Kingdom Hearts II / Tropes A to L

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Tropes A to L | Tropes M to Z

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• 11th-Hour Ranger: Riku joins the party just before the final gauntlet of boss fights against Xemnas.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: During the final battles (starting with the dragon), the player has access to the MAX versions of all Growth abilities (High Jump, Glide, etc), regardless of the status of their respective Drive Forms (each form has one Growth ability that levels with it) or what Sora has equipped. Maxed out Drive Forms will make use of a secret 5th level that's a lot more powerful than the 4th. The very final level will grant a secret secret 6th level of each Growth ability. At that point, the game pulls out all the stops and gives infinite duration for the Double Jump and Glide, which gives complete and infinite mobility in the air.
• 100% Completion: To get the final movie you must do several things. Unlock all the worlds. You have to complete Jiminy's Journal, which includes collecting all synthesis items, which are often quite rare monster drops and take a long time to find. And then you need to find enough to synthesize all the items too. You also need to level all your drives and summons up to Level 7 (very difficult with Final Form, as it requires defeating 500 nobodies in total while transformed), and then beat the Hades Paradox Cup with 15,000 points. However, on Proud mode you just have to unlock the worlds.
• A.I. Breaker:
  • Luxord will refuse to attack after triggering his ultimate attack's Reaction Command (the one where he surrounds Sora with a wall of cards) until Sora moves. If you have a good lead in Time after he uses it, you can just stand there and wait for his Time to run out without being threatened.
  • Gummi Heartless will aim at the exact center of your ship. However, your actual hitbox is determined based on the actual shape you've placed your ship parts in. Therefore, making a donut-shaped ship with a giant hole in the center causes them to miss far more often than they should.
  • Using the Reaction Command during the Roxas fight in Final Mix allows Sora to steal Roxas's keyblades, which do passive damage with every action Sora takes. If Roxas is backed against the edge of the arena, Sora can repeatedly use Quick Run to deal chip damage without ever hitting Roxas's revenge value and allowing him to retaliate.
• Ability Required to Proceed:
  • As you play through the story of Atalantica, Sora and co. will either come across obstacles that impede progress or they are given a task they cannot complete. The game will then prompt you to come back after Sora learns a spell at a minimum level (e.g. Magnera) to proceed.
  • The Cavern of Remembrance in Final Mix cannot be fully explored until all Growth abilities are maxed out (done via leveling up the Drive Forms), as there are some instances of platforming that require their specialized movement.
• Absurdly High Level Cap: The game lets Sora and co. go up to Level 99, but it only recommends getting to Level 50 before entering The World That Never Was, The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. However, the bonus content, especially the Final Mix additions, is difficult enough where hitting the level cap is almost necessary to stand a chance.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The Keyblade is shown to be able to cut through buildings during a couple cinematic Reaction Commands.
• Accidental Misnaming: On the second visit to Port Royal, Jack Sparrow refers to Sora as "Zola". Sora gets annoyed and corrects him. He also calls Sora by other names, namely "Nora" or "Dora", in the novel adaptation.
• Accomplice by Inaction: During the first visit to the Land of Dragons, when Mulan is exposed as a woman, Shang realizes that Sora, Donald and Goofy knew the truth and kept it from him, so he gives them the same punishment.
• Action Bomb: The Minute Bomb, a small Heartless with a shell that resembles a stereotypical bomb. True to form, their main method of attack is to blow themselves up. Casting Fire magic on one will cause it to detonate immediately.
• Action Commands: The combat in the game features Reaction Commands: at certain points during a battle, a prompt to press Triangle will appear, and doing so in time will cause Sora to perform a special move that is usually advantageous. Certain bosses can't be defeated without utilizing them, and most enemies have at least one Reaction Command associated with them. For example, at certain points when fighting Samurai Nobodies, the player is given the prompt to enter a "Duel Stance". Doing so locks Sora and the Samurai in a stand-off, where the command list goes blank and the player has to quickly pick the "The End" option when it appears; succeeding instantly defeats the Samurai, whereas failing causes Sora to take a heavy hit.
• Actionized Sequel: The combat system has been expanded and improved on for more impressive fights, and the first game's platforming elements have been significantly toned down in favor of more action.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • The musical in Atlantica. In The Little Mermaid (1989), it only appeared near the beginning, and is rarely mentioned afterwards. In the games, it becomes an important part of the world's plot, and is moved to the end and Ariel is present, this time.
  • The Nightmare Before Christmas adds a new story set after the film where Dr. Finklestein’s experiment comes to life and starts stealing Christmas presents.
  • The Lion King features an interquel set in between the first and second film in which Simba is insecure about his role as king and Scar comes back as a ghost.
  • Mulan features a segment set after the film where Xigbar turns a dragon into a Heartless which attacks the Emperor’s palace.
  • In the Beauty and the Beast world, Xaldin steals Beast’s rose and kidnaps Belle to try and manipulate Beast into becoming a Heartless.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication:
  • The events in Atlantica are an extremely condensed retelling of The Little Mermaid (1989) in musical form; how Prince Eric knows Ariel's name even though she's mute at the time is never explained (in the film, Sebastian tells him her name during the "Kiss the Girl" sequence, which is cut from the game). This example only applies to the English dub, as she does tell him her name shortly after regaining her voice in the Japanese version.
  • In Port Royal, it is not explained why Will Turner freed Jack Sparrow from prison before Sparrow agreed to help rescue Elizabeth.
  • The plot of The Nightmare Before Christmas is heavily implied to have happened before the game since Santa Claus is obviously apprehensive of Jack Skellington, but the only explanation given by him about Santa's attitude is that "It's a long story."
• Adaptation Deviation: In Hercules, the titular hero's first battle with the Hydra is the moment that he cements himself in the eyes of the public as a hero. In Kingdom Hearts II, his inability to defeat the Hydra results in a Heroic BSoD that has him doubting his ability to protect anyone.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Atlantica adapts The Little Mermaid (1989) in full this time, causing some plot holes in the process due to Atlantica being visited the first time around. As Sora and Ariel battled and seemingly killed Ursula in the first game, it is inexplicable when not only does Ursula shows up to offer her deal to Ariel like in the film, but Ariel accepts the deal without a second thought despite having been down this road before. It only serves to make Ariel look like an idiot.
• Adapted Out:
  • The Hun army from Mulan has been completely replaced with Heartless.
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl characters Jack the Monkey, Gibbs, Cotton, and Marty do not show up in Port Royal. While Barbossa still has crew, the unique characters like Pintel and Ragetti do not appear and they're all generic pirate mooks. In addition, Commodore James Norrington doesn't appear in person, but small messages left by him adorn the cannons on the Rampart. Governor Weatherby Swann is also absent.
  • Since Gaston's role as Beast's personal antagonist is played by Xaldin, Gaston doesn't appear at all in Beast's Castle. The rest of the human characters from Beauty and the Beast are also absent since Belle's hometown is never visited.
  • Zazu and Simba's mother Sarabi are absent from the world based on The Lion King (1994).
  • Apart from Tron, Sark, and the MCP, every other named character from TRON is missing in the Space Paranoids setting.
  • Once again, the Sultan of Agrabah and Rajah are absent from the Aladdin world. As well as Abis Mal, who also played a role in the events depicted.
  • Grimsby, Max, Scuttle, and Chef Louie are absent from the retelling of The Little Mermaid (1989). Justified for the human characters in that Sora and company can't leave the ocean.
• Aerith and Bob: The apprentices to Ansem the Wise are named Xehanort, Braig, Aeleus, Ienzo... then there's Dilan and Even.
• Afterlife Express: One of The Seven Mysteries of Twilight Town. It turns out to be a magic train that carries people to the Mysterious Tower, home of Yen Sid.
• Akashic Records: The Bookmaster Heartless drop a shield that Goofy can use called the Akashic Records. It looks like a book, but it is not disclosed if it is actually the mythical "record of everything" or not.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • After Sora and co. defeat the Experiment and return the presents it stole, Santa Claus speculates that it only took them because it believed the joy associated with gifts would somehow give it a heart. Dr. Finklestein backs this up by mentioning he failed to provide the Experiment with a heart during the creation process.
  • As Saïx is fading away after his defeat, he mournfully asks Kingdom Hearts where his heart is.
• All for Nothing:
  • When “Ansem”’s true nature is revealed, Sora, Donald and Goofy lament that they went through so much just to kill someone who was the wrong guy. Mickey makes it clear this trope is Averted, however; yes, “Ansem” was an impostor, but he was still a dangerous, world-ending threat to the Realm of Light that needed to be stopped nonetheless.
  • Sora worries this is the case after battling the massive horde of Heartless at Hollow Bastion to protect his friends there, only for Axel to tell him that destroying all of those Heartless played right into Xemnas's hands, and that the more Heartless he defeats the more he's helping Organization XIII to accomplish their own goals. He nearly surrenders himself to the Heartless after this fact, only for Maleficent to bail him out by pulling him into the realm of darkness. It takes Goofy reminding him that in spite of Organization XIII's plans, they still need to fight the Heartless, or else they'll keep hurting people without him doing anything about it.
  Sora: Maybe all we've done... Maybe it was for nothing. What am I supposed to do if I can't use the Keyblade?!
• All in a Row: When you enter an area without Heartless-encounters, Donald, Goofy and any world specific Party Member will start to act like NPCs and kinda do their own thing, instead of following Sora around. This also gives Sora a chance to talk to them.
• All There in the Script:
  • Luxord, Xigbar, and Demyx are never called by name (save for a Final Mix+ scene, in which someone says Demyx's), but you see their names in Jiminy's Journal. Later games do call them by name. This also led fans to assume Luxord's name is pronounced "Luck-sord" instead of "Luke-sord" for the longest time before III corrected this.
  • The Heartless bosses. Darkside, Guard Armor, Trickmaster, Stealth Sneak... They can all be found in the journal, but other than that...
• All Your Powers Combined:
  • Sora's Drive Forms each focus on enhancing something. Valor Form gets a melee power boost, extended melee combos, and Dual Wielding; Wisdom Form gets a magic power boost, enhanced aerial speed, and causes Sora to appear to hover above the ground; Master Form gets enhanced magic casting, dual wielding (again), crowd control melee, and enhanced aerial maneuverability. Final Form combines aspects of each of the previous forms: extended crowd control melee combos with more power, enhanced magic casting with a power boost, aerial speed and maneuverability, dual wielding (plus a pair of floating silver orbs of light), and Sora hovers above the ground and controls his Keyblades with telekinesis.
  • The Prison Keeper's attacks are based off of whichever one of Lock, Shock, or Barrel it currently has in its mouth. Once its HP gets low, it swallows all 3 kids and gains access to its entire arsenal.
  • In the first fight against Armored Controller Xemnas, he sits on a throne surrounded by the weapons used by the other Organization members (except Roxas). Most of his attacks during this fight utilize the weapons.
• Always Night: Port Royal is always set at night so that "the moonlight shows us for what we really are" is in effect for the cursed crew.
• Always Second Best: By this game, Riku gotten over this thanks to Character Development (and nearly helping the Big Bad destroy the Worlds in the first game, that's a big wake-up call) and admits to Sora while they're trapped in the Realm of Darkness after beating Xemnas that he considers himself to be inferior to Sora since the former doesn't worry about being the best and just follows his heart.
• Always Someone Better: Riku is hinted to have always been able to outdo the main character Sora, something the latter admits at the end of this game. Riku is a case of I Just Want to Be Special and grows jealous that Sora is The Chosen One because of the Keyblade going to him, even though both are able to wield it. The two are also in a Love Triangle with their mutual Childhood Friend Kairi, who loses her heart for most of the first game but only Riku is working to save her and he believes that Sora has abandoned them for his new friends. These factors lead to him embracing the powers of darkness and taking the Keyblade from Sora to achieve all of his goals but Sora is able to reclaim the Keyblade and fight him off. By this point, The Dark Side Will Make You Forget has taken effect, leading Riku to on even more power from the darkness and allowing the Big Bad to take over his body while his heart is lost to darkness. By the end of the game, he admits to how he sees Sora in this way compared to himself and goes on in the later games to acknowledge that Sora is the one they need while his capabilities are devoted to supporting him.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield:
  • The first Xemnas battle takes place in Memory's Contortion, a rainy version of Memory's Skyscraper that just has the one building with wavering images of a city off in the distance.
  • The second battle against Armored Xemnas happens in a crumbling version of the World that Never Was with colorful surfaces and streams of energy that feed into a black hole at the far end. This is followed immediately by Xemnas's final battle, which takes place in a gray void full of patterned vortices.
  • Sora and Axel fight a swarm of lesser Nobodies in Betwixt and Between, which is the abstract interior of a portal between the virtual Twilight Town and the World the Never Was. It's a vortex full of streaming Nobody symbols, some of which somehow form a solid floor.
  • The Paradox Cup battles in Olympus Coliseum are all set on platforms in a swirly green vortex that may or may not be inside the Well of Souls.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: The player spends the first few hours of the game controlling Roxas before resuming control as Sora from the first game. All of Roxas' stats are transferred to Sora after the switch. Additionally, during the final boss battle, the player character briefly switches to Riku after Sora is grabbed and starts having his energy drained by Xemnas. Also, if Sora falls during specific boss fights, Mickey will leap in action to save him, under the player's control (though he lacks a finishing move and must revive Sora to deal the final blow).
• And the Adventure Continues: The series (and the franchise, if the ending stuck) would have ended with the Destiny Trio getting what they deserved...if it hadn’t been for King Mickey’s letter.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: The Proofs of Peace (beating the Mushroom XIII), Connection (beating the Lingering Will), and Nonexistence (beating all the Data-Organization XIII) in Final Mix each give Sora a bronze crown. Collecting two makes the crown silver and collecting all three makes it gold.
• Anger Born of Worry: At one point in the game, Goofy gets bashed in the head by a rock and apparently killed. One battle with Heartless later, Goofy turns up alive and well, having just been knocked out. Donald's response is to whack Goofy in the kneecap with his staff.
  Donald: Don't you ever do that again!
• Animated Armor:
  • The suits of armor in Beast's Castle are fully mobile due to the enchantment, though they are only seen moving once when Cogsworth asks them to.
  • Contrary to what Jiminy's Journal says, the Lingering Will is an empty suit of armor that's possessed by Terra's mind.
• Anime Hair: Lampshaded. When the party meets Tifa, she tells them that she's looking for someone with spiky hair (i.e. Cloud). Donald and Goofy immediately stare at Sora, who self-consciously tugs on one of his spikes.
  Tifa: Spikier.
• Animesque: Inverted, considering the game was developed in Japan. The character design of Sora that Tetsuya Nomura created for the Timeless River world (based off the cartoon short Steamboat Willie and other shorts during the 1930s) makes him resemble a cartoon character from The Silent Age of Animation (Rubber-Hose Limbs and all).
• Animorphism: One of the visitable worlds is the Pride Lands. While there, Sora is transformed into a brown lion cub thanks to his clothes. Goofy and Donald are also transformed into, respectively, a tortoise and a bird... that can actually fly.
