IMPORTANT NOTE: This guide is by no means finished. However, due to my busy schedule lately, and my lack of motivation to finish it, I have decided to upload it as is. R/R is over half written, and I've already begun the lists. However, due to those being unfinished, I'm leaving them out of this version of the guide, as well as Version History pertaining to their updating. Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories Yes, this is my fancy ASCII art until I get off my lazy ass to make something better. *============================================================================* Nova_Scar ------ Username for GameFAQs.com nova_scar@hotmail.com ------ Email I seldom check January 08, 2009 ------ Date I first started this FAQ/Walkthrough ????????? ??, 00000 ------ Date I finished this guide *============================================================================* This guide is set to the English version of the game, and to Proud mode difficulty. Differences between version and difficulty may vary as such. ____________________________________________________________________________ | _________________________ | *=======================// \\========================* | | Introduction | | *=======================\\_________________________//========================* |____________________________________________________________________________| Welcome to my guide for Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories. The main reason I decided to write this is because I wanted a guide which contains all the information possible, mostly for references. In addition, I wanted to make a guide which could be used as a complete strategy for this game -- that is, from beginning to end, and completing it 100%. In addition, I think this game finally needs a complete comprehensive guide for it. There are very, very few good guides for it online. And since Chain of Memories was one of my most favorite games in the original, and remains even more so now, I hope to have fun writing this. While I'm not really into personal introductions...I go by the name Zadion, and I'm sixteen years of age. I happen to live in the middle of nowhere and have absolutely no life, so I spend every moment on the internet. I've made attempts at writing strategy guides before, but I never had it in me to finish them. Hopefully, this one will be different. I currently just played through Re:Chain of Memories for the first time, so I therefore hope to write this with the information fresh on my mind. I'm going to play through it one more time as I write the guide. But please remember that this IS my first guide (if completed), so it will not be perfect. I'm sure you all know this already, but Re:Chain of Memories is a (very well done) remake of the original Chain of Memories, which was released for the Gameboy Advance a few years ago. Re:CoM kept pretty much all of the original game in tact, while adding just a few extras for fun. This remake isn't about the extras though -- the main thing that makes it is the difference between a game for the GBA and the PS2. I believe that's pretty obvious. This guide will contain spoilers, though not mass amounts of them. For example, I'm not going to explain the cutscenes out to you. That is, unless I decide to create a section where I reitterate the story. Don't plan on that. Oh, and of course, if you don't like how I do it, create your own guide. ^^ Thank you. ____________________________________________________________________________ | _________________________ | *=======================// \\========================* | | Contact Info | | *=======================\\_________________________//========================* |____________________________________________________________________________| My email address--nova_scar@hotmail.com--is for anything related to this guide, and for that purpose only. This will include questions, contributions, and corrections. If you just want to say hi or something, that's okay. But do not email me to do such. As a matter of fact, you may want to IM me any questions you have. I don't check my email often, and I get a lot of spam. Any message sent without the words "Chain of Memories" in it will be ignored or deleted without response. Don't email me with any questions to do with the other titles in the series. I probably won't be able to help. When you choose to contact me, I expect you to use proper grammar. I don't want to read your email and wonder what the hell you said cause you use "u" and other crappy grammatical items. Periods, commas, and question marks are very much indeed your friends. Also, the only language I know is English. Don't talk to me in anything but that. In addition, I would appreciate that, if you wish to contribute to the guide, you make sure whatever you wish to contribute is not already in it. Thank you. ____________________________________________________________________________ | _________________________ | *=======================// \\========================* | | Legal Disclaimer | | *=======================\\_________________________//========================* |____________________________________________________________________________| This FAQ is © copyright to me, Nova_Scar. This FAQ is for private and personnal use ONLY. This guide cannot be advertised in any media or website without permission from me. You WILL NOT and CANNOT reproduce this guide and claim it as your own. To host the guide on ANY website, you MUST e-mail or IM me asking for permission to do so. If I grant permission, then YOU are responsible for updating it. The latest version will always be held at gamefaqs.com. You must NEVER alter a single character in this FAQ. You may only print this off for yourself or for a friend for personal use ONLY. Should you not obey these rules, you WILL suffer legal penalties. The being said, feel free to use my guide. As of right now, this guide may be used on the following: -Cheat Code Central (http://www.cheatcc.com) -GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com) -Neoseeker (http://www.neoseeker.com) -Super Cheats (http://www.supercheats.com) ____________________________________________________________________________ | _________________________ | *=======================// \\========================* | | Version History | | *=======================\\_________________________//========================* |____________________________________________________________________________| ~~ January 08, 2009: Version 0.50 -Finished everything up to Card Mechanics, including Table of Contents and ASCII art, though the ASCII art was mostly made from long ago. ~~ January 09, 2009: Version 1.00 -Finished Card Mechanics. -Started a new file for Sora's story, and played through it past Traverse Town, then wrote the walkthrough for it. Going to replay through it as I write the walkthrough, to make sure I have everything -Made notes of the most recent bosses I've beat in Reverse/Rebirth. I have not added the notes to the guide. They'll be used later. -Also finished the world maps for floors 2-6. Did so with help from my first playthrough on Sora's story. -Completed Agrabah last. I've done enough today, so I'm off to bed. ~~ January 10, 2009: Version 1.10 -Halloween Town and Olympus Coliseum have been completed. Unfortunately, in the process of this, I accidentally wrote over my Reverse/Rebirth playthrough. Blah. I planned on finishing the entire first World Card set today, but that just devoured my spirit. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe. ~~ January 11, 2009: Version 1.20 -Monstro and Wonderland done, meaning I'm officially finished with World Card Set I! YEEHAW! I also have the guide for Larxene down. ~~ January 12, 2009: Version 1.25 -Curtosy of my first playthrough, maps for floors 7, 8, and 9 are done. Cannot do the map for 10 yet, because I synthesizes 100 Acre Wood on it. I'll have to wait until I get that far on this playthrough for it's map. ~~ January 13, 2009: Version 1.30 -Atlantica has been completed, along with the strategy for Riku I. I had it done once, but my damned computer did an automatic restart while I was away for a few minutes. I didn't save. I can only hope I got everything as I remember it. I did have the quotes for what Ursula I did have the quotes for what Ursula says before two of her attacks, but I couldn't remember them. = =; Should anyone who reads this remember to take note of those quotes themselves, I'd highly appreciate it if he or she would give them to me. ~~ January 15, 2009: Version 1.40 -Blah, I was away most of the day yesterday, and when I wasn't, I was busy talking to my girlfriend. I didn't have time to work on it. Because of that, and spacing it off sort of the two days prior, I've put more work on it today. Neverland (and Riku II boss, of course) and 100 Acre Wood are done. I wanted to do Hollow Bastion but meh. -I just read the "Composing Your Guide" guidelines on GameFAQs for the first time since I last attempted to work on a guide. Found out not to indent anything on a guide, so I took out all of the indentations. But, what I really want to know is what the hell this BS about not boxing stuff is about? Much of my guide is boxed so far purely due to bosses. I don't even know what I'm going to do about that, other than maybe just not worry about it. ~~ January 16, 2009: Version 1.45 -Hollow Bastion completed. Lazy today I was, I know. But I don't have a lot left for Sora's story anyway. ~~ January 17, 2009: Version 1.50 -Walkthrough for Vexen I completed. -Twilight Town in it's entirety has been finished also. ~~ January 18, 2009: Version 1.60 -Riku III, Destiny Islands, Riku IV, and Larxene II all completed! Yay! I have a headache now. I probably should have worked on a strategy for beating Larxene without Sonic Blade, but meh...My head hurts too much. ~~ January 19, 2009: Version 1.70 -Every part of Castle Oblivion complete, up to the boss strategies. I decided to devise a strategy for beating Larxene without Sonic Blade after all, since it was annoying me so much not having one. I used the second save file I kept right before beating her. Larxene, being my second favorite Organization character, deserves a better written strategy anyway. ~~ January 20, 2009: Version 1.80 -Axel II boss strategy has been fully written. Unfortunately, I haven't had time for anything else. School is taking too much of my time. >.< ~~ January 21, 2009: Version 1.95 -The walkthrough for Sora's story is all but finished! The boss guides for all three boss battles with Marluxia have been completed. All that is left is the walkthrough's closure. ~~ January 22, 2009: Version 2.00 -And...it is finished! I changed the format for sleights on the third Marluxia a little bit to make it look nicer, and I wrote the end of it. Now, I just need to decide what section to write next. ____________________________________________________________________________ | _________________________ | *=======================// \\========================* | | Table of Contents | | *=======================\\_________________________//========================* |____________________________________________________________________________| To the right side of these contents, I have included a code. This code is used for quick searching. Press Ctrl+F, then type in the code. Press enter, and you're there! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Sora's Story | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Introduction to Sora 1.1 Battle System-----------------100%-----------------------sbsys 1.2 Room Synthesis----------------100%-----------------------rsynth 1.3 Leveling Sora-----------------100%-----------------------slvl 2. Card Mechanics 2.1 Sleights----------------------100%-----------------------sk1ll 2.2 Card Types--------------------100%-----------------------ctype 3.3 Moogle Shops------------------100%-----------------------furryz 3. Sora's Walkthrough 3.1 Traverse Town-----------------100%-----------------------strtn | --World Card Set I 3.2 Agrabah----------------------100%-----------------------swcsiw1 3.3 Halloween Town---------------100%-----------------------swcsiw2 3.4 Olypmus Coliseum-------------100%-----------------------swcsiw3 3.5 Monstro----------------------100%-----------------------swcsiw4 3.6 Wonderland-------------------100%-----------------------swcsiw5 / --World Card Set II 3.7 Atlantica--------------------100%-----------------------swcsiiw1 3.8 Neverland--------------------100%-----------------------swcsiiw2 3.9 Hollow Bastion---------------100%-----------------------swcsiiw3 3.10 100 Acre Wood---------------100%-----------------------swcsiiw4 / 3.11 Twilight Town----------------100%-----------------------stwltn 3.12 Destiny Islands--------------100%-----------------------sdsnisle 3.13 Castle Oblivion--------------100%-----------------------scstobln 4. Card Lists-----------------------??% 4.1 Attack Cards------------------??%-----------------------satkc 4.2 Magic Cards-------------------??%-----------------------smagc 4.3 Summon Cards------------------??%-----------------------ssmnc 4.4 Item Cards--------------------??%-----------------------sitmc 4.5 Friend Cards------------------??%-----------------------sally 4.6 Enemy Cards-------------------??%-----------------------semyc 4.7 Map Cards---------------------??%-----------------------mapcs 5. Sleights-------------------------??%-----------------------skltz 5.1 Attack Sleights---------------??%-----------------------atksl 5.2 Magic Sleights----------------??%-----------------------magsl 5.3 Friend Sleights---------------??%-----------------------fndsl 6. Bosses---------------------------??%-----------------------noobpk ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Riku's Story | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Introduction to Riku 1.1 Battle Mechanics---------------???%---------------------- 1.2 Leveling Riku------------------???%---------------------- 2. Riku's Walkthrough---------------??% 2.1 Hollow Bastion-----------------???%---------------------- | --World Card Set I 2.2 Agrabah-----------------------???%---------------------- 2.3 Monstro-----------------------???%---------------------- 2.4 Traverse Town-----------------???%---------------------- 2.5 Neverland---------------------???%---------------------- / --World Card Set II----------------??% 2.6 Wonderland--------------------???%---------------------- 2.7 Atlantica---------------------???%---------------------- 2.8 Olympus Coliseum--------------???%---------------------- 2.9 Halloween Town----------------???%---------------------- / 2.4 Destiny Islands----------------???%---------------------- 2.5 Twilight Town------------------???%---------------------- 2.6 Castle Oblivion----------------???%---------------------- 3. Card Lists-----------------------???%---------------------- 3.1 Battle Cards-------------------???%---------------------- 3.2 Enemy Cards--------------------???%---------------------- 4. Sleights-------------------------???%---------------------- 5. Bosses---------------------------???%---------------------- ______________________________________________________________________________ FAQ----------------------------------N/A-----------------------faq4nub Acknowledgements---------------------100%----------------------manythanks Final Statements---------------------???%----------------------theend ______________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ | _________________________ | *=======================// \\========================* | | Introduction to Sora | | *=======================\\_________________________//========================* |____________________________________________________________________________| Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories (the original too, of course) has one major difference from both of the other titles: the card system. This, in my opinion, actually makes the game more enjoyable. It adds much more strategy to the game, and can make Sora a very formidable force. If only it had multiplayer battles like the original had... For those of you whom are not fimiliar with this system, though...prepare to become fimiliarized, as I am going to discuss it here, along with a few other basic bits of information you'll need to know. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Battle System sbsys | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ah yes...the heart and soul of Re:CoM. This system is quite easily what makes the game so fun. You're going to get a tutorial of how this system works in the game, of course. But I think it's best I describe it here, too. Along with some other information about it which the game doesn't feel nessecary to tell. First and foremost, we need to understand how each battle starts. When you see an enemy on screen (which is any kind of Heartless), and you or it touch, then you'll immediatly switch to a new "battle" screen. Note that if you strike the enemy first with your Keyblade, the first group of enemies will be stunned and have a slight bit of HP knocked off. Because of this, you'll want to strike whichever enemies first that you possibly can, for a slight advantage. Anyway, in the lower left hand corner of this screen is where you see your deck, and in the lower right hand corner, you will see the enemy's cards. At the top left corner will be Sora's health, and the top right corner you will see any targeted enemy's health. The game auto-targets to make attacking easier with less failed strikes. In battle, you can press R2 to lock onto a target. The L1 and R1 buttons will cycle through the cards in Sora's deck, but the directional pad can be used to do this also, though it's a bit more annoying and not recommended. Square makes Sora dodge roll. This is basically for avoiding attacks. The X button will immediatly use whatever card you have highlighted, and the triangle button will stock whatever card you have highlighted for use in a Sleight -- more information about that later, though. Actually...you probably need to know about the cards themselves now. In Castle Oblivion, Sora immediatly forgets all of his attacks, and other abilities (so do Donald and Goofy, but who cares about that). So we therefore have the card system to replace it. Sora is given 3 deck slots, and a CP capacity (which will be discussed more in a bit), along with several cards which will make up his attacks. Each attack -- be it a normal Keyblade strike, aid from Donald, Goofy, or another friend, a magic spell, or anything else, takes a card to use. Therefore, we need to insert cards into our decks for everything. Our card deck is our key for victory. You have 99 slots in your deck, but your CP will never be high enough to let you use all of those. Your CP matters because each card you put into your deck has a CP cost, and, of course, with the more powerful cards is a higher CP cost. If the amount of CP your deck is using is higher than your maximum CP, Then you won't be allowed to use the deck. I'm sure you'll notice the number on each card. That number is it's card value. You see, just as Sora uses cards to battle, so do all the enemies which Sora will fight in Castle Oblivion, and these enemies use cards with card values just the same way Sora does. When you or the enemy uses a card, the card can be "broken" by the enemy or the enemies card by Sora. A card break occurs when you play a card of a higher value while the enemy has a card in play already. This is a very good way of stopping attacks, and getting in your own attacks as this stuns the enemy for a brief period of time. Of course, if you play a card, then the enemy can break yours too with a card of a higher value, and you will be stunned briefly (different Keyblade cards recover quicker, that's discussed later on). And, obviously, if you have a card played and the enemy plays a card of lower value, then the attack is voided, as if the enemy never used it. Remember however that this also applies to Sora when the enemy uses cards. Take careful notice of these examples: ~Sora plays a Kingdom Key card with a value of 2 against a Soldier. ~Soldier plays a 4 attack -- Sora's card is broken and he is stunned, leaving him wide open for the attack. ~Sora plays a Kingdom Key card with a value of 9 against a Shadow. ~Shadow plays a 1 Attack -- Shadow's attack is voided, and Sora's card goes through. On most occasions, the Shadow would be struck by this. The only exception I can think of is if the attack missed. ~Sora plays a Kingdom Key of 4 against a Large Body. ~Large Body also plays a 4 -- both cards have the same value, so they both cancel each other. ~No attack goes through on either side. Understand all of that? Please remember that all examples work vice versa. Meaning, whatever applies to Sora will apply to whatever enemy he's up against, also. Also note that playing a card of lower value against an enemy who has already attacked will void the attack you used, but there will not be any stunning from it. All that happens is that you used your card. And when you and the enemy play two cards of the same value, you will lose your card, and both you and the enemy will be stunned and unable to attack. There is one card which is most useful for breaking though. The 0 card. Anytime a 0 card is played, it is guarenteed to break whatever card has already been used. However, a card of 0 value can also be broken by quite literally anything, also. Therefore, 0 cards are the ultimate defense, but defense only. Having a deck with a few 0 cards is recommended against the bosses so that you can break their Sleights. But in any normal Heartless battle, 0 cards do not have much use. In battle, you can press the select button to switch to your enemy cards. Enemy cards have a wide variety of uses -- some of them being nearly essential, and others having nearly no use at all. Use them to fit your style. Enemy cards can be quite useful, but are almost never nessecary. I played through Sora's entire story without using an enemy card even once. An enemy card's effect wears off under different circumstances with each card, so be sure to take note of how it'll wear off before calculating your strategy with it. Friend cards will also drop and bounce around the battlefield for awhile. If you don't pick them up, they'll disappear after a short time. These are the only cards which you don't (and can't) put into your deck during construction, and can only be picked up during battle. At the end of each battle, you lose any friend cards which you didn't use during the battle. A deck can only have so many cards, especially with that CP limit. So what happens when you use up all of your cards in a battle? That is what the reload button is for. That is the black bar with a number in it. Press and hold X to recharge your deck. The first time you recharge, it'll have a recharge counter of 1. The second time, it will have a counter of 2. Any time after that the recharge counter will be 3. Recharging your deck leaves you wide open for attacks, because Sora has to stand still in order to recharge. Therefore, make sure you're in safe distance from attacks before you attempt to recharge. Fortunately, there are Item cards which will reset your deck for you. These items are invaluable and highly recommended whenever possible. More information on these cards later. Finally, what happens when you kill an enemy? The enemy will drop balls of experience -- what will level you up. There is also a very small chance that it'll drop a Premium bonus (more on this in a bit). When the enemy drops the experience, be sure to run around and collect all of the balls, because they will vanish quite quickly if not collected. In normal enemy battles, the final Heartless will also drop a map card. These map cards are for synthesizing new rooms. I'll explain that more a little later. If you go to the edge of the battle room, an Escape bar will appear. Keep running towards the edge and the bar will load more and more. Once it loads entirely, Sora will escape the battle. Be careful, though. After escaping, the Heartless you escaped from will still be there. Your escape is reset if you are attacked in the middle of the escape. I'll discuss the more advanced details of fighting and deck construction soon enough. For now, we need to learn about... