After a mandatory intro sequence, the game tells you to move forward. Do so. Now, the game asks you to choose your strength and weakness (what you choose to "give up" is what you'll be weakest in). Here's a table, and it shows what stats Sora ends up with, depending on what you choose.

... Sora fall down the hoooooooole... Yes, as in most games, X is the attack button. Oh, by the way, you can only "pause" during battle or movies, but it still adds time to your game even when you're paused (I left the game paused for a couple of days, and came back to the game having logged me at 99 hours ^^;;).

OK, time to fight! Press X lots. These guys are pretty easy, so don't worry too much about it. They do like to melt into the ground pretty often, which is when you can't hit them, and is really damn annoying, but eh (I mean, right now it's not so bad, but later on it gets a lot more frustrating. And yes, you'll be seeing these guys again). The green things they explode into when they die will re-fill your HP gauge. Some enemies will explode into blue thingies, which refill your MP bar, but these types are a lot less common (and you won't see any of those right now). Some will also explode into munny (this game's currency) but you don't get any of those right now either. After some more fighting, you get swallowed up by darkness. Oh joy. You end up on another platform. Go up to the door, and you get some more explanations (man, this game is doing my job for me. Get your own schtick, game!). Inspect the door, then the treasure chest, although there's nothing in it. Sheesh. Now, push the box around. Locking onto it makes this easier. Now, break it! ^~__~^ Sometimes the chest that pops out of the box is empty. :\ Mess around with the barrel, then examine the door again, which opens. Whee. ... or not? Eh.

Time to answer some questions. Talk to Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie in whatever order you want. Apparently, the answers you choose here determines how fast or slow you level up. Basically, if you choose at least two answers from a single category, then you get stuck with that pace of leveling up. If you choose one from each category, it averages out to "normal" speed. Don't bother trying to go past Wakka, since the game doesn't let you go very far. The resulting prediction-type thing is different, as well, depending on what you answer.

After the Q-and-A round, you're taken back to the platforms. Wander around a bit, and you get more instructions. And pull your weapon out of hammerspace. ^.__.^ Alright, more fighting. You'll notice the menu turns red during battles, and goes back to blue once all the enemies are either gone or out of range (the music also gets faster during battle). This becomes more important later on because some cutscenes won't trigger until you've killed everything in the area (and some later enemies can fly, making them more difficult to spot), or if you're trying to explore an area in safety, as some later enemies are very dangerous. Inspect the glowing circle (save point/SP) to get some more info. ... and no, SP's don't usually create staircases out of thin air... ^@__@^ Save if you want, then go up the floating staircase-type deal (and no, you won't fall off :op ). ... oh, like the music isn't a dead giveaway for what's coming up...


Boss: Darkside
HP: 240
EXP: 18
Attacks: Creating a bunch of Heartless to attack you, throwing energy balls

Yah, OK, this guy may look big, but he's not that tough. When you enter a boss battle, a good thing to do is lock on to the nearest target, then try pressing L2 to see if there are multiple targets.

Well, the targets are his two hands and his head, however for this specific boss you only need to worry about one target. Usually if there are multiple targets that means you need to kill "each part" of the boss before the whole boss will die (even if the boss is just one dude), but in this case you don't have to do that. Also, usually bosses in this game'll have an HP gauge, but apparently this one doesn't. This guy is just breaking ALL the rules apparently. Who knows why. OK, so this guy starts off by powering up and then pounding his fist on the ground and creating a black void that spawns Heartless (those weird shadow guys you've been fighting up til now). This hand is the only hand he does this with, which makes it the best target because it's easier to hit things that are on the floor. Your auto-attack will hit things in the air if they're not too far off the ground but his other hand is almost always out of reach, so keep this hand as your target. Lock onto the hand and attack it, and pretty much ignore the chibi-Heartless unless you need to heal. That's literally all they're there for, to explode into HP balls to heal you. They won't do too much damage. When his hands start glowing, get behind him to avoid those energy surges. When his middle starts glowing, start running around the perimeter to avoid the energy balls. Keep moving during this part otherwise you're going to get hit. This battle's over pretty quick, and it's rare to ever be knocked into the red in this battle.

... and now, the darkness swallows you up again. This is starting to become a thing.