• Antepiece: The tutorial section with Roxas makes great pains to get you prepared for all sorts of situations later in the game by practicing on mundane tasks. Almost all the jobs and wonders of Twilight Town each introduce and let you practice a concept while you're currently in no danger of game over. Every one of these concepts become important in the later parts of the game, especially on higher difficulties.
  • Cargo Climb is not only about making sure you're attacking from the right position, but also introduces Revenge Counters and reacting properly to them- in this case, parrying, which clears the mini game faster and gets you more money.
  • Grandstander is blatant in what it lets you practice: air combos. You get scored on how many hits you get before the ball touches the ground, getting you more money.
  • Poster Duty is a platforming exercise- you have to jump around to all the poster spots in town without worrying about enemies or fights. You can also come across trios of posters that can be gotten in sequence, demonstrating that Reaction Commands can be chained together.
  • Bumble Buster pits you against waves of enemies that spawn in groups but whose attacks don't do any damage, they merely slow you down, letting you practice efficient crowd control.
  • Junk Sweep is similar, but since it scores you more for using fewer attacks, on targets that can only be destroyed with combo finishers, you're taught the importance of combo finishers in crowd control and repositioning your targets.
  • Mail Delivery is a simple exercise in Reaction Commands; the window you have for delivering the mail is very short if you go by the target at full speed, but the only penalty for missing the window is having to backtrack and losing a couple seconds on the clock.
  • The Friend Beyond The Wall not only teaches you about dodging attacks while closing in on a target without any worry of taking damage, it also teaches you the importance of the recently learned Aerial Recovery ability, which not only helps you regain control after getting launched, it also parries the balls.
  • The Moan From The Tunnel is a slightly harder version of Bumble Buster. This time you have many more enemies with stronger attacks appearing faster, but since they all have 1 HP, you can keep yourself from getting overwhelmed by properly practicing your crowd control skills.
  • The Doppelganger puts you in a one-on-one fight on an enemy with equal footing, but there still isn't any worry of game over, and his attack pattern makes it easy to land parries on him if you're aggressive, showing you how important parries are against individual enemies.
  • The Animated Bag is another Reaction Command exercise. This time, the window to pull one off is smaller, but paying attention to the animation of the bag lets you know when a Reaction Command will come up, making it much easier to pull one off if you're paying attention.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • During the prologue, the Nobodies you fight drop health and money pick-ups, when throughout the rest of the game they only drop MP orbs. This is a necessary exception so that players don't need to rely entirely on Potions for healing, and don't start the main game with an empty wallet.
  • Treasure chests found in the data Twilight Town aren't included in Jiminy's Journal. While this also makes sense for Gameplay and Story Integration, because the data Twilight Town can't be revisited except for a couple of rooms, this means you aren't locked out of filling the journal if you miss any chests when playing the prologue.
  • Dying during a Boss Fight usually has you continue in the last area where you have complete control of Sora, which is generally the beginning of whatever room came before the boss you died to. The last stretch of the game is a Sequential Boss with a Point of No Return, so dying during one of the fights just starts you at the beginning of whatever phase you died at.
  • Riku cannot die during the Final Boss fight outside of Xemnas' final attack, as he temporarily becomes playable if Xemnas uses a move that traps Sora.
  • During the Optional Boss battle against the Data version of Saix, the amount of time the claymores stay on the field is reduced from ten seconds to about one second. They're also necessary to snap Saix out of his berserker mode, as his berserk gauge doesn't decrease over time as it did before. As compensation, Sora is now invulnerable once he grabs a claymore in the Data battle, making knocking Saix out of his berserk state much easier.
  • Unlike other Drive Forms, Anti-Form can't be manually deactivated when in combat, as it was designed to be a "powerful, but troublesome" form that the player triggers by accident. Anti-Form is a Glass Cannon of the first order that has no movement abilities and can't heal, but has immense power. If Sora is still in Anti-Form after a combat encounter ends, a player is allowed to manually cancel it to prevent a situation that's Unintentionally Unwinnable.
  • Bosses in this game can only be defeated by magic or combo finishers. Other attacks will hit, but never drain their health below 1. To compensate for this, many bosses, especially humanoid ones, will change their A.I. pattern when at 1 HP to one that's far more limited and mainly consists of them standing still and occasionally using a weak attack, which removes the potential for an unfair death at the hands of this mechanic.
• Anti-Grinding: There's a grinding cap for Drive Forms and Summons that is tied to how many forms/summons are unlocked.
  • In the original game, the caps were raised by 1 for each subsequent summon or form gained, with the cap maxing out at 7 when all forms and summons were obtained.
  • In Final Mix+/2.5 Remix, the caps raise the same way (with an additional level added for Limit form, making it linear to 6 for Drive Forms), before the level cap is raised to Level 9 for each form/summon once all summons and forms have been acquired.
• Anti-Villain:
  • The Experiment only stole the presents because it felt incomplete and wanted a heart, thinking that they would provide it with one somehow.
  • Most of the members of Organization XIII want to regain their hearts so they can become complete beings again. To this end they antagonize Sora into killing Heartless, releasing their hearts and letting the Nobodies collect them to form Kingdom Hearts.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Outside of Sora (who is mandatory as the Player Character), only 2 other characters can be active in the party when you will occasionally have access to 3. No reason is given as to why you can't have all 3 out.
• Arbitrary Mission Restriction: The EX versions of Gummi Missions place certain restrictions on you, such as using specific blueprints or having a set amount of a single type of part equipped.
• Argument of Contradictions: In an homage to the Disney Sleeping Beauty, the fairies Flora, Fauna and Merryweather disagree over the color of Sora's new outfit, before finally landing on a stylish multi-colored outfit that can transform into other outfits patterned after a single color that give Sora special powers.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Some enemies, such as Large Bodies and Berserkers, automatically deflect attacks from the front. Reaction Commands, Magic, Limits, Explosion, and Guard Break will pierce their defenses and deal damage.
• Armor-Piercing Question: The final boss, Xemnas, addresses both Sora and Riku during the battle: "Sora, are you certain you can trust Riku? Riku, are you sure you are not jealous of Sora?" Although Xemnas fails to undermine Sora's trust, his words have an effect on Riku; after the battle, Riku recants his earlier statement that he had always thought he was better than Sora, finally admitting that he had actually been jealous.
• Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving: The end of the first Land of Dragons quest features most of a quote from Mulan, with Sora thinking that everyone is in trouble and interrupting:
  The Emperor: I've heard a great deal about you, Fa Mulan. You stole your father's armor, ran away from home, impersonated an Imperial soldier. You deceived your commanding officer, shamed the entire Chinese Army and dishonored your family name.
  Sora: We get the picture...
  The Emperor: You're a young woman. And in the end... you have saved us all.
• The Artifact: The Sweet Memories Keyblade, like every Keyblade, has unique particle effects when it hits something, in this case honeybees and four-leaf clovers, the latter of which represent its equipment ability, Lucky Lucky. Starting in Final Mix and in all subsequent releases, its ability is Drive Converter instead, but the clovers still remain.
• Artifact Mook: Any of the Nobody Elite Mooks eventually becomes this once their respective Organization XIII leaders are defeated. While it makes sense for them to show up in the final dungeon by themselves (as it is supposed to be their homeworld), they can still show up in the regular worlds for no particular reason, usually in the area you first find them.
• Artifact of Hope: The Cornerstone of Light is a sacred relic that can be found in Disney Castle, a massive Crystal Ball-like artifact the exudes a constant aura of light so strong, it keeps out all invading forces that threaten it. With the Cornerstone active, Disney Castle is the only world the Heartless (and Maleficent) can't invade.
• Artificial Stupidity: Like in the first game the partner AI is simply abysmal. They have a tendency to waste all of their magic and skills the moment a fight starts with anything. Donald is the worst in this department; he'll spend all of his MP in five seconds flat if he's allowed to use his attack spells. They also like to just stand there doing nothing for 2/3rds of any given fight. Their pattern is basically "attack, step back, wait two seconds, repeat", meaning they take a boatload of hits from enemies since they basically never guard, even if you tell them to. Elemental attackers just fire off random spells, often resulting in them casting spells that do no damage on enemies strong against whatever they randomly chose.
• Artistic License – Physics: Sometimes the rules of Physics like to take a day off. When facing Xemnas they go get popcorn. Highlights include: Flying, running upside buildings, fighting literally nowhere, using the keyblade to cut buildings in multiple pieces from far away with clean cuts, hitting the pieces towards Xemnas, walking on literally nothing (again), and knockback.
• Art Shift:
  • Timeless River is based off of the Disney shorts from The Golden Age of Animation, so the character designs are much more simplistic and the color scheme is purely monochrome. Sora is also designed after early anime and manga character designs from the 60s.
  • The world Port Royal is based off of the live action movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl instead of the series' standard fare of using Disney's animated films for locations, thus it has a darker and much more realistic style than the rest. This is Lampshaded by Sora and co. noting how it feels different when they first enter.
  • Halloween Town employs a filter to ensure all of the characters appear more grainy, making everything look more in line with the general aesthetic used by The Nightmare Before Christmas and its stop-motion animation.
• Ascended Extra: Simba goes from summon to party member in this game. Mushu also ascends by virtue of actually playing a role in the plot, but is less of a presence in battle, going from a summon to only appearing in Mulan's Limit Break.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: When Will Turner asks if the clearly dangerous Organization XIII will hurt the townsfolk of Port Royal, Jack Sparrow sarcastically quips that they're only there to hand out flowers.
• A Taste of Power:
  • Inverted and downplayed during the prologue, where Roxas emulates Sora's basic KH1 combos. His attacks are a bit too slow, he always uses always the same 3 attacks in sequence, and he always ends with a horizontal sweep that often misses enemies above or below him. That last part is reinforced when enemies are walking upside down above his head. This leaves him feeling somewhat awkward and clunky.
  • Sora on the other hand has an evolved version of his old combos. He attacks more rapidly, his second attack actually hits twice, and he actually uses a different finisher in context to enemy positioning. For example, when on the ground he leaps forward with a downward strike for extra range or goes back to the sweep when he is surrounded. This immediately makes him feel stronger and more comfortable to use despite sharing the same stats as Roxas and having no extra abilities.
  • As a straighter example, the last major battle of the prologue (the second battle against Axel) gives Roxas a significant power boost for the duration of the fight, including allowing him to dual wield what are otherwise late-game keyblades (Sora can only dual wield while using certain drive forms).
  • During Roxas's boss fight in the Updated Re-release, it's possible to steal his Keyblades, which then follow Sora around in a glowy spectral form and enhance his combos with some of Final Form's attacks.
• Attack Drone:
  • "Teeny Ships", smaller ships that fly arround your Gummi Ship in formation and fire when it the main ship does.
  • Terra/Lingering Sentiment in Final Mix has an attack where he sends out several drones to surround you from different angles and shoot lasers. They chase you down, and move very quickly, even zig-zagging over your head before firing, but can be dealt with using Reflega or even jumping into them before they fire. They also disappear after a while if you didn't destroy them.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Several Heartless bosses, most noticeably the Groundshaker in the Pride Lands, are this. There's also the battles with Genie Jafar in Agrabah, and Sark and the Master Control Program in Space Paranoids.
• Attack Reflector: The Reflect line of spells casts a spherical shell around Sora, negating any damage for a split second before inflicting identical damage to any enemies in range through energy bursts. Even the highest level of the spell has a fairly small range, so it doesn't often hurt long range attackers, but this is made up for by the fact that the reflected attack can damage as many enemies as it can reach. (It ends up being a great way to do a lot of damage to Sephiroth.)
• Auto-Revive: If Sora dies while the Peter Pan Summon is active, Tinker Bell will revive him to full health. It only works once per Summon, and she disappears after reviving him.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The Final Mix version adds five equipment pieces based on the weapons of the five Organization members that were killed in Chain of Memories, which is very cool, but the catch is being able to craft them. The recipes are dropped by the owner's Absent Silhouette, so you won't unlock them until late in the game, and they all need Illusion, Tranquility and/or Remembrance materials, which are rare — Tranquility materials are farmed from the Mushroom XIII, Remembrace materials from the high-powered enemies in the Cavern of Remembrance, and Illusion materials are extremely rare and only farmable from the Data rematches. In other words, by the time you can reliably get all the items needed to craft them, you're probably well into the end game content, and these items are only going to appeal to someone interested in Min-Maxing Sora, because the advantages they give over other items are negotiable.[[/note]]^note Full Bloom and Shadow Archive grant MP Haste and give 3 Strength and Magic, respectively, but there are several other accessories that give 2 in those stats and are much easier to synthesize.
  • Particular mention to the Centurion, Donald's staff that is based on Lexaeus's Skysplitter axe. It has the highest Strength boost of any weapon in the game, but its Magic boost is mediocre and it has no ability attached; Donald is a Squishy Wizard, so this weapon's strengths run completely counter to how he fights. The "+" version comes with the Damage Control ability, allowing Donald to take half damage at critical health, but he's so frail that it probably won't make a difference.
• Ax-Crazy: Saïx — he's typically a calm, collected fellow, but in berserk mode, he's a Screaming Warrior that is utterly relentless.
• Back for the Dead: Axel's appearance was originally meant to be this at the very end of the prologue compared to Chain of Memories, but his popularity as a character convinced the developers to keep him around later in the story.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Leon and Cloud during the Heartless invasion. Sora does it with a few different people over the course of the game (it's even a part of his Combination Attack with some of them).
• Badass in Distress: Sora, Donald and Goofy, when left tied up on the Interceptor, and later on, when they get arrested and zapped into a computer world. In both cases, the party member of the respective worlds help them escape. There is also their encounter with the hyenas — if it were not for Scar, they would've wound up as food. Sora also finds himself being choked to death by Flotsam and Jetsam when they restrain him during "Ursula's Revenge". His friends save him in the nick of time. There's also a sequence in the final battle where Riku has to save Sora from getting his energy drained by Xemnas.
• Bag of Spilling: Sora has forgotten all of his magic, which Merlin is not happy about, and most of his other tricks from Kingdom Hearts. It's implied that this was caused by having his memory wiped and re-assembled.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: King Mickey refuses to break his promise to Riku regarding his Ansem form. Sora spends the entire game looking for Riku, and when he finds out about the promise...
  Sora: (annoyed) You made a promise to Riku? ("cheerfully") So he's okay! I can see him again!
• Balance Buff:
  • The animation for using items in battle - such as Potions - is a lot shorter than Kingdom Hearts, making them much easier to utilize without getting interrupted.
  • The international version of the game increases the damage of the Reflect spell from the original Japanese version, while the Final Mix version increases it even further.
• Balloonacy: The first mini-game in the Hundred Acre Wood requires Sora to use a balloon to save Piglet from a hurricane while scoring 18,000 points for the journal.
• Ballroom Blitz: The boss fight of your first visit to the Beauty and the Beast level takes place in the iconic ballroom. By your second visit, they've got around to the actual dance scene — but it's interrupted by Xaldin, who kidnaps Belle and lures everyone outside.