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Room Synthesis rsynth | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- As with battle, traveling takes cards too. I already mentioned earlier how you get a map card every time you kill the final Heartless in a basic battle. The exception to this is if you have 99 cards, since 99 total map cards is the limit. Each floor on Castle Oblivion has a set of rooms, and in order to gain access into a room, you must open the room using one of your map cards. You progress new floors in Castle Oblivion by using a world card, which you get these as you progress through the story. Note that each floor in the castle uses one world card, and one only. In order to open new worlds, you must beat the current floor you're on, including the boss in the world which you synthesized. Each floor also has a preset map. And yes, it goes by floor, not by world. I'll include a map of the floor with the walkthrough later on. There are three different types of map cards, which are sorted by color. Red, green, blue, and yellow. I will list details on each card later, but here is a brief description of differences: ~Red cards: Effect the Heartless in the room, such as with Almighty Darkness, which makes every Heartless have cards with values two higher than they would be otherwise. ~Green cards: Gives beneficial effects such as Lasting Daze, which makes every Heartless that appears be stunned when you strike them first, instead of just the first set in the battle. ~Blue cards: These effect the entire room in a certain way, usually for obtaining new cards such as with Calm Bounty and Guarded Trove. ~Yellow cards: These are the Key cards. All Key cards are obtained by progressing through the floor, except for the Key to Rewards. These cards are only for the storyline and are not for synthesis. As stated, each floor has a set of rooms which are linked together. The rooms it has are entirely up to you and the map cards you use, but each room in Sora's story is guarenteed to have one of the following: --Key of Beginnings Room --Key of Guidance Room --Key to Truth Room --Key to Rewards Room --Conqueror's Respite The first three listed are the story rooms. The Key of Beginnings is the first story room for the floor, then Guidance as second, and Truth as third. The Key to Rewards room takes a special card called the Key to Rewards. These are dropped in place of normal map cards during battles on the 7th floor and up. These are uncommon drops, but not too rare and you can only have one of these at a time. The Key to Rewards room contains a special treasure which is preset, and then another treasure once you've beaten Reverse/Rebirth (Riku's story). The Conqueror's Respite is the final room in the floor. This room contains a save and is the exit of the floor, where you continue your way up. This room is unaccessible until you beat the entire floor, including the boss and the Key to Truth room. All of the rooms other than these you must synthesize yourself with your own map cards. To synthesize a room, go up to the door and press triangle. (Note that you can resynethesize a room you've already created by going up to it and pressing triangle instead of going through.) A screen will appear with all of your available map cards. In the center, you will see a door with a number. Just like your battle cards, map cards have a value too. The number you see is the nessecary value of the map card you must use. In general, the room can be synthesized with a map card having a value of the number you see on the door, or a higher value. A zero will always work too. For example, a door may show the value 4 on it. If it does, you may use a map card of the value 4-9, or a 0. Anything between 1 and 3 won't work. The main exception is with the Key rooms (Beginnings, Guidance, etc.). These rooms all take a preset card depending on the floor. I will give the nessecary cards along with the maps during the walkthrough. Many of the Key rooms however will take a specific color of card, as well as card value, or even multiple cards, all along with the specific Key card. For example, it may take a red card with a value of 5 or higher with a green card having a value of exactly 7. It may also force you to give in so many cards to lower the counter. Such as requiring a value of 15 blue cards altogether, and you need to give in enough blue cards to make that dwindle to 0. Once more, these are preset. What cards they take has already been determined, and I will include them with the maps later. When you synthesize a new room of a certain value, the next rooms you must synthesize from that room will be require a value higher than previous. Examples: ~A room requires you use a map card with a value of 3 or higher, so you use a Calm Bounty with a value of 5. From the Calm Bounty room, you need to synthesize another room. It will require a value of 6 or higher since you used a card with a value of 5. ~A room requires you use a map card with a value of 9 or higher. You therefore use a Teeming Darkness with the value of 9. From that Teeming Darkness room, any room you synthesize from it will require you use a map card of exactly 0. ~A room requires you use a map card with a value of 0. You use a Moment's Reprieve of 0. Any room from that Moment's Reprieve will take a map card of 1 or higher, or 0 of course. As you can tell by the examples, 0 is still the almighty card. You can use a card with a value of 0 for pretty much any room, except for the Key rooms which require an exact value. The counter will also reset back to 1 if you use a 0 on it. Also note that the first room of every floor will start with a requirement of 1 or higher. Remember that, once you leave a floor onto the next one, every room you created on that floor will have to be recreated. I hope that is all you need to know about room synthesizing. As stated, a complete list of map cards will be given later on. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Leveling Sora slvl | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- As you can guess, Sora takes levels to achieve his perfection, just like in other titles in the Kingdom Hearts series, or like in pretty much every RPG. Every time Sora levels up, you'll have the option of increasing his HP or CP. At certain levels, you'll also have the option of learning a new Sleight. Every time you increase his HP, it'll increase by 15. Choosing to increase his CP increases it by 25. In the original Chain of Memories, you could only max 2 of those 3 stats at level 99. From what I hear, though, in Re:CoM you can max all 3. I have yet to get Sora to level 99, so I am unsure myself. When I do, I'll update with exact information. Either way, the max for Sora's stats are as follows: ~HP: 560 (Starts at 80) ~CP: 1625 (Starts at 275) ~Sleights: 12 (All of these Sleights can be learned by level 57.) From personal experience, I would say that it's most important to level CP, and to get every Sleight you can, and get enough HP to be comfortable. Having HP around 300 survived me the entire game. But it's all about your style. If you prefer more HP and less CP, go right ahead. You don't even have to get all the Sleights, though I highly recommend it. ____________________________________________________________________________ | _________________________ | *=======================// \\========================* | | Card Mechanics | | *=======================\\_________________________//========================* |____________________________________________________________________________| This section will explain in higher detail the cards you use in battle, specifically, your battle "skills", and how to obtain cards. We'll start with your skills, that is... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Sleights sk1ll | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you recall, I mentioned earlier about pressing triangle in battle to stock a highlighted card for use in a sleight. These are your "skills" in battle. A sleight is a combination of two or three different cards. Sleighting specific cards (most of the time in a specific order) will make a special attack. In order to create a sleight, you must stock a total of three cards using the triangle button, then press triangle again to excute it. To execute a sleight that only takes two cards, you'll have to press L1 + R1 simultaniously instead of triangle. ~Cura sleight: Cure + Cure or Cure + Cure + any other card While... ~Curaga sleight: Cure + Cure + Cure Be careful, because every time you use a sleight, you lose the first card of the sleight. When you reload, the card will not come back to you. It's gone until the end of the battle. It is because of this that using too many sleights can be a very bad thing, leaving you with very few cards to do anything with. Item cards such as Hi-Potion and Mega-Potion, however, will restore the first cards you used in sleights also. The values of the cards you use in sleights do add up, and therefore, sleights can only be broken by a card higher than it's total value. An example is using a Sonic Blade sleight with a total value of 22. In order for the enemy to break it, s/he would have to create a sleight having a value of 22 or higher. Of course, 0 cards can be used to break sleights also. In general, there are three different kinds of sleights. Those are attack sleights, magic sleights, and friend sleights. (Complete lists of these are later on in the guide.) Attack sleights require three attack cards of a specific value, such as Ars Arscanum, which requires three attack cards with a total value of 4-6. If you sleighted together three attack cards with a total value of 7, it would not make an Ars Arscanum sleight. If you have gotten Ragnarok, that is instead what it would make. Some attack sleights require three different attack cards too, in order to make the sleight. An example would be Sonic Blade. You could use a Divine Rose with a value of 8, a Kingdom Key with a value of 7, then a Crabclaw with a value of 7, and it would make the Sonic Blade. However, if you used two of the same attack cards in that sleight, such as the Divine Rose and two Kingdom Key, even if it had the values of 8, 7, 7, it would not make the Sonic Blade sleight. As far as I know, it would just make a basic three hit combo with a total value of 22. Obviously using sleights for three hit combos is not recommended, since you lose the first card of the sleight. Also note that there are sleights which take three of the same card type, just the same as Sonic Blade takes three of different card types. Magic sleights are a little more forgiving. From what I know, you can use any total value you want, all that matters is the order of the cards. For example, Lethal Flame takes 1 stop and 2 attack cards. If you sleighted together an attack card, stop, then another attack card, I do believe you would not get a Lethal Flame though. In exchange, they can be of any value. You could use a stop with the value of 9, then two attack cards with a value of 9. Or you could use a 1 stop, then two attack cards with values of 3 and 7. Summon sleights are a variety of magic sleights which use summon cards. They work pretty much the same, but most summon sleights require three of the same card. Such as Omnislash taking three Clouds, any value. There are a very few however which do not. Such as Idyll Romp. This sleight takes one Bambi and two attack cards. The same rule of order applies to these also. Friend sleights are like summon sleights in the fact that they usually take three copies of the same friend card. But just like summon sleights, there are a few exceptions, notably ones involving Donald and Goofy. The total value does not matter with these either, but the order does -- just like with magic sleights. Friend sleights can be quite powerful, especially early in the game, and I recommend saving your friend cards for the use of these sleights. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Card Types ctype | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- As I'm sure you've obserbed by now, there are several card types Sora has access to. Five card types, to be exact. They are as follows: Attack, Magic, Item, Friend, and Enemy. Attack cards are the main cards you'll use, most likely. They are your basic Keyblade strikes. This section will more specifically describe them in just a bit. Magic cards are your spells. Unlike attack cards, which gain power with different types of attack cards, each spell only has one type and damage from it. This makes magic cards simpler, but less useful for slaying. Of course, they are quite useful against enemies whom are weak against specific spells. The elements are Fire, Ice, and Lightning. You also have the Aero, Stop, and Gravity cards. You'll find that many enemies absorb one element, but are weak to another. This includes bosses. There are also some enemies which resist an element, some enemies even resist all elements. Pretty much every boss is immune to gravity, also. Summon cards are also a variety of magic cards. They all attack in some random way though, or some such as Tinker Bell will heal you. Item cards restore either all attack or all magic cards - some even restore the attack/magic cards which would normally be unrestorable, such as those used in sleights. There are also a few item cards which will reset your reload counter too. Friend cards are simple. They cannot be obtained except during a battle, and any friend care you have goes away after the battle. Several usually will drop per battle though. They basically summon a friend to use some attack which varies from friend card to friend card. They can be really useful early and mid game, but late game, their use weakens significantly. There are also some worlds which you will not have access to any friends whatsoever, and most of the friends you have access to are world only. Donald and Goofy are the only exceptions. Enemy cards are accessed by pressing select in battle. They do not have a value, and they cannot be broken. Enemy cards do a huge variety of different things, from increasing your combo to powering up an element, or letting you use a stocked sleight twice in a row. They have a large variety of effects which can be further explained in the enemy card list. Most of these pretty much explain themselves, but attack cards need further elaboration. Attack cards have several different types of Keyblades, some being more powerful than the others. They can also be more powerful than one Keyblade in one way, but worse than another in another way. Attack cards have hidden stats which can be seen when they are looked up in Jiminy's journal. The stats are as follows: ~Attack ~Strike ~Thrust ~Combo Finish ~Element ~Break Recovery ~Required CP These are all rated on a specific scale which goes like this: * > A > B+ > B > C+ > C > D+ > D D is the worst possible, while * is the best possible. Attack is a basic overall rating -- that is, an average of how powerful it is. Strike tells you how powerful the first strike in the basic three hit combo is. Thrust tells you how poerful the second strike in the three hit combo is. If you have the Soldier enemy card activated, it also decides the third. Combo Finish decides how powerful the final hit (which is fourth if the Soldier enemy card is active) in the combo is. Many Keyblades will be more powerful than another Keyblade when first in the combo, but much weaker than the same other Keyblade when second/third. This is where the strategy in deck building comes in. You'll want to create your deck so that it's sorted to have the best possible cards suited when used in the combo. A late game example would be this: Divine Rose (Strike of A)> Lionheart (Thrust of B)> Metal Chocobo (Combo Finish of B+) In it, you'd build your deck to have Divine Rose, then Lionheart, then Metal Chocobo, and repeat that as many times as your CP would allow. However, while I consider those the primary stats to watch out for (since you don't want to use Divine Rose as a second attack with it's Thrust of D+), there are a few others you should take note of. Element is pretty obvious. It'll tell the element the Keyblade is of. The possible elements are Physical (what most Keyblades are), Neutral, Fire, Ice, or Lightning. Element is a crucial factor. Striking an enemy who's affiliation is of the same element as the Keyblade will cause either no damage, or even heal it. As an example, if you hit a Red Nocturne with a Lionheart Keyblade, then you will heal it. Just the same, hitting a Blue Rhapsody with Lionheart will do more damage than normal. Use Keyblades of those three elements at your own risk. Neutral however is best. It will break through all defenses the enemy has; be it elemental or physical. And of course, Keyblades of the Physical element basically have no element. The only thing you have to worry about is the few enemies who have physical resistances. Break Recovery will denote how quickly you'll recover from a card break, should that happen. High break recovery can indeed be an important factor, especially when up against those enemies who use really high value cards. And last, required CP will show how much CP the Keyblade uses, judging by the scale. More powerful Keyblades will always have a worse required CP. Each Keyblade takes a specific amount of CP according to the scale. Here is a list: ~*: 10-19 CP ~A: 15-24 CP ~B: 20-38 CP ~C: 25-43 CP ~D: 30-57 CP * ranked Keyblades start at 10 CP for cards of value 1, and the required CP increases by 1 for each value, ending with 0 at 19 CP. A ranked Keyblades start at 15 CP at 1, then increase by 2 per value, ending with 0 at 24. B in the same fashion starts at 20, increases by 2 per value, and ends with 38 at the 0 card. C is still the same, starting with 25 and increasing by 2 each, then ending with 43 at 0. There is only one D ranked card, and that is Ultima Weapon. It starts with 30 CP at the value of 1, and each value up you go, it increases by 3 CP, which ends at 57 total CP with the 0 card. Remember to take all of that in mind when you build your deck. One final note on card types is the premium card. As far as I know, you can only get Attack or Magic cards as premium cards. What they are is the same exact thing as another card, but in it's premium version. They do not do more damage; actually, all of their stats are exactly the same as the regular version, except for required CP. Premium cards take much less CP than the same exact card which is not a premium. But in exchange for this, they can only be used once. That's right, you use it once, even just as a normal attack, and it is gone for the rest of the battle. For this reason, I don't really use premium cards, and almost always cancel out of premium bonuses. A premium bonus is a special very rare drop in the middle of battle, which, when picked up, will turn a card in your deck into a premium card. Your entire deck spins around like a wheel and you get to time it just right to turn one of your cards into premium. You can press circle to cancel out of this. However, you may have already guessed that premium cards are perfect for one thing. The first card in a sleight. Since you already are going to lose the first card anyway, it's best to use a premium card. It'll take much less CP and it has the same effect, and premium cards will return when you use something such as Hi-Potion just the same. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Moogle Shops furryz | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Moogle shops are going to be your main way of acquiring new cards, other than the random card drops which are obtained when you break the random breakable things in the room. Moogle shops can only be accessed by synthesizing a Moogle Room. You won't be able to buy anything without moogle points, however. Moogle points are the red balls which drop when you break the things in rooms. It's for this reason you're going to want to break every single thing you can, and hit everything which is targetable (such as lamps). At the moogle shops, you'll be able to buy packs of cards (meaning you cannot buy single cards, ONLY the packs, and each pack comes with five cards), or you can sell your own cards. Be warned though that the cards you sell generally will not get you as many moogle points as they are worth. Still, if you don't need them, it's an easy way of obtaining moogle points. The shop has four packs of four varieties. The varieties are Attack, Magic (which contains summons too), Item, and Mixed (contains a combo of any of the three). You will only obtain cards in packs which you have already once before obtained a card of. For example, you will never find a Lionheart in a pack until you've gotten a Lionheart from the Rewards Room in Traverse Town. When you buy a pack, it'll say it's sold out. Meaning you have four packs to choose from of each variety, and once you buy all the packs, you'll have to synth another Moogle Room in order to buy anymore packs of that variety. This has it's benefits, however, as each time you synth a Moogle Room, the first time you talk to the moogle there, it'll give you a free pack of cards. Also note that card packs may contain premium cards. I like to sell these premium cards myself, as they sell for more moogle points than the others do. You'll probably notice as you travel higher up in the castle, that when you synthesize a Moogle Room, the packs of cards you see there will be bound by different straps. The straps tell how rare the cards in it are, and therefore cost more moogle points. There are four different types of straps it can be bound by, which are either leaf, brown belt, black belt, or moogle. When moogle becomes available, you'll have the option to buy one leaf, one brown belt, one black belt, and one moogle pack, and changes to the packs will effect every variety of pack. In my opinion, it's best to buy the highest ranking pack available, as the cards in it are worth the extra points. By the time moogle packs are available, I wouldn't recommend buying anything but them anymore, except maybe black belt packs. The moogle points each pack costs are like so: _______________________________ | Attack | Magic | Item | Mixed | |-------------------------------| Leaf: | 100 | 200 | 150 | 150 | Brown Belt: | 200 | 250 | 200 | 200 | Black Belt: | 300 | 350 | 300 | 300 | Moogle: | 500 | 400 | 350 | 400 | *-------------------------------* If anybody has a probability guide on the likeliness of getting specific cards in specific packs, I'd like the information. Thank you. Anyway, with all of that information, I believe I'm done explaining Moogle Rooms. Therefore, I'm done with the Card Mechanics, meaning... On with the walkthrough! ____________________________________________________________________________ | _________________________ | *=======================// \\========================* | | Sora's Walkthrough | | *=======================\\_________________________//========================* |____________________________________________________________________________| This is where the fun begins. I'm going to give you all a step-by-step guide for beating Sora's story. I'm going to list the worlds in the order I did them, but remember you can do it in any order you want. But my boss strategies may differ a bit if you decide to do a world earlier or later on than I have it. But you can guess, I'm going to write the guide with the assumption that you follow the worlds the same way I did. If you don't, that's fine, just expect my guide to be a little off for you. Since the maps are preset by floor, not by world, I'm going to list the complete set of maps for the world sets, along with any bosses in between specific floors, then the walkthrough for the worlds themselves. The maps I give also will look a little different from those in the game due to the fact the in-game maps slant to one side, obviously. Use your common sense to figure out how it looks. The rooms inside have multiple types of objects which you can strike. When stricken, they will give either green HP balls, red moogle points, a battle card, or nothing. I'm also listing the level I was when I started the world, and the level I was when finishing it. They will be listed as "Starting level" and "Finishing level" respectively. I'll list a step-by-step guide on how to get to the story rooms for each world, but remember that the guide will only work assuming you do the floors as I list them. As for bosses, I'm going to list their HP as it was for me. With the floor bosses, then it should be accurate. So it should also be if you follow the worlds in the same order I did them. However, since bosses scale to become more powerful as you progress up the castle, just the same way enemies do, then they can have more or less HP depending on if you did the floor before or after I did. During many of the world bosses, you may notice a black and green card with a picture on it that seems to resemble Mickey's head, and is of 0 value. This is a Gimmick card. They give a special effect during the boss, usually something to help make the boss easier, and in a large way. If you see one, pick it up. Chances are, it will help a lot. Also note there are character bosses and non-character bosses. The character bosses can use sleights and will often have to reload their decks, whereas the non-character bosses can't. Most of the worlds also have a specific Keyblade card for it, so be sure to watch out for them. They are first found just by striking the random objects in a room. Anyway, the game will start with several overly-long cutscenes, then the cloaked stranger giving you your first world card. You'll have to go up to the big door and press triangle, then use your only card to get to... ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ strtn \ ------------------------- Traverse Town ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ Floor 1 | ^ | [T]-[ ]-[C] S: Start | | | B: Key of Beginnings - 1> card | [G]-[ ] [ ] G: Key of Guidance - 3> card | | | T: Key to Truth - Green card | [B]-[ ] [R] R: Key to Rewards | | C: Conqueror's Respite - leave the world here. | [ ] | | | [S] | v | ____________________________________________________________________________+ | Starting level: 1 (Obviously) | Finishing level: 7 | | Friends: Donald, Goofy | Cards: Kingdom Key, Simba | Heartless: | -Shadow | -Soldier | -Red Nocturne | -Blue Rhapsody | Bosses: Guard Armor (Truth Room) | Rewards Room: Lionheart | ____________________________________________________________________________| As soon as you enter, you'll have to go through an annoyingly long tutorial about the battle system, then you'll be taught about room synthing. The first room I had to synth each time going through was Moment's Reprieve. This is probably to teach you about saving - which it does right away. In the Beginning's room, you'll have to go through yet another tutorial, this one about card values, and stocking for combo attacks and sleights. You will however be rewarded this time, with the Simba card. When you're done, go back and make sure the rooms you've synthed so far are clear of any enemies, then make your way to the Guidance room, then Truth room. I'd recommend leveling around five times before moving on. Then prepare for your first boss fight... _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Guard Armor */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 7 | | Difficulty: Low (2/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity can be assumed. Otherwise, none. | | Sleights: None | | Drop: Guard Armor enemy card | | | | Hit Points: | | -Two arms: .25 bars each | | -Two legs: .5 bars each | | -Body: .75 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | | | Guard Armor is a simple boss. He has five parts, each one with it's | | own HP bar. However, the body cannot be attacked until all the other | | parts -- that is, both arms and both legs -- are defeated. | | Fairly simple battle. Basically, hack and slash at this guy until | | he's dead. That can be a bit hard though, because he has higher card | | values than you do, and can break your cards at a steady rate. | | The highest value I've seen him use is a 6. At this point, I would | | doubt you have any more than one or two cards with a value higher | | than 6, and your deck isn't large enough to afford stocking up for | | sleights and the such. For that reason, using Donald or Goofy can be | | quite useful. Stock a Donald or Goofy card first, then two attacks, | | and unleash the combo on him. There's no way he can break it. | | A Gimmick card will appear in this battle too. I believe you get it | | when you defeat one of the arms or legs, but I'm unsure of this. | | When you use it, all pieces of Guard Armor will fall down and become | | stationary - doing literally nothing. This will give you a huge | | opportunity to do a lot of damage on him. | | Guard Armor's attacks are of little threat. I've seen him use three. | | One where he jumps up, clear across the room, and attempts to land on| | you, then another where his legs run off by themselves and attempt to| | hit you (hard to evade, but little damage), and finally, in the last,| | he swings his arms around like he's spinning. None of these are to | | worry about in the least bit. | | It's a pretty easy battle though. Even if you decide to wait for | | Donald or Goofy to lead off sleights, it's pretty quick. It's really | | not nessecary to do that, though. Guard Armor can break a lot of your| | attacks at this stage, but he attacks slowly so will therefore not. | | Even when he does, his attacks don't do much damage, so it's not much| | risk. | | Clear advantage he has, but he wastes it. This makes him the easiest | | boss you will fight in Sora's story. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ When you're done, make sure you save in the Conqueror's Respite room, because there's another boss right after the next scene. ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ \ ------------------------- Castle Oblivion ------------------------| \ (Floor 1) / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Axel I */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 7 | | Difficulty: Low (2.5-3/10) | | Weakness: Ice | | Absorbs: Fire assumed. | | Nullifies: Nothing you have. | | Sleights: | | -Fire Wall: Axel stands in the center of the arena, and stretches | | his arms out, and a wall of fire surrounds him. his wall| | stretches out until it hits the entire outside of the | | arena. Due to this, the sleight is unavoidable. Break it| | with a 0 if you want, though it's not nessecary as it | | doesn't hit for a lot of damage. | | Drop: Fire; world card set I | | | | Hit Points: 2.13 bars (around 2 and 1/8) | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | Considering I was able to spend awhile just analyzing all of Axel's | | attacks and sleights without attacking (or even curing) once, and | | was still able to beat him without losing even once, I'd say he's | | quite easy. | | Axel has two different attacks I've seen him use. In the first one, | | he throws his chakram at you in an attempt to hit you with it. Just | | dodge roll to the left or right and you can easily avoid it. Most of | | the time, this is the attack he'll use. It doesn't do much damage. | | The second attack Axel will only use when you're in close range. | | He pummels you with a flurry of attacks which ends in the use of his | | chakram. This can do a decent bit of damage, but he fortunately does | | not use it often. | | The only thing to make this fight even annoying is the fact that he | | warps around the arena a lot, which can make him hard to hit. I have,| | however, yet to see him warp in the middle of a chain of attacks. So | | even that isn't anything to worry about it. | | This battle is similar to the one with Guard Armor due to the fact | | it's easiest and quickest just to approach it in an allout brawl. | | Attack him repeatedly as fast as you can, and keep a Cure back for | | emergencies. You may want to keep a 0 back also for Fire Wall. | | All-in-all, very easy fight. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ \ ------------------------- World Card Set I ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ Beating Axel nets you your first set of world cards. These include Agrabah, Monstro, Wonderland, Halloween Town, and Olympus Coliseum. You will be given a warning about how all of the rooms you created in the current floor will be erased once you move onto the next floor. Remember how I said that all the maps are independant of the worlds, just the floors. Because of this, I am now going to give you a complete set of maps for the entire world set. Note: Due to Wonderland's boss, I HIGHLY recommend you do Monstro first. ___________________________________________________________________________ Floor 2 \ | [R] S: Start | | ^ B: Key of Beginnings - Green card | [G] [ ]-[C] G: Key of Guidance - 15 card total | | | T: Key to Truth - Red card | [ ]-[ ] R: Key to Rewards - Blue card | | C: Conqueror's Respite - leave the world here. | [B]-[S]-[T] | v | ___________________________________________________________________________/ Floor 3 \ ^ | [C] S: Start | | B: Key of Beginnings - 5> card | [T]-[ ]-[ ] - 7> card | | | G: Key of Guidance - Green card | [R]-[ ] [B] T: Key to Truth - 3< card | | R: Key to Rewards - Red 0= card | [S]-[ ]-[G] C: Conqueror's Respite - leave the world here. | v | ___________________________________________________________________________/ Floor 4 \ ^ | [R] [T]-[ ]-[C] S: Start | | | B: Key of Beginnings - 8> card | [ ]-[ ]-[ ]-[G] G: Key of Guidance - 1> card | | | T: Key to Truth - Red card | [G] [ ]-[S] - Green card | v R: Key to Rewards - Red 9= card | - Green 9= card | C: Conqueror's Respite - leave the world here. | | ___________________________________________________________________________/ Floor 5 \ ^ | [C]-[T] S: Start | | B: Key of Beginnings - 20 card total | [ ]-[ ] [R] G: Key of Guidance - Red card | | | - 5< card | [ ]-[ ]-[ ]-[B] T: Key to Truth - 0= card | | | R: Key to Rewards - 15 Green card total | [S]-[ ] C: Conqueror's Respite - leave the world here. | v | | [G] | | ___________________________________________________________________________/ Floor 6 \ | [ ]-[ ] S: Start | | | ^ B: Key of Beginnings - 3= card | [B]-[ ] [G] [C] - 4= card | | | G: Key of Guidance - 6= card | [S]-[ ]-[ ]-[ ]-[ ] - 7= card | v | | T: Key to Truth - 3< card | [R] [T] - 30 Green card total | R: Key to Rewards - 20 Red card total | C: Conqueror's Respite - leave the world here. | | ___________________________________________________________________________/ ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ swcsiw1 \ ------------------------- Agrabah ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ | Starting level: 7 | Finishing level: 12 | | Friends: Donald, Goofy, Alladin | Cards: Three Wishes, Ether, Genie | Heartless: | -Shadow | -Air Soldier | -Bandit | -Fat Bandit | -Yellow Opera | -Green Requiem | Bosses: Genie Jafar (Truth Room) | Rewards Room: Blazing Donald | ____________________________________________________________________________| Ah, yes, the moment you enter Agrabah, you're going to have to wipe out a mass amount of Heartless, even though Genie takes all of them out right after. He could have from the beginning, but nah...it's much more fun to make us work. Anyway, Agrabah is not a bad place to level up, but it'd be much better if you weren't still stuck with using a bunch of 3's. Fat Bandits are something you're going to have to watch out for. They are immune to frontal physical attacks and they can use cards with values up to 6. Alladin can be quite a useful friend here. Fat Bandits cannot deflect his attacks, and every successful strike he does drops very useful moogle points. Take advantage of this while you can. In the Guidance room, you're going to have to fight yet another group of Heartless. Yippee! However, you will at least get an Ether for it. After you get enough levels to satisfy yourself (three or fourshould be fine, depending on how many you got in Traverse Town), head into the Key of Truth room for the boss. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Genie Jafar */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 12 | | Difficulty: Low (3/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Apparently everything. | | Sleights: None | | Drop: Jafar enemy card | | | | Hit Points: 2.35 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | Easily beaten, just like Guard Armor and Axel. | | The battle takes place on six connected pillars - each time Jafar | | attacks, the pillars will each rise randomly to three different | | heights. The goal here is not to hit Jafar himself, but instead the | | lamp which is being carried by Iago. Jafar will deflect all attacks. | | In order to hit the lamp, you're going to have to climb the pillars | | to reach him, and even after that, you'll have to jump to hit the | | damn thing. Not always will the pillars be high enough up for you to | | hit the lamp either, as Iago stays at the very top of the arena. | | There is, however, a Gimmick card here which will rise all six of | | the pillars to top height, putting you directly into place to pummel | | the lamp. | | Thanks to a bit of luck with collecting 1,200 or so moogle points | | and synthing a Moogle Room, I managed to acquire several cards with | | values of 8, 7, and 6. With these, I was able to break most all of | | Jafar's attacks. If you, however, do not have enough higher value | | cards, you may have a harder time beating Jafar. All of his attacks | | are easily avoidable, though. | | Speaking of, Jafar has four attacks that I noticed. In the first, he | | let's out a heavy beam at Sora. When the pillars are all alligned, | | this is very hard to avoid. However, hiding behind a pillar will | | protect you from the entire attack. The attack can hit hard too, so | | you'd better break it if you can't hide from it. | | In the second attack, Jafar grabs a giant boulder and hurls it at | | Sora. Also easily avoidable by hiding behind a pillar. | | The third is a simple swiping attack, when you're standing right next| | to him. It's really easy to evade. | | And finally, in the last, he'll slam his fists into the pillars. | | If Sora is in the way, he's going to get hurt. But I believe this | | attack is mostly for lowering the pillars all down to ground level. | | Overall, another easy battle for Sora. *sighs* Oh well. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ When you've beaten him, you'll get his enemy card. Put this in your deck if you can, it can be very useful. After the scene, you will get the (worthless in my opinion) Genie summon card. But most important, we're done with Agrabah! Next world. ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ swcsiw2 \ ------------------------- Halloween Town ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ | Starting level: 12 | Finishing level: 17 | | Friends: Donald, Goofy, Jack Skellington | Cards: Pumpkinhead | Heartless: | -Shadow | -Creeper Plant | -Search Ghost | -Wight Knight | -Gargoyle | Bosses: Oogie Boogie (Truth Room) | Rewards Room: Gravity Raid | ____________________________________________________________________________| If you didn't get past level 10 in Agrabah, use this place to level more. It's easier than Agrabah and you should get enough experience to level at a nice rate. Level 15 would be a nice level to end here in. Halloween Town is just like Agrabah in the fact that it starts off with a Heartless battle. Fortunately, you get Jack as a friend for it and the rest of the world, and you get the Terror sleight right after. Though I do not understand why you get a sleight that uses Mushu this early... Anyway, you don't have to worry about another Heartless battle in the Guidance room like you did in Agrabah. Try to grab as many copies possible of the Pumpkinhead Keyblde too while you're here. It's a nice replacement for the Kingdom Key -- and you're going to want to replace it as soon as possible. When you're done leveling and getting your Pumpkinheads, head to the Key to Truth room for yet another easy boss. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Oogie Boogie */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 16 | | Difficulty: Low (3/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity, just like every other boss. | | Sleights: None | | Drop: Oogie Boogie enemy card | | | | Hit Points: 3 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | Oogie stands atop a platform which you cannot reach, as it's safe- | | guarded by a gate. The battle is simple really - every time Oogie | | attacks, break it. If you break it at the right time, it'll cause the| | gate to lower by a third. I have yet to figure out the proper timing,| | but I know it has to be done before he throws the dice. Anyway, that | | means if you break three of his attacks properly, the gate is down | | giving you the opportunity to smash him with a bunch of attacks. | | When you break his attack, he'll still throw three dice, though | | they have no effect and vanish after a few seconds. Attack the dice | | and there is a high chance of getting a Gimmick card, assuming you | | don't already have one. The Gimmick card will lower the gate all of | | the way, so you get several free shots at him. | | The dice are red if you break his attack before he throws them, but | | if he throws them before you break them, they'll be light blue. | | As for attacks, they depend on the dice roll. All three dice always | | show the same number, so you only need to see one die to see what | | number it is. | | If the dice rolled are 1, then three saw blades will spawn, I think | | on the left side of the field (unsure, but they did each time for me)| | and travel across in random pathways. Not hard to avoid, just jump. | | If the dice rolled are 2, 3, or 5, then three enemies will appear. | | For me, Oogie wouldn't attack anymore until two of three were killed.| | If the dice rolls as 4, then a bunch of daggers will spawn on the | | east side of the battle arena, bouncing up and down as they march to | | the west. They have spaces in between, but I was never able to avoid | | them that way. It's best just to break the attack. | | I spent awhile experimenting and Oogie never once rolled a set of 6. | | Apparently when he does, it's a heal for himself. But I can't confirm| | this. | | Oogie also has one other attack where the dice he throws don't have | | a specific number, but instead are exploding dice. If you're hit by | | them, you'll take damage. Run to the other side to avoid them - they | | will explode when they hit the south wall. | | In addition to breaking the attack before the dice are thrown, you | | can hit one of the dice to negate it. All attacks except for the | | enemies can be broken in the middle of the attack, also. | | Oogie Boogie is an easy boss overall though, since his attacks can | | easily be broken and Gimmick cards can be obtained without effort. | | When you knock the gate down and attack him, you can expect to take | | out around an entire bar of health too. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ Beating Oogie Boogie will give you a somewhat useful enemy card. Add it if you wish, you may find it will come in handy. I never used it, though. When you're done here, head out through the Conqueror's Respite, and ready yourself for the next world. ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ swcsiw3 \ ------------------------- Olympus Coliseum ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ | Starting level: 17 | Finishing level: 20 | | Friends: Donald, Goofy | Cards: Olympia, Hi-Potion, Cloud | Heartless: | -Shadow | -Large Body | -Blue Rhapsody | -Powerwild | -Bouncywild | -Barrel Spider | Bosses: Cloud (Guidance Room), Hades (Truth Room) | Rewards Room: Metal Chocobo | ____________________________________________________________________________| I can't help but feel the game is being a tad unfair. You can go through the entire first world set and breeze through the bosses (except Monstro's boss may show to be a bit of a problem), expecting Olympus Coliseum to be the same, just to find yourself being pwned by TWO annoying bosses. That's correct...TWO of them! This is actually one of the only worlds that has two bosses. Ah well. In exchange for the offset in balance, the rewards are quite nice. You'll get your first Hi-Potion here, which becomes very good once you get a specific sleight, along with the most useful Keyblade you'll see in the entire first world set. Along with that, you get a summon which can prove to be quite useful when you figure out how to use it properly. And when you come back later with your Key to Rewards, you'll also get a Keyblade which I personally used until the very end of the game for my combo finishers. So, all-in-all, this place is great place for it's rewards. Even it's bosses are enjoyable for me, since you finally get a challenge in them. Just like Halloween Town, you'll want to get as many copies of this world's Keyblade as possible. Olympia will probably be your main Keyblade until the second world card set. Level a few more times here if you want - 20 is a nice level if you got to 17 in Halloween Town like I did. When you're done with leveling and card collecting, head into the Guidance Room for your first boss in the world. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Cloud */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 18 | | Difficulty: Medium (6/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity | | Sleights: | | -Cross-slash: Cloud slashes his sword through the air three times | | Fortunately this sleight is easy to avoid, since it | | can do a lot of damage. | | -Omnislash: Cloud flies through the air with his sword in hand in | | an attempt to punish you with it's repeated strikes. | | Despite the fact he flies across the entire arena, it | | isn't really hard to avoid. However, it can hit hard. | | I recommend having a 0 ready for when you see this. | | He doesn't seem to use it much, either. | | Drop: Hi-Potion | | | | Hit Points: 2.33 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | Cloud has horrible defense and mediocre HP, yet he strikes hard and | | fast. Ironically, his sleights are the least to worry about, since | | they can be dodged quite easily. His basic attacks, however, will eat| | up your HP like he's Pac-man. | | Luckily, Cloud seems to be slow to recover from card breaks, and his | | attacks have a slow recovery time. Especially his attack where he | | thrusts his sword into the ground. There is several seconds of delay | | after this attack, giving you plenty of time to get in a chain or two| | of strikes. | | In his most dangerous attack, he strikes his sword out across the | | room in a fashion very similar to Omnislash, only on the ground. | | From what I noticed, he only does it at low health - when his health | | is still higher, it's only one strike. This, in a way, is harder to | | dodge than Omnislash, so break the attack immediatly. If you're hit | | by all the strikes, he'll decimate your entire HP. | | This battle is easiest approached just like many of the previous | | bosses thus far - attack, attack, attack. Cloud's defense and low HP | | make him easy pray for slaughtering. If you feel like being safe, you| | can attack him only through card breaks, though I don't think it is | | nessecary to do such. Be sure to keep at least one Cure handy though,| | you don't want him to unleash his barrage of attacks without a Cure | | ready for right after. Recharge immediatly after you use all of your | | Cures, basically. Keeping a 0 handy would also be a good idea. | | Also, when Cloud needs to recharge is a great time to attack him. | | I don't think he even tries to run away. | | This battle isn't very hard once you get the hang of it. Just keep | | in mind that Cloud's defense is his own worst enemy. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ When you're done with Cloud, you get your first (incredibly useful) Hi- Potion. Add this to your deck if you can, do some more leveling if you hadn't yet, and head on over to the Key to Truth room for your next boss: _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Hades */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 20 | | Difficulty: Medium-High (7.5/10) | | Weakness: Ice | | Absorbs: Fire | | Nullifies: Gravity | | Sleights: | | -Firagaball: Hades magically gets some burning rock from what | | appears to be the middle of nowhere. He launches this| | ball at you, grabs another one, then launches it too.| | This can be a very hard skill to evade, until you get| | the hang of it. Basically, stay at the very edge of | | the arena, and dodge roll to the right or left | | IMMEDIATLY after Hades says "take that", or whatever | | he says. You'd best practice on evading it or pack a | | bunch of 0's, because this attack hurts. | | -Temper Flare: Hades gets all pissed off ('cause you're owning him) | | and creates two pillars of fire from his arms, and | | starts spinning around. Why he does not just shout | | "WHEEEEEE!", I will never know. But this attack is | | easy to avoid; just run around Hades in the same | | pattern he is spinning. Sora is faster than him. | | Drop: Hades enemy card | | | | Hit Points: 3.13 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | First and foremost, take all fires out of your deck. Replace them | | with blizzards, and as many as possible. Having around 5 in your deck| | would be very good, as the Blizzaga sleight will take out over half | | of a bar. | | His attacks are annoying and can hurt, but you should be able to | | break most of his normal attacks with basic strikes by now. They are | | all pretty repetitive too. I wouldn't worry much about them, just his| | Firagaball. And unfortunately, Hades sleights like mad. The good | | thing about this though is that he runs through his deck quickly. | | Temper Flare can easily be evaded, and his attacks easily broken, but| | Fiaragaball is a huge threat. I learned how to evade it most of the | | time with dodge roll -- I surely hope you can too. | | In a battle of attrition, you'll win. Hades runs through his deck | | too quickly. Unfortunately, Hades sleights so much that it'll be hard| | to attack him very much before he breaks your attacks with a sleight.| | | | Start the battle off by using as many Blizzagas and Blizzards as | | possible. I only had four Blizzard cards, so I got a Blizzaga and | | Blizzard, then recharged for another Blizzaga. This alone took out | | almost two bars of health. From here, you'll want to attack when you | | can, chaining together as many attacks as possible before he breaks | | your attack with a sleight. Both of which have a large enough wind-up| | delay that you can run towards the outside and evade accordingly. | | If you got a couple Blizzagas out and attack just a few times, then | | just protect yourself until he runs out of cards. When he does, rush | | up and beat on him while he's recharging - he won't try to run any | | more than Cloud did. By this point, he should be dead. If not, then | | carefully attack around his sleights, but make sure not to die here. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ Take pride in beating him, because he's the most difficult of the first world card set. The enemy card he grants you isn't of much use IMHO, but you will get your first Cloud summoning card after the cutscene. From here, you may wish to get a couple more for Omnislash. When you're ready, head out onto the next world. ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ swcsiw4 \ ------------------------- Monstro ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ | Starting level: 20 | Finishing level: 24 | | Friends: Donald, Goofy | Cards: Wishing Star, Dumbo | Heartless: | -Shadow | -Large Body | -Yellow Opera | -Green Requiem | -Air Soldier | -Search Ghost | -Tornado Step | Bosses: Parasite Cage (Guidance Room) | Rewards Room: Aqua Splash | ____________________________________________________________________________| Welcome to my least favorite world from Kingdom Hearts! >.> I still do not like this world purely due to the fact I hated it in the original. Anyway! The boss for this world will be in the Guidance room this time, so any leveling you want to do will have to be done before then. You have two worlds left in the first world card set, and I recommend getting to around level 30 or so by the the end of the last world. Level here accordingly. You may or may not want to pick up a few copies of Wishing Star - this world's Keyblade. This is the only card other than Pumpkinhead with a Thrust that is better than D+ which you have right now.. Pumpkinhead is still better (C+) compared to Wishing Star (C) though. And you will get another C+ in Wonderland. However, if you find yourself not having enough Pumpkinheads for the second hit right now, and still having to use those Kingdom Keys for that, then Wishing Star is your best substitute. Anyway, do your leveling and make your way into the Key of Guidance room for the boss, Parasite Cage. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Parasite Cage */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 24 | | Difficulty: Medium-Low (4.5/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity | | Sleights: None | | Drop: Parasite Cage enemy card | | | | Hit Points: 4 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | This boss is more annoying than difficult. Parasite Cage stays | | stationary towards the end, facing you, while four platforms float | | in front of him, rotating clockwise. You have to stay on these plat- | | forms, because everything around it is acid that will eat at your HP | | as long as you're in it; and yes, it alone can kill you. Whatmore, if| | you stay on a single platform too long, it'll sink into the acid. | | Staying on a platform to attack is hard also, since it's hard to pull| | off a single combo without falling into the acid. See why this is | | is annoying? | | Parasite Cage uses four different attacks, and only one of them is | | long range. Of course, since you need to be in close range to hurt | | it, it doesn't matter. | | With the long range attack, it puts both it's arms in the acid. In | | case you didn't notice, those two arms have mouths - and it uses the | | mouths to swallow up a ball of acid and spit it up at you. Easy to | | dodge; just hop to a different platform as it is coming at you. | | In one of the close range attacks, it does something similar as the | | long range one. It puts both it's arms in the acid, but instead it | | throws it's body at you. The second close range attack is simple - it| | just swings it's arms at you. Unfortunately, both of these attacks | | hurt quite a bit. Therefore, when you're up close to him, keep up | | steady attacks to avoid being hit by these. | | The last attack isn't really meant to hurt you, I believe. Parasite | | Cage slams both it's arms into the ground in front of the platforms, | | causing all of them to sink and I believe they become smaller, and | | harder to stay on. However, it can hit you and it will hurt. | | With this battle, it's nessecary you keep a constant eye on your HP, | | because the acid drains it at an annoyingly fast rate while you're in| | it. | | Before you start the battle, bring along as many Cures as you have | | the CP for. Stay on a platform as it is on the left side of Parasite | | Cage (remember that they rotate clockwise), then get in a chain of | | attacks as soon as you get in range. If you want, you can chain a few| | attacks while standing in the acid, as it doesn't seem to break your | | combos. This will drain your hit points quickly though, so do this at| | your own risk. Parasite Cage does have semi-low defense, however, so | | the main time in this boss is waiting around on the platforms, should| | you choose to do such. Hitting him a specific number of times will | | cause him to drop a large bunch of HP balls too, which are actually | | more useful in this battle than you may think; especially if you're | | hanging around in the acid. | | There is also a Gimmick card for this battle (which I do not know | | how exactly to cause it's appearence). When used, it'll remove all of| | the platforms and turn the acid to water. This is the perfect time | | for unleashing a barrage of attacks. If the platforms were shrank by | | Parasite Cage's attack, they will return in normal size, also. | | This boss, just like the last two, isn't really hard if you know how | | it's done. Just remember to recharge the moment you run out of Cures,| | whether you decide to wait around on the platforms or go berserk in | | the acid. Cures are a must for this boss. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ Be sure to save before going into the Truth room, because another event is in there. In this event, you have two minutes to fill the entire bar. The bar will increase as you kill more Heartless, but it decreases with each passing second you are not killing Heartless. I think the bar represents how many Heartless are left to kill - since as it goes back down, more Shadows will appear. It's not a very hard event though, as I did it with just a little over a minute left. Your reward for completing this is the Dumbo summon. Peculilar how Pinocchio and Geppetto escape through Monstro's mouth, but you have to use a secret door. >_> When you're done, leave out this door and prepare for the next world, the last one in World Card Set I. ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ swcsiw5 \ ------------------------- Wonderland ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ | Starting level: 24 | Finishing level: 30 | | Friends: Donald, Goofy | Cards: Lady Luck, Card Soldier | Heartless: | -Shadow | -Soldier | -Red Nocturne | -Large Body | -Crescendo | -Creeper Plant | Bosses: Trickmaster (Truth Room) | Rewards Room: Stop Raid | ____________________________________________________________________________| I chose to do Wonderland last for tw reasons: it's the easiest. In Kingdom Hearts, it was the first world that Sora, Donald, and Goofy went to. And it would normally be so here too. However, spacing off Wonderland makes it more of a challenge than it would have been otherwise, and it's actually not a bad place to level. Second: the boss here will be extremely annoying if you haven't obtained High Jump. I'm dead serious. He's easy otherwise...but if you don't have that ability, expect a very dreadful battle. My strategy will be assuming you have High Jump. In my opinion, Wonderland pretty much marks the half way point in the game, judging by floors. It's the sixth of thirteen, but the final floor is nearly impossible to level efficently on. So that makes it the sixth of twelve. Then the second world card set has a floor which you won't do any battling. Six of eleven. On each of my playthroughs in the original CoM and in Re:CoM, 60 was a good level to be at when you beat the game. For that reason, hitting level 30 on the halfway point in the game is ideal. Anyway, pick up a few Lady Lucks if you want. It's slightly worse than Pumpkinhead, but it does the same job that they are meant to do just as well. In the Key of Beginnings room, you will encounter a miniboss of sorts. It's nowhere near a boss -- more like an advanced random encounter -- but you will have to fight three sets of Card Soldiers. It is slightly more difficult, but not worth a strategy for it. In the first set, you fight three spades; in the second set, two hearts; in the third, three hearts and two spades. The first two are easy enough, but the third set can be hard. They can strike hard, and overpower you. Hearts are more dangerous than the spades due to having more HP and higher card values (7 is the highest, I think), so take them out first. If you're not careful, you can die easily on the third set. Make sure you have a Cure available at all times. You'll find that the Jafar enemy card is insanely useful for this, as the hearts tend to break your cards in the middle of a combo a lot. You'll get the Card Soldier enemy card for defeating all of them. After you're done with everything, go into the Key to Truth room for your next easy boss. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Trickmaster */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 25 | | Difficulty: Low (3.5/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity | | Sleights: None | | Drop: Trickmaster enemy card | | | | Hit Points: 4.2 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | Okay, so I hadn't leveled much yet. >_> I was in a hurry to get the | | strategy for this boss completed, so I did the leveling after. | | Easy fight though. Trickmaster is tall, and the only section of him | | you can hit is his stomach - but if you jump, it will still strike | | him. And you'll only have to jump for the first strike in the combo, | | anyway. He does have 0's to interupt your attacks, though; he also | | has cards with values up to 8. I really hope you've been using the | | Moogle Rooms enough now to have a few 8's and 7's. | | The battle starts with a table in the center of the room. This table | | is very handy for attacking him - but it's not entirely nessecary. | | The Gimmick card for this battle will cause the table to spawn again,| | if Trickmaster knocks it down. Which, if you stand on the table for | | very long at all, he WILL knock it down. | | As for attacks, he has four. The first one is the one he'll use the | | most, especially when you're out of range. He slams his arms onto the| | floor, which causes a shockwave to flow out to the walls. A giant | | combustion forms around him also, making this attack pretty much im- | | possible to avoid if you're in close range. However, at mid-to-long | | range, it's easy to jump over. | | The second attack is short range. He just swings his arms around, | | basically. The noob even does it when you're really far off. | | In his third attack, he shoots several large balls of fire at you. | | It may have been a coincidence, but I only saw him do it at low | | health. You can evade this by standing on the opposite side of the | | table, if it's there. Otherwise, break the attack. It's annoying and | | can kill you easily. | | The final attack he only does when the table is in the room. | | It starts similar to the first attack I mentioned, only he hits the | | table into the ground instead. He only uses it if you stand on it for| | any semi-long period of time though. Therefore, if you decide to use | | it, then don't stay on for anymore than long enough to get in a chain| | or two. | | Start the battle off with Jafar, so that he won't break your chains. | | From there, stand on the table and chain attacks at him until he | | decides to knock it down -- or stand on it for a chain, hop off and | | get in another chain, then stand back on the table and repeat. | | Your attacks will hit hard enough that he should go down quickly. | | I died once against him because I forgot to keep a watch on my HP, | | and I only had it around 110. Just like all bosses, keep your HP up | | and don't become careless, and you'll do fine. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ When you're done with Trickmaster, make sure you are at least level 27. This is the level you will be getting the Sonic Blade sleight, assuming you have gotten every other sleight to this point. If you haven't, do so, as most of my boss strategies from this point on will involve using it. Remember to save in the Conqueror's Repsite room, because, just like how you had to fight Axel for the first world card set, you'll have to fight another Organization member for the second world card set. This member happens to be Larxene, one of my favorites. ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ \ ------------------------- Castle Oblivion ------------------------| \ (Floor 6) / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Larxene I */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 30 | | Difficulty: Low (3.5/10) - Lower with Sonic Blade (1/10) | | Weakness: Sleights | | Absorbs: Thunder probably. But we don't have it yet. | | Nullifies: Gravity | | Sleights: | | -Mega Volt: Larxene throws both handfuls of her kunai to the | | floor, and this causes several streams of thunder | | from the ceiling to strike the center of the field, | | then spread out quickly to the outside. I haven't | | found a way to evade it, so break it if you want. | | It doesn't hurt a lot though, so I see no need. | | -Teleport Rush: It's kind of hard to describe, but Larxene...well, | | she "teleports" right beside you and tries to strike| | you, using her kunai as claws. She does this many...| | many times, before she finally gives up. This CAN be| | deadly, depending on how much you're hit by it. It | | doesn't hurt much with one hit, but the damage adds | | up very fast - and due to her staying so close, it's| | hard to avoid. Break it with a 0 if you see it. | | Also, I think she attacks ten times. I'd like a | | confirmation on if she does or not. | | Drop: Thunder; world card set II | | | | Hit Points: 4.65 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | *Sighs* She's comparable to your battle with Axel in almost every, | | single way. The worst, however, being that this fight is a letdown. | | You'd expect something more than this. And, just like Axel, I was | | able to analyze her attacks and sleights and beat her in the same | | battle - without dying once. Of course, it was quite a bit harder | | now. I had to recharge to get Cures again many times. | | Larxene is a speed demon (and a hot one too), but her attacks fail | | to hurt. She has to pile on tons of attacks to take out a large chunk| | of your HP. However, she actually can pile on tons of attacks. You | | have yet to fight a boss as speedy as she is. I think that's supposed| | to go hand-in-hand with her element being lightning. Even so, she is | | unable to pile on enough attacks to even nearly match the damage out-| | put that you will - if you're actually trying to attack, at least. | | Outside her sleight, she uses three attacks. Her first being a basic | | lightning spell. You know she's using this when her cards are blue | | instead of red. You can dodge roll to evade part of the attack, but | | enough bolts of lightning strike that it's hard to evade all of them.| | Break it if you want, but it doesn't hurt a lot. She gives the attack| | away by chanting "Lightning!" | | Second attack she gives away by chanting "Vanish!" It doesn't hurt | | anymore than her lightning spell, and is much easier to avoid. | | She throws both sets of kunai out at you, one just a second after the| | other. Just jump to avoid them both. I seriously did not get hit by | | it even once when I put the slightest bit of effort into evading it. | | Third attack is signaled by her grunting. However, it's too late | | once you hear her - you'll be struck not even a second after. This is| | her only short range attack - the other two are long range. In it, | | she swipes at you twice, using her kunai as if they were claws. Also | | does not hurt much, but it's quick. Also note that this attack morphs| | into something more deadly when she's low in health. She instead | | swipes multiple times at you, and then ends the attack with a barrage| | of lightning bolts (very similar to her lightning spell). Yes, in | | just one attack. | | You can go at this fight in one of two ways - using a normal attack | | deck, or a Sonic Blade deck. The latter will decimate her, since she | | is already weak to sleights. But, at this point in the game, it may | | be very hard to make a Sonic Blade deck. Especially since you most | | likely don't have many Hi-Potions - and none with a high value. | | If you do manage to make a deck around it, then it's simple enough: | | use Sonic Blade over and over, mashing the triangle button between | | sleights to get it out as quick as possible. Use a Hi-Potion once you| | are out of cards, and repeat. Be warned though that, in the middle of| | using a Hi-Potion -- even your first one -- she may have enough time | | to sleight together a Teleport Rush. It seems Larxene's speed lets | | her get her cards quicker too. | | Anyway, a deck built around that is not nessecary...yet. Right now, | | a simple attack deck will do just fine. | | Start the battle off like a normal hack-and-slash battle - attack! | | Do it carefully, as she packs several high valued cards to interupt | | your chains. You can choose to break her attacks with your own, but | | don't worry much if you get hit by her a few times. | | After she starts getting low on health, she seems to get really... | | pissed off, and starts using the more deadly version of her swiping | | attack I warned you about, along with Teleport Rush. At this point, | | use Jafar if you have it. You want to finish her off as quickly as | | you possibly can now. And always keep a 0 handy, in case she slips in| | a Teleport Rush in the middle of your repeated chains. If she does, | | and you aren't one or two cards away from a Cure, then you can expect| | to die. | | Beating her isn't hard by any means - if you die, it'll only be if | | you leave the controller, or if you misjudge Teleport Rush. Lucky for| | us --or me, at least-- her next battle is much more difficult. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ \ ------------------------- World Card Set II ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ After you beat Larxene, you're going to get your next set of world cards. These are Atlantica, Neverland, Hollow Bastion, and 100 Acre Wood. You'll probably notice the enemies becoming more difficult by now, too. Many of the bosses from here out (mostly the non-Disney ones) will become insanely annoying. This is why you need Sonic Blade. Sonic Blade is easily the best sleight in the entire game. In the normal battles, you'll find little use for it -- however, it can turn the most annoying of bosses into a piece of cake (figure of speech). In this sleight, Sora will zoom across the room, Keyblade first, into the nearest enemy, and you can press triangle up to six times for extra attacks. During this period of attacks, the enemy you're attacking (which should be a boss) is stunned; they can do literally nothing until it's over. Quickly set up another Sonic Blade and unleash it to start the process again. The period of time between sleights is very low, and the enemy has almost no time to do anything in between. Therefore, a deck built around Sonic Blade and Sonic Blade alone, can massacre almost any boss in which the target is not in the air without you getting hurt almost at all. This sleight will be used against most of the non-Disney bosses from here out. If you see a non-Disney boss coming up, expect it to be shorter and based on Sonic Blade. A properly constructed Sonic Blade deck will involve as many uses of Sonic Blade as you can (preferably with 8, 8, and 7 for each sleight, and the cards set up best for chains, in case you can't use Sonic Blade and need/want to rely on basic attacks), two or three Hi-Potions, around three or four Cures (which you shouldn't really need to use), and at least three 0's at the end, for breaking any sleight which manages to slip past Sonic Blade, that it can't break. Anyway, enough of that. You should understand that Sonic Blade is a must by now, and you need to be able to build a deck around it. Consider this part the middle of the game, as you only have six floors of battle left. In the second world card set, you'll only have to go through three floors as you may expect -- 100 Acre Wood is free of enemies. It is also free of a map therefore, so you will skip a floor map for whichever floor you synthesize 100 Acre Wood on. You will also get your first Key to Rewards within these floors. You may wish to battle enough to get all of the treasures from the Rewards rooms prior, but that is up to you. Note however that you can only carry one Key to Rewards card at a time. Also note that, if you plan on getting all of the treasure possible in the game, you will have to come back and re- open each of the Key to Rewards rooms once more much, much later in the game, after you beat Reverse/Rebirth. This is because beating R/R spawns a second chest in each of the Rewards rooms, which contain things never in the original Chain of Memories. As for the maps, be prepared as you will have to fight a boss immediatly after you complete floors 7 and 8. Note: Having Glide (obtained in Neverland) will make Hollow Bastion's boss just a bit easier. I therefore recommend Neverland is done first. ___________________________________________________________________________ Floor 7 \ ^ | [C] [ ] [R] [ ]-[G] S: Start | | | | | B: Key of Beginnings - Red card | [ ]-[ ]-[ ]-[ ]-[S] G: Key of Guidance - Green card | | | | v T: Key to Truth - Blue card | [T] [ ] [B]-[ ] R: Key to Rewards - 30 card total | C: Conqueror's Respite - leave the world here. | | Save at the Conqueror's Respite here, as a boss awaits you after. | ___________________________________________________________________________/ ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ \ ------------------------- Castle Oblivion ------------------------| \ (Floor 7) / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Riku I */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 35 | | Difficulty: Medium (5/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity | | Sleights: None | | Drop: Aero | | | | Hit Points: 5.5 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | What in the hell? Your first time seeing him, and he already is | | starting a fight?! What a giant bastard. | | Anyway! I had a lot of trouble with this boss when I fought him on | | my first playthrough, but I seriously cannot remember why now. I know| | I was underleveled, but damn. I think I learned to use Sonic Blade | | with this boss, also. Speaking of, Sonic Blade will make this fight | | very easy. | | Unfortunately, there isn't much strategy involved in this fight. | | Riku uses no sleights yet, and his attacks are very repetitive. He | | hits the ground, leaving a dark aura around the attack, and slashes | | at you. The slashing combos are a little longer at mid-low health. | | That's basically it. However, his attacks do enough damage and he | | hits enough that it can really add up, plus the fact that his attacks| | have a chance to stun you, leaving you defenseless for more attacks. | | Also, he has a Shadow enemy card which he'll use at mid health. It's | | effect will increase the values of all his cards by 1. If you have a | | Parasite Cage in your deck, use it. If not, you may want to wait for | | this point to use Jafar. Though I didn't. And yes, you will want to | | use Jafar at some point in this fight. Just like every other boss, it| | is very useful here. | | Beat on him with combos, possibly waiting to break his attacks once | | in awhile like he does with you, and use Jafar. If you do that, you | | shouldn't have much trouble beating him. There are a few sleights | | which come in handy too, such as Strike Raid. If you have them, use | | them. Otherwise, don't worry about it. It's not really a difficult | | battle as long as you're careful. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ ___________________________________________________________________________ Floor 8 \ ^ | [C]-[ ]-[T] S: Start | | B: Key of Beginnings - 5= card | [ ]-[ ]-[ ] G: Key of Guidance - 6= card | | | T: Key to Truth - 30 card total | [R] [ ]-[B] R: Key to Rewards - 15 Blue card total | | C: Conqueror's Respite - leave the world here. | [ ]-[ ]-[ ] | v | | | [ ] [G] | | Save at the Conqueror's Respite here too, as there is another boss. | ___________________________________________________________________________/ ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ \ ------------------------- Castle Oblivion ------------------------| \ (Floor 8) / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Riku II */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 40 | | Difficulty: Medium-High (7/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity | | Sleights: | | -Helm Split: Riku jumps up and smacks his Soul Eater against the | | ground, three times. Each time leaves a large, dark aura| | around the spot he hit. The third time causes a few | | pillars of the aura to rise out of the ground. Hard to | | evade, really. You can dodge roll, or jump - I found it | | to be easier to jump over it. But, even still, evading | | all the pillars of the final hit is hard. If you can | | glide here, then I'd recommend it. Still, I would just | | break this when you see it. | | Drop: Magnet Spiral (sleight) | | | | Hit Points: 5.5 bars (Yes, still) | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | This battle is more annoying than before. Riku has the same HP, and | | many similar attacks. Added to the previous arsenal, he also has an | | attack where he strikes the ground, and the aura travels across the | | arena in an X shape. This attack is annoying due to how hard it CAN | | be to dodge. But the main thing that'll make this battle harder is | | Riku's new sleight. Once you've seen it and attempted to evade it a | | few times, it gets easier to evade - especially if you can glide. | | But even then, it'll take out a large chunk of your HP if you get hit| | by all of the attacks from it. | | Jafar is even more important here, due to Riku's many 9's and 0's. | | Make sure you have this card at all costs. | | You'll also want to keep a few 0's in your deck (three or four?), so | | you can break Helm Split. | | The twenty unbreakable cards you get from Jafar should take out | | around two and one quarter bars. From here, you're stuck getting in | | a combo or two whenever you can, and breaking his attacks. Remember | | to have a 0 or two for breaking Helm Split - you don't want to worry | | about this attack. Also keep at least two Cures (for Cura) handy at | | all times, in case you get caught in the middle of one of his attack | | barrages (if he stuns you, perhaps). This means to have at least five| | Cures in your deck, and I'd recommend starting off a sleight with a | | friend, then two Cures for Cura. The extra Cures are for emergency | | Curagas. | | You'll also have a large opportunity to take out Riku's HP, and a | | large piece of it, when he has to recharge. Take adavantage of this. | | | | An easier (much easier) way to beat him involves Sonic Blade. Build | | a Sonic Blade deck and spam that sleight until he's dead. Remember to| | include at least two Hi-Potions, and use them as part of a sleight if| | nessecary. If you don't have two Hi-Potions or just don't want to use| | a pure Sonic Blade deck, you can also build a Sonic Blade deck built | | for beatdowns - as in, the order of cards is made for the three-hit | | combo. Start with Jafar and pummel Riku senseless until it wears off,| | then spam Sonic Blade. Pretty much any combination that involves that| | sleight will make this boss really easy. | | Sonic Blade will take out nearly an entire bar per use; and from my | | experimenting, it will take seven Sonic Blade sleights to beat him, | | starting at full health. | | Honestly, Sonic Blade is far from nessecary to beat Riku. It will | | make it a lot easier, but don't worry about it if you don't want to. | | Just make sure to keep an eye on your health and you should do fine. | | I can't promise you'll do it on your first try, though. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ ___________________________________________________________________________ Floor 9 \ | [B]-[ ]-[ ]-[R] S: Start | | | B: Key of Beginnings - Red card | [ ] [ ] G: Key of Guidance - 9= card | | | ^ T: Key to Truth - 1= card | [T]-[ ]-[ ]-[C] R: Key to Rewards - Blue 2= card | | | C: Conqueror's Respite - leave the world here. | [ ] [ ] | | | | [S] [ ]-[G] | v | | ___________________________________________________________________________/ Floor 10 \ ^ | [C] S: Start | | B: Key of Beginnings - Blue card | [ ]-[ ]-[ ] - 3< card | | | G: Key of Guidance - Green card | [R] [T] [ ]-[G] [ ] - 7> card | | | | R: Key to Truth - Red card | [ ]-[ ]-[ ]-[ ]-[S] - 0 = card | | | v R: Key to Rewards - Green 3= card | [B]-[ ] [G] - Red 7= card | C: Conqueror's Respite - leave the world here. | | ___________________________________________________________________________/ ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ swcsiiw1 \ ------------------------- Atlantica ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ | Starting level: 30 | Finishing level: 35 | | Friends: Donald, Goofy, Arial (Guidance room and after only) | Cards: Crabclaw | Heartless: | -Search Ghost | -Darkball | -Sea Neon | -Screwdiver | -Aquatank | Bosses: Ursula (Truth Room) | Rewards Room: Quake | ____________________________________________________________________________| I disliked this place in the original game, but now that you don't swim (how is Sora breathing underwater?), this place is much better. Take the advantage to level here if you're not 30 yet, because the enemies are only semi-hard and they give a nice amount of experience. Just remember to take any lightning elemental attacks out of your deck, as a few of the enemies here will absorb it. Crabclaw is also a good Keyblade to snag. Out of all of the Keyblade cards in the second world card set, Crabclaw is the most well-rounded, and it is your best card for combo finishing, unless you decide to go after Metal Chocobo (Olympus Colisem Key to Rewards). While Lionheart is better, should you choose to use your first Key to Rewards card for it, Crabclaw is good for all around purposes, and not bad to build a deck around at this point in the game. Note: You'll get Arial as a friend in this world, but only after going through the Guidance room. However, she isn't very useful unless you stock two or three together. Even then, it leaves a lot to be desired. When you're done, go into the Key to Truth room for your next boss. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Ursula */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 35 | | Difficulty: Medium (5/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity | | Sleights: None | | Drop: Ursula enemy card | | | | Hit Points: | | -Ursula: 2.80 bars | | -Tentacles: .25 of a bar each (four altogether) | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | Ursula, while not difficult, will take a bit more strategy than many | | other bosses we've fought so far. | | The main target is Ursula's head, but she hides behind four of her | | tentacles. Once you knock off all four of them, she'll take her sweet| | time getting her head into range for you to bash at. Then, after a | | short time, her tentacles will respawn. | | There is a Gimmick card in this battle which you may get when you | | beat one of Ursula's tentacles. It causes all four tentacles to | | vanish, and Ursula lowers her head, stunned. When she comes to, her | | four tentacles will reappear. | | She has four attacks. The first one she uses when you're near her | | tentacles, and she swipes one of her tentacles at you. The second | | attack is basically like the Thunder attack. She holds the triden up | | and three bolts of lightning strike. If you dodge roll at the right | | time, you can evade it, but it's easier if you just break the attack.