, Nobodies, and Sora.

This brings us to the part he played in Chain of Memories. He infiltrated Castle Oblivion, waking Riku and encouraging the jerk to conquer his darkness. They pretty much get on with things as comrades after the events, which leads us into 358/2.

Namine aids DiZ in restoring Sora's memories, all of them moving back to the mansion in Twilight town for safety. He finds out about Xion absorbing Sora's memories, and later after she's absorbed finds out about Roxas completely halting the process. He sends Riku to retrieve him, so that he could be placed in the digital copy of twilight town where he could be observed until it's time to merge back with Sora.

That's pretty much all there is on Ansem/DiZ at this point. To keep things simple I'll probably just call him DiZ for the rest of this.

Other Pre-Game happenings
Other things have been going on that I'd like to get clear before I move forward. Xemnas's true goals aren't to regain his heart as he makes the rest of the organization believe. He really wants kingdom hearts to become a god and remake all worlds into his own image.

During this time, Xemnas made frequent visits to the Chamber of Repose to visit the armor of Aqua and speak to it, always addressing it as a friend. I'd wager a bet that Terra still has some control if that's the case.

At some point DiZ orders Riku to get rid of Namine, and instead he lets her go with Axel.

During 358/2, Axel and Roxas were sent to Hollow Bastion to destroy heartless and release a raven from a cage, which happened to be Diablo, Maleficents raven. Xemnas planned on using her to create more heartless to create kingdom hearts.

Now that the recap is done, let's get on with Kingdom Hearts 2.

 

[Caius]

I'm not even the main character. I'm Roxas!
Yeah, you start the game with Roxas's dive to the heart. There's gotta be one in every game you know. Roxas has been having dreams about Sora, as a product of him absorbing Sora's memories while he's in stasis. Roxas however, believes that everything is real in the Digital Twilight Town, and has a few friends there with him in digital form. In reality, it's just a paradise before he dies.

Roxas meets Axel while he's in this place, having no idea what's going on after he's able to summon the keyblade. Axel tries to bring Roxas back to himself, and to the Organization as a friend, and because of orders. A bit later he meets Namine in an abandoned mansion, who tells him that he's a nobody, that that he knows what that is anymore.

Axel is finally put under enough pressure by Xemnas and Xaldin to either bring him back, or destroy him. DiZ stops the fight between Axel and Roxas, telling him to go to the mansion where he learns that he's not in a real world. He meets with Axel one last time for a last fight, defeating him and finally merging with Sora.

Time to get on the Disney train again
I'm not really going into much detail here with Roxas because there isn't really much there. The organization when they encounter Sora sometimes have remarks about how Sora looks like Roxas, but for now that's about it.

Sora wakes up in the basement of Twilight Town, the real town, but neither he nor Donald and Goofy can remember what happened in Castle Oblivion. The first stop is to see Yen Sid, who gives him a wardrobe update, and gather information about how to get back to Destiny Islands with Riku.

After parting, Maleficent's raven Diablo brings her robe to Yen Sids tower, and she's accidentally brought back to life. Oops. She's a mediocre villain this time around, but her return was planned by Xemnas anyway.

A bunch of disney worlds are revisited, but let's get back to the plot. Sora is notified that Organization XIII are causing trouble, King Mickey won't tell Sora anything about Riku, and there's generally a bunch of butthurt going around in all directions.

Meanwhile in the background Axel used Kairi to try and draw Sora out. He wanted Sora to become a heartless again, so that he could be reunited with Roxas. He makes an attempt to kidnap her, but she's rescued by Riku via a corridor of darkness, and sent to Twilight town, where she's kidnapped by Saix, who was under orders from Xemnas. Saix's job was to make Axel squirm, since he's acting against the organization.

Hollow Bastion is revisited, where there's a restoration committee made up of most of the people from Traverse Town. During a visit where Sora is requested to take a look at some of the work, Organization XIII makes their first appearance to him. On another Visit, they find Ansem's study, meet King Mickey who says that he'd help Sora find out about Riku, and Sora finally learns about Ansem the wise and his history. This is where the real butthurt starts because Mickey can't talk about Riku by his request.