• Bash Brothers: Sora and any party member can unleash Limits that can bring a world of hurt onto their foes. Special mention should go to Sora and Riku's limit Session, which ends with an offhand Fist Bump.
• Batman Gambit: Organization XIII's plan relies entirely on Sora killing Heartless, which lets them collect the hearts released by the Keyblade. Even when Sora finds out the plan, he's compelled by his conscience to continue helping peopling being terrorized by the Heartless.
• Bat Out of Hell: The game introduces the Hook Bat Heartless, which appears in swarms and uses sound attacks. Reaction commands let you use them to pull Grievous Harm with a Body. The Final Mix version of the game introduces its Palette Swap, the Beffudler.
• Battle Amongst the Flames: The last boss fight you play as Roxas. At some points, you're even running on the fire to do a reaction command.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind:
  • The very first boss is against the Twilight Thorn in the Station of Awakening, a location that is heavily implied to be a person's heart. The giant Nobody is trying to subdue Roxas so he can be returned to the Organization.
  • Near the end of the game, Roxas senses Axel's sacrifice and wakes up in response, making his existence known to Sora. The two end up fighting within Sora's heart as Roxas tries for one last chance to be a real person.
• Battleship Raid:
  • The Phantom Storm Gummi Mission involves an encounter with a huge Heartless pirate ship on the way to Olympus Coliseum. You can try to destroy it or just survive until the end of the mission.
  • The final Gummi Mission, Assault of the Dreadnought, is a homage to the Death Star II battle in Return of the Jedi. Sora and co. fight past a huge armada of Nobody ships and eventually enter the inside of the flagship to destroy its core.
  • Like the World of Chaos in the first game, the Final Boss on II is Xemnas' part-dragon, part-castle battleship. Unlike I, "World Of Nothingness" is the area it is fought, not the ship.
• Beam-O-War: The "Session" reaction command's final move, "All's End", has Sora and his companion Riku's Keyblades firing a beam each at each other that meet in the middle, drawing in enemies and dealing heavy damage.
• Beam Spam:
  • Xigbar uses two laser-shooting guns (called "Arrowguns") to attack, and he fires near-constantly.
  • Xemnas's final attack shoots hundreds of beams into the air that form a dome around the player characters that then gradually collapses inwards, forcing the player to mash Reaction Commands to deflect the beams.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Many of Sora's Reaction Commands involve him copying the enemy's signature moves. For example, he can copy the aerial dive attack of Xaldin, and against Demyx he can challenge him to a musical duel.
• Beef Gate: There's nothing stopping you from entering the Cavern of Remembrance when it first opens up, but the enemies located there are so powerful that you'll probably want to hold off until you've beaten the game.
• Benevolent Genie: Genie is actually somewhat disappointed that Aladdin always asks such simple favors from him when he would be happy to do much more, like dispelling "one measly little sandstorm," and putting Agrabah back "exactly the way it was" after Jafar's defeat, when Genie wants to make improvements like adding swimming pools.
• Beta Couple: Cloud and Tifa, the latter of whom has no characterization in this continuity other than "Cloud's Action Girl love interest".
• Big Bad: Xemnas, the leader of the mysterious Organization XIII, is the primary antagonist of the story. He is the Nobody (the cast-off body and soul) of the first game's antagonist, Ansem, and as such shares many of his goals.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Organization XIII and Maleficent are both after Kingdom Hearts, butting heads with Sora (and each other) over the course of the story. About halfway through, the Organization removes Maleficent from the picture by taking control of the Heartless away from her.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Maleficent spends the first half the game being built up as one of the Big Bads, only to bow out when she realizes Organization XIII was playing both her and Sora in the Battle of 1000 Heartless.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • If Sora dies when fighting certain bosses^note Shan Yu, Thresholder/Possessor, Shadow Stalker, Dark Thorn, Cerberus (story fight), Hydra, Volcanic Lord and Blizzard Lord (story fight), Storm Rider, Xaldin (story fight), Grim Reaper (first fight), and Xemnas (first Armored Controller fight)., there is a chance that King Mickey will appear and take over as the Player Character to give another chance to beat the boss. Once he fills the Drive Gauge completely from either dealing damage or using a special command, he can revive Sora to full health to continue the fight — or if he runs out of health instead, he'll use a potion to revive Sora at half health before he retreats.
  • While Kairi and Naminé are escaping from The Castle That Never Was, Saïx and two Berserkers find them and attempt to recapture Kairi. Riku then appears out of nowhere to backstab one of the Berserkers and scare Saïx off.
• Big "WHAT?!": Sora, Donald and Goofy's reaction to finding out who "Xehanort" really is is a loud "what" from all three.
• Bishōnen Line: The members of Organization XIII are the only human form Nobodies, owing to their strong hearts before their hearts were removed; all the other Nobodies are white-grey monsters that vaguely resemble humans.
• Bizarrchitecture: Yen Sid's tower is on an island floating in space, and the interior is a floating stairway with portals connecting to the rooms. The Castle that Never Was is even weirder. It's a mountain-sized floating castle full of impossibly long hallways, elevators that space manipulation to reach their distinations, suspended floors, Hard Light paths between platforms, and areas that can only be accessed by portals.
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: In the German version of the game, Demyx responds to Goofy accusing him of being a thief with "Dieb – was für ein hässliches Wort!", meaning "Thief – what an ugly word!".
• Blade Lock: A notable instance occurs when Cloud and Sephiroth blade lock while Cloud is on the receiving end of a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Blade Run: Sora can stand on Barbossa's cutlass as part of a Reaction Command. Unlike most examples, he does this to pin it to the ground — Barbossa doesn't hold him and the sword aloft in midair.
• Bleak Level:
  • The Pride Lands, based off of The Lion King (1994). The game's version takes place after Scar's takeover, so there's no plant life outside of the oasis that Timon and Pumbaa live in and the color scheme is dominated by differing shades of grey.
  • The final level is an enormous white castle owned by Organization XIII, located in a place called The World That Never Was. Made eerier by the dissonant nature of the music and the overtly nihilistic names of its locations ("Altar of Naught", "Where Nothing Gathers"...)
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The French Canadian release of the game comes with a French instruction manual that translates "Nobodies" as "Personnes", which literally means "Persons".^note This is because the manual was based on the English version of the game (as the only language available on the disk). "Nobody" (as in "nobody there", rather than "no body" as was intended) translates as "personne" in French, so they just took the plural. The European French dub just translated it as "Simili".
• Blocking Stops All Damage: The blocking skill, though it's more accurately described as Reflega Stops All Damage. This is the final form of the reflect spell. It only does it reflect projectiles and stop all damage in all directions, it also explodes after a successful block or chain of blocks, dealing immense damage to the enemy, often resulting in a One-Hit KO on weaker foes. It is considered by many to be the best legitimate way to defeat the Optional Bosses, since the it is the best way to simultaneously block attacks and deal damage.
• Blow You Away: Xaldin only physically wields two or three of his six lances at a time and manipulates the other ones with his wind powers, likely making him the Organization member with the greatest degree of fine control over his element. His Desperation Attack is also a wind-based Wave-Motion Gun.
• Body Uploading: "Space Paranoids", the TRON world, is inside Radiant Garden's computerized defense system. The computer has a laser scanning system that turns external objects into little digital cubes inside the computer (and vice-versa); Sora and company are sent there for the first time unwillingly, when the MCP takes over the system and tries to eliminate them as a potential threat.
• Bonus Dungeon: The Final Mix version of II has the series' first proper Bonus Dungeon, the Cavern of Remembrance, as it is the first full level designed to be optional content. Powerful recolored mooks populate the game's most difficult level that features the return of platforming elements of the first game, which are otherwise mostly phased out. The reward waiting at the end is a gauntlet of battles: data replicas of all thirteen members of the Organization, much stronger than they were before. Of course, you need to beat the game to unlock all of them but considering that you can't complete the Cavern without Sora's Final Form, which you only unlock after reaching the final level, that shouldn't make much of a difference.
• Bonus Feature Failure: Unbeknownst to most players, pressing the Select button activates a First-Person mode. It works fine, except the game is forced back into third-person whenever a Reaction Command is activated, making playing only in first-person practically impossible.
• Boss-Altering Consequence:
  • If Sora dies during certain boss battles, then King Mickey may appear to save the day, allowing you to play as him temporarily as he fends off the boss and works to revive Sora.
  • Using Magic against Barbossa is more effective than usual as it will temporarily stun him due to being different from the magic in his world.
• Bookends:
  • The very first scene done in-engine is a conversation between Roxas and Xemnas at the Dark Margin. Sora ^note Roxas’s complete self and Riku ^note Who carried Xemnas’s heartless up until 30 minutes ago. end up on that same beach at the end of the game, and it also doubles as the location of the last in-engine cutscene.
  • The first and last bosses are both Nobodies and utilize an attack that can be dodged using the "Reversal" Reaction Command.
  • You finish the first world and every subsequent world by firing off a beam of light from the Keyblade into the Sky to unlock new lanes to travel to other worlds. In the final battle, Sora finishes off Xemnas by firing a beam straight through him that kills him.
  • If the game enters Precap, a poem will be shown onscreen before the montage of cutscenes accompanying the staff credits. The poem reappears at the end of the game being read by Sora.
  • The intro of the first game has Sora falling from the sky before landing in the ocean of Destiny Islands, the same thing happens when Sora and Riku return home in the ending cutscene.
  • The first game ended with Sora and Kairi being separated as the worlds are restored, losing grip of one another's hand. This game ends with them being reunited in Destiny Islands, Sora returning Kairi's good luck charm and the final image before the credits roll is their hands embracing once more.
  • The first time you visit a world, you're treated to a cutscene that displays the world's title. On your second visit, the ending cutscene for the world closes with the world's title being displayed once again.
• Boom, Headshot!: There's a boss battle against Sark and the MCP that has this trope as an option. Sometimes, Sark will put up a wall to prevent the party from fleeing. But a reaction command allows for Sora to climb that wall, leap off, and use the Keyblade to stab Sark in the head for a One-Hit Kill.
• Boring, but Practical: Intentionally-short melee combos (especially ones that involve adding Negative Combo abilities to your active skills) don't have the visual spectacle of long ones, but the final attack is the only one that can land a killshot on bosses. Heck, it's to the point where a common tip for the superboss fights is to shorten your combo as much as possible.
• Boring Insult: One of Xigbar's battle quotes in the first half of the fight is him taunting Sora with "You're putting me to sleep, bucko!" if Sora goes a long time without attacking him.
• Boss Arena Recovery: The game has Megara supply HP and MP orbs during the second Olympus Coliseum boss fight.
• Boss Banter: The Final Boss has a strange banter. It is, among other things, the story of two boys who are close friends and, before the game started, rivals, who, after making some horrific mistakes and serious sacrifices, spend three games and the better part of two in-verse years trying to fix what went wrong, find each other, and go home, their rivalry abandoned because there are more important things than one-upping each other, and through it all, never losing trust in each other. The final boss's taunts?

  "Sora... are you certain you can trust Riku?"
  "Riku... are you sure you're not jealous of Sora?"

• Boss Bonanza: The last world of the game, The World That Never Was, has Sora confronting what's left of Organization XIII. There are 4 (5 in the Final Mix version) members to be fought, with the leader Xemnas having 4 separate forms.
• Boss Corridor: Right before the boss battle with the Master Control Program and Sark, the entrance to the former's lair is a long bridge from the last save point in Space Paranoids. And at the end of the game in The World That Never Was, you have to climb a staircase before the first boss with Xemnas.
• Boss Remix:
  • The three main Organization XIII battle themes, "The 13th Struggle", "The 13th Dilemma", and "The 13th Reflection", all feature some element of the song "Another Side", which was used in the secret ending to the first game and is the origin of Organization XIII's theme. This also applies to Marluxia's first and third battle themes in Chain of Memories, "Graceful Assassin" and "Lord of the Castle".
  • The battle theme for Sora's fight against Roxas in the Final Mix version is a remix of his normal theme, "The Other Promise".
• Bottomless Magazines: Xigbar never runs out of ammo for his Arrowguns, but he does have to reload the clips occasionally.
• Bound and Gagged: Several in the game, but in all case, there is no gagging involved.
  • First, this happens to Megara when Hades kidnaps her to lure Hercules away from the Coliseum so that the Hydra can destroy it.
  • Later on, to Jack Sparrow when captured by Barbossa. Soon, the same happens to Elizabeth, and to Sora, Donald and Goofy, after Will is captured. Jack breaks free at the end of the cutscene and unties the others.
  • Thirdly, to Santa Claus in Halloween Town, when captured by Maleficent and a newly-revived Oogie Boogie.
  • And finally, to Sora again, when Flotsam and Jetsam restrain him with their bodies to prevent him from interfering with Ursula. This backfires spectacularly as Donald and Goofy tackle the eels to cause them to release Sora, who then vanquishes them with a beam of light from the Keyblade.
• Bowdlerise:
  • Rikku's outfit shows less skin than her appearance in Final Fantasy X-2, and her thong is no longer visible.
  • Many parts of Port Royal are changed in the international releases to ensure it is more family-friendly. Barbossa's monologue to Elizabeth is altered to refer to lust and women as "pleasurable company" (like in the film), Will no longer holds a gun to his head during a cutscene, the blood on the medallions is removed in some (but not all) scenes, the pirate mooks with guns now wield crossbows, pirates no longer burst into flames upon contact with Fire magic (they will still smolder and run about in a panic, however), and Jack no longer has Barbossa's cutlass sticking out of him when it's revealed he got himself cursed.
  • The Hydra bleeds green goo that clearly resembles blood in the Japanese version, while in the English version it just spews out gas. Oddly, this was retained for the Japanese Final Mix version when other instances of censorship were removed, and even in international versions the green blood is still present in an earlier cutscene.
  • In the Japanese version, Xigbar opens his Boss Fight by combining his arrowguns into a sniper rifle and aiming at Sora through a somewhat realistic sight. In the international versions he just twirls his guns before attacking, while the sight was altered to be less obvious. The international PS3 and PS4 versions restore the sniper rifle while retaining the altered sight.
  • In the Japanese version, Axel lights himself on fire for his final attack and remains as such while he's dying. The international version removes the fire, replacing it with him fading away.
• Bragging Rights Reward:
  • Final Mix+ has the Final Cut version of the Organization XIII Optional Bosses and the Lingering Will: One half of the Org. hands out rare synthesis items, significantly less useful at this point in the game, and the rest hand out items that boost stats by a single digit—which are previously synthable, but is at least mildly useful for preparing for the fight with the Lingering Will. Also, speaking of the Lingering Will, he hands out a synthesis item... that can be found elsewhere and is obtained far more easily than by fighting him. Beating him also upgrades your Drive Gauge, but chances are that if you can beat him you have already reduced the other Optional Bosses to a pulp without said upgrade.