| | The third one is simple enough. She spits out ten bubbles at you, | | which chase you down until they disappear. Run around the arena, | | avoiding them. They disappear rather fast and are not hard to avoid. | | The fourth attack is a bit more annoying. She lets out a large beam | | of electricity from her mouth. Plus, if you try to jump over it, it | | will follow you. I therefore have not yet found a way to evade it. | | Break it when you see it coming -- she grunts or moans or something | | when she's about to use it. | | Note that she doesn't use the third attack nearly as much and uses | | the fourth attack a lot more once she hits lower health. | | | | Start the battle off with Jafar. She uses cards with values of 7 and | | 8, so she can interupt your combos with annoying ease. Unless you, | | by the grace of God, have a deck of 9's already, then Jafar is almost| | nessecary. | | Use your friend cards to take out the tentacles. You may wish to | | wait until Jafar is gone to do so though. She'll be able to break | | your friend cards in the middle of the attack, also, so be sure to | | sleight together at least two at a time to avoid them being broken. | | Once you take out all four tentacles -- either with attacks or any | | friend cards you were lucky enough to obtain right away -- Ursula | | will lower her head. Once it gets into range, bash at it as quickly | | as you possibly can. | | When her tentacles respawn, if you have a Gimmick card (which you | | should), and Jafar is out, then activate it and bash at her more! | | By this point, you'll have to be careful. It's best to use your | | friends on the tentacles here, and playing defensively. You could | | always create some combo sleights to be safe, too. If you do this, | | I highly recommend making sure you have a Hi-Potion to use. | | Due to Ursula's semi-low HP (not including tentacles) for this point | | in the game, she's really not hard. By the time you're done with your| | Jafar enemy card and using a Gimmick card, maybe two, she should | | already be approaching her demise. The only reason I gave this a | | medium difficulty is because of how easily she can break your cards. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ When you're done, be sure to save in the Conqueror's Respite room, because the end of floor 7 has a boss. The strategy for him is up with the maps. ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ swcsiiw2 \ ------------------------- Neverland ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ | Starting level: 35 | Finishing level: 40 | | Friends: Donald, Goofy, Peter Pan (See below) | Cards: Fairy Harp, Tinker Bell | Heartless: | -Shadow | -Yellow Opera | -Crescendo | -Darkball | -Pirate | -Air Pirate | -Barrel Spider | Bosses: Captain Hook (Truth Room) | Rewards Room: Thunder Raid | ____________________________________________________________________________| I have mixed feelings about Neverland, myself. In the original Kingdom Hearts, I liked this place purely due to the awesome optional boss at the end of the game. However, Re:CoM has no uberly fun boss which shows up here later on, so I'm willing to say that this place is a lot to be desired. One large reason for this is the annoying enemies which can make this place hard to level. They aren't hard to beat (though my deck had a lot of 8's and 9's, with 6 being my lowest card value); but they can hit hard. Then, this place has a Keyblade which is a lot to be desired. Fairy Harp is basically a Pumpkinhead with worse recovery but a better combo finish, in case you accidentally mess up the order. The original Chain of Memories had Swing Speed, in which Fairy Harp excelled in - however, I'm unsure of Re:CoM using so much as even a hidden Swing Speed stat. You also have to deal with Peter being a whiny little ass, joining you at the Beginnings room, but then leaving you in the Guidance room. However, he will join you again for the boss. Take your time and level to 40 here if possible, and go into the Key to Truth room for your next boss. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Captain Hook */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 40 | | Difficulty: Medium-High (6.5/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity, Thunder | | Sleights: | | -Barrel Blast: Hook hops on top of one of the sides of the ship | | and pushes six barrels out at you. They're easy to| | dodge, plus, he can be hit by one too. If he is, | | all six of them will disappear, which ends the | | sleight. They do a lot of damage though, so you | | may want to break it if you see it. Be careful, as| | Hook can strike at you during the sleight, if you | | happen to get in range. | | -Combo & Present: Hook throws a flurry of attacks, and throws some | | of his presents at you. Annoying damage, but very | | short range. However, you'll probably want to stop| | it if you see it. | | Drop: Hook enemy card | | | | Hit Points: 4.1 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | Hook is meh. His basic attacks are simple, but they can hit for a | | lot of damage. His attacks involve throwing a few "presents" at you, | | which explode when they hit, and basic slashes and slash combos. All | | of this can easily be avoided (in my opinion) using dodge roll. | | Hook may start the battle off with an enemy card. One of the enemy | | cards will make all of his cards of 0 value, and another one is a | | randomizer. It'll make every card value random as he uses it. Note, | | however, that he does not always start the battle off with one of | | these enemy cards. | | There's not much you can do if he uses the randomizer, other than | | evade all his attacks. But if he uses the card which makes all values| | 0, then take advantage of this to play defensively. Do NOT attack | | first, let him attack first then card break him. | | If he does not start the battle with one of these enemy cards, he | | may still use one or even both later. Watch out for this. | | | | Start the battle off with Jafar, like always, unless Hook started | | with the enemy card which turns his card values to 0. This is because| | Hook has several cards ranging from 9 to 0 which he'll love to break | | your combos with. This will obviously leave you open, which you do | | not want, as Hook hits so hard. Once Jafar runs out, dodge roll to | | evade his attacks, then quickly rush in with a combo. His attack | | where he throws his presents at you leaves him open for just enough | | time to get in a combo anyway. And when he uses Barrel Blast, try to | | lead him into the barrels, as it'll hurt him just as hard as it would| | you, if you get hit by them. | | When he gets low on health, he'll use his own enemy card, which will | | protect him from a hit which would normally kill him. I honestly do | | not see much use for it, as he can't heal himself anyway. | | Your attacks will do quite a bit of damage against him, so, as long | | as you're careful not to get hit by him much, you'll do fine. Keep a | | Cure at all times, though. Even if you have to recharge to get them. | | When he throws his presents is a perfect time to start recharging, | | and you can evade him long enough behind the pole in the center of | | the ship to fill the recharge bar too. You do not want to get in the | | middle of one of his attack flurries, without a Cure to heal after. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ When you beat him, you'll get his enemy card and Tinker Bell. Congratulations, you just beat the most difficult Disney boss in the game. Go through the Conqueror's Respite door for your next battle with Riku. Remember to save right before, as this one really can kick your ass. Guide for him is above, like earlier. ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ swcsiiw3 \ ------------------------- Hollow Bastion ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ | Starting level: 40 | Finishing level: 45 | | Friends: Donald, Goofy, Beast (Guidance room and after only) | Cards: Divine Rose | Heartless: | -Shadow | -Tornado Step | -Darkball | -Wizard | -Wyvern | -Defender | Bosses: Dragon Maleficent (Truth Room) | Rewards Room: Mushu | ____________________________________________________________________________| This is my favorite of the world card sets. It's got an awesome melody in the background, and honestly has the best of the story rip offs from KH. If you've followed the floors in the order I have given, Hollow Bastion will also be the final story rip off (other than 100 Acre Wood, if you want to count that). Deservingly so, also, as the enemies in Hollow Bastion are the most annoying. This world shines in one small way: it's world Keyblade. Divine Rose has the highest three-hit combo stat you've obtained so far, with a Strike of A. It's Thrust and Combo Finisher are pathetic, so it can be hard to use effeciently. Just remember to never mix up the order and accidentally use Divine Rose as the second or third hit in a combo. If you use it properly, it will do more damage than any other Keyblade you have right now. Therfore, grab a few. At this point, I had enough MP and worthless cards to sell to make my deck designed to start every combo with it. I recommend you do the same. The Rewards room of this world also has a potential useful summon for you. A specific sleight involving Mushu called Mega Flare will quite literally obliterate Heartless in a matter of seconds. It's unlikely you have Mega Flare yet, but if you have a Key to Rewards card, then I recommend you grab Mushu now while you can. If you did 100 Acre Wood before Hollow Bastion and are using Spellbinder, you may want to think about taking it out of your deck, along with any other elemental cards. Wizards are common enemies here, and they absorb every single element you can think of. When you're done with everything, go into the Key to Truth room for your next potentially annoying boss. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Dragon Maleficent */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 45 | | Difficulty: Medium (6/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity | | Sleights: None | | Drop: Dragon Maleficent enemy card | | | | Hit Points: 6.1 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | This boss is...argh! Easy, when done right -- otherwise, it's hell. | | And I mean that literally -- if you know what you're doing, this boss| | really is VERY easy. But if not...Expect to see that Game Over screen| | ...a lot. The thing that will make this battle deadly is how her | | attacks hurt so freaking much. You will need at least five Cures for | | this boss. Start out with that. | | With all of this, remember that Maleficent stays in the center of the| | field, and the field is VERY large. Use this to your advantage. | | The target in this battle is her head, which is above the ground, | | like an arial enemy. Because of this, you have to jump to attack her.| | | | Dragon Maleficent has four attacks from what I've seen. Two of them | | basically do the same thing -- in one, she swipes her tail at you, | | and this causes a wave to expand and hit you. The tail strike will do| | damage, as will the wave. Jumping can avoid the wave. | | The second attack, she stomps her feet and each stomp releases a wave| | which will obviously hurt if you're hit by it. Once more, jump to | | avoid this. The range of both of these attacks does not extent to the| | outer rim of the field. | | Her third attack is easily the most annoying though, and she will use| | it a lot. She breathes out a large burst of green flame which pretty | | much covers the entire field in front of her. This attack pisses me | | off so much, as it can get A LOT of damage done before you manage to | | run away from it. The easiest way to avoid this is to jump and glide | | to another side of the field. Remember, the field is very large. | | The fourth one is simple enough: she tries to bite at you...several | | times in a row. It obviously has very short range, so evade it | | accordingly. | | | | To win this battle, you need to remember not to EVER let Maleficent | | attack, unless you absolutely have no other choice. Sleight together | | cards to keep her at bay, if you must. With that in mind, you can | | assume that Jafar is quite useful here. Put that in your deck, along | | with the five plus Cures and at least three Hi-Potions would be a | | good idea. | | Maleficent's card values do not go above 7, from what I have seen. | | I really should hope that by now, most of your deck is higher values | | like that. The only exception is if you are using new cards (this | | world is the first which you've been able to obtain several copies of| | them?). | | Sleights are useless here for anything more than keeping Maleficent | | from attacking; make your deck geared for general three-hit combos. | | You're going to want to start out with Jafar -- I managed to take out| | three bars of health with it alone. Then...attack relentlessly. | | Whenever she manages to get in an attack, avoid it. If you see her | | preparing her green flames, glide over to another side of the field, | | far away from it, right as it starts to land. Keep a close eye on | | your HP, too. | | You'll also want to watch out for Gimmick cards here. I'm not sure | | what triggers them, but I noticed one pop up when I broke her attack | | and hit her. But, the Gimmick card for this battle causes a platform | | to rise, which not only gives Sora direct access to her head but it | | also basically lets you evade pretty much everyone of her attacks. | | The platform will move as you attack, also, so the only way to fall | | off is if you move the analog stick to get off it. | | | | This battle is easy...once you figure out how to do it properly. For | | that reason is why I give it a medium difficulty. But, you may end up| | dying a couple times before you figure it out. Just remember...do not| | let yourself get hit by Dragon Maleficent's attacks. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ Beating Dragon Maleficent will get you her enemy card -- useful in a deck filled with various Potions. If you've been doing this in my order, I hope you enjoy the scene for the tenth floor, as you finally see Marluxia, who is my favorite character. ^^ ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ swcsiiw4 \ ------------------------- 100 Acre Wood ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ | Starting level: 40 | Finishing level: 40 | | Friends: N/A | Cards: Spellbinder, Mega-Ether, Elixer, Bambi | Heartless: None! | Bosses: None, again! YEEHAW! | Rewards Room: N/A | ____________________________________________________________________________| You may notice my level here was lower than the finishing level for Hollow Bastion. This is due to the fact that I actually did this place before Hollow Bastion in this playthrough; but I only did that because I needed the map for the fourth world of this world card set. In my original playthrough, I did 100 Acre Wood last, and I prefer that order. I therefore put it in that order here. Hundred Acre Wood is the only world in the game where you will have no enemies to kill. It's just a bunch of minigames, really. Of course, if you don't want to do them, you can skip through the rooms to the very end. This shouldn't take you any longer than maybe two minutes. However, I'd recommend that you do all of it, as you get some nice rewards. Basically, Pooh lost all of his friends and Sora wants to help Pooh look for them, since he's far too dunce to do it himself. There will be a different minigame for each friend you find, except for Piglet. And you'll also get a reward for each friend, and each room of the world has a different friend of Pooh's for you to locate and complete the minigame of (once more, except for Piglet - or the room you start in). Each friend of Pooh's you find will give you a reward, once you beat what- ever minigame they throw at you. There's also two friends of Pooh's for you to find in the room immediatly before the last room (save and exit room). Pooh will follow you around everywhere. He's really slow, however, so do not bother waiting for him. In the original Chain of Memories, you were forced to have Pooh with you through the entire thing, apparently. Here, though, you don't have to. Even if Pooh hasn't caught up, talking to one of his friends will have Pooh caught up automatically - and if you enter a different room, he'll start in the room with you. There is also a lot of stuff here for you to hit, and hopefully get some Moogle Points out of (some contain cards too, I believe). You can actually mass collect Moogle Points here. We'll start with Piglet. Go around the left side of Pooh's house, and you will get a scene where Piglet shows up. He'll run around the bushes, and stop at a specific area between them after a bit. Press triangle to talk to him, before he starts running around again. All you have to do is go through the scene (or skip it, if you'd prefer), and he'll give you the Confuse sleight. And no, he won't ever decide to come with you or not. You can go into Pooh's house for a few strikables too. Only a few, however. When you're done here, go north into the next room. This is Rabbit's house. Past the vegetable garden and around Rabbit's house specifically, you'll see a lot of pots and jars. Each of these pots and jars can be broken. This is where you'll probably get most of your Moogle Points here - and this is actually the best spot in the game for getting MP (that I've found at least). I've gotten anywhere from 20 to 700 MP from these pots and jars alone. Go towards the exit to trigger a scene where Pooh gets hit by a pumpkin. If you cannot laugh at that, you are a noob. Anyway, if you talk to Rabbit after this scene, you'll get the option to help Rabbit sort his veggies. This will be your first minigame in the world. ______________________________ ----------------------/ \---------------------- | Veggie Panic | ----------------------\______________________________/---------------------- | Reward: Cross-slash+ | ------------------------------ Your goal in this minigame is to sort the cabbages to the left, and the pumpkins to the right, and you have to sort a total of 30 vegetables. Press square square to sort the cabbages, and circle for the pumpkins. Pooh will also be a complete noob and walk into the path; when this happens, you have to hit triangle to sort whatever is about to run him over. It'll automatically sort it to the right spot, so don't worry about that. Carrots will also come rolling down the path for a little bit. You can press either of the buttons to sort these - or just let them hit you and knock you over. They won't count as misses, but knocking you over will put you at a disadvantage when you have to strike something else. You'll also have to worry about a giant vegetable rolling down. I, honestly, have not been able to do this, but apparently you hit triangle over and over to blow up the giant veggie. Also, you'll be able to make up to six mistakes doing all this, otherwise you'll have to start from the beginning. The minigame will keep going until you make six mistakes. I got a hiscore of 55, without trying. Your reward for this is the Cross-slash+ sleight. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Go on into the next room for your next minigame, and, of course, reward! This room is basically a bunch of nothing, except for a large, notable tree, and a log with balloons tied to it, which Sora will notice immediatly. Press triangle to start it. ______________________________ ----------------------/ \---------------------- | Balloon Glider | ----------------------\______________________________/---------------------- | Reward: Firaga Burst | ------------------------------ The goal in this minigame is just to reach the top of the tree, collecting the pieces of honey as you go. Unfortunately, there are obstacles. Hit the tree or any of the bees that fly by, and a balloon will pop. If all of your balloons pop, then you'll fail and have to restart. However, there are more balloons you can pick up on your course to the top. You can't have more than three balloons at a time, though. You'll have to press circle repeatedly to ascend (which I assume is for easier steering), and the bar at the right side of the screen will show how far you are on your progress to the treetop. There are approximately five hundred pieces of honey to collect altogether. It's not hard, just be careful not to hit stuff. At the top of the tree, you will find Owl, who'll give you your next reward, the Firaga Burst sleight. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Proceed into the next area (down the path to the right of the log), and you will see Tigger bouncing around on four tree stumps; he'll, of course, ask you to bounce with him. Before you do that, jump onto the first stump, then onto the left, and you'll see a platform over towards the west. Glide over there and open the chest to receive the Spellbinder Keyblade -- an amazing Keyblade for this time of the game, if used properly. It's basically the Divine Rose of Thrust (second hit in the combo). Great Thrust, but the other two combo stats are crap. Use it in the right order and do great damage; mix up the order and watch yourself fail. It's tricky to use, yes, but worth it if you can. It's lightning elemental though, so be careful for enemies that absorb lightning. After you get the Keyblade card, go talk to Tigger for your next minigame. ______________________________ ----------------------/ \---------------------- | Tigger's Jump-a-Thon | ----------------------\______________________________/---------------------- | Reward: Idyll Romp | ------------------------------ Very annoying minigame, in my opinion. If you've ever played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and did the part in the forest where you had to repeat Skull Kid's notes on the Ocarina, then you'll know what to do here. Tigger hops on the four logs in a specific order, and you have to repeat it. Press X to hop on the south log, square to hop on the west, circle to hop on the east, and triangle to hop on the north. The amount of jumps you have to repeat of Tigger's increase with each successful repeat; meaning that Tigger will jump a certain pattern, you repeat it, then he jumps the pattern again with more jumps added to it, and he adds more and more to it each success. It goes in the order of +1, +1, then +2, and the first round starts with three jumps. You'll have to repeat Tigger's jumps a total of twenty-five times to win; fail once, though, and it's game over. The game will continue until you lose, just like with Veggie Panic. I managed a hiscore of 57. When you complete it, Tigger will show off and let you have the Idyll Romp sleight. I don't get how Tigger knew Sora's name, though. >_> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ After you do that, and make sure you have gotten your Spellbinder, go out through the path north-west of the tree stumps. Sora will notice a blustery hole - jump over that hole (looks like a well to me, but meh) to start the next minigame. ______________________________ ----------------------/ \---------------------- | Whirlwind Plunge | ----------------------\______________________________/---------------------- | Reward: Mega-Ether | ------------------------------ This minigame can be related to Balloon Glider -- except you go down, rather than up. Basically, that hole with air coming out of it threw you clear up into the sky, and you fall down. On your way down, you're supposed to collect all of the honey you can, but you only can while Sora and Pooh are together. If you two hit an obstacle, then you two become seperated. Move over to Pooh and press triangle when it appears to grab him again. You can also roll out of the way of obstacles by moving the analog stick and pressing square (like a dodge roll?). I think there's approximately two thousand pieces of honey altogether, but I'm not sure as I've never been able to get all of it. Note that it's impossible to get a game over on this minigame. When you hit the ground, you'll find Roo. He'll give you your first Mega- Ether. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The final minigame is in this room also. Hop on top of the formation that looks like stairs to the left of the hole, and you'll see Eeyore. Talk to him. Pooh will notice a hole in the tree ahead which has honey in it. Therefore, go up to the hole in the tree and press triangle to start the last minigame. ______________________________ ----------------------/ \---------------------- | Bumble-Rumble | ----------------------\______________________________/---------------------- | Reward: Elixer | ------------------------------ This is my favorite of the minigames, but has the potential to be hardest. Bees swarm you and Pooh, and it is your job to "exterminate" fifty of them. You're given a specific deck for this minigame, which has Keyblade cards, Wind cards, and Honey cards. The Wind cards are used to blow away all of the bees, and the Honey cards are used to refill Pooh's Honey Gauge. The Honey Gauge is the gauge in the top left corner. As Pooh attempts to collect honey, the bees will attack him. When he's attacked, the Honey Gauge will lower. If the Honey Gauge reaches zero, it's game over. For this reason, you'll want to use Honey cards regularily and recharge when you run out of them. You should start with a Wind card before using a Honey card, because the bees CAN break your attacks. With the Wind card, the bees will be blown away, even if only temporarily, so that they won't bother you for a short bit. This is the deck I was given: 9 Keyblade 0 Keyblade 2 Keyblade 6 Keyblade 9 Keyblade 0 Keyblade 6 Keyblade 2 Keyblade 9 Keyblade 7 Wind 5 Honey 8 Honey 6 Keyblade 0 Keyblade 2 Keyblade 9 Keyblade 3 Keyblade 6 Keyblade 8 Keyblade I'm unsure if this is random or not, but I think this is a specific deck as I remember having a deck like this on my previous playthrough. You will have access to any sleights you may be able to use out of those cards given, plus two special sleights: Honey Pot (Honey + Honey) and Honey Storm (Wind + Honey). Honey Pot is basically an emergency heal for Pooh; it restores the Honey Gauge by a lot and quicker than a normal Honey card. I am honestly unsure of what Honey Storm does. I just know it blows all the bees away, and several honey pots seem to fly off with the wind in the sleight. If anyone manages to find out what this does before I do, I wouldn't mind a little help. Either way, use these sleights with caution, because, remember, that you lose the first card of every sleight even still. You don't want to lose your only Wind card, nor do you want to risk losing your Honey cards, now do you? It may take a couple tries, but it's not really that hard once you get the hang of it. You're given fifteen attack cards, so using a sleight is not much of a problem, if nessecary. Just remember to recharge if you run out of Honey cards, and keep the Honey gauge above half way. The game will end when you kill fifty bees. Pooh will run into the tree, which will cause Eeyore's tail to fall out of it. For accidentally finding his tail, Eeyore will give you your first Elixer as a reward. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, we are done! From the cliff where Eeyore is, there will be a log connecting to another cliff. Glide across to there or carefully cross the log to find the path out of this area. In the next area is an empty field with a single log and a save spot. Save at the save spot and approach the log. It'll ask you if you want to leave the world. After the scene (which I actually kind of found to be a little sad), Pooh will give you the Bambi summon card, which I do believe we got a sleight for a little bit ago. If this is your last floor of the world set, then prepare yourself in the final room (preferably with a Sonic Blade deck), as you have a VERY annoying boss fight next. Just as Axel came after Traverse Town, and Larxene after World Card Set I...Another organization member has the need to do Sora in. ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ \ ------------------------- Castle Oblivion ------------------------| \ (Floor 10) / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Vexen I */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 45 | | Difficulty: Medium-High (7/10) | | Weakness: Fire | | Absorbs: Ice | | Nullifies: Gravity, frontal physical attacks | | Sleights: | | -Freeze: This is easily the most annoying attack he will use on| | you. He starts off by standing, extending his arms, | | then swiping his right arm (the one with the shield) | | out in front of him. The moment he does this, a ball | | of ice will appear under Sora and freeze him. Then, | | Vexen will teleport beside Sora and attack him. Both | | Both parts of this attack will cause moderate damage | | which means they do large damage together. Once you | | are hit by the first attack, you can't evade the last | | one. This attack IS, however, easily dodged...with | | practice. Figuring out how to do it under the perfect | | timing is hard though. Basically, immediatly as Vexen | | starts to swipe his arm in front of him, dodge roll | | out of the way. Once you figure out the proper timing | | you can dodge roll out of the way easily (I was able | | to, at least). But if you can't, then just break this | | with a 0. | | -Ice Needles: Despite the fact Vexen only seems to use this at mid- | | low health, it's actually not that dangerous. Vexen | | will summon a wall of "ice needles" around himself. | | A trail of these needles will follow you around as you| | run, until it wears out. The thing is, they are not as| | fast as you. Just run around the field until they wear| | out. Each needle will, though, hit for decent damage. | | Don't let yourself get hit by many. | | Drop: Freeze (sleight), Twilight Town world card | | | | Hit Points: 6.25 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | Vexen is...ugh. I KNOW HE WASN'T THIS HARD IN THE ORIGINAL GAME! | | If you notice, he holds a shield in his right hand, and keeps it in | | front of him. This shield will be used to deflect every single one of| | your attacks. So how do you attack him? You have to card break him - | | when you do, you'll have the chance to use a combo, assuming he does | | not break the last attack (which he will often try). To add to this | | difficulty, he uses cards with high values (7-9), AND his attacks are| | somewhat hard to evade. He attacks slowly, but does that really | | compensate for the fact you practically cannot attack him? | | Actually, it's easier once you get the hang of it. But it will take | | practice. | | Vexen does have a few weaknesses, which you will want to use against | | him. | | The first being the fact that Vexen has mediocre defense, so your | | attack chains will work. The second due to the fact Vexen's shield | | will only deflect frontal PHYSICAL attacks. Sleights and magic still | | work. As a matter of fact, Vexen is weak to fire... | | | | There are three deck types of varying difficulty each deck which you | | can use to defeat Vexen. | | You can use your normal beatdown deck, made for the three-hit-combos | | and just break Vexen's attacks, slowly dwindling down his health. | | If you do this, make sure to include Jafar as to not get broken at | | end of the chain. Strike Raid is not a bad sleight to use in this | | deck, as it will strike Vexen twice for damage and leave him stunned | | so you can get in another chain. THIS is the deck which makes Vexen | | medium-high difficulty. It does become easier to use this method late| | in the battle, once Vexen has used up all his high value cards on his| | sleights. He'll try to use his Mega-Ethers and Elixers here, though, | | so break these at all cost. | | You can also use a magic deck against him -- take note, however, that| | Vexen's weakness isn't massive. Firaga will only take out a little | | over half a bar. Still, his shield won't block it. The difficulty of | | using this deck is based around how many Fire spells you have in your| | deck. I'd say around medium. Remember to include some Mega-Ethers if | | you plan on using this deck, too. | | The third deck you can use and the one I highly recommend is the | | almighty Sonic Blade deck. I've already repeatedly mentioned how this| | deck works. Just spam Sonic Blade. The difficulty for this deck is | | barely even low. | | | | Vexen has two normal attacks. In the first, he sends an ice missle | | spiraling towards you. It does moderate damage, and can be hard to | | evade. Dodge roll out of the way right as it is about to hit you, and| | it will circle around you twice in total in an attempt to hit again. | | In order to avoid being hit again, you'll need to keep moving around | | until it makes a full circle twice and rockets towards the wall or | | floor. It's long range, and it's signaled by him laughing or saying, | | "Here you go." | | The second attack is more annoying. He swipes his shield twice in an | | attempt to hit you both times, then a stalagmite of ice will spawn | | out of the floor, which will also hit Sora. It will do heavy damage | | if you're hit by it. Fortunately, it's short range only. You can also| | see it's coming if Vexen laughs (different way from the first attack;| | you'll notice the difference when you see them), or if he says, | | "Taste this!" | | He also has a couple Elixers, which you WILL want to watch out for. | | In addition to this, he has a Blue Rhapsody enemy card to boost his | | attacks. You can break this with Parasite Cage if you want, but it's | | not really nessecary. | | | | If you use Sonic Blade, this boss is very easy. If not, expect you'll| | have a lot of trouble. Seriously, Sonic Blade just makes this fight | | so easy. Use it. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ Beating Vexen here will earn you your next world card: Twilight Town. This is the point where you lose the ability to choose what world you wish to do next. Of course, this is also the point where the worlds stop being cheap immitations of what happened in the original Kingdom Hearts. That means, this is where the story really gets deeper. It's also where the story actually gets really good, in my opinion. My favorite part of the game starts here, in... ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ stwltn \ ------------------------- Twilight Town ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ Floor 11 | | [B]-[ ] S: Start | | B: Key of Beginnings - 5> card | [R]-[ ]-[C] - 5< card | | - Blue card | [S]-[ ] R: Key to Rewards - Blue 8= card | v | - Red 1= card | [ ]-[ ]-[ ] - 20 Green card total | C: Conqueror's Respite - leave the world here. | | | ____________________________________________________________________________+ | Starting level: 45 | Finishing level: 55 | | Friends: Donald, Goofy | Cards: One-Winged Angel (After Reverse/Rebirth only.) | Heartless: | -Shadow | -Soldier | -Air Soldier | -Barrel Spider | Bosses: Vexen (Beginnings room) | Rewards Room: Warp | ____________________________________________________________________________| The first thing you'll probably notice here is that the floor is much, much smaller. Many less rooms than you're probably used to by now, and there is only a Key to Rewards room, and a Key of Beginnings room. As you can guess, the boss for this world is also in the Key of Beginnings room. The most notable feature to this world, however, is how quickly you can level. Ten levels may seem like a lot, but levels come twice as fast here. All the enemies here use really low card values, and the Soldier and Air Soldier will drop large amounts of experience. It took me just a little bit over two hours to get from 45 to 55 here. Twilight Town is the best world to level in the game. Get as many levels as you want here. But, 55 is the minimum I recommend. You'll have to be at 60 to finish the game, though. As you may notice, Twilight Town doesn't have a specific world Keyblade you can get right now. One-Winged Angel is only available after completing Sora's story, then completing Reverse/Rebirth (Riku's story). This is, how- ever, subject to debate. I've heard you only have to complete Sora's story, but I never tested this. If someone sends me definite proof, I'll change it. Getting One-Winged Angel is recommended, though, once you have beaten R/R. It is a VERY useful Keyblade card -- one of the best in the game. The Moogle packs start appearing in the Moogle Shops starting in this world, also. You may want to synth a few of these and buy a few packs -- the high value cards you'll get from them will probably come in handy. When you're done with all of your leveling -- remember to level all you want, there is no overleveling in this world -- go into the Beginnings room for your next boss -- yes, you have to fight him twice in a row. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Vexen II */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 55 | | Difficulty: High (8/10) | | Weakness: Fire | | Absorbs: Ice | | Nullifies: Gravity, frontal physical attacks | | Sleights: | | -Freeze: This is the same as before. Scroll up. | | -Ice Needles: Also the same. Scroll up to the last battle. | | Note: He starts using this at the very beginning of | | the battle now, unlike only mid health as before. | | -Slide Break: Vexen summons a MASSIVE (and uber looking if I do say | | so myself) sword of ice to replace his shield, then he| | flies at you and strikes his sword three times; each | | time it hits will do large damage on you. In the final| | hit, he hits his ice sword against the ground, and it | | causes a ring of ice to spread out on the ground. | | This attack will seriously do huge amounts of damage | | if hit by all three attacks; it can take you from full| | health to critical health. And what's worse is that | | all of the attacks are hard to evade, with the final | | one being nearly impossible. The only relief for this | | is the fact that Vexen only uses it at low health; | | around 2-3 bars remaining. If you see it, break it. | | If you don't...you'd better hope you can survive the | | attacks. | | Drop: Vexen enemy card | | | | Hit Points: 7.25 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | Vexen is only slightly more difficult this time, in my opinion. He | | has one more sleight and attacks a little quicker. That's about it. | | Honestly, the same tricks as before will work against Vexen this time| | also. Particularily Sonic Blade. Because of this, I won't bother with| | going over deck types to use against him, as you can scroll up to the| | last battle for all of that. | | You may, however, want to include the Parasite Cage enemy card into | | your deck this time. The reason for this is because of Vexen's enemy | | card of himself -- it will restore him with two bars when you beat | | him. I highly doubt you'll want that, unless you just love fighting | | Vexen so much that you want to extend the battle out. If not, then | | yeah, Parasite Cage would be very recommended. | | You may also want more 0's to break that last sleight of his. Also, | | making your deck able to use Sonic Blade towards the end of the fight| | would be a good idea. If you're not gonna use Sonic Blade to get him | | to low health, I HIGHLY recommend you do once he is at low health. | | If you're constantly barraging him with Sonic Blade attacks, he will | | not have the chance to hit you with Slide Break. | | Other than that, the same deck as you used to beat Vexen before will | | work just as well against Vexen this time. And I will repeat myself: | | Sonic Blade works wonders. You'll seriously want to use it here. | | | | Once more, for more details about Vexen, scroll up to the first fight| | against him. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ For beating Vexen for the second and final time (in Sora's story), you'll get his useful enemy card. If you have the CP for it, I'd recommend adding it. You should notice that you did not get a world card for beating Vexen, and you haven't any world cards left to use. Using common sense, this should tell you that you'll get another one during the next Castle Oblivion scene; and this should tell you that you'll have to fight a boss for it. ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ \ ------------------------- Castle Oblivion ------------------------| \ (Floor 11) / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Riku III */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 55 | | Difficulty: Medium-High (7.5/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity | | Sleights: | | -Helm Split: This is no different from before. This is copied and | | pasted from the last battle: | | Riku jumps up and smacks his Soul Eater against the | | ground, three times. Each time leaves a large, dark | | aura around the spot he hit. The third time causes a | | few pillars of the aura to rise out of the ground. Hard| | to evade, really. You can dodge roll, or jump - I found| | it to be easier to jump over it. But, even still, | | evading all the pillars of the final hit is hard. If | | you can glide here, then I'd recommend it. Still, I | | would just break this when you see it. | | -Dark Firaga: Riku charges up a ball of "dark fire" in his hand, and | | shoots it at you. Yawn. It seems to be like a homing | | missle, in that it follows you. Plus, it's fast. Still,| | it only does moderate damage. Break it if you want, but| | it's not entirely nessecary. You'll probably find that | | Helm Split is more annoying. | | Drop: Mega-Potion, Destiny Islands world card | | | | Hit Points: 6.25 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | It's been awhile since last fighting Riku..and this is all the better| | he's gotten? He has a new sleight, which isn't even as dangerous as | | his first one, he attacks just a little faster, and not even an | | entire extra bar of health... | | Don't get me wrong, he's still hard. But, I'd say that you must have | | improved more than him since the last battle. Your deck, for one, | | should be much better than it was before. | | Following the last strategy for Riku should work just fine. Remember,| | Sonic Blade is your friend! | | If not using Sonic Blade, remember to keep Jafar and several Cures in| | your deck. By now, you should be able to have plenty of high value | | cards to use against Riku, meaning that Jafar isn't nessecary like it| | was before -- but you'll still find use in it. | | One or two Ethers/Mega-Ethers would be good for this fight, too. Riku| | attacks faster, so you won't have time to recharge unless he has to | | recharge too. And if you run out of Cures...you're in trouble. | | Ars Arscanum is also a wonderful sleight to use against Riku. It will| | devour his HP, and once the attack starts, he won't have a chance to | | break it. | | Be warned too that Riku still has his Shadow enemy card. | | Riku can be hard; but as stated, you've advanced far more than him. | | That should make this fight easier than your last with him. Even if | | you don't use Sonic Blade. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ When you beat Riku, you'll get the Destiny Islands world card; that is the next destination. ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ sdsnisle \ ------------------------- Destiny Islands ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ Floor 12 | | [C]-[ ]-[ ]-[ ]-[G] S: Start | | | B: Key of Beginnings - 2= card | [ ] [R] - 8= card | | G: Key of Guidance - 50 card total | [ ]-[B] R: Key to Rewards - 33 Blue card total | | - 33 Red card total | [ ]-[S] - 33 Green card total | v C: Conqueror's Respite - leave the world here. | | | ____________________________________________________________________________+ | Starting level: 55 | Finishing level: 58 | | Friends: None | Cards: Oathkeeper | Heartless: | -Shadow | -Crescendo | -Creeper Plant | -Tornado Step | -Darkball | Bosses: Darkside (Guidance room) | Rewards Room: Megalixer | ____________________________________________________________________________| As you may have noticed, you have no friends here. It's just Sora. By now, you shouldn't even be using Donald or Goofy much, anyway. And if you are... Expect to have a hard time here. Destiny Islands is larger again -- but still not as large as a normal floor. You'll only have to go up to the Key of Guidance room, which is where the boss for this floor is. Also, this world's Keyblade card (Oathkeeper) is acquired through the story, meaning it's pretty much forced upon you. Don't bother destroying crates and the such for it, because you won't ever find it there. At least, not until you complete the floor. I highly recommend you open the Rewards room for Destiny Islands, as the Megalixer is VERY useful. You'll need it for the Holy sleight, too. Trust me, the 99 total is worth it. Go into the Key of Guidance room for your next boss, who happens to be the first boss in Kingdom Hearts. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Darkside */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 58 | | Difficulty: Medium-Low (4.5/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity | | Sleights: None | | Drop: Darkside enemy card | | | | Hit Points: 3.25 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | Since Darkside's only targets are his hands and head, he is effect- | | ively an arial boss. Due to this, Sonic Blade is useless. Though it | | doesn't matter, since Darkside isn't very hard anyway. Look at his HP| | and you will get an idea as to how easy he is. | | Darkside uses four attacks, and attacks in a specific pattern. | | In the first attack of the pattern, Darkside slams his right hand | | into the ground, and a pool of darkness surrounds his hand, and from | | this darkness he summons several Shadows. Incredibly weak versions, | | with very little HP. This attack leaves him open due to his hand | | being directly in reach -- attack him while he is using it. | | Then, in his second attack, he charges a ball of darkness within his | | chest; that is, the empty spot that forms a heart. Two balls of this | | darkness will shoot at Sora and hit him, doing semi-large damage, and| | this happens three times. As long as you're at three quarters health,| | you shouldn't have a problem surving this, then using Cure after. You| | cannot attack him while he is using this. You cannot evade this | | attack, so break it if you want to avoid it. Also note that he shoots| | more than two balls at a time once he reaches lower health, and will | | shoot them four times. | | With his third attack, he charges dark energy into his right hand, | | then slams it onto the ground, which causes a shockwave across the | | field. Jumping at the right time can avoid the shockwave, but it goes| | very fast. You'll have a slight bit of time to attack his hand here. | | His fourth attack is the most annoying. He slams his left hand into | | the ground, and grabs ANOTHER large ball of darkness. Then, it flies | | into the air, and many small dark balls rain upon the field. Dodging | | some is possible, but so many rain down that you're guarenteed to be | | hit for large damage. This attack alone can kill you if not careful. | | Because of this, I highly recommend you break it. The attack card | | stays the entire time the attack is active too, so you can break it | | at any time. | | | | A Gimmick card will appear during this boss. Using it causes several | | stone pillars to form, ascending to Darkside's head. For a short | | period of time, Darkside will stand still, doing literally nothing. | | You can climb the pillars to get to Darkside's head and pound him | | with attacks for awhile, before the pillars vanish. | | | | Darkside's only dangerous attack is the fourth one. So long as you | | avoid this, he will be easy. But, since Darkside is out of range, | | the main times you'll be attacking him are during his first attack | | and when you use a Gimmick card, while being able to do a little | | damage during his third attack. You'll be able to take off nearly an | | entire bar of his health though during his first attack alone, so | | beating Darkside should be quick. You can also pull off a single | | attack by going up to his hands in between attacks, jumping, and | | attacking. But it's slow as you'll only be able to do one attack in | | this time. You're probably better off waiting for him to use one of | | his attacks which give you open space to strike. | | Jafar won't be very useful in this battle, so you may wish to include| | a couple more Cures, in case you're caught in his fourth attack. | | Otherwise, your normal attack deck should be fine against him. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ After beating Darkside, you'll get his enemy card. After the long scene, you get Oathkeeper. This is the best Keyblade you've acquired yet. But don't go back and synth some Moogle Rooms to obtain more copies just yet. Save at the Conqueror's Respite, as another boss awaits you after you leave. ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ \ ------------------------- Castle Oblivion ------------------------| \ (Floor 12) / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Riku IV */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 58 | | Difficulty: High (9/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity, resists Fire, Ice, and Lightning | | Sleights: | | -Helm Split: Helm Split is the same as last time. Scroll up to Riku | | III for information. | | -Dark Firaga: Also the same as Helm Split. Scroll up to your last | | battle with Riku. | | -Dark Aura: This is it. Riku's most deadly attack. Riku charges up | | and flies across the field -- more specifically, where-| | ever Sora is -- with his Soul Eater fixed in front of | | himself for repeated attacks, which ends in several | | dark pillars forming out of the field in a manner very | | similar to Helm Split, only covering much more space. | | This sleight WILL kill you, if you're hit by it. The | | only exception is if you already have insanely high HP | | by here (500+?). Break this at any cost nessecary. I'm | | not joking. Also note that you will not have the chance| | to break this attack once you're hit at all by it. | | Drop: Riku enemy card | | | | Hit Points: 7.5 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | This is your final battle with Riku, and he sure makes it count. I | | honestly would say this is one of the hardest bosses in the entire | | game. | | Riku seriously came prepared for this fight. He's got a new sleight, | | a new attack, he attacks even faster yet, and he seriously looks | | badass with that dark ball he carries in his left hand through the | | entire battle. Oh, his attacks seem to have a higher chance to leave | | you stunned, too. Fortunately, Riku's new attack isn't much to worry | | about. He shoots out a dark ring at you, which goes pretty fast. It | | can be hard to evade. Still, not much to worry about. Riku's new | | sleight and how much quicker he attacks are the real killers. | | On top of that, Riku still has that annoying Shadow enemy card, which| | he likes to use at the beginning of the battle. | | You also will not have any friends here. It just keeps getting worse | | and worse, doesn't it? Not that Donald or Goofy are very useful here | | anyway. | | | | Riku's main weakness lies in how often he uses sleights. If you can | | hold the battle off for awhile, until Riku uses up all of his good | | cards, you'll win for sure. Good luck with that, though. | | | | You'll most definitely want to use sleights; I, of course, recommend | | Sonic Blade, as it makes this fight as easy as all others. Beating | | Riku here with a basic beatdown deck is insanely difficult. Possible | | (I did it for fun), but insanely difficult. | | If, however, you wish to take that upon yourself, then you will need | | to prepare properly. First, you'll want several 0's in your deck, to | | break Dark Aura when he uses it. Four should be sufficient. You'll | | also want an abnormal amount of Cures (as many as you possibly have).| | Jafar is a must here, too. Also include two at least two Elixers. | | They don't need to be high values, as you can use them as part of a | | sleight if you must. But you have a snowball's chance in hell of | | recharging now, with Riku attacking so dreadfully fast. Other than | | that, you'll need a lot of practice. | | Good sleights to use here include Ars Arscanum and Holy. Holy will | | do devestating amounts of damage against Riku...Or any boss for that | | matter. If you want to beat Riku using a basic beatdown deck, include| | this. Complete use of Jafar and Holy will take out four of his bars | | by themselves. If you put in Holy, you'll probably only have room for| | one Elixer and maybe a Hi-Potion. | | | | When the battle starts, you'll want to immediatly use Jafar. Attack | | him until you exhaust all of your attack cards, which should use up | | most of Jafar's effect. Use Holy. If Riku breaks it with a 0, which | | he usually does not, then you're screwed. After Holy, use the Elixer | | or a Hi-Potion if you have it, depending on how many Cures you have | | left. Chances are, you'll probably only need a Hi-Potion. You can, of| | course, recharge if you feel like you can. Recharging is possible in | | this battle, just difficult. And when you recharge, you'll need a | | Curaga sleight in stock for when Riku interupts you like he more than| | likely will. The best time to recharge is when you are on the other | | side of the field of him. I had to recharge twice in order to beat | | him, so you'll have to expect to recharge unless you have the CP for | | three or so Hi-Potions and an Elixer after Holy. From the point after| | refreshing your attack cards, you'll need to beat at Riku slowly but | | efficiently with your attack cards, and make sure you watch out for | | Dark Aura, as that will end the battle right then and there. After | | doing that once, you'll probably need a new set of Cures, so use your| | Elixer. Repeat the use of your attack cards and then recharge -- do | | NOT let yourself run out of Cures before you need to recharge. You'll| | need to repeat that process once more, then you should defeat Riku | | on the first few cards of that recharge. | | Of course, you can always use Sonic Blade and end this fight easily. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ When you beat Riku, do NOT go forward and talk to Riku. When you do, you'll have to fight another boss after the scene. Another boss which could kick your ass too. So therefore, it's very crucial you go back into Destiny Islands' Conqueror's Respite and save there before talking to him. