The game starts out with one of the Kingdom Hearts ending movies (the one of Sora, Donald, and Goofy running after Pluto). That night, Sora awakens to find one of the mysterious Nobodies waiting for him. He tells Sora that to find something he needs, he has to lose something dear to him. Intrigued by the Unknown's words, despite his previous encounter with him (Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix), Sora follows him to a strange-looking castle.

Once inside, the Unknown has disappeared, and the trio realize that most of the reason why they entered was because they felt that Riku and the King were somewhere inside. The Unknown appears again, and Donald mistakes him for a heartless (for those who haven't played KH: FM, Donald and Goofy are absent from the fight with the Unknown), and attempts to attack him with Thunder... which fails miserably. None of his other spells work, either. The Unknown then explains that, upon entering the castle, they forgot all of the techs that they'd previously learned. While this may seem like a lame attempt to justify Role-Playing Game Clichés #11 (Let's Start From The Very Beginning (Yuna Rule): Whenever there is a sequel to an RPG that features the same main character as the previous game, that character will always start with beginner skills. Everything that they learned in the previous game will be gone, as will all their ultra-powerful weapons and equipment.), which happens to be one of the major pet peeves of Parasite Eve II players, the forgetting doesn't stop there. You see, the longer people stay inside Castle Oblivion, the more they forget. But with another vague promise, the Unknown convinces them to stay. After sampling Sora's memories, the Unknown hands him a card.

In this game, cards are everything: they allow you to go from floor to floor inside the Castle (with each floor being an imaginary representation of places that Sora has been to before), to open doors, and fight in battle. Each type of card has different effects (the types of cards, what they do, and how to use them in battle are in the Card Types and How to Play sections of this walkthrough). Once you use the World Card he gave you, the Unknown speaks in riddles again (kinda remindsya of the Cheshire Cat, don't he?), then disappears.

Item locations: Lanterns (hit), barrels (hit), boxes (hit), boxish thing with pointed top (jump on)

World Map: Traverse Town

Cards required:

Enemies: Shadow, Soldier, Large Body

Once through the door, you find yourself in Traverse Town, or at least what seems like Traverse Town. The Unknown returns only to emphasize the point I made in this walkthrough's introduction: each floor inside Castle Oblivion creates itself from the World Card the person opening the door holds, which in turn are created from the memories of said person. You also realize that Donald and Goofy are missing... or are they? Now begins your very first battle, in which the battle system is explained in a rather roundabout and semi-confusing way (refer to the "How to Play" section for a more comprehensive, complete, and more user-friendly explanation of how to do battle).


Boss: Unknown
HP: n/a
Attacks: n/a

Right now, the only cards you have are attack cards (and no, unlike in KH, you can't just go around pressing a button and start bashing things endlessly; the number of times that you can smack something with the Keyblade (in battle, per round) depends on the number of attack cards in your deck. The Unknown explaines that your friends have been turned into cards. Again, this dude explains this stuff, and I explain it in another section, so I'll just move on to what to do once he finally shuts up (of course, to get through the explanations, you have to do what the popup describes (i.e., dodge roll when they explain how to dodge roll, etc.)). Move forwards and just keep pressing A. He'll let you get three hits in before babbling on again. Keep pressing A until you run out of cards (you'll notice that I didn't just write "HP: n/a" and "Attacks: n/a" for the hell of it; not only does the Unknown have no HP meter, but he's blocking all of your attacks (despite the fact that it doesn't actually say "Guard" when you hit him).

After his explanation, the battle ends and Donald and Goofy have reappeared (don't get too used to this, though, since the only places that they appear (other than when you use their cards in battle) are during scenes and between floors, not like in KH where they follow you everywhere and sometimes end up knocking you off of where you need to be... ^-__-^ ). They're also back in their KH gear... yey? After some more talk, the Unknown disappears... again... and yes, for some odd unknown reason, Jiminy gets to stay with you. ... guess they don't think very much of the lil cricket dude, eh? ^<__<^;;

Now that you're alone, go up to the door, give into your violent side, and give the door a good whack with the Keyblade. *dling!* Ack, random menu! Well, like I said earlier, cards open doors in this game, and the card you use determines what you'll encounter on the other side of the door, including room layout and the type (or complete absense of) enemies. More on this can be found in the "Card Types" section. Use the card you've been provided with to get through the door. Once on the other side, approach the SP (Save Point) for an obvious explanation, and to learn about the Quick Save option (which I don't bother using since it returns you to the title menu after you use it and that annoys me to no end). They also have you smack a barrel, which gives you some random card that you don't actually get to keep. Turn around and whack the Heartless over the head. Smacking them before they touch you results in them being stunned (and therefore temporarily weakened) at the beginning of battle. You now have your first real battle, and if you die here it'll make me feel very sorry for you. You get a card after the battle (and card acquired after a regular battle will always be either a map card or an enemy card). You can smack the lanterns for some HP (green) or Moogle Point (red) balls, or to receive battle cards. At the beginning of each section, I'll mention the things that you can jump on/hit to get stuff from (and also what cards are needed to open the doors), so go check that out under the Traverse Town banner now (Item Locations).

Open the next door (funny how you have the exact card value that you need to do so... ^<__<^ Don't get too used to this, either, cause the cards you get from here on out will be random). I'd walk you through each room like I do in my other walkthroughs but, like I said earlier, the room's layout changes depending on what card you use. The locations of the doors, however, are the same, hence why there's a Maps section in this walkthrough.