  • The Winner's Proof keyblade in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix+. It's right there in its name. It is obtained after finishing all Mushroom XIII challengers, most of which are far from easy and one cannot be even accessed until you complete the game once. The keyblade itself provides nice stat bonuses and has the highest magic stat increase, but it's hindered by its ability that prevents user from getting any experience, so outside of LV1 Critical run it's practically for bragging only.
• Brainwash Residue: When Sora bids farewell to Hayner, Pence and Olette, he sheds a single tear but doesn't know why. Little does he know that he has Roxas' memories within him, and he remembers them as his friends in the virtual world.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Played with. Stitch crawls on it, licks it, and stands on the Command Menu, as well as Sora's HUD, or, to be precise, on the Drive/Summon Gauge.
• Breather Episode:
  • The Hundred Acre Wood, just like in the first two games, is a collection of easy, relaxing minigames with no threats to deal with.
  • Atlantica does not feature any combat this time around, being instead the hub for a handful of rhythm-based minigames.
• Broad Strokes: The Atlantica level appears to be pulling this on the first game's Atlantica. Ariel has definitely met Sora & co before, yet the Reset Button appears to have been pushed at some point, allowing Ursula to be back to life and Ariel to be tricked by her as if she had never met her before.
• Broken Record: Phil will repeatedly shout "GET UP ON THE HYDRA'S BACK!" during the Hydra boss fight until you do as he says.
• Brutal Bonus Level: The Final Mix and II.5 HD ReMIX versions of the game add the Cavern of Remembrance, a dungeon which contains nothing but pain and suffering. You need to have Glide and Aerial Dodge on sufficient level (obtained by leveling up corresponding Drive Forms) to progress and the enemies are a mix of upgraded Heartless present nowhere else in the game that are much harder than other enemies and waves after waves of Nobodies. And should you get to the end, you can fight rematches against Organisation XIII members on steroids that can wipe the floor with Lv 99 players without abuse of power-up items or careful strategy.
• Bullet Hell: The Gummi Ship levels, especially the True Final Boss, who flings out a wall of bullets that requires either a bullet-sucker or a hollow ship.
• Bullfight Boss: There's an enemy called Hotrod. It repeatedly charges at its target several times until it gets tired. It is implemented unusually as it is possible to block its attack if there's only one of them, but the game encourages the player to dodge it.
• But Now I Must Go: After Winnie the Pooh regains his memories of his friends, he pleads with Sora to stay with him in the Hundred Acre Wood; Sora reassures him that "I will always be with you, right here", pointing out that he'll always be in Pooh's heart.
• Button Mashing: The Final Boss battle has a section involving lasers that requires you to do this or die.
• Caged Inside a Monster: Maleficent summons a Heartless called "Prison Keeper" which has a cage as part of its body, and it holds Lock, Shock, and Barrel in it until it has need of their abilities, in which case it swallows them.
• Call-Back:
  • When visiting The Land of Dragons and The Pride Lands, Mushu and Simba remember the time they spent fighting alongside Sora, Donald and Goofy as summons. Though it does take a bit for Simba to recognize Sora, Donald and Goofy, since, you know, they weren't regular animals last time he saw them.
  • The trophies in the Vestibule of Olympus Coliseum are the ones that Sora can win from doing the optional Cups in Kingdom Hearts.
• Came Back Strong: Scar does this twice. First is when Simba kills him by knocking him off the top of Pride Rock. His appearance does not change at all when he becomes a Heartless, but he does have Elemental Powers for his boss fight. The second time he comes back, he antagonizes Simba in the form of ghostly avatars of his original self. For the boss fight following that, he manifests as the massive Groundshaker Heartless, the second-largest Heartless in the series to date. That Scar is the only character other than Xehanort to have retained his intelligence after becoming a Heartless really says something about how nasty the guy was.
• Came Back Wrong: When Oogie Boogie is brought back to life by Maleficent, he has difficulty remembering anything from before his death. This quickly devolves into a very severe case of short-term memory loss, as he fails to recognize Santa Claus despite having personally kidnapped him shorty before.
• Canon Immigrant: In-universe, sort of. Despite not being in the original Winnie the Pooh books, Gopher appears within the Winnie the Pooh storybook that Merlin leaves in Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden.
• Can't Shift While Shifted: Drive Forms are powered by a fillable gauge that turns into a different countdown state when in a Form. In that state, they can't turn into a new Form until the active one runs out and reverts the gauge.
• Cardboard Prison: Zigzagged. When Organization XIII puts Kairi in the Soundless Prison, her cell has bars far enough apart that she could easily escape. However, when she does escape, it's with help from Naminé creating a portal in the back of the cell.
• Cash Gate: In Day 2 of the prologue, Roxas and his friends need to earn Munny for a trip to the beach, and you have about six different mini-games to play to earn the cash. Unusually for the trope, you can get past this day by earning as little as 50 Munny; there's also a maximum cap of 1850, and earning that much immediately moves the plot forward. However, no matter how much Roxas earns, it all gets taken away at the end (though it's given to Sora later on).
• Cast from Hit Points: Axel "puts his whole being into an attack" and disintegrates on the spot. Luckily for him, this ends up reviving his original, human self in a later game.
• Casting Gag: According to Paul St. Peter, he got the role of Xemnas because the casting director thought he had played Vicious from Cowboy Bebop (actually played by Skip Stellrecht), who shares a voice with Xemnas in the Japanese version: Norio Wakamoto.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Cloud and Leon engage in a touch of this during the Battle of the Thousand Heartless.
  Leon: Think you can handle this many?
  Cloud: Well... might be tough if one more shows up.
  Leon: Then that'll have to be the one I take care of.
  Cloud: What, you're fighting too?
  [they charge; several Heartless die]
• Censored for Comedy: The first day during the prologue of the game has a word stolen. Combined with the general attitude of Seifer Almasy, we get this glorious gem:
  Seifer: Not that we need some photo to prove that you're losers.
• Chained by Fashion: Shadow Stalker / Dark Thorn. The chains aren't just there for fashion either, and act as a Power Limiter. The former turns into the latter when it sheds them.
• Chandelier Swing: During the Dark Thorn fight in Beast's Castle, both the Heartless and Sora will seize the ballroom's Falling Chandelier of Doom and give it a swing for a few extra hits.
• Changing Gameplay Priorities: Prior to obtaining Reflect it's much more difficult to protect yourself against a swarm of enemies or attacks that come at unexpected angles. While Guard is better than it was in its previous game it's not enough to cover everything. This makes the early game in Critical Mode particularly tense, especially with Cure's massive nerf. Post-Reflect you can become much more aggressive as it's far easier to defend yourself from most attacks and Reflect will deal great chunks of damage on its own as well. On top of that Cure goes from emergency button to all but outright useless since it drains your entire MP Bar upon usage and it takes multiple Ethers to get you out of MP Charge (Elixirs do it instantly but at that point the Cure is unnecessary). As you need MP to use Reflect, using Cure becomes a massive waste.
• Chaos Architecture: The game re-uses many of the same "worlds" as the original, but with radically different layouts. Even specific locations within the worlds, such as the Bazaar in Agrabah, are redesigned. It's also justified for Hollow Bastion, because it was a Doomed Hometown and the past residents had spent the year in between games moving back in and renovating.
• Cheer Them Up with Laughter: Sora does this for Riku towards the end of the video game when Riku expresses doubt over if he should return to the Destiny Islands.
  Riku: How'm I gonna face everyone?
  Sora: [squishes cheeks and makes funny face] Like this!
  Riku: [pauses, then bursts out into laughter]
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The munny pouch and the blue crystal that Riku steals from Roxas are supposed to be unique (the former being Olette's homemade money pouch and the latter being part of the Struggle champion trophy). The sheer fact that Sora somehow has a duplicate of both is what hints Hayner, Pence and Olette to the existence of the virtual Twilight Town.
  • After Axel is defeated for good in the prologue, a portal can be found in the corner of the room he's fought in. This portal is how Sora and co. gain access to The World That Never Was near the end of the game.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • During the flashbacks sequences in the prologue, Mushu is shown being summoned by Sora. Mushu shows up later in the Land of Dragons, one of the first worlds that Sora and co. visit.
  • At the beginning of the first visit to Halloween Town, Dr. Finkelstein can be seen creating a mechanical being as an experiment. Said experiment is the main antagonist of the second visit to the world.
• Cherry Tapping:
  • It is a perfectly feasible option to beat down the parade of final bosses with the Sweet Memories keyblade. It has no attack, defense, or magic bonuses, but it has a finisher, and that's all you need. Just for added humiliation, the sound and visual effects makes it seem like you're beating down an entity of nothingness using a stick with an adorable honeycomb inside. It's death by cute at its finest.
  • During the boss battle against Luxord, he can turn you into a die or a playing card. As demonstrated here, it's entirely possible to defeat him by tackling him to death as a die.
• Chickification: Ariel is significantly less capable than in the first game, as her storyline is essentially a condensed version of The Little Mermaid, which is a much less violent story than Kingdom Hearts.
• Chinese Vampire: The Nightwalker Heartless, which is exclusive to The Land of Dragons, Mulan's homeworld. Some of them happen to be Shang's army, who succumbed to fatigue after marching to the city from the mountains. It's unknown if they were revived upon defeat, though given Organization XIII's desire to collect hearts, it's unlikely.
• Christmas Town: Christmas Town is only accessible through a door in Halloween Town. Much like Halloween Town, Christmas Town is overrun with Heartless (although Christmas themed versions of Halloween Town's Heartless) and while Santa Claus is sweet and polite to Sora and his gang, he still holds a chip on his shoulder towards Jack Skellington after he tried stealing Christmas the first time.
• Citadel City: Hollow Bastion, like in the original game. While not exactly surrounded by literal walls, this world is populated mainly by the Final Fantasy cast and few other refugees who are more than willing to fight any threat that endangers their home and the people living there, Cid and Merlin installing an Anti-Heartless security system as extra security. Unfortunately, because this world contains knowledge collected by Ansem the Wise about the nature of the cosmos, possess enhanced Magitek, is ground-zero for the Heartless threat that kicked off the story and because many of the antagonists possess a personal affinity for the location (most of Organization XIII are from here, Maleficent used it as her main base when she rose to power, etc), this world is constantly a target, most notably with the Battle of 1000 Heartless.
• Clear My Name: During the game's prologue, Roxas has to clear his name over stealing a few photographs.
• Climax Boss: The game doesn't have a traditional Climax Boss, but instead a Boss Rush through Xigbar, Luxord, Saix, and Xemnas in his regular form prior to the Final Boss. In the Final Mix version, Roxas is added to the start of this Boss Rush.
• Collection Sidequest:
  • Early in the game, the Heartless steal pages out of the Winnie the Pooh book and cause Pooh's memories to get erased. Sora gets tasked with finding all of the pages to restore the book and Pooh's memories.
  • The Final Mix version of the game adds 144 puzzle pieces to grab throughout the worlds, which are then used to piece together 6 images. Once you complete an image, you are rewarded with a rare or one-of-a-kind item.
• Collision Damage:
  • Equipping a Gummi Ship with Impact Gummies will make it so that enemies take damage whenever they make contact with your ship.
  • Goofy does Scratch Damage to enemies that make contact with his shield.
• Colossus Climb: The Groundshaker is a boss the size of an African savannah, so Sora and Simba have to weaken it so you can make your way to its back to damage it some more.
• Combination Attack: Every party member and Summon can team up with Sora to do a special technique called a Limit. Each Guest-Star Party Member can do 1, each Summon gets 1 bar Genie (who gets 4), and Donald and Goofy can do 2 plus Trinity.
• Combo Breaker: If a boss takes too many hits without being able to act, they can immediately retaliate even if they're supposed to be stunned.
• Combos:
  • By equipping abilities, you can add launchers and many extensions to Sora's combos. However, bosses can break free from long combos and only finishers can kill them. This gives purpose to an ability and a keyblade that reduces the length of combos.
  • Each Limit Break displays a combo counter on the HUD and Jiminy's journal keeps track of your biggest scores, complete with hints about how to best use those techniques.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: To prevent the obvious cheese strategy of locking them in an infinite combo, most bosses that can be stunned by hitting them will, after being hit enough times, suddenly become invincible, recover mid-combo and leap away, teleport away, etc. This isn't totally foolproof, as there are ways to perform an infinite combo they don't interrupt, but the developer intent behind this behavior is obviously to thwart such tactics.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Fighting a handful of Heartless? Possibly challenging. Fighting a huge mass of 1000 Heartless? Possibly the easiest battle in the entire game. Considering what other Heartless could have fought Sora in that valley, it's probably for the better.
• Consolation Prize: During the Fourth Day in the simulated Twilight Town, Roxas takes part in the Struggle Tournament. Winning against Setzer earns him the Champion Belt (which boosts his resistance against Fire, Blizzard and Thunder damage if equipped); if he loses, he gets the Medal (an Accessory that boosts strength by one) as the consolation prize.
• Context-Sensitive Button: The game does this with the triangle button, which is specifically for "Reaction Commands". The attack button also performs various 'interact with this thing' functions when you are in the right position to do so.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: The first game had Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, Xehanort’s Heartless who waxed on passionately about darkness and had an army of Heartless under his command while manipulating the Disney villains from behind the scenes. This game, in contrast, has Xemnas, Xehanort’s Nobody who is also the leader of Organization XIII and relies on both the organization and lesser Nobodies to carry out his will and wants to create an artificial Kingdom Hearts so that he and his fellow Nobodies can become whole again.
• Cool Crown: Collecting one of the Proofs of Peace, Connection or Nonexistence gives Sora a bronze crown. Collecting two Proofs makes the crown silver and collecting all three makes it a snazzy-looking gold.
• Cooldown Hug: Happens when Sora and Kairi reunite. Before Sora can break down and apologize for his long absence, Kairi quickly interrupts him with a hug.
  Kairi: This is real.
• Cool Starship: The Gummi Ships were cool before, but are even moreso now — just check out the Falcon Peak. You can even design your own ship, to make them extra badass.
• Cool Versus Awesome: Auron versus Hercules. Not just because these are two badass men duking it out, but also because it is just so unexpected.
• Cooldown Manipulation: MP Haste and its upgrades decrease the amount of time it takes for the MP gauge to recharge after being depleted. The abilities all stack and it's possible to have multiples thanks to certain accessories and weapons, allowing for an extremely short cooldown period.
• Cosmetic Award: The Final Mix version of the game has three crowns for Sora: a bronze, silver, and gold crown, awarded after beating the minigames posed by the XIII Mushroom], defeating all thirteen of the Organization XIII data battles, and defeating the Lingering Will, in whichever order the player accomplishes the tasks. The crowns serve absolutely no purpose, they just look cool and prove that the player is hardcore.
• Cosmic Deadline: The Big Bad Organization XIII have to be killed off before the end of the story. But they could have come up with a better way to clean up the last few members^note Luxord and Saix- Xigbar is defeated somewhat earlier in The World That Never Was, while Xemnas is saved for later as the Final Boss than having Sora come across a room with a locked door that will only open if all the members are dead, and have the room equipped with convenient portals that teleport him directly to the remaining members.
• Costume Evolution: The main characters get new outfits, since Sora's outgrown his old one.