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Larxene II */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 58 | | Difficulty: High (9/10) | | Weakness: Sleights | | Absorbs: Thunder | | Nullifies: Gravity | | Sleights: | | -Mega Volt: I have copy and pasted this from the last battle: | | Larxene throws both handfuls of her kunai to the | | floor, and this causes several streams of thunder | | from the ceiling to strike the center of the field, | | then spread out quickly to the outside. I haven't | | found a way to evade it, so break it if you want. | | It doesn't hurt a lot though, so I see no need. | | -Teleport Rush: Teleport Rush is a bit different now. It works the | | same: Larxene teleports beside you over and over, | | attempting to strike you each time she does, using | | her kunai as claws. The difference between last time| | and this time, though, is that each hit on you will | | do large amounts of damage. She still only uses this| | at low health because it remains her finisher. If | | you are hit by all of her strikes, you can go from | | full health to critical health, or even dead due to | | this attack alone. You will definitely want to break| | this. | | -Blade Storm: Larxene gathers lightning around her, and jumps into| | the air. She then lets the lightning fly off her | | and rebound against the walls, to form several lines| | of this lightning from wall to wall, and from the | | ceiling to the floor, and these bolts rotate. If you| | touch a single bolt of this, then it will pick up | | and encase Sora within it's eletrical current. You | | are forced to sit there and watch your HP drain, and| | no way to do anything to evade it. It does large | | damage, and it will leave you stunned for a short | | period after it's done. Break this. | | Drop: Larxene enemy card | | | | Hit Points: 7.90 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | "More pain for you means more fun for me!" You have to love that | | quote, seriously. | | Anyway, Larxene gets kudos for being one of the only two bosses who | | has been able to escape the entire wrath of Sonic Blade. And even | | then, just barely. | | She seems to be able to break Sonic Blade a quarter of the time you | | use it against her -- at least, she did for me. I have no idea why | | this is. Still, it makes the battle against her incredulously easy. | | Medium-low difficulty at hardest. This is partially due to the fact | | that, Larxene being able to break it doesn't compensate for the fact | | she's weak to all sleights. | | Larxene does not get any new attacks from before; the thing that | | makes her so deadly now is the fact her attacks hurt so much more now| | than they did then. She attacks just as quick as then, and the damage| | will add up enough to easily kill you if you're not careful. | | | | You'll have Donald and Goofy back for this fight also, but don't risk| | Donald, as you don't want him to end up casting a Thunder spell on | | Larxene. | | | | Larxene is a very difficult boss to beat without Sonic Blade, though.| | She attacks just as quickly as Riku did, and uses higher card values | | more often than Riku did. Her attacks also hurt just as much as his. | | In case you can't remember, she has three different attacks. The | | lightning spell, which is probably her most painful attack this time.| | It sends several bolts of lightning crashing down on Sora. You'll be | | able to dodge most of them, but it's nearly impossible to dodge them | | all. This time, you'll probably want to break it. She still chants | | "Lightning!" before using it, too. It's also her only attack where | | the card used for it is blue. | | The second attack remains the same: she throws both sets of her kunai| | at you, one set around a second after the other. Jumping can easily | | evade these. She still gives this attack away by saying "Vanish!" | | The third one is her only short range attack. She swipes at you twice| | and often signals it by laughing right before. You won't have time to| | evade it once you hear her laugh though. Also just like before, this | | attack changes into several swipes that end in a lightning spell, all| | in one attack, at low health. | | | | In order to beat Larxene using a beatdown deck, you'll want to use a | | tactic similar to how you beat Riku. | | In building your deck, take out any lightning elemental attack cards | | (such as using Spellbinder for it's Thrust). | | Then, include the cards for Holy, an Elixer, a Hi-Potion, then five | | or six Cures. After that, put in the Jafar and Hook enemy cards. | | Then put in around three 0's, and a set of cards for the use of Ars | | Arscanum (include two sets if you feel it's nessecary). Use any left-| | -over CP space for as many three-hit combo set ups as you can. I was | | able to get in three (nine cards in all). | | Your deck should have three plus sets of cards for the three-hit | | combo, one or two sets for Ars Arscanum (remember to use simple cards| | like Kingdom Key for this), three 0's, the cards for one use of Holy,| | an Elixer, a Hi-Potion, five or six Cures, Jafar, and Hook in that | | order. | | The battle will progress very similarily as to how it did with Riku. | | Start out with Jafar and beat the hell out of Larxene until it's used| | up (which should use all of your attack cards; use your cards for Ars| | Arscanum and your 0's if nessecary for it). Then, use Holy. Larxene | | moves fast and has a lot of 0's, and there is a decent chance she'll | | break it. If she does, you may as well give up and start over. | | By this point, you'll want to use your Hi-Potion or Elixer, then | | activate your Hook enemy card. Hook is there to lower the damage of | | Larxene's attack, as it's effect will stay through the entire battle | | as long as you keep yourself healed. | | After you run used your Hi-Potion and activated Hook, the battle will| | progress as it did with Riku. Go through your attack cards, and by | | this point you'll probably want to recharge, unless you already ran | | out of Cures. In this case, use your Elixer. | | Just the same as you did not want to attempt recharging with Riku | | when you hadn't any Cures left, you won't with Larxene. Recharge the | | moment you run down to two Cures left. | | Larxene does not have much more HP than Riku did, so the battle will | | flow the same from there also. After refreshing your deck either with| | a Hi-Potion or by recharging, beat at Larxene until you run out of | | attack cards. You'll want to use your Elixer here most likely. Then, | | recharge once you run out of attack cards here. | | The set of Ars Arscanum is for pummeling Larxene as she's recharging.| | She'll be helpless to block the mass damage it'll inflict upon her, | | and it WILL do large damage. Ars Arscanum is already very powerful; | | added to the fact Larxene takes extra damage from sleights... | | The extra damage from Holy and a use of Ars Arscanum should take care| | of Larxene's extra health from Riku. You will still probably need to | | recharge a third time, though. Remember to keep a 0 on hand at all | | times once she reaches low health, in case you're caught in her | | Teleport Rush sleight. | | I see no point in not using Sonic Blade here though. The fact that | | Larxene is weak to sleights screams Sonic Blade. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ Defeating Larxene for the final time earns you her enemy card. Also useful, you may want to use it if you have room. After the scene, you'll get the Oblivion Keyblade too. This and Oathkeeper are your two best Keyblades thus far. The next floor is Castle Oblivion itself. There won't be a world card for it. ___________________________________________________________________________ / \ scstobln \ ------------------------- Castle Oblivion ------------------------| \ / | ____________________________________________________________________________+ Floor 13 | ^ | [M] S: Start | | B: Key of Beginnings - Blue 1= card | [B]-[ ]-[ ]-[ ]-[X] - Red 3= card | | | - 99 card total | [ ]-[ ] [ ]-[R] R: Key to Rewards - 30 Blue card total | | | - 40 Red card total | [ ]-[ ]-[ ]-[ ]-[ ] - 20 Green card total | | X: Paths to this room are blocked off until the | [ ] Key of Beginnings Room is complete. | | M: Battle with Marluxia is in this room. | [S]-[ ]-[ ]-[ ] | v | ____________________________________________________________________________+ | Starting level: 59 | Finishing level: 61 | | Friends: Donald, Goofy | Cards: Ultima Weapon, Diamond Dust (Both only available after)| beating Reverse/Rebirth.) | Heartless: | -Shadow | -Neoshadow | -Red Nocturne | -Blue Rhapsody | -Yellow Opera | -Green Requiem | -Darkball | -Wizard | -Wyvern | -Defender | Bosses: Axel (Beginnings room), Marluxia | Rewards Room: Super Glide | ____________________________________________________________________________| This is the final floor. Finally, we're at the end of the game. I hope you are prepared, because you'll need to be for this floor. After the scene when you first enter the castle, you will gain the Trinity Limit sleight. There is nothing that will decimate groups of Heartless as quick as this sleight will. That's probably the reason you got the sleight here; the regular enemies in this world can even destroy you if you aren't careful. The most dangerous of these enemies would be the Neoshadow, which can use card values up to 8 and will frequently. Many of the enemies here also have over an entire bar of health. As you can tell, Trinity Limit is very useful here. Without your sleights of mass Heartless destruction (Trinity Limit, Mega Flare), leveling here is nearly impossible. The enemies give large amounts of experience, but it doesn't compensate for the difficulty of a single random encounter. Sleights such as Trinity Limit and Mega Flare are a must if you plan on leveling here much at all. However, using them, leveling here can be abnormally quick, even making this place the easiest place to level in the game. Unfortunately, due to relability issues in getting the cards for Trinity Limit, it's wise to rely on Mega Flare. A couple of the enemies here will absorb it, however, so you'll want a few cards for normal attacking too. Because of these enemies, having five Cures in your deck from this point forward is highly recommended. You will be using them a lot. The first thing you'll want to do when you enter Castle Oblivion is to synthesize some Moogle Rooms. You just got two very powerful Keyblades and hopefully a Megalixer; getting more copies of these would be a very good idea. Oathkeeper is a great card to build an entire deck around, but it is best used for it's Thrust. This card should be replacing Spellbinder in Castle Oblivion, as it does higher Thrust damage, and the annoying Wizards in this place won't absorb the damage. Oblivion will be used for Strike. It gives the same damage output as Divine Rose, but it's Thrust is A also. This means that you're far less likely to screw up with it like you could with Divine Rose. Unfortunately, you'll still be stuck with Crabclaw or Metal Chocobo (whatever you've been using) for combo finishing. You will be until you beat Reverse/Rebirth. I'd recommend that you only buy the Moogle packs, and save your MP for getting more of these in different Moogle Rooms. Buying the black strap packs for Attack cards may be wise too. Both of the Keyblades you can acquire in this world are unobtainable as of now. You'll have to beat Reverse/Rebirth to get them. Once you do, however I would recommend going after them. They are two of the strongest cards in the game. (Ultima Weapon IS the strongest.) As for the bosses: you will fight Axel in the Key of Beginnings room. However, Marluxia is not in any key room. You'll view a scene, then have to battle him in the room marked as M on the map above. After beating Marluxia, a save will appear in this room, as will a door leading to the final boss. The door to this room will already be unlocked when you enter the room marked as X above. When you're done with any last minute leveling using Trinity Limit/Mega Flare, go into the Key of Beginnings room for one of my favorite scenes in the entire game, along with your final battle with Axel. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Axel II */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 60 | | Difficulty: Medium-High (7.5/10) | | Weakness: Ice | | Absorbs: Fire | | Nullifies: Gravity | | Sleights: | | -Fire Wall: Copied and pasted from the last battle: | | Axel stands in the center of the arena, and stretches | | his arms out, and a wall of fire surrounds him. his wall| | stretches out until it hits the entire outside of the | | arena. Due to this, the sleight is unavoidable. Break it| | with a 0 if you want, though it's not nessecary as it | | doesn't hit for a lot of damage. | | -Firetooth: This sleight is highly deceptive. At first, it seems | | simple and useless. He'll throw both of his Chakram at | | you in a completely random pattern. You can either dodge| | roll to avoid it, which can be hard since the pattern is| | random, or jump over it if you see it coming. At this | | point, you can break it but it's not that nessecary. | | However, once Axel reaches mid-low HP, you'll be going | | OMFGWTFBBQ! | | It transforms in into something completely different. | | Four fireballs gather above Axel's head, and he throws | | them all at you in what is still a random pattern. Also,| | they don't just go in a straight path and vanish like | | before; they actually will rebound off the walls and | | keep on striking you. | | At this point, the sleight can EASILY decimate your | | entire HP bar. Fortunately, it has a long enough delay | | at this point that you should have the time to break it.| | And yes, you will want to break this at all costs. | | Drop: Axel enemy card | | | | Hit Points: 7.25 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | Axel plays much differently than Larxene in one large way: he rarely | | uses his sleights, so wearing him down to few cards is very hard. | | It doesn't matter much, as Fire Wall isn't that deadly, and Firetooth| | is only dangerous once he reaches lower health. His basic attacks are| | what make Axel deadly. | | His first attack is what he'll use most. It's basically like a single| | version of Firetooth -- he throws only one of his Chakram at you. | | It's in a straight pattern, though. Because of this, it's easy to | | jump over. Jump too early, however, and he'll just throw it up. It's | | mid-to-long range. | | The second attack is short range. He swipes his chakram at you twice,| | then lets them go. They'll circle around you, come back and strike | | again, and create a burst of fire in the process. This attack does | | WAY too much damage. Do NOT let yourself get hit by it. | | Evading both of these attacks can be hard, because of the fact that | | Axel is repeatedly warping around the arena. As far as I can tell, he| | does not move once except through warping. Since he's always warping,| | it can be hard to follow where his next attack is coming from. | | | | Axel isn't as hard as Larxene or Riku was in my opinion. He's more of| | an annoyance than anything. | | Sonic Blade, of course, works quite well here. There's a chance that | | Axel will warp right as it is about to hit, but it still hits far | | more often than not. You'll probably want to include a couple 0's for| | that emergency oh-damn-Axel-is-at-low-health-and-I-accidentally-let- | | a-Firetooth-escape. | | Other than that, you can use a Blizzard based deck, or a deck with | | sleights that involve ice based attacks. They work really well. | | I beat Axel using a deck with five random 0 value Keyblades, four | | Blizzards (all the more I had), four Mega-Ethers, three Elixers, two | | Megalixers, and seven Cures. At the last bar of health, I was stuck | | only being able to hit him through retaliation with my 0's, though. | | Remember to be careful with a deck like that. You don't want to cast | | a Blizzaga sleight just for Axel to warp away before it can hit. | | A basic beatdown deck can work for Axel just the same, too. It will | | work the same as always; around three 0's for breaking Firetooth at | | the end of the battle, several sets for the three hit combo, several | | cures, and you may want a few Blizzards just to use Blizzaga, if you | | have any spare CP. And, of course, a few Hi-Potions or Elixers. As | | for enemy cards, Jafar and Riku should be fine. Riku will be used for| | resisting the damage done by Axel, and since the deck isn't designed | | to use sleights, it'll last awhile. (Hades can also be used, but note| | that it will wear out much quicker and it's unlikely it'll last long | | enough.) Use the same order as you did for Larxene, replacing Hook | | with Riku. | | There really isn't much more to him than that. He's hard, and it'll | | probably take a couple tries to get him. Especially if you're using | | the beatdown deck. However, I found that Larxene and Riku were more | | difficult. The only thing that makes Axel much trouble is the way he | | loves to warp around right as you're about to attack. | | Remember, if you have too much trouble, which you shouldn't if you're| | used to the last two bosses, then use Sonic Blade. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ Beating Axel will not only net you his enemy card (which is quite useful), but it'll also unlock the door to the next room to the furthest east from the Key of Beginnings room. When you reach this door, I highly recommend you create a Moment's Reprieve room in it. The door to the next room is already unlocked. Proceed into it for another awesome scene with Marluxia. After the scene, you'll have to fight him. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Marluxia I */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 60 | | Difficulty: High (10/10) | | Weakness: Physical attacks | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity, resists all elements and sleights. | | Sleights: | | -Blossom Shower: This sleight will SCREW YOU OVER! I am not joking. | | Marluxia starts by teleporting near you and strik- | | ing several times with his scythe, with a pink aura| | crossing around him. The way he does this is very | | similar to the way Vexen did with his Ice Blade, in| | the second battle with him. After he does this the | | multiple times, he lands and slams his scythe down;| | this causes a shockwave to flow through the entire | | field. After this, dozens of petals strike you like| | missiles. | | The entire thing is practically impossible to | | evade. The first part of the sleight is very hard | | to avoid because of the way Marluxia attacks; the | | second part of the sleight (the shockwave) can't | | be avoided due to the fact that you'll still be | | recovering from Marluxia's first attacks, so you | | can't jump (perhaps the Axel enemy card could take | | care of this...?). With the third part, the petals | | work basically like homing missles, and too many of| | them come to evade. | | The killer part is that the entire sleight will | | consume all of your HP. Not once have I been hit by| | this sleight, and not died. Break this sleight. | | There is enough time between the attacks that you | | can still break it in the middle of the first part.| | -Deathscythe: First thing first: note the awesome line Marluxia | | says when he uses this sleight; "Your heart shall | | be judged!" Not only does it sound cool, but it's | | a clear warning of him using it. | | This sleight is nearly as deadly as Blossom Shower;| | Marluxia jumps into the air and hovers there, as he| | slashes his scythe down in front of him. In doing | | this, several energy ripples (shaped like the blade| | of his scythe) lash out in front of him; and these | | energy blades are huge. He'll do this several times| | in different directions. The sleight can be dodged,| | but it's very hard to time it right (it was for me | | at least). Plus, it does enormous damage. It can | | take you from full health to critical, or even kill| | you. Break this. | | -Drop Shot: Marluxia uses this only at mid-low health. He hacks| | his scythe into the ground, burying it half way in | | the ground. Doing this causes a quake-like effect | | which effects a huge range around where he hits the| | ground. Then he pulls the scythe out, warps to a | | different spot, and does it again, possibly more | | than one more time, too. (I've never survived this | | sleight past the second hit). This sleight, like | | the others, does massive damage. Evading it is a | | bit easier though, as long as you stay far away | | from Marluxia. Still, since it eats up so much HP | | per strike, it's best to break this. There is a | | long delay between the hits to give you time to | | break it, if you got hit. I'd say that, despite the| | fact Marluxia uses this at low health, Blossom | | Shower is still his most dangerous sleight. | | Drop: Marluxia enemy card | | | | Hit Points: 8.75 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | Marluxia makes it as my most favorite character in the entire series.| | Cool attitude, insanely sweet attacks, and well, look at that scythe!| | Also notice the awesome but haunting background theme, and the eerie | | white room you're in during the battle. | | | | Marluxia isn't an agile boss in the slightest bit. He attack slowly, | | too. But when he does attack...you'll suffer more damage than you | | ever have from a boss's basic attack. All of Marluxia's attacks will | | involve his scythe (proving how awesome scythes are), and they will | | inflict mass amounts of damage. I've said before in bosses to not let| | yourself be hit by his/her attacks more than nessecary, and I've not | | once meant it more than I do now. Do NOT get hit by his attacks if | | you can possibly avoid it. Unfortunately, that's easier said than | | done, as his attacks are all very hard to avoid. Most of them have a | | long enough delay that you can break them, however. | | Note that Marluxia doesn't use sleights often, but when he does, they| | are pretty much all unavoidable. Plus, they are battle-ending. | | Bottom line is: Marluxia isn't fast, but he's all about how horrific | | the damage he does to you is...and in a single attack... | | | | Marluxia's first attack involves him rushing towards you, slashing at| | you three or four times with his scythe. It's hard to avoid, due to | | his scythe's large range. Plus, it does a lot of damage if you're hit| | by all of the strikes. This attack's card is red. | | In Marluxia's next attack, he hacks his scythe in front of him, but | | not in an attempt to strike you. Doing this actually causes four | | flower pools to spawn on the field, and these flower pools will move | | around until Sora is caught in one of them. When caught, it does | | moderately low damage. The flower pools will then join together into | | one and trap Sora into it, and Marluxia will then move up and strike.| | This does larger damage. The attack is very hard to avoid, largely | | due to how huge the flower pools are. It has a long enough delay that| | you should be able to break it. Marluxia uses a blue card with it. | | In Marluxia's third attack, he swings his scythe around twice, and | | each swing causes two energy blades to rip through the air. Since it | | covers a large area, it's also hard to avoid. It hurts about as much | | as Marluxia's first attack. Red card here also. | | | | Marluxia is slightly harder than Larxene and the Riku replica were. | | I give him a 10/10 difficulty because of the fact there's so little | | you can do to make him "easy." | | Beating Marluxia involves playing the same game he does. He'll hover | | around the field, never letting Sora escape his sight. Then, a random| | attack from him will fly out of nowhere, sometimes several in a row. | | After that, he'll return to his fixed watch, waiting to attack again | | while slowing stocking cards to use one of his unholy sleights. | | You can't beat Marluxia by rushing in and beating on him as fast as | | humanly possible, like you needed to with so many other bosses in the| | game. After the first or (if you're lucky) second combo you pull on | | him, he'll start warping away right before the second or third attack| | hits him, then he'll attack himself with you being unable to even | | attempt to dodge it, since he'll be out of view. Therefore, you'll | | have to do the same thing as him: close in on him, get in a combo or | | two if you feel lucky, then run away so there's distance between you | | and Marluxia -- enough to be able to evade his attacks or break them | | more easily. | | | | As you may have already noticed, Marluxia's weak to physical attacks.| | (The fact you can't attack Marluxia with more than one or two combos | | at a time is more than likely a safeguard for this.) One full combo | | with Oblivion, Oathkeeper, and Crabclaw in that order will take out | | over half of a bar. Judging by this, you can understand that Marluxia| | is most easily beaten with a strategy involving the exposing of this | | weakness. Using the above mentioned strategy in this battle will be | | your most successful. However, there are a few other things you can | | do to help. | | First and foremost, Sonic Blade's use is limited in this battle. | | Marluxia is strong to sleights, meaning the damage output of Sonic | | Blade is lowered by quite a bit. Also, Marluxia will sometimes warp | | out of the way of the attack's first hit, which will cause the entire| | sleight to go to waste. Doing large amounts of damage using Sonic | | Blade here, though, is too difficult. At the same time, you can keep | | Marluxia from attacking by using Sonic Blade...as long as he doesn't | | warp out of the way. I recommend using Sonic Blade for half of the | | battle, but stick with physical attacks for the second half. Remember| | what I said: expose Marluxia's weakness. | | There are also other strategies you can mix into the battle at your | | own will. Most of these involve the use of Darkside. | | If you attack carefully and don't make an attempt to pummel Marluxia | | with Sonic Blade or the such, then he'll have a chance to use his own| | enemy card. This enemy card grants the Double Sleight effect -- it | | gives the ability of using the same sleight twice. Using Darkside | | when Marluxia has activated this enemy card would grant you that very| | ability. You can combine this with your most favorite sleights to pwn| | him with. Perhaps the most notable of these is Holy. Supposing you | | have the cards for two uses of Holy in your deck...you could get four| | uses out of this. While Marluxia resists sleights, it'll still do | | unholy (no pun intended) damage on him. The same can be used for more| | sleights such as Ars Arscanum. | | | | My recommended strategy for beating Marluxia would be the Sonic | | Beatdown deck. Basically, make a basic beatdown deck fit for the use | | of Sonic Blade. For example, make every set of cards to be like 8 | | Oblivion, 8 Oathkeeper, 7 Metal Chocobo. Do this a few times, then | | put in AT LEAST five 0's. These are nessecary for breaking Marluxia's| | sleights. Include as many Hi-Potions as you can afford (I used four),| | seven Cures (I was stuck with five), then at least one Elixer for | | when you've used too many Curaga sleights. You can then add in the | | cards for Holy and Darkside if you choose. If you don't have enough | | CP, then delete a set or two of attack cards to make enough. The five| | 0's and seven Cures are a must, though. I highly recommend the Elixer| | also. As for enemy cards, none have any real use here, other than | | Darkside as stated. Due to Marluxia's infrequent attacks and the fact| | that he VERY rarely interupts your combos, Jafar is next to useless | | here. | | | | When it comes to the actual battle, you'll want to start off with | | Sonic Blade, and use it over and over until he's around half beaten. | | From this point, use the battle strategy I recommended earlier, while| | keeping a 0 on hand at all times. The moment you have one 0 left, | | start recharging. There is a chance that Marluxia will use one of his| | sleights in the middle of your recharging, and you'll need a 0 on | | hand to break it. If you don't, then kiss your ass goodbye. I know I | | have already said this, but there has never been another boss where | | it was so urgent to ALWAYS break his sleights. | | You'll also find heavy use in Curaga (perhaps another reason Darkside| | may be useful?). Marluxia's attacks do heavy damage and will indeed | | add up over time. You can use Cures with little worry of him breaking| | it, but that uses them up quickly. Curaga is most recommended. | | If you decided to include Darkside and Holy, then you'll want to take| | advantage of this immediatly after Marluxia activates his enemy card.