There's a bunch of final fantasy 7 stuff going on in the background here too, but it's not really that important. Sephiroth is an optional boss if you feel like you hate yourself.

Really most of the main story happens in Hollow Bastion, which is why I'm using it so much as a point of data.

Xaldin is encountered at some point in Beast's castle and destroyed. Demyx is first met in the Underworld running from Hades as he fails to make a deal.

Demyx isn't super important but he does have some screen time. Demyx was a friend of Roxas during 358/2, and asks Sora to come back. He's the first nobody to be fought and destroyed in the game, in Hollow Bastion.

Right after this Xemnas and Saix make an appearance, and Axel explains the 'plot' of Xemnas as he knows it, to retrieve their hearts. Maleficent makes an appearance and holds Saix off so that Sora can escape. Her goal is apparently to get rid of the Organization so that she can take kingdom hearts for herself. She sends him to the Realm of Darkness where he meets Riku, not that he knows it. Riku leaves behind a box with things that Roxas liked, and pictures of his life.

A portal is made and all the disney worlds are revisited for more issues. The plot continues in Twilight Town, where Sora manages to find a way to The World That Never Was.

Heroic Sacrifice: The game
During the trip, Sora, Goofy, Donald, and Mickey are trapped in the Betwixt and Between, a corridor from Twilight town to The World That Never Was. They're ambushed by nobodies that Axel holds off by using all of his power. He apologizes for what he's done, explains why he wanted to see Roxas again, and opens a portal that will lead to The World That Never Was, and fades to darkness.

Axel makes a last appearance to Roxas to make a final farewell mentally. Cries were had all around.

Onward ho, Sora makes it to Memory's skyscraper, where Roxas fought Riku before being trapped in the digital Twilight Town. Sora fights Roxas here, challenged by the latter and winning the fight. Roxas regards him as a good other before they press on to the Castle That Never Was.

Xigbar makes an attempt at getting rid of Sora before he can get too far, falling like everyone else because it's a video game and the main character needs to stay alive.

During some part of this Kairi is rescued by Namine, who promises to lead her to Sora. Saix makes an attempt to stop them, when Ansemku steps in, and Saix backs off. Riku takes Kairi to Sora, where she's finally useful and given a keyblade.

Oh, wait. It's Kairi. She's not useful at all. She does nothing.

Sora has a reunite with Ansemku, accepts who he is, has a cry over it, and that's pretty much it. They move forward, fighting Luxord and Saix to get to Xemnas. After the battle with Saix, Riku reveals who Roxas was.

DiZ makes an appearance attempting to use a machine to convert kingdom hearts into data. Unfortunately things don't go exactly as planned, and the machine overloaded, exploding. DiZ is sent to the Realm of Darkness and lost a good portion of his memories. At the same time, the machine blowing up destroyed Ansemku's appearance, leaving him as the original jerk, Riku.

They all he'd to the top of The Castle that Never Was, and have an all out fight with Xemnas. By all out, I mean just Sora. Everyone gets good feels, and believe everything is over, as Xemnas absorbs Kingdom Hearts. A door to it is made, and opened by Mickey, Sora, and Riku.

Mickey and Kairi are separated from everyone else, while Riku, Sora, Donald, and Goofy go on to try and finally finish Xemnas off. They fight him, return to the Altar of Naught, and Roxas emerges from Sora's body to speak with Namine before she merges with Kairi. There's many feels, many lovey dovey feelings, and the two nobodies finally merge with their original selves. Namine opened a corridor to take them home, and Xemnas makes a last stand before Sora and Riku can enter.

There's a few more fights with Xemnas, most of them pretty damn annoying, before they reach a place not light or dark, just nothing. They fight Xemnas for the final time, using Light and Dark to finally finish him off, and are left to wander through the Eternal Abyss. They make it to the Dark Margin, and pretty much agree to give up and stay there since there's no way back.