• Coup de Grâce Cutscene: Subverted during the final battle: the final boss is left at 1 HP and becomes permanently stunned when defeated, so the player can finish him off however they choose, rather than go through a quick-time event or similar.
• Creative Sterility: Nobodies are mere shells of humans and whatever other things that The Heartless ravaged. They gain power beyond the normal spectrum but sacrifice their capacity for emotion. The members of Organization XIII are shown to emulate human behavior; carefully watching them shows that the majority of them suffer complete Lack of Empathy. The few who don't are beginning to manifest new hearts without realizing it.
• Credits Medley: Combines "Sora", "Dearly Beloved", "Destati", and "Another Side" with an original theme.
• Creepy Cemetery: The Proof of Existence, which is basically a graveyard for Nobodies.
• Crippling Overspecialization:
  • Wisdom Form greatly buffs Sora's magic, but his normal Attack command is replaced by the very weak Shoot. If he's out of MP, he can barely do anything resembling meaningful damage until it gets refilled.
  • Oathkeeper and Oblivion, while cool-looking for their symbolic color difference while being dual-wielded, are actually fairly useless at the end game unless you mainly use drive forms and ignore limits, summons, and even basic magic and physical combos.
• Critical Existence Failure: Averted for bosses (and with certain abilities equipped, Sora), who can only be finally killed with a decisive blow like a combo finisher or a magic hit — otherwise they'll continue attacking at one HP with impunity.
• Critical Status Buff: The Defender and Damage Control abilities decrease damage taken while health is at critical levels. Defender just gives a Defense boost of 3, while Damage Control cuts all damage in half.
• Crosshair Aware:
  • Cannon Guns are accompanied by crosshairs that appear on the ground that show where they're aiming.
  • One of Xigbar's attacks causes the camera to shift to his perspective, letting you see his gun's crosshair.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Demyx is a cloudcuckoolander, and overall looks more like a harmless teenage boy than a real threat. But remember that the Organization XIII members are comprised of especially powerful Nobodies, who were able to keep their original bodies.
• Crutch Character: Valor Form's power easily outstrips Sora's base form and can make mincemeat out enemies and bosses—at least in the early game. By the time you unlock Wisdom Form near the game's midpoint, Valor's lack of magic becomes a liability against stronger enemies, while base Sora's combat abilities will have improved significantly. In the endgame, Valor Form's unchanging loadout will become a downgrade compared to base Sora's wide variety of combat, support, and movement abilities.
• Cryptic Background Reference:
  • Merlin says that he found the Winnie the Pooh book in the Zero District. This refers to the Zero District of Traverse Town, where Merlin and the Fairy Godmother resided in the first game, but it can certainly seem like one of these without that knowledge.
  • At the statue binding Auron's free will, we hear dialogue implying that he has the same backstory and place of origin as in Final Fantasy X. We don't get any particulars, however, which makes one wonder exactly what his relation to the other, radically altered FFX characters is.
  • In the base non-Final Mix version of the game Xigbar's line, "You don't look like you're half the hero the others were" is this. Final Mix added additional scenes that build up the idea of other Keyblade wielders before Sora, but in the base version of the game this line came out of nowhere.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Demyx said, "We do too have hearts; don't be mad." Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] reveals that he was right- the Organization members do have hearts, and Xemnas was lying to them when he told them they didn't, so that he could secure their help in making Kingdom Hearts, which he would use not to restore the Organization members, but rather to turn them all into Xehanort clones.
• Cue the Sun: The sun rises behind Simba as he decides to go back to the Pride Lands to take his rightful place as king.
• Cursed with Awesome: When you attempt to use one of the first three (four in the Final Mix/2.5 versions) Drive Forms Sora gets, you occasionally go into AntiForm instead. It comes with dramatically increased agility, the ability to perform absurdly fast and powerful combos that can range across the screen, and of course black, wispy tendrils from your outfit and your hair. The downside? The complete inability to heal while the form is active, receiving double damage, the extremely long combos means a boss can possibly break loose before you can actually unleash a combo finisher, and the inability to gain experience while in the form. Thus, while it's incredibly powerful, there are often very good reasons to want to avoid it.
• Cutscene Boss: Roxas in the original version of the game. The Updated Re-release upgrades him to a full-fledged Duel Boss.
• Cutscene Incompetence:
  • Demyx claims that he's not cut out for fighting and generally acts like a coward in story scenes. When Xaldin steals the Beast's rose and captures Belle, Belle actually manages to stun him with an elbow to the gut and swipe the rose back from him. Surprising, then, that the boss battles against them are much more difficult than expected.
  • Sora has trouble with Armored Knights after The Reveal right after The 1000 Heartless War, though this was because he knew that defeating the Heartless with the Keyblade was actually helping Organization XIII, so he was reluctant to kill them.
  • There is a scene where Riku and Kairi are struggling against a horde of Shadow Heartless. In-game, they are the weakest enemies and incredibly easy to kill, yet in this cutscene they're strategically jumping around and dodging the heroes' attacks.
  • Lampshaded in one cutscene. At one point, Donald and Goofy are captured by a few Strafers (which are among the weakest Heartless in the game), and Sora orders his friends to "show them who's boss". Then the "Heartless Commander" shows up and orders them to torture the duo right in front of Sora, causing him to surrender.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: Several times in the game Sora and company will one hit enemies that will normally take several strikes or combos to defeat. "I don't have time for you!". Sora can also slice entire buildings in half in cutscenes via Action Commands.
• Cycle of Hurting:
  • The game features an interesting variation: bosses can usually be caught in a stunlock, but with each hit a hidden value raises until the boss can break out of the lock and punish the player.
  • A particularly famous speedrunning trick involves turning Roxas, one of the most emotional and heart-rending boss battles in Final Mix, into an absolute joke by stunlocking him to death. You can do this one of two ways: equipping two Negative Combos and just spamming aerial combo finishers until he dies, or (more humiliatingly) steal Oathkeeper and Oblivion from him, back him up against the wall of the arena, and spam Quick Run to deal incremental amounts of damage with Oathkeeper and Oblivion until he dies.

D — F

• Damage Reduction:
  • The Protect ability reduces all damage taken by 10%. Its upgrades, Protectra and Protectga, reduce damage by 20% and 30%, respectively.
  • Damage Control reduces all damage taken by half when the user is at critical HP.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: All of the Superbosses have around twice the HP of the Final Boss, each having well over 10 bars of HP to cut through.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The final boss has a final attack you must alternate pressing X and Triangle to defend against. Everything else in the game uses Triangle.
• Damsel in Distress:
  • Kairi gets kidnapped by Organization XIII to motivate Sora to keep killing Heartless. Sora tries to save her, but Naminé beats him to it.
  • Xaldin kidnaps Belle to force Beast to make a Sadistic Choice between her and the enchanted Rose. Subverted when Belle frees herself and nabs the rose from Xaldin.
• Damsel out of Distress:
  • Belle of Beauty and the Beast pulls this trope off again when Xaldin kidnaps her and the rose, and forces Beast to choose. She elbows Xaldin in the gut and grabs the rose before running back inside the castle.
  • Kairi sees herself in danger often, but every time she's escaped (or in the process of it) before Sora arrives. For instance, when she's captured by Axel escapes from him but is later captured by Saïx and escapes him (with help from Namine, who, in an ironic doubling of this trope, actually IS her) and is confronted by nobodies and about to fight them when help from Riku arrives. Then she and Riku save Sora from a buttload of Heartless that Saix calls on him.
• Dance Battler:
  • Dancer Nobodies move around the battlefield by gracefully gliding above the ground and attack using elegant kicks. One of their attacks even forces Sora to "dance" with them before dealing damage.
  • Xemnas himself has rather fluid, elegant motions to his attack strings in the first and final fights with him.
• Dark Reprise: The battle theme when you fight against Roxas, "The Other Promise", is more tragic version of his normal theme.
• Darker and Edgier: Noticeably darker than its predecessor. That doesn't mean there aren’t some breaks for lightheartedness and humor.
• Deadly Ringer: One of Donald's staves, the Victory Bell, is a large bell on a stick. Its power is notable but not exceptional.
• Deadly Upgrade: As powerful as AntiForm is, it can activate randomly (potentially when you don't want it), prevents you from healing, blocking attacks, or gaining experience, and you can't even exit manually until there are no enemies around. If it activates in the middle of a boss fight, you're likely in trouble.
• Deadpan Snarker: Auron puts the "Dead", literally in his case, into Deadpan Snarker in his first scene with Hades:
  Hades: Do you know who you're talking to? I'm the LORD OF THE DEAD!!!
  Auron: Heh... No wonder no one wants to die.
• Death as Game Mechanic: During certain battles, Mickey Mouse might show and give you the chance to play as him. You can fight the boss as Mickey (though you can't bring him to 0 HP) and build up energy to revive Sora. If Mickey loses all of his health, he will revive Sora with only half of his maximum health. He appears less frequently the more often he is used.
• Death Course: Sark places Sora in a Light Cycle arena to derezz him during the second trip to Space Paranoids.
• Deceptive Disciple: Xehanort and the other five founding members of the Organization. All of them worked for the real Ansem before they betrayed him and exiled him to the world of nothingness.
• Decoy Protagonist: The game starts off with the player controlling Roxas, a new character that was living a normal life in Twilight Town before discovering he could wield the Keyblade. After the prologue is over control switches over to Sora, the actual protagonist, while Roxas disappears.
• Defend Command:
  • The Guard ability lets Roxas and Sora negate damage from most attacks in front of them, assuming that it's timed properly.
  • The Reflect spell negates damage from all directions, though it requires MP even if it doesn't deflect anything.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The Timeless River world is rendered almost completely in black and white — the only color is in the HUD's various bars and gauges, and even those are muted. It's not just for visual purpose to stay true to classic Disney shorts; Sora and co. actually notice that everything in that world is in black and white, including themselves.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • The Princesses of Heart have no plot significance bar Kairi, and most of them don't appear at all, with the only exceptions being Belle and Jasmine. On the flipside, it seems all that plot significance from the others has gone straight into Belle, who has as significantly larger role in terms of actual screentime.
  • Peter Pan, originally a party member in the first game, is now merely an optional Summon.
  • There are also examples of locations being demoted to extra rather than characters:
    • The Hollow Bastion location of the original game is entirely in the background in this game.
    • The Olympus Coliseum might as well be called "Hades' Underworld (plus the Olympus Coliseum)" because the actual Coliseum area is basically only two areas at most and ends up only becoming one after it gets wrecked by the Hydra. You'll be spending the vast majority of your time in the Underworld instead, which is significantly larger and has all the actual Underdrome challenges, and the only reason you'll ever want to go to the Coliseum proper once the world's plotline is finished is to get the mission score for Phil's pot smashing minigame.
• Derelict Graveyard: Port Royal has Isla Del Muerte from the first movie and a second area filled with shipwrecks when Sora and co return to the world.
• Determinator: Subverted with Hercules, who quickly loses all hope and motivation after the Olympus Colosseum is heavily damaged by the Hydra. Sora and his friends, however, manage to get him back on his feet eventually.
• Deus ex Machina: After beating Xemnas, Sora and Riku get trapped in the Realm of Darkness. Riku finds the message in a bottle that Kairi sent from Destiny Islands during the prologue (how it traveled between dimensions isn't explained), which somehow opens a portal that lets them escape after Sora reads the message inside.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • The Cavern of Remembrance in Final Mix is split up into several platforming areas that require maxed out Growth abilities to proceed, with the last of these area necessitating Final Form's Glide. If the player cheats to get Glide before beating Roxas (which unlocks Final Form) and goes to the end of the Glide room, they will be blocked from progressing further by an invisible wall that will only disappear after Roxas is defeated.
  • Leveling up Final Form requires defeating Nobodies. Should Sora defeat an Organization XIII member in Final Form, it will count toward this, as they are Nobodies.
  • During some of the 100 Acre Wood minigames, when recovering Pooh after hitting an obstacle, he will at first call Sora "dear Somebody", thanks to losing his memories. If these minigames are replayed after he recovers his memories, he'll instead call Sora by name.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: The game features a fair amount of villains dying in a different fashion from the source films.
  • The Hydra dies from having all of its heads cut off at once, when in the original movie Hercules instead buries it under a rockslide.
  • Jafar's death in Aladdin: The Return of Jafar occurs because of Iago kicking his lamp into lava. Here, he dies the moment Sora defeats him in battle, with his lamp not even having any relevance in his demise.
  • Scar isn't devoured by his hyena companions this time around. Instead, he comes back for a second round as a Heartless and dies for good upon defeat.
  • Ursula does die by having something thrusted through her gut just like in the source. However, instead of the ship bow, Ursula is killed by the trident (which is actually how she was storyboarded to die in the movie before the ship was substituted in the final version).
• Difficult, but Awesome: AntiForm can deal large amounts of damage very quickly due to having fast attacks and it doubles Sora's movement, but he's unable to use magic or heal while transformed, takes 50% more damage when hit, and is not allowed to revert back manually until combat is over.
• Diminishing Returns for Balance: If you equip multiple pieces of armor with the same elemental resistance, the bonus resistance granted is decreased for each successive item. This system is in place since you could otherwise be completely immune to certain elements by stacking specific armor pieces.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: Throughout most of the game, Hollow Bastion (now on its way to becoming a populated town again) has served as the Hub Level, but halfway through the story The War Sequence begins and the plot twists are tossed out left and right. There's even a short confrontation with the Big Bad. But when all is said and done, this is only the halfway point in the game; you have to go through every world one more time before the true final world.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • The Chicken Little summon. His whistle does no damage, but is better at grouping and pulling in enemies than Magnega, an endgame spell. He ends up falling short as you level up your Drive Forms and unlock other summons. Stitch in particular outclasses him later on, as his ability to refill your MP bar and stunlock enemies makes him far more versatile.
  • The Hero's Crest keyblade. You only need to complete the first visit to either Land of Dragons or Beast's Castle, then beat the Hydra at Olympus Coliseum to obtain it. Its strength stat of 4 (the highest of any early-game keyblade) and the Air Combo Boost ability, which buffs the damage of finishers in air combos, offer substantial buffs to your damage given how early you can obtain it. Depending on the boss and your playstyle, it remains a viable keyblade throughout the whole game. The only tradeoff is its magic stat of 0, but your physical combo damage easily makes up for this.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Tampering with Ansem's computer, even by accident, will result in you being zapped into the computer itself and then thrown in its prison, while the power is cut off, preventing you from escaping through a terminal. And, according to the manga, your punishment is death.
• Distant Finale: The Stinger of the game is set a year after the events of the story, as revealed in Coded.
• Divide and Conquer: Sora is too busy dealing with the Nobodies and Organization XIII to properly deal with Maleficent, Pete and the Heartless.
• Doppelgänger Attack:
  • Xemnas can briefly create clones of himself to attack the heroes during his final fight in II. This is particularly annoying when he traps Sora in an HP-draining beam and control briefly switches to a Guest-Star Party Member - you have to get to Sora and free him, but Xemnas keeps sending clones of himself to stop you.