| | It doesn't matter at what point in the battle it is. I would highly | | recommend you wait to use Holy though until you can break one of his | | attacks with it. Marluxia's infrequency to attack produces little | | likeliness of him so much as attempting to break Holy, plus if you | | break his attack with it, he'll be left helpless long enough for it | | to start it's work. Marluxia DOES have 0 cards though, and you don't | | want him breaking it, especially if it's later in the battle. | | Remember through all of this not to let yourself get hit too much. | | Once more, Marluxia's basic attacks do dreadful damage, and they can | | quite easily kill you too. | | | | I usually don't say this, but I'd just test out whatever strategy you| | please for this boss. You only get to fight him once, and he's one of| | the most entertaining bosses in the entire game in my opinion, only | | surpassed by the final boss itself. This battle with Marluxia is the | | most difficult boss in Sora's story, and quite possibly the most | | difficult boss in the entire game. But it's really fun, so why not | | play around with it? Marluxia deserves more respect than that anyway.| \_______________________________________________________________________/ After beating Marluxia, you'll get his enemy card as a reward. If you like sleight heavy decks, you'll definitely find great use in this. You'll view another scene, then a save will appear in the room. Save here, as you are about to confront the final boss in the game. Actually, it's two boss battles in a row, and you'll get no break in between. Because of this, you'll need to prepare your deck for such. Actually, the deck I recommended for using against Marluxia previously should work just fine. You'll want to edit the items to make sure you have a Mega-Potion and a Megalixer too. The final battle specifically will take awhile, and you'll be recharging much more than most bosses generally will allow late game. Other than that, however, your deck should be fine. You probably won't need as many 0's either, but make sure you have at least three. But a Sonic Beatdown deck is what you'll want. This is the deck I used: 7 Oblivion 8 Oathkeeper 8 Crabclaw 6 Oblivion 9 Oathkeeper 7 Crabclaw 9 Oblivion 4 Oathkeeper 9 Crabclaw 9 Oblivion 4 Oathkeeper 9 Crabclaw 0 Kingdom Key 0 Three Wishes 0 Pumpkinhead 8 Hi-Potion 7 Hi-Potion 7 Elixer 9 Mega-Potion 8 Megalixer 9 Cure 9 Cure 8 Cure 6 Cure 5 Cure 6 Cure Make your deck something along the lines of that. When you're done with any last minute leveling (I did none), go over to the big door at the end of the room. It'll trigger a confirmation of if you really want to proceed into the final boss yet. Hit "It's our last battle!" to continue. After another awesome scene, you'll start the beginning of the final battle. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Marluxia II */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 61 | | Difficulty: Medium-High (7/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity, resists all elements and sleights. | | Sleights: None | | Drop: It's the final boss, no drop obviously. | | | | Hit Points: | | -Body: 7.20 bars | | -Arms: 1.60 bars each | | -Rose Buds: . 25 of a bar per set | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | Marluxia is quite a bit different this time around. First of all, he | | sits a-top a massive...machine, I think, the entire battle. Due to | | this, he isn't really a character enemy. He does not use sleights and| | does not have to recharge. I'm not even going to bother trying to | | describe that machine out either. Just note that it has two massive | | scythes for arms...arms with their own HP bar, which you will have to| | take out. | | This battle is definitely easier than the last. The main danger is at| | the beginning of the battle, when the machine's arms are still there.| | As such, you'll want to take them out first. | | Marluxia attacks a bit quicker now, and his attacks still do large | | portions of damage. The main damage caused will be done by the scythe| | arms though. | | | | Let's start with attacks. Marluxia himself uses a variety of attacks.| | With the first, he summons four rose buds on the field. As long as | | they are there, everytime Marluxia attacks, these rose buds will | | shoot several lasers out at you. Each time, it will cause significant| | damage. You'll have to attack the rose buds to rid yourself of them, | | and get Marluxia to use a different attack. The small bar of HP you | | see counts for all four rose buds, so attacking one of them rapidly | | will cause all four to perish. The four rose buds will also vanish by| | breaking Marluxia's attacks, as he attempts to attack with them. | | Marluxia's second attack is quite annoying. The battle will pause and| | you will get a quick scene where Marluxia starts forming a ball of | | darkness in his hands. During this scene, you can break the attack, | | which I recommend. When the attack is finished, the entire arena will| | be surrounded by a "world of darkness." As a result, your entire deck| | is hidden from you. You can't see what cards you're using. As I said,| | annoying. And no, it does not do any damage specifically. | | In his third attack, Marluxia will summon a few balls to rotate in | | front of his hands. One will shoot at you, and his next attacks will | | be another one of these balls shooting at you. When they do, it'll | | cause an energy blade shaped like an X to fire. It's easy to dodge. | | Also, it'll start with three of these balls, but increase as he loses| | health. | | His fourth attack is very similar to his second in the fact it has a | | scene with it. Instead of making a ball of darkness, the ball is of | | flower energy. You have time to break it during this scene, which you| | will want to do, as it's unavoidable. The flower ball will explode | | into many petals, which turn the walls white temporarily as they | | fall. You'll be hurt in the process of this. | | His fifth attack he only uses when both of his scythe-arms are gone. | | Simple enough, he charges straight into you across the field. As you | | can guess by the machine's size, it's hard to evade this. | | In his sixth attack, he jumps up out of range (machine and all), and | | falls down with the tail of the machine striking the ground. When it | | does, a large shockwave will emit across the ground. Large range, so | | it's very hard to evade. | | The scythes use the most dangerous attack though. It's basically like| | a rip-off of the Deathscythe sleight. He'll slash both scythes in the| | air, and it'll cause a shockwave from each scythe to flow through to | | the wall. These two shockwaves will explode into two lines of flower | | "flame". Since it happens right in front of him, it's much easier to | | dodge this attack than the sleight was. Still, it can be hard and it | | does mass amounts of damage. And to compensate for being only two | | simple shockwaves which explode, and being easier to follow, it's a | | regular attack. This means he can use it several times in a row. THIS| | is why you'll want to take out the two scythe-arms immediatly. | | Marluxia's other attacks can be annoying, but none are particularily | | deadly. | | | | Beating Marluxia this time really is not that hard. It can be a long | | battle though, since he's high up and hard to hit at times. And at | | low health, he tends to move around a lot, making him hard to hit. | | As you can guess, sleights (particularily Sonic Blade) are useless in| | this fight. So, you'll be forced to stick with basic attacks. | | Start the battle off immediatly by taking out the two scythe-arms. | | When they're around, you can easily die. Once knocked off, however, | | it's unlikely you'll lose as long as you keep an eye on your HP. The | | 0 cards won't have much use here, either. Simply enough, just attack | | Marluxia whenever you can with regular attacks. | | Curaga is also unnessecary here. Marluxia doesn't often use high | | value cards, so simple Cures should be fine. By now, you should have | | plenty of those which are of values 6 plus. | | After you take the scythes out, you should do fine. Just remember to | | keep an eye on your HP, and recharge when you run out of Cures. | | He was definitely harder in this version in the original Chain of | | Memories. I think he's intentionally easier here due to no longer | | being the very last battle. | \_______________________________________________________________________/ Immediatly after beating Marluxia in his giant machine or whatever the hell that is, you'll be thrown into the very last battle in the game. There is no save point in between, nor even a long enough break to rebuild your deck. Your deck will be refreshed, though, as if starting a new battle. _______________________________________________________________________ / \* */ \ | \* Marluxia III */ | | \*-------------------------*/ | |______________________\_________________________/______________________| | | | My level: 61 | | Difficulty: High (8/10) | | Weakness: None | | Absorbs: None | | Nullifies: Gravity, resists all elements and sleights. | | Sleights: | | -Gale of Severance: | | Cards used are 8-8-8 | | Marluxia will only use this when you're up close to him. It| | will blow you back to the end of the field. Since it's a | | large field, it's actually quite effective. It'll give him | | enough time to attack you without you being able to attack | | him. He'll use this sleight quite frequently as long as you| | remain close to him. The damage done is very little, as the| | attack isn't used for it's damage. | | -Whirlwind to the Void: | | Cards used are 7-7-7 | | This is possibly the most interesting attack in the game. | | When this sleight is used, Marluxia will spawn a giant | | flower pool. This flower pool moves very fast, and targets | | Sora. Once it hits him, it will grab him up then drop him. | | In this process, all of Sora's cards (including recharge | | bar) are scattered around him. You have to run around and | | pick them up all of the cards to use them. And yes, they | | come back in the same order as you put them. Marluxia will | | pause for a few seconds after using this sleight, giving | | you a bit of time to pick the cards up. It's not enough | | time to pick them all up though, so be prepared to start | | breaking once you get a few. This sleight also does very | | little damage. | | -Doom: | | Cards used are 6-6-6 | | Another very interesting sleight. In it, a timer will | | appear on the screen and count down to 0. During this time,| | Marluxia throws a total of six cards at you to break. This | | sleight is nearly unbreakable, because the attack travels | | incredibly fast. You'll have to be at the end of the field | | in order to stand a chance of breaking it. Therefore, you | | are practically forced to go through this "duel." What | | happens if you don't break all six cards in time? You're | | automatically killed. Thiat is correct, Marluxia uses an | | attack which calls you. Not stopable. Isn't that amazing? | | ...Yeah. The good thing about this is, the cards he throws | | at you are usually semi-low value. It shouldn't be hard to | | break them. You can also recharge during this, if you must.| | Be careful as the countdown still goes while you are | | recharging. This attack also does low damage. | | As a side note, I find it incredibly ironic that such a | | number is used for this attack. It's actually fitting. | | -Circle Reject: | | Cards used are 5-5-5 | | Marluxia's angel warps to the center of the field, and it | | hammers the end of it's scythe onto the ground, creating a | | massive aura to spiral around it, which covers the entire | | field. It's also very high, so jumping over it is next to | | impossible. Semi-large damage, break it if you think it's | | nessecary. | | -Omni Laser: | | Cards used are 4-4-4 | | This sleight really pisses me off. A giant ring appears | | around the ship, and it shoots like a dozen lasers in a | | semi-circle shape, and the ring rotates around Sora. It | | does repeated damage, and is generally enough to kill you, | | forcing you to re-do everything! And you can't break it | | during the attack, due to constantly receiving damage from | | the lasers. Fortunately, due to it's low value, practically| | any card combo you would be using could break it. If you | | see this in the corner, quickly sleight together ANYTHING | | to stop it! It has a long enough delay you should be able | | to, and Marluxia gives the attack away by first saying, | | "It's the beginning of the end." Plus, he'll use it in a | | predictable pattern. Prepare to break it right as you first| | hear that line. | | Drop: Do I even need to say anything? | | | | Hit Points: 9.75 bars | | | | ~~Strategy: | | | | "Your hopes are doomed to the darkness!" | | | | Marluxia is much different this time. Sora and him stand on top of a | | giant ship, and he now has a massive angel (look at that gigantic | | scythe!) behind him, who does a lot of attacking for him. Marluxia | | stands stationary at the end of the field during the entire battle. | | Gale of Severance takes care of that abuse though. | | This battle is one of the most entertaining in the game. Yes indeed, | | it is quite...interesting, to say the least. Very different. | | | | Marluxia's main attacks are his sleights. Marluxia will use them in | | a different way than any boss you've fought so far, in that he'll | | gather all three cards and use the sleight so quick it's like he's | | mashing his triangle button. You'll barely have time to see any of | | the sleights coming. But the real annoyance is the fact that Marluxia| | has the pros of a non-character and a character boss all in one. He | | can use sleights, but doesn't have to recharge (or if he does, he has| | an extremely massive deck that lasts for an insane amount of time, to| | the point of not ever seeing him recharge; I'd say you could treat | | this as not having to recharge). Due to having a seemingly limitless | | deck, he can therefore abuse sleights and not have to worry about | | running out of cards. And as such, he DOES abuse sleights. Especially| | at low health. I wonder if that angel behind him is responsible for | | this........ | | As a random fact, the sleights Marluxia use all use the same value | | for each card in the sleight. | | | | Marluxia only uses three attacks other than his sleights. The first | | is the most annoying. The angel behind Marluxia will appear on the | | left, right, or center behind Marluxia, and then slash his enormous | | scythe out to cause an energy blade the very size of that scythe to | | travel through the field. It seems that Deathscythe is Marluxia's | | signature technique, eh? As you can guess by the size of that thing, | | it can be hard to evade. It's only one shockwave though. It does | | moderately large damage. Nothing you can't handle. By the way, if the| | angel strikes from the left, the wave will cross from left to right | | and vice versa. | | With the second attack, Marluxia summons three rose buds the same way| | he did in the last battle. These rose buds fly all over around Sora, | | and will shoot at him. Destroy them accordingly as to the last fight.| | They have the same amount of HP. | | With the third attack, the screen will switch over to Marluxia who | | will charge a massive flower ball the same way he did last battle. | | The ball will explode, causing damage to Sora. It's basically the | | same attack. Still unavoidable. | | These attacks do moderate damage. Break them at your own will. His | | first attack I explained, I recommend breaking the most, however. | | | | First thing you'll need to know is this: this is a long battle, and | | quite possibly the longest so far. This is where the Mega-Potion and | | Megalixer show up. | | Sonic Blade has little use here. Marluxia resists the stun effect | | which is left behind between attacks, and he'll commonly break it | | with Gale of Severance in the middle of it. I swear, I think the game| | creators purposely made Marluxia in all three battles resistant to | | Sonic Blade. So, since Marluxia already resists Sonic Blade, and he | | can break it in the middle of it, there's no point in using it for | | main attacking purposes. What you'll want to do is this: run up to | | Marluxia and attack him as many times as possible before he uses one | | of his sleights on you. It's likely he'll interupt your combos a lot | | by the use of his own attacks. Once he uses one of his sleights, | | treat it accordingly. If it's Doom, break all of his attacks and run | | up to him to start attacking more. If he uses Whirlwind to the Void, | | run around and pick up your cards before continuing to attack. Make | | sure you have lock-on off, so you can see the entire field better. | | If he uses Gale of Severance, simply let it pass and run back up to | | him. | | | | During the first half of the battle, he'll switch back and forth | | between these, with attacks in between. However, once he reaches mid-| | low health, he'll add Circle Reject and Omni Laser to the variety. | | From this point, I noticed a pattern that works like this: | | He attacks attempts to use Doom either three times or until it is | | successful, whichever comes first. Then he'll attack a few times, and| | use Whirlwind to the Void. Just like Doom, he'll try it three times | | or until it's successful. Then he'll attack a few more times. After | | this, he uses Circle Reject three times, whether you break it or not.| | Then he'll use Omni Laser (no attacks in between this time). He'll | | attempt it three times. I'm not sure if he uses it three times, as I | | have never lived past the first use. After Omni Laser has failed, he | | uses Gale of Severence if you're up close, otherwise it goes back to | | Doom. | | The only opportunities you are given to attack are in between Doom | | and Whirlwind to the Void, and in between Whirlwind to the Void and | | Circle Reject. It is because of this that this boss can turn into | | quite a long battle. | | Attacking Marluxia before then is pretty straightforward. But once | | Circle Reject and Omni Laser are added, you will want to follow a set| | pattern to follow his. It's simple, really. | | Attack Marluxia in between those three attacks, while breaking Doom | | and Whirlwind to the Void if you wish. Once Circle Reject starts, you| | have two options: you can take the hits, while attempting to jump | | over it, or you can activate Sonic Blade. In doing so, it'll break | | Circle Reject, and Marluxia will be an utter noob and continue to try| | using it both of the next times. If Sonic Blade isn't still going, | | then repeat this for Omni Laser. Doing this is completely optional | | for Circle Reject, but it is a must for Omni Laser. Break the first | | Omni Laser, and Marluxia will continue attempting to use it until he | | has tried three times. After that, he'll use Gale of Severance to | | blow you away, followed by Doom. Sonic Blade will protect you from | | these annoyances, while still getting in just a little extra damage. | | And since Gale of Severance is the only attack of his which can break| | Sonic Blade, you CAN use Sonic Blade to break all of his sleights. | | Be warned, however, that you may run out of cards doing this, without| | anything to restore them. As I said, it's a long battle. | | The 0's are for breaking Omni Laser in case of the emergancy where | | he starts it and you don't have the cards to use Sonic Blade at hand.| | They should be used for this emergancy only. | | When you heal, use single Cure cards. You'll run out of Cure too fast| | if you rely on Curaga, and you'll be healing a lot. | | The Mega-Potion and Megalixer should only be used when your recharge | | bar is at three, you have no more Hi-Potions or Elixers, and you | | have run out of the ability to use Sonic Blade. (The reason you will | | want a Megalixer instead of two Mega-Potions is because you will need| | to use Curaga occasionally, when you run low on health and need to | | heal quickly.) | | | | It is a long battle, and it'll take some patience. But there isn't | | really anything you can do to make the battle easier. Marluxia is | | still weak to physical attacks, so it'll go faster than you may think| | right now. Some of it also depends on how you built your deck, and | | how often Marluxia will break your attacks with his. | | Don't bother with anything other than basic attacks for your damage | | output, though. There really isn't anything that works better. | | Be careful though...if you die here, you'll have to rebeat the last | | battle, too. And if you get caught in Omni Laser, you WILL die here. | | | | As a final boss, Marluxia holds up pretty well. Your first battle | | with Marluxia was more difficult, and can effectively be called the | | final boss, as he's the most difficult in the game like the final is | | supposed to be. Still, the fact you have to go through two bosses and| | this battle with Marluxia can take so much time, it is a commendable | | battle. Remember that, since he's the final boss, you can rebeat him | | over and over. Test out your own strategies. See what you like. It's | | a fun battle; just mess around with it a little. Have fun. | | | | "This...This is the heart of a hero..." | \_______________________________________________________________________/ After you drop Marluxia's HP to 0 for the third and final time, you'll get a really long scene comparable to that at the beginning of the game, then the credits will role. Congratulations, you just beat Re:Chain of Memories! After the credits are over, you'll see a screen showing your battle record. You'll be able to save here, too. Saving here marks the game as clear game status. This unlocks the theater mode, which allows you to view any scene in the game over again, and it also unlocks Reverse/Rebirth, which is Riku's story through Castle Oblivion. (You'll have to complete Reverse/Rebirth to get a few of the most powerful cards.) In addition, the clear gama data allows you to backtrack and get a few extra cards, most of these being in the Room of Rewards. A second chest will appear in it, which contains a new card for you to grab. You'll have to unlock it over again, though. These are the new cards you can get with the clear game status: Hidden Dragon (Traverse Town, Calm Bounty room) Saix enemy card (Traverse Town, Room of Rewards) Luxord enemy card (Agrabah, Room of Rewards) Bond of Flame (Halloween Town, Room of Rewards) Monochrome (Olympus Coliseum, Room of Rewards) Xaldin enemy card (Monstro, Room of Rewards) Xemnas enemy card (Wonderland, Room of Rewards) Demyx enemy card (Atlantica, Room of Rewards) Follow the Wind (Neverland, Room of Rewards) Xigbar enemy card (Hollow Bastion, Room of Rewards) Roxas enemy card (Twilight Town, Room of Rewards) Photon Debugger (Destiny Islands, Room of Rewards) Star Seeker (Castle Oblivion, Room of Rewards) As for the post-Reverse/Rebirth only cards, they are as follows: Zexion enemy card Lexaeus enemy card Ansem enemy card Diamond Dust One-Winged Angel Ultima Weapon Zexion is obtained in a chest (e.g. Calm Bounty room) in Destiny Islands. Ansem and One-Winged Angel are found in chests in Twilight Town. Lexaeus, Diamond Dust, and Ultima Weapon are all found in chests in Castle Oblivion. If you created a clear game data, then pressing New Game will give the option to start as Riku. This will start Reverse/Rebirth mode. Good luck! ____________________________________________________________________________ | _________________________ faq4nub | *=======================// \\========================* | | FAQ | | *=======================\\_________________________//========================* |____________________________________________________________________________| No information here for now. :D Hopefully it'll stay that way for awhile. And yes, that title is awkwardly short. Frequently Asked Questions wouldn't fit properly. ____________________________________________________________________________ | _________________________ manythanks | *=======================// \\========================* | | Acknowledgements | | *=======================\\_________________________//========================* |____________________________________________________________________________| ~~ God, and my Savior: -Without my Lord, I wouldn't even have had any inspiration, let alone the thoughts for this guide. Seriously, all credit of everything I do, including this FAQ/Walkthrough goes to Him. ~~ My girlfriend, Maria: -For being so tolerant of me, when I was spacing her off to work on this guide. Also for pushing me to complete it the few times she had to. I dedicate it to her -- without her, I don't think I would have gotten this far on it. I love you, Maria. ~~ The many users of the GameFAQs boards for Re:Chain of Memories: -I used the boards frequently for confirming facts on my guide (I like to be accurate), and a bit of the information I have even came from there. There are far too many users who contributed to list, but I thank you all for helping. ~~ Square Enix and Disney -There wouldn't be a game to write a guide for if it weren't for these two companies. Large amounts of appreciation goes to them, especially for finally releasing this game in America. ____________________________________________________________________________ | _________________________ faq4nub | *=======================// \\========================* | | Final Statements | | *=======================\\_________________________//========================* |____________________________________________________________________________| Due to this guide being unfinished, I should say that final statements are not yet worthy. Except for the fact you all should know that this guide WILL be finished someday. Just wait for me to get my motivation back...A little time would help as well. Sorry for the inconviences.