Through some Kingdom hearts Nomura BS, a portal opens after a message in a bottle arrives from Kairi, leading them back to Destiny Islands, where everyone is reunited, and Sora finally returns the charm that Kairi gave to him years ago, Oathkeeper.

 

[Caius]

Finally
We've reached the end of Kingdom Hearts 2. Not much happens in this game compared to the others, and I'm pretty sure I didn't leave all that much out that is plot relevant. At the end of the game, there's a letter received by Riku, Sora, and Kairi from King Mickey, that will lead us into Kingdom Hearts: Coded. Kairi returns her good luck charm to Sora, saying she’d see him soon.

After the events of Kingdom Hearts 2, Aqua meets DiZ in the Dark Margin. He reveals to her that he's losing his memories. He speaks about what happened while Aqua has been there, reminded by Aqua telling him that she wants to be with her friends again. At this point DiZ has been within the Dark Realm for a year, and shares the identity of Sora after revealing that he could open the door to light and save everyone who's suffering.

And no Xemnas isn't gone.

fghjkl

 

[Caius]

Kingdom Hearts: Coded
My rating: -/- Journalku's

I can't really describe much about this game. I haven't played it and I'm going off of information I've picked up here and there. It was originally a cell-phone game turned DS game for regionalization.

So why should I care
It's a kingdom hearts game and I'm doing all of them whether I've played them or not. I assure you the information is still accurate. The game follows Jimminy Cricket, who has been with Sora for all of the Kingdom Hearts games, documenting his travels. After Chain of Memories, he finds a message that says "thank Namine," and he finds another message stating "We must return to free them from their torment."

Mickey digitizes the journal and goes into the digital world to find out what's going on. He wakes up a digital Sora, who I'm just going to call Digiora from this point on.

There are numerous bugs in the digital world, and Digiora has the job of eliminating the bugs, and following a hooded figure to find out what's wrong. The hooded figure ends up being Jimminy's journal taking the form of Riku, and explaining that Digiora needs to discover his true identity.

Maleficent and Pete from the actual world make an appearance, Maleficent destroying Digiora's keyblade. He's saved by Mickey and Journal Riku.. almost. Maleficent kidnaps Journalku (I like that name, that's the new name.) and Digiora take chase through Hollow Bastion. Pete takes control of Journalku who is knocked out.

This is already sounding dumber than 358/2.

Mickey informs Digiora that the bugs have to be destroyed in order to wake up Journalku, causing Digiora to enter Journalku's memory. They make their way through that memory to return to Hollow Bastion, defeat Maleficent, and are back just in time to get news that Mickey will be retur ing to the real world soon. They also get the lovely little tidbit that the journal when completed will have to be erased, meaning the end of Digiora.

Digiora ends up asking for more time, wanting to save Pete and Malefient, but apparently they're rescued by the journal via a rift in the data. Mickey returns to the real world, erases the journal, and a new message appears that a new door to a new world has been opened. A new quest appears with the data of the data world and Mickey realizes he may have screwed up, considering Digiora doesn't remember anything by now.

He re-enters the digital world and takes Digiora from Traverse Town to Castle Oblivion, where Digiora meets Digital Roxas, or Digixas as I'm calling him. Digiora realizes that even if he doesn't remember the people he's met he still has the sadness of forgetting them on his mind. He fights Digixas, defeats him, and things move on.

Digiora meets Namine next, or the digital version anyway. The bugs are revealed to be a side effect of trying to piece Sora's memory back together after the events of Chain of Memories. She explains that his real self is the key to saving Roxas, Axel, Xion, Terra, Ventus, Aqua, and the real Namine. Mickey promises to tell the real Sora of what's going on. That leads us to the ending of Kingdom Hearts 2, where Mickey sent a message to Sora, Riku, and Kairi.

Post whatever the hell you want to call this
Mickey heads to Yen Sid's tower, where he reveals that Ventus's heart is close to being found. Now all that they have left to do is fine Terra. Because absolutely nothing can go right, we now have a problem. Xemnas and Ansem were both destroyed by Sora, which apparently means that he's merged back together. Master Xehanort, or Xehanort 1.0 has been revived and I ran out of names for him. Great.