  • Larxene's "Absent Silhouette" in Final Mix can also do this - there's a reaction command where Sora grabs one Larxene, spins her around and throws her into another, fusing them together again.
• Double Jump: The Aerial Dodge ability gives Sora a second jump to use in midair. Since the original version of the game lacks platforming, the main function of the ability is to dodge attacks and/or change trajectory quickly to get into a better position.
• Draconic Abomination: Storm Rider is a powerful dragon-like Heartless that Sora and the gang face in their second visit to the Land of Dragons. The Emperor implies that it used to be an actual dragon sleeping dormant within the mountain before Organization XIII found it and turned it into a lightning-slinging Heartless-mockery of a dragon. There's also the giant Nobody dragon from Xemnas's Sequential Boss fight, which doubles as a Mechanical Abomination.
• The Dragon: Pete to Maleficent, and Saïx and Xigbar to Xemnas. Though it's not really apparent how much of a dragon Xigbar is until Birth by Sleep and Dream Drop Distance make it clear how much longer he's been in the know.
• Dramatic Unmask: DiZ does it near the end of the game, although the person he's unmasking himself before, King Mickey Mouse, already knows who he is.
• Dream Intro: Starts with a similar dream for Roxas as in Part 1.
• Dual Boss:
  • Volcanic Lord and Blizzard Lord are fought together, but only one is "active" at a time. Each alternates between attacking Sora directly and hanging back to incapacitate the other party members. Whichever Lord is hanging back tries to float away from Sora and is untargetable, with any hits it does receive having a chance of being blocked. Each one's reaction command has you hurl it into the other for heavy damage and the battle ends on a slightly different cutscene depending on which dies last.
  • Larxene's Absent Silhouette invokes this by splitting into two copies of herself. There's a reaction command that merges her copies back together.
• Dual Wielding: Roxas and Sora can dual-wield Keyblades, Roxas during a fight against Axel and Sora by using Drive Forms. This compromises their defense by preventing the use of Guard, but it also greatly increases their attack speed and damage output.
• Dub Name Change: Like the first game, some of the Keyblades had different (yet still English) names in the Japanese version. Mostly it seems they were changed because the originals sounded too Engrishy: "Wonder of Abyss" (changed to Mysterious Abyss), "Wishes Lamp" (changed to Wishing Lamp). Some of the Heartless also got their names changed: Dark Stalker to Shadow Stalker, Black Thorn to Dark Thorn, Gate Guardian to Thresholder, Surveillance to Surveillance Robot, Armour Knight to Armoured Knight, Volcano Lord to Volcanic Lord, Creep Plant to Creeper Plant, Loudness to Crescendo, Terminator to Devastator, Eraser to Strafer, Magna Roader to Magnum Loader, Axe Statue to Gargoyle Warrior, Sword Statue to Gargoyle Knight, Ice Cube to Icy Cube, Flare Globe to Fiery Globe, Mole Drill to Driller Mole, Aiming Cannon to Cannon Gun, Bulk Vendor to Bulky Vendor, Hammer Body to Hammer Frame, Mad Dog to Rabid Dog.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: On the prologue, you have to battle Seifer as a tutorial. Even though he's supposedly the town's bully and is also supposed to be pretty good in combat you'll probably kick his ass once you're given the chance to (you don't get to battle him on the semi Tournament Arc so that you can see him at his best). He also has the habit of mocking you every time you talk to him. After the end of the prologue, you discover that the whole Twilight Town was just a virtual simulation made for keeping Roxas away from Organization XIII and you take control of Sora. You may think that Seifer may get a chance to really show his worth after knowing that little fact. However, it only gets worse from there. As with Roxas' story, he also tries to mock you every time he can, but this time it doesn't help the fact that the Struggle host thinks he's the hot shit on the matter, preventing you from fighting him unless you defeat Heiner and Setzer 20 times in a row. After finally doing all of this, you'll find out that he's actually weaker than the time you fought him as Roxas. Even then the Struggle host still treats you like a retard by saying that you're finally ready to fight him and Seifer won't even change his NPC dialog.
• Duel Boss:
  • Sephiroth, Hercules, Roxas (in the Final Mix version), Luxord, and Xemnas are fought when Sora is alone. Justified for Roxas, Luxord, and Xemnas: the fight with Roxas is a Battle in the Center of the Mind, Luxord traps Sora's friends, and Xemnas teleports Sora to a different location to fight.
  • Roxas doesn't have any party members during the first six days, during which he fights Axel twice.
• Dueling Player Characters: You spend the first five hours of the game playing as Roxas, before the player character switches to Sora. Near the end of the game, Sora fights Roxas, who's revealed to be his Nobody, in a cutscene battle, which is made an actual battle in the Final Mix version.
• Dull Surprise: Mena Suvari's performance as Aerith is infamous for how monotone and bored it sounds. Unsurprisingly, Mena did not return to voice the character after this.
• Dumb Is Good: Sora is not the brightest of protagonists, which is usually Played for Laughs when he has trouble following a new concept. Such as computers. Even Goofy is better with them than Sora.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Axel's death. He puts all his remaining strength into an attack to save Sora, and pays the price for it. He gets better... sort of.
• Early-Bird Boss:
  • Twilight Thorn, because you don't have magic. Being able to heal or shoot him with Blizzard or Lightning when he's out of reach of your keyblade would be nice.
  • Twilight Thorn's Heartless brother, Darkside, is far from a pushover on the highest difficulty. On lower ones, the two potions you're likely to have are more than enough to help you survive his attacks, but you'd better try your damned hardest not to get clipped by anything on Proud/Expert mode or you're gonna be in a world of trouble.
  • The Assault Rider is a fairly well known Boss in Mook Clothing that forces you to not carelessly approach until you create an opening. Even if you know how to do all that, encounters with it would be much easier if you had any means of quickly closing the distance the moment an opportunity to combo arises. So of course the way to get the ability, Slide Dash, that does exactly that is to progress through the world that requires you to fight multiple Assault Riders until a specific encounter with two at once gives it to you after you beat it.
  • Thresholder likes to fire swarms of homing, unblockable projectiles after you've done some damage to him. This would be fine at any other point in the game, but you cannot acquire quick run, dodge roll, aerial dodge or reflect to give you the invincibility you need to dodge them. On Level 1 runs many people tend to beat Olympus Colosseum first (which requires dealing with the assault rider example above) to use the invincibility and high damage on Trinity Limit for Thresholder. This is subverted if you decide to play as Mickey in this fight though, allowing you to take a few deaths without being unable to progress.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • In Japan, Chicken Little’s appearance in the game preceded his movie’s release.
  • Final Mix+ follows tradition by introducing a future major character as a superboss. Namely, Lingering Will aka Terra’s living armor.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: This game differs in later games in how it characterizes the Nobodies:
  • Excluding Roxas, Namine and Axel after his Character Development, none of the Nobodies have any emotions. Any emotions seen are shown to be faked. Later games would retcon this away, eventually with 3D revealing that Nobodies eventually regrow hearts, which massively contradicts what's shown in this game.
  • Roxas and Namine's fates, being reunited with Sora and Kairi, respectively, is shown to be, while somewhat sad, ultimately the right thing to do. Roxas ultimately accepting that he is Sora is shown to be Character Development. In large part to fans calling out the ending as being an Esoteric Happy Ending, later games show that this fate is a tragedy. In 3D, Sora bluntly says that Roxas is his own person, and a large part of III's plot is giving Roxas and Namine their own bodies.
  • II is the only game is give Ship Tease to Roxas and Namine, being Sora and Kairi's Nobodies respectively. It also slightly implies that they had had history before the start of the game. Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days showed that Roxas and Namine had never met before II's prologue, and the rest of the franchise dropped the Ship Tease with Namine to focus on his friendship with Axel and Xion.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After a very long series of struggles, including having to free the Disney worlds once again, and then defeating the Big Bad who has manipulated everything since the beginning, Sora, Riku, and Kairi make it back to Destiny Islands, Roxas and Naminé seem to be content within Sora and Kairi, Mickey returns to his throne, and all seems to be right with the worlds (seems being the key word, as later games show that the characters' adventures have only begun).
• Easing into the Adventure: The game starts out following Roxas as he thinks he's living a normal life in Twilight Town, only for him to get caught up in Sora's business and have his less-than-normal past catch up to him.
• Easy-Mode Mockery: Save files that are set to Beginner Mode cannot unlock either the "The Gathering" (original version) or "Birth by Sleep" (Final Mix version) secret videos. While a Normal Mode file can unlock them, doing so requires getting 100% Completion to view both, and some of the objectives in Jiminy's Journal are intentionally absurd.
• Eldritch Location: The World that Never Was, which starts off as a city with Alien Geometries and transforms into a hollow castle that's partly digital.
• Electric Torture: Happens twice in the game; the first time to Donald and Goofy within Space Paranoids, with Sora being Forced to Watch ^note which is ironic, as all three of them have to run on electricity here, due to becoming computer programs. Later on, in Olympus Coliseum, all three of them are electrocuted while trying to steal Auron's statue from Hades.
• Elemental Powers: Each Organization XIII member controls a different attribute (Square Enix make it quite clear that they're not elements, they're attributes). Some attack with it directly (Axel, Demyx with his water clones), Some draw power from it (Saïx berserking in moonlight), and some just use it as a visual motif (Marluxia).
• Elite Mooks: Nobodies bar the Dusks and Creepers are not very common, but they are stronger and much more unpredictable than the Heartless that the player finds everywhere else. The game's last world is filled almost exclusively with them. Sorcerer nobodies stand out, encountered only in the endgame, they are immune to most magic, have no reaction commands to exploit, and attacking them doesn't stop their deadly cube attacks. Sorcerers can be harder to deal with than most bosses even.
• End Game Plus: Clearing the game on Final Mix grants Sora his final Drive level upgrade and unlocks End Game Plus if you save a Clear file. End Game Plus allows you full access to battle all members of Organization XIII at the Cavern of Remembrance, save those whose Absent Silhouette they haven't defeated yet. The remaining Mushrooms are unlocked, as is a superboss from a portal in Disney Castle. In this version of the game, this is also when the full Jiminy Journal is unlocked, with question marks for those entries you haven't completed yet. In HD II.5 Remix, it also unlocks Theatre Mode.
• Enemy Mine:
  • At one point in Hollow Bastion, Sora, Donald and Goofy come across a fight between some Heartless and Nobodies. When the two factions realize that Sora is there, they immediately stop fighting each other to gang up on him.
  • Maleficent helps Sora and co. twice because they're all trying to stop Organization. The first time she teleports them out of a Nobody ambush in Hollow Bastion and the second time she and Pete hold off a large swarm of Heartless so Sora can go fight Xemnas.
• Era-Specific Personality: Referenced with Timeless River. Sora and his friends note that Past Mickey and Past Pete are very different from their present counterparts, both in appearance and personality.
• Escort Mission: On the first (and only) story visit to Disney Castle, Queen Minnie needs to be accompanied by Sora to get past the invading Heartless without taking too much damage. She's not entirely helpless, as she's occasionally cast Pearl and being near her can let you do a Reaction Command to push back nearby Heartless.
• Evil Makeover:
  • AntiForm turns Sora completely back, and gives him Glowing Eyes of Doom, much like a Heartless, which this form represents.
  • When the Claymores of Hollow Bastion are hijacked by the Master Control Program to attack Sora and his friends instead of the Heartless, they turn orange to signify their new allegiance.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Xemnas has a very deep voice, and is depicted as irredeemable.
• Evil Versus Evil: Maleficent returns to command the Heartless again, and she isn't pleased to hear of some other group throwing their weight around. So naturally, most of her scenes have her, Pete, and the Heartless taking on Organization XIII and the Nobodies. After the visit the Space Paranoids and the Battle of 1000 Hearts, the Organization removes Maleficent from the picture by overpowering her as a show of strength, letting them take command of the Heartless (who follow those who they see as strongest).
• Exact Time to Failure: Timed Missions rarely justify this, as the moment time runs out the screen simply fades to black and no actual "death scene" is given. This becomes more noticeable when you have to fight Demyx's water clones.
• Exclusive Enemy Equipment: A couple Heartless and Nobodies have a 1% chance to drop weapons for Donald and Goofy to use.
  • Shaman Heartless drop the Shaman's Relic, a staff for Donald. It grants a Strength bonus of 4, a Magic bonus of 5, and gives Donald MP Rage (regain MP when damage is taken, original game only) or Blizzard Boost (increase the damage of Blizzard attacks by 20%, Final Mix version). A recolored "+" version is dropped by Necromancers in Final Mix, and it gives Defender (increases Defense when at critical health).
  • Bookmaster Heartless drop the Akashic Record, a shield for Goofy. It grants a Strength bonus of 7 and gives him the MP Haste ability to decrease the amount of time it takes for MP to recharge once MP Charge is activated. The recolored "+" version dropped by Runemasters in Final Mix has MP Hastera, which is a faster version of MP Haste.
  • Dragoon Nobodies drop the Nobody Lance, a staff for Donald. It grants a Strength bonus of 5, a Magic bonus of 5, and gives Defender (original game) or Item Boost (increases the effectiveness of items, Final Mix version).
  • Gambler Nobodies drop the Nobody Guard, a shield for Goofy. It grants a Strength bonus of 8 and gives either Hyper Healing (fallen ally revives faster, original game) or MP Rage (Final Mix).
• Excuse Plot: Invoked in the second visit to Agrabah. The heroes go to the desert ruins and partake in a series of minigame-like challenges to open the entrance to an old tower where Iago told them Jafar is hiding. However, it was just a ruse to get them out of town and keep them busy to give Jafar time to enact his plan.
• Expansion Pack Past: There was almost no interaction between Sora and both Simba and Mushu in Kingdom Hearts, since they only appeared as summons; however, their behavior towards Sora in this game implies they've spent a lot of time as friends together.
• Experience Booster: The aptly named Experience Boost ability increases EXP gained by 100% if Sora is at half HP or less. It's possible to have two active at once if the Gullwing is equipped, granting a net gain of 200% EXP per kill.
• Exposed to the Elements: Sora climbs to the top of a mountain in The Land of Dragons wearing nothing but his drive clothing: A short-sleeved shirt, jacket and shorts. Taken to extremes in Donald's case, where all he wears is his hat and robe, but, notably, with no shoes.
• Failed a Spot Check: Santa doesn't realize that Jack Skellington is right in front of him until Jack talks.
• Fake Memories: Roxas has a false past of happy friends and a pretty hometown. He's really a Nobody, who has to effectively die to wake the player character Sora from a Naminé-induced coma.
• Falling Chandelier of Doom: During the first visit to Beast's Castle, both the Shadow Stalker and Dark Thorn Heartless use the chandelier in the ballroom as a part of their attacks. Sora too can use it during the Dark Thorn fight in order to make him visible. Unlike most other chandeliers associated with this trope, this one has an extendable chain and returns to the ceiling once the attack is complete.
• Family-Friendly Firearms:
  • The pirates’ muskets were edited to look like crossbows (but still sound like muskets and have muzzle flashes), while the various flintlock pistols are untouched. Odder still, Xigbar's Special Attack in which he merges his two “arrowguns”, which look nothing like real guns, to create a sniper rifle, which is altered to... well, the same guns not merging.
  • There is a part in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl when Will puts a gun to his head and threatens to kill himself if his friends are not released. In western versions of Kingdom Hearts II, he leaps to the edge of the ship, just like the movie, and threatens his own life...while pointing the gun at the ground. You probably don't want to encourage children to point guns at their own heads, but at the same time it was a bit jarring to anyone familiar with the movie.
• "Far Side" Island: Stitch's summoning animation temporarily transports Sora to one that has some bushes in addition to the single palm tree.
• Fatal Fireworks: Donald has a ability called Flare Force that has him summon fireworks to shoot at enemies.
• Faustian Rebellion: Hades becomes increasingly frustrated in his attempts to defeat Hercules, since the hero kills every opponent the Lord of the Dead throws at him. At Pete's suggestion that he "send somebody already dead and save him the trouble," Hades decides to summon Auron, offering to let him out if he kills Hercules. Auron declines and insults him, telling him that "This is my story, and you're not part of it." Hades, in a rage, attacks him just as Sora comes in, and the group escapes, later foiling Hades's next attempt at Hercules's life. Also doubly subverted in that later, during your second visit to Olympus Colosseum, Hades is able to exert power over Auron by stealing his free will and forcing him to fight Hercules without mercy. After several more events happen, Sora and the group steal back Auron's will (which was in the form of a small statue of him) and break Hades' control over him.
• Field of Blades: The secret stinger videos take place in a barren field with several hundred, if not thousand, abandoned Keyblades lying about.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Sora's "Drive Forms". The first three, "Valor", "Wisdom" and "Limit", primarily enhance his combat skills, his magic skills, and his speed and agility, respectively; Valor Form allows him to dual wield Keyblades while dealing extra-hard combos, Wisdom Form allows him to deal rapid damage with a special long-range magic spell, and Limit Form allows him to avoid enemies with a Dodge Roll move while dealing a series of extra-fast combos. Master Form and Negative Form both have Jack of All Stats bonuses, though one is Light-based, and the other is Dark-based.
• Fighting Fingerprint: When Sora faces "Ansem" while completely concealed in an Organization coat, he's able to guess that it's actually Riku based on the fighting style and signature weapon.
• Fighting Your Friend:
  • Roxas ends up fighting his Best Friend, Axel, twice during the prologue. Roxas can't remember who Axel is due to amnesia and doesn't want to rejoin the Organization, while Axel needs to bring Roxas back lest he be harshly punished for failure.
  • The Beast's despair causes him to be easily influenced by Xaldin to give in to his anger, leading to a Boss Fight where Sora and Cogsworth try to get him to come to his senses.
  • During the second visit to The Land of Dragons, Sora encounters Riku on the Summit. Sora mistakes his friend for a member of Organization XIII, as Riku is in a Black Cloak to conceal his identity and he's too ashamed to reveal himself. A Boss Battle ensues, though Riku largely ignores Sora to focus his attacks on a swarm of Heartless that show up.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: Xemnas takes Sora and Riku into the Realm of Nothingness for the final battle.
• Final-Exam Boss: Xemnas, the final boss and its true test. You have to master Reaction Commands, managing your party, fighting him without your party and therefore without Drive Forms, fighting him when he uses all the Organization XIII weapons, managing without your main character Sora, and fighting him with backup Nobodies in one phase.
• Finishing Move: You can only defeat bosses with the finishing move at the end of a combo, a reaction attack, or a magic spell. This can make it difficult if you're faced with a boss that's difficult to finish a combo against.
• Fire/Ice Duo:
  • Organization XIII is a shadowy cabal of super-powered Nobodies who all draw their powers from different elemental "attributes" (Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Ice, Lightning, Flower, Moon, Time, Space, Illusion, Light and Nothingness). Appropriately, the resident Fire-user Axel and the resident Ice-user Vexen have polar opposite personalities, with Axel being friendly, carefree, down-to-Earth, irreverent, and Brilliant, but Lazy, and Vexen being cold, arrogant, hardworking and scholarly; and while Axel ultimately does a Heel–Face Turn and joins the heroes, Vexen is one of Xemnas' most loyal servants. Oddly subverted with Axel and the resident Water-user Demyx, who are—if anything—the most similar in personality.
  • The general consensus of enemies in Agrabah follows this motif, the Heartless enemies dealing primarily in either fire-damage or ice-damage, including the duo bosses Volcanic Lord and Blizzard Lord.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The game has three elemental Keyblades, each boosting one of the three elements. Axel gives you Bond of Flame (Fire), TRON gives you Photon Debugger (Thunder), and Ariel gives you Mysterious Abyss (Blizzard).
• First-Episode Twist: The game's long prologue has a couple of surprise twists at the end of it. Roxas is Sora's Nobody that's needed to wake the latter up, and the Twilight Town that Roxas lives in is actually a simulation created to hold him while Naminé has been fixing Sora's memories.
• Fisticuff-Provoking Comment: Sora and the party mistake the Steamboat Willie version of Pete for the bad guy Pete they fight with on occasions. After one too many insults and calling SW Pete a bad guy, he fights the party after being insulted too many times, yelling at them for what did he do to earn their anger and mentions that their comments are fighting words.
• Flash Step: The Final Mix version adds an ability for Sora called Flash Step. It causes him to teleport to enemies when he attacks and they're not in the initial range of his swing while also giving him a brief window of invincibility.
• Flashback with the Other Darrin: Leon, Aerith, and Ansem, Seeker of Darkness have new voice actors in this game, and the flashbacks to Kingdom Hearts in the prologue redub their lines to use the replacements. This also applies to a line from Piglet, which is redubbed by his new voice actor Travis Oates, as his original actor John Fiedler had died since the original game.
• Flunky Boss:
  • The Twilight Thorn will summon Creepers to assist it once the second stage of the fight has started (i.e. after the first round of Reaction Commands). They aren't a huge threat since they are easily avoided, though they can be dispatched quickly to grab HP Orbs.
  • During the back-to-back fights against Pete in Olympus Coliseum, several species of Heartless will occasionally spawn to assist him.
  • After Oogie Boogie is knocked off of his platform for the first time, his machine starts producing Heartless. They make dodging the boss' painful but predictable attacks a lot harder and are quite capable of taking you out on their own, meaning you can't afford to ignore them.
  • Demyx will start off his boss fight by using his sitar to conjure up watery clones of himself. Beating them is required, as they are accompanied by a timer that will cause a Non-Standard Game Over if it runs out before they're all dead.
• Fog of War: There's a Heartless called the Illuminator whose only ability is to create this. The problem? You're fighting Barbossa. He's invincible until you take down the Illuminator, which can respawn.
• Follow the Money: There are mini-games in 100-Acre Wood where you have to guide Sora through some sort of obstacle course. In each case, following the "honey spheres" which line the way is the best way to figure out how to avoid obstacles.
• Forced Transformation: If you fail a Reaction Command against a Gambler Nobody or Luxord, they will temporarily transform Sora into either a large die or person-sized card. While he can still attack by flailing around, he does very little damage.
• Forced Tutorial: The entire prologue is almost entirely unskippable tutorials, and long cutscenes. Without skipping the latter, the tutorial can take, depending on the difficulty level, up to five hours.
• For Doom the Bell Tolls: Bell strikes replace the usual piano in Organization XIII's leitmotif in "Showdown at Hollow Bastion".
• Foreshadowing:
  • During the prologue, when the hooded figure speaking to DiZ introduces himself as "Ansem", DiZ's response is a pause before several seconds of hearty laughter; it's a rather odd way to react to being presented with someone who appears to be one of the most dangerous characters in the series...until you realize that DiZ is in fact the real Ansem (i.e. Ansem the Wise, the one Xehanort took the name from) and just had someone try to introduce themselves with his own name.
  • At the beginning of the game when you're at Yen Sid's tower, there are a number of mirrors in the fairies' room that can be examined for various vague statements about Sora. These statements allude to the various Drive Forms that he will acquire over the course of the game, and one also warns you about the potential danger of the Difficult, but Awesome AntiForm.
  • Xigbar mentions that there were Keyblade wielders before Sora, and most of the extra scenes from Final Mix also hint at plot points from Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, and there are implications of Xemnas having a really strong negative reaction to being referred to as Xehanort, as well as the first Secret Ansem Report explicitly calling attention to Xehanort's amnesia and "possibly superhuman" abilities, all foreshadowing the dramatic conclusion of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. With the revelation that Xigbar is actually Luxu, his mention of Keyblade wielders gains a double meaning hinting to his real identity, considering he was a witness to the first Keyblade War way back in Kingdom Hearts χ.
  • Some more foreshadowing regarding on how Tron suddenly became all emotional as his story progressed. Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] confirms that programs are somewhat like Nobodies, in that they don't possess hearts, but the same game confirms that Nobodies can grow new hearts over time, and that it's likely that anything with a mind of its own will eventually generate a heart. Tron is, thus, the first confirmed case of this reveal, while Pinocchio is a speculated case. This explains why Sora can detect a heart within him.
  • Take a close look at Xigbar and Saïx compared to the other members of Organization XIII sans Xemnas. Notice anything odd about them? They have yellow eyes, Xigbar has silver streaks in his hair, and Saïx's hair is a more faded shade of blue than in Birth By Sleep. 3D reveals that Xemnas was grooming the Organization members to be vessels for Xehanort's heart, and that their change of appearance is because it's already started for the two of them.
  • Per the developers, they invoked this using Anti Form, which represents of Sora's vulnerability to the darkness that lurks deep in his heart and what could happen to him if he abuses his Drive powers too much. Come 3D, Xehanort's incarnations lure Sora into darkness in order to corrupt his heart and turn him into another Xehanort vessel to serve his new Organization.
  • The Final Mix expanded version of the cutscene after Sora's fight with Roxas has a moment where Axel and Roxas sit on top of the clock tower and have ice cream together one last time. During the scene, Axel asks if "you, me, her" all have hearts. The target of "her" is unclear and might be referencing Naminé, but in the context of later games it seems to refer to Xion.
  • Assassin Nobodies have a move where they self-destruct themselves in order to heavily damage Sora. Axel, their leader, performs a similar move later, killing himself in the process.
• Four Is Death: The final battle of the hardest Coliseum tournament in the game is against Hades...but the penultimate battle is against four brutal opponents: Leon, Yuffie, Tifa, and Cloud, all at once. Good luck.
• Franchise Codifier: The game created a template for future games of the series going forward, both acclaimed and controversial. On the acclaimed side, the game expanded on the somewhat minimal platforming elements of the previous installments, created a much more well-balanced magic system (with different spells serving vastly different purposes and being viable even in the endgame), and postgame bosses that served as great challenges to the player. On the controversial side, this game also introduced the Plot Twists and plot contrivances that would show up in future games as well^note In this case, Ansem from the first game wasn't actually Ansem but his apprentice instead., and it marked the point where the games began to take themselves far more seriously than one would expect a series focused on crossing Final Fantasy over with Disney to do.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • When the doves fly by Roxas' window during the start of the 6th Day of the prologue, he's replaced with Sora for a split second.
  • The Gambler Nobody's cards have pictures of Lexaeus, Zexion, Marluxia, Larxene and a Nobody symbol — the former four are Organization XIII members who only appear in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.
• Frustrating Lie: Roxas' idyllic life in Twilight Town is interrupted by the onset of various phenomena, creepy monsters, and ominous dreams of another boy's life; compounded by the appearance of strange people who not only claim to know him personally but absolutely refuse to articulate what's happening and why he's being targeted.^note Roxas is Sora's Nobody and was placed into a simulated town to hide him from Organization XIII. DiZ wants him to return to Sora's heart at the expense of himself while Axel wants to save him at the expense of Sora and bring him back to the Organization. Namine tries to explain some of what's happening, but DiZ interrupts her before she can tell Roxas everything and purposely dangles vague knowledge over the boy's head without an ounce of sympathy, causing Roxas to emit a Skyward Scream and finally go berserk.
  Roxas: WHAT'S GOING ON!? [tosses the Keyblade. It returns to him]
• Full-Contact Magic: Sora's Master Form seems to favor this, mixing physical strikes with his spell attacks. The most direct examples are the forward charge he performs when using Fire and his circular dash around Thunder's area of effect. He'll also close in on his target and slash a few times before launching Blizzard.
• Funny Background Event:
  • The second time you go to Beast's Castle, Xaldin kidnaps Belle and the Rose to force Beast to join them. Belle Takes a Third Option and runs off with the rose. What sells the scene is her elbowing him, hearing Xaldin "oof" as she goes off-screen, Sora, Beast, and Co starting a charge, then SLIDING TO A HALT as she runs by. To top it all off, the music cuts out, and you can hear Beasts' claws sliding to a stop on the pavement.
  • Also Aerith's lines while inserting the MCP Eradication Program... all while Leon Facepalms in the background.
    Aerith: "Bon appetite! Don't talk with your mouth full."
    Master Control Program: "Wha... what are you loading?"
• Fusion Dance: Sora can use his party members as Power Boosters using the Drive System. For example, Sora's Dual Wielding Valor Form involves absorbing Goofy. Absorbing Donald turns him into the magic-oriented Wisdom Form. Absorbing both active party members can turn him into Master or, later on, Final Form.

G — L

• Gambit Pileup: Both Organization XIII and Maleficent are after Kingdom Hearts, while DiZ is working in the background trying to get revenge on Xemnas for betraying him when the former was Ansem and the latter was his apprentice Xehanort.
• Game-Breaking Bug: The game may crash when saving in the unpatched HD I.5+II.5 ReMIX version for PS4. This crash also has a rare chance to delete all of your save files.
• Gameplay Ally Immortality: You allies will get up a few minutes after losing all their health. If you lose all your health, however, it's an instant game over. The in-game justification for this is glossed over very quickly, but basically boils down to your partners simply being knocked out, and Sora losing his heart any time he dies. Because the Heartless/Nobodies are very vulnerable to the Keyblade, they don't take any chances.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Pete is portrayed as a Goldfish Poop Gang character in the story, who relies on his Heartless and other distractions to cause trouble but isn't very strong himself. Likewise, almost every fight you have with him usually involves some sort of gimmick, reinforcements, or distractions, and in his one solo fight in the Hades Paradox Cup, he hardly poses a threat.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Mickey spends the first half of the game off-screen investigation Organization XIII, and after the prologue Sora and his friends don't see him again until the second visit to Hollow Bastion and the Battle of 1000 Heartless. Despite this Mickey can pop up to aid Sora in numerous boss fights that occur before the events of Hollow Bastion, including the bosses of Beast's Castle and Land of the Dragons, the first worlds you visit after leaving Hollow Bastion the first time. No one ever comments on this, even though as far as the story is concerned, Donald and Goofy should be fully aware that Mickey has arrived to save Sora and ran off after. Though this does lead to some odd Gameplay and Story Integration; before the Battle of 1000 Heartless, Mickey is still wearing his black coat, which he casts off during the battle, and in fights afterward he shows up to help you wearing his normal clothes again.