Yen Sid orders for Sora and Riku to be brought to him to undergo their Mark of Mastery exam which will obviously do so much considering what happened in Birth By Sleep, so that they can become true Keyblade Masters and properly finish Xehanort off for good.

 

[Caius]

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance (3D)
My Rating: -/- Kiddienort’s

So. does your head hurt yet? Are you begging for it to stop yet? We're not done. One more game. And I haven't played it.

You haven't? How can you write about it then?

Actually I'm reading numerous sources for the upteenth time trying to get this all right. This game is confusing, and it links everything together. Overall, I find that this game sounds the most interesting after Birth By Sleep.

So what happened to lead up to this? It's revealed that Master Xehanort has been reborn, to take his five hundredth reincarnation in this series. Sora and Riku are told to come in to take their Mark of Mastery Exam, and.. oh.. oh my. Time travel is now in play.

I hate myself for doing this to myself.

So onward bound, to Kingdom Hearts: Why am I still doing this.

Let's just start with Xehanort because that's the easiest way to do this.
Sora and Riku are sent on a mission to awaken seven worlds from sleep. Apparently now there's a Realm of Sleep added to the mix, and APPARENTLY there's some major butthurt going on already, because guess what, there's interception going on. Now who's doing the intercepting here? Why… Xehanort. We have Ansem, Xemnas, and a Young Xehanort added to the mix!

Who the hell is young Xehanort? The Unknown, not a nobody but a somebody, and a flipping time traveler.

Let's skip back here. Young Xehanort lived on Destiny Islands, until his heartless from the future, Ansem, arrived and told him what was going to happen. He gave himself the ability to travel through time and collect all of his incarnations. He did, and went back to his own time.

What.

Seriously.

I can't.

Okay moving on I can't take this.

Under Master Xehanort's orders, or Xehanort 1.0, Kiddienort is recruiting himself to create a new Organization XIII. The whole point of the original Organization was meant to recruit thirteen strong people that could be used to make clones of Xehanort 1.0 through putting his heart into multiple bodies. So what we have here is an Organization mainly consisting of Ansem, Xemnas, Kiddienort, and Master Xehanort, and that's not counting the other members.

Hold on. Did anyone read the last Harry Potter book? There's some serious hocruxing going on here.

Anywho, Xemnas is put into a deep sleep, to become the final vessel for all of this. Sora is taken to The World That Never Was and Has Too Many Capital Letters, where Riku and King Mickey try and save him from Xehanort. Riku fights Xehanort, wins, and he returns to assert control. Kiddienort takes his place under the rule of Xehanort 1.0 and escaped.

During this apparently Xehanort 1.0 fails in transferring a portion of his heart to Sora, who he wanted to be another vessel.

God my head hurts. This is not going to be in any semblance of order because there's a load of stuff going on.

Of course, being part of Xehanort, Kiddienort can wield a keyblade. I really wish by this point Xehanort could just create kingdom hearts and get it over with,

Okay so moving on. Let's try and cover some of the actual story and not just Kiddienort and whatnot.

Dream eatin
So this game has a new kind of cannon fodder, Dream eaters. They seek out the sleeping worlds keyholes. Sora and Riku now have the job to awaken the worlds by unlocking the keyholes, and hopefully making it back by supper. There aren't only bad dream eaters though, there are spirit dream eaters to guide them, and then the nasty nightmare kind.

This is apparently the mark of Mastery Exam. It's what you've been doing in every game up til now. I really don't understand why they can't just give Riku a gold star that says you tried and make Sora a master, but that's beside the point. During the travel is when it's learned about that Xehanort wanted to make vessels. Sora's thrown into a coma by Kiddienort, and his heart is swallowed by darkness, but protected by Ventus's suit of armor.

Riku decides it might be a good idea to rescue him, meeting Kiddienort and his eleven vessels. His desire is to pit them against seven Keyblade wielders and create the x-blade, but as I stated before, Sora is rescued by the usual troupe plus Mickey and Lea. Wait, who's Lea?