  • At the start of the game, Mickey gives Sora the munny pouch with 5,000 munny in it that Roxas and his friends earned. For obvious reasons, though, the game doesn't let you actually spend it.
  • In Port Royal, Jack Sparrow turns into a skeleton in sections of moonlight after becoming cursed, just like the other pirates. However, he can be damaged when he is non-skeletal form, while the other pirates cannot, and is able to be hurt by mundane means while the Pirates can only be harmed because of the Keyblade's foreign magic. This is made particularly jarring when Jack dying in the battle with Barbossa is an instant defeat condition despite him explicitly being immortal as a result of the Aztec curse.
  • The World That Never Was is initially only accessed by entering Betwixt and Between via the Simulated Twilight Town. Upon arriving, Sora and friends can leave to the World Map at any time via Save Point, even though the Gummi Ship should be parked at the real Twilight Town.
  • The first fight against Armored Controller Xemnas is one of the few bosses that has a chance to trigger the King Mickey rescue mechanic should Sora die. In a cutscene before the fight, King Mickey is trapped on the other side of the closed Door to Darkness and shouldn't be able to get there.
  • Completion in certain areas, such as the Hundred Acre Wood and Atlantica, is not required to clear the game. Despite this, if you beat the game without clearing these areas, you will still see happy cutscenes of resolution in the credits as if you had.
• Gameplay Grading: The Gummi Ship levels are graded with one prize unlocked for each rank achieved. When playing these levels for a high score, Rank Inflation kicks in as a truly high-score receives declarations of "S+1" rank, "S+2", and so on.
• Gangplank Galleon: Port Royal takes place within both the eponymous seaside port, and the pirate ship used to travel between there and a distant island with a haunted grotto.
• Gate Guardian: The Thresholder Heartless is the result of a Possessor Heartless, well, possessing a carving on a door in Beast's Castle. You need to get through the door to rescue Cogsworth and the other Beauty and the Beast characters and in order to do that, you need to take this thing out.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: The battle with The Beast involves knocking sense into The Beast and using a Reaction Command to have Cogsworth shout him back to his senses — "Please, master, please, compose yourself!"
• "Get Back Here!" Boss:
  • For second fight with the three hyenas in Pride Lands, you have to chase them around the Elephant Graveyard and beat them to a pulp.
  • Xigbar uses dual guns as his main weapon, and teleports across the boss arena between shots. You need to take potshots at him when he gets close and hope to catch him in a combo or deflect his shots.
• Get Out!: Beast yells this when his and Sora's Limit is initiated. Justified, since Xaldin, as well as all of the Heartless and Nobodies that accompany him, are unwanted intruders in his castle.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: Kairi's model includes panties, which can be seen with proper camera placement. This is not mentioned in the ESRB rating. It took until the HD remaster for the Radar to catch this and remove them.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Subverted. When Sora and Riku have defeated Xemnas, a giant dragon Nobody shows up from the void and our heroes chase it on a glider until it crashes, only to discover it's a spaceship piloted by... Xemnas.
• Glamour Failure: Whenever something happens that interferes with artificially created memories, and the simulated Twilight Town, the whole screen flickers.
• Glass Cannon: AntiForm can put out some serious damage with its fast combos, but it causes Sora to take 50% more damage and prevents him from healing by any means.
• A Glitch in the Matrix:
  • Everyone in the virtual Twilight Town thinks the theft of a word is unusual, but perfectly possible, in order to preserve the illusion of a normal town.
  • Vivi's sudden spike in competence and confidence during the Struggle in the prologue hints toward that Twilight Town being a simulation made of data.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: Pete fills this role perfectly, though he actually becomes a legitimate threat in the Paradox Cups thanks to the restrictions set upon you and his stats getting boosted to extremes.
• Good Morning, Crono: The game starts with Roxas waking up in his room, but there is more to it than it looks like.
• Go Out with a Smile: Axel smiles before fading away into nothingness after his suicide attack on the Dusks.
• Gotta Catch Them All: There are limits, summons, drive forms, abilities, weapons, spells, accessories, synthesis items, treasure chests, and still, more Ansem reports. Its Final Mix version adds puzzle pieces, Absent Silhouettes (though there are only five of those), thirteen Metal Slime Heartless, and the three Proofs, awarded for beating the game's three hardest challenges (the aforementioned Metal Slimes and the Superbosses).
• Grass is Greener: Roxas became jealous of the visions he had of Sora and his friends. To the point where he actually betrayed and left Organization XIII because he wanted friends and love so badly. The result? He gets tricked by DiZ into merging with Sora. Not quite what he wanted.
• Gratuitous English: The Japanese version has English text displayed in several areas, such as the Command Menu and area title cards.
• Grave Humor: Zero's grave in Halloween Town; though the grave itself is just a grave, Sora will say that Zero is usually sleeping here.
• Great Escape: The events of the first visit to Space Paranoids revolves around escaping. First from prison, then from the world itself.
• Green Hill Zone:
  • The idyllic Twilight Town provides a more urban setting, though our resident Kid Hero steals a moment of blissful peace atop a literal green hill before everything goes wrong for him. Unlike Destiny Islands from the first game, the place isn't doomed (at least not the real one), and can be eventually revisited.
  • As usual, the 100 Acre Wood is portrayed as a peaceful forest,
• Grievous Harm with a Body:
  • The "Bat Cry" Reaction Command for Hook Bats and "Air Twister" Reaction Command for Air Pirates has Sora grab the corresponding Heartless and smack them against surrounding enemies.
  • The "Fail Safe" Reaction Command for Assassin Nobodies involves Sora grabbing and throwing them into the ground, causing them to explode and potentially harm other enemies.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Most worlds have you team up with a character whenever you visit. Land of Dragons has Mulan, Beast's Castle has Beast, Olympus Coliseum has Auron from Final Fantasy X, Port Royal has Captain Jack Sparrow, Halloween Town has Jack Skellington, Agrabah has Aladdin, Pride Lands has Simba, and Space Paranoids has Tron. In the World That Never Was, Riku joins your party after what's left of Xehanort's Heartless is removed from his heart.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • During the Xemnas skyscraper battle, there is a cinematic reaction command that gets stronger the later you press it. It actually misses entirely if you react as soon as possible. After training the player for the whole game to press it as quickly as possible, this is the only time in the game that a reaction command behaves this way.
  • The Organization XIII data rematches in Final Mix are Puzzle Bosses, but even if you're level 99, their damage output leaves so little room for error that going in without a game plan can mean dying several times, too quickly to figure anything out.
  • Some of the treasures in the Gummi Routes have very obtuse or difficult unlock requirements. Some will even require you to destroy certain enemies quickly enough, while also being aware of where the enemy carrying the treasure will spawn. If the player don't know exactly what they need to be doing or what build to use to take certain enemies down quickly, those treasures will constantly lie just out of reach.
• Halfway Plot Switch:
  • The first half: Once the player switches to Sora, it follows a similar plot to the original with Malificent (with Pete as The Dragon) returning and interfering with the worlds, as Sora faces classic Disney villains.
  • The second half: after the battle at Hollow Bastion Sora battles the members of Organization XIII instead of Malificent/Pete until he discovers their base.
• Half-Arc Season: While all Disney worlds of the first game pushed the plot forward in some way, big or small, only half here actually contribute to the overall Organization XIII storyline.
• Hand Gagging: Several times throughout the game, to the point where the trope's page quote is actually from this game. Sora himself even got this, which is played for laughs, in Timeless River.
• Happy Ending Override: Discussed and ultimately subverted. After fighting some Heartless, Donald complains that things haven't changed even though they defeated Ansem in the first game, and Sora says he was hoping the Heartless would be gone in the aftermath. Yen Sid has to clarify that the Heartless will always exist due to the fact there will always be darkness in people's hearts, but assures the trio that their actions were not in vain, and that they truly did save the universe from the great invasion that threatened all of reality. Later, Sora complains about how Ansem wasn't really Ansem, but Mickey tells him that regardless of who he was, he still had to be stopped.
• Hard Mode Perks: If you play on the hardest difficulty mode exclusive to the Final Mix version, Critical Mode, you get a few gameplay bonuses. Several powerful abilities^note No Experience, Finishing Plus, Lucky Lucky (x2), MP Hastera, Draw, and Reaction Boost are granted on the third day of the prologue, you start off with 50 AP, 3 AP is awarded as an occasional level-up bonus instead of 2, your damage is boosted by 25% compared to Standard and Proud, and the requirements to unlock the secret ending video are reduced from getting 100% Completion to just earning the Gold Crown.
• Harder Than Hard:
  • The highest difficulty is Critical Mode, only available in the Final Mix version. The total HP and MP you gain over time is halved, enemies hit twice as hard as those in Proud Mode (which often means you get killed in 1 or 2 hits), and you earn 25% less experience.
  • The No Experience ability, only available in Critical Mode, prevents gaining any EXP. Turning it on at the beginning of the game to keep Sora and co. at Level 1 (which means no natural stat boosts and level-up abilities) stacked with Critical Mode's penalties immensely increases the difficulty of the already hard mode.
• Healing Factor:
  • The Genie, Stitch, and Peter Pan Summons will heal Sora over time. Stitch's healing is the slowest while Peter Pan's is the fastest.
  • Party members equipped with the Auto Heal ability will regain health as long as they're not active.
  • Limit Form will heal Sora whenever he successfully hits an enemy with a Limit.
• Healing Magic Is the Hardest: The Cure lines of spells take all of a character's MP to cast. Different levels of healing spells merely increase its range as opposed to recovering any more health. While the MP bar eventually recovers on its own, it usually takes around twenty seconds to completely recharge even at the best of times, during which no other spells or Limit Breaks can be used.
• The Hedge of Thorns: Maleficent fills Disney Castle's Hall of the Cornerstone with thorns as the start of her attempt to corrupt the place with darkness.
• Hellhound: After having appeared in the first game, Cerberus makes a return as a boss in the Underworld, pursuing Sora and friends as they escape that location.
• Helpful Mook: The sole purpose of the rare Bulky Vendor Heartless is to give out items via a Reaction Command once you've found it. It doesn't attack, instead draining its own HP once it spawns. The amount of HP a Bulky Vendor has left when you use its Reaction Command determines the quality of the item you can get from it.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • When Sora learns that his killing Heartless is exactly what the Organization wants him to do. He recovers really quickly, after a pep talk from Goofy, which basically boils down to "The Heartless still need to be stopped, because they hurt people."
  • And a less plot-relevant example is given to Hercules when he finds out that Olympus Coliseum was utterly demolished by the Hydra that he didn't quite kill in his hurry to save his girlfriend. You would think he suffered enough in the movie.
  • Mickey, Donald Duck, and Sora all slip into a shared one in when Goofy is seemingly killed. It only lasts a few seconds before all three of them quickly transition into Unstoppable Rage. After they finish ruthlessly slaughtering every last Heartless and Nobody in the immediate vicinity, Goofy catches up to them and reveals that he was not dead, only knocked unconscious.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Goofy saves Mickey from a falling boulder, but he gets better like five minutes later.
  • Two villains sacrifice themselves to save Sora. One of them dies, and the other doesn't. The former got better, though.
• Hero Must Survive:
  • You'll get a Game Over during the boss battle with Barbossa if Jack Sparrow gets knocked out.
  • If Riku's HP reaches zero during Xemnas' final attack, you lose. This is because he's needed for the Coup de Grâce Cutscene that plays afterward.
• He Was Right There All Along: The Thresholder Heartless is part of a set of double doors in Beast's Castle, and announces itself by taking a swing at Donald once he gets close enough.
• High-Altitude Battle: You fight Genie Jafar in the sky, far over the streets of Agrabah. This is one of the few mandatory bosses where Sora fights without any party members, though he rides the Magic Carpet, so it's not officially one-on-one.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Played with: Xehanort is behind everything, always, but it's not apparent from the start that the new villain of the game is still some version of him.
• Hitbox Dissonance: Due to a glitch in the HD II.5 Final ReMIX version, some of Vexen's attacks will hit even when they're clearly not near Sora and co.
• Hitodama Light: Small balls of bluish-white flames float aimlessly and harmlessly through the underworld. You can smash them for money and health.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Many Reaction Commands involve Sora using an enemy's attack or weapon against them do deal a large amount of damage. For example, the "Berserk" command causes Sora to pick up a Berserker Nobody's hammer and swing it at them.
• Hold the Line: The fight against Shan Yu requires that he be beaten before front door to the Land of Dragons' palace is destroyed.
• Holy Hand Grenade:
  • Queen Minnie's magic spells all fit in this category.
  • King Mickey has several variations on the Pearl spell, a reference to the rename of Holy used for Final Fantasy VI.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The first couple of "fights" with Hades have him completely invincible, forcing you to flee.
• Hover Skates: Wisdom Form allows Sora to move around as though he were ice skating on air.
• HP to 1: In the optional Data version of the first Xemnas fight, doing the "Finish" Reaction Command on the run up Memory's Skyscraper will automatically put him at 1 HP.
• Hub City: Hollow Bastion, which was the penultimate level in the first game, now serves as a headquarters of sorts for Sora and his allies. Many crucial plot points take place here. However, in terms of gameplay, it's not quite as vital as Traverse Town, as shopping and synthesizing can now be done in every other world.
• Hunting the Rogue: The prologue of the game centers around Roxas, a boy living in Twilight Town who is suddenly assaulted by weird creatures and their masters - who want him back at any cost. He was originally part of their Organization until a complicated chain of events caused him to simultaneously defect and get captured by an opposing faction that locked him into the Twilight Town simulation in the hopes of re-uniting him with his other half Sora.
• An Ice Person: The first boss battle in Agrabah is two djinn Heartless, one empowered by ice and the other by fire.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Half of Organization XIII debuted in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, including the iconic Axel, and the other half debuted afterward in this game, most notably Roxas and Xemnas. The group as a whole proved so iconic that the next game, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, was a midquel centered around them.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: As of Final Mix, there are four difficulty levels: Beginner, Standard, Proud and Critical.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place:
  • The World that Never Was, which itself has subsections like The Hall of Empty Melodies, Brink of Despair, and the Altar of Naught.
  • Honorable mention goes to Proof of Existence, which isn't ominous sounding by itself until you remember the true nature of the antagonists as undead/non-existent beings. What is Proof of Existence then, you ask? A graveyard. Sure, it works as a connecting room to each Organization member's quarters, but still.
  • Even mundane areas in the World That Never Was get ominous monikers. The break room is called the Grey Area. An elevator goes by Crooked Ascension.
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!: The Heartless are said to take orders from whoever they see as the strongest, so the Organization is able to take command of them by overpowering Maleficent at Hollow Bastion.
• I Have Your Wife: Organization XIII decides to kidnap Kairi so they can motivate Sora to keep killing the Heartless after he finds out about their plan.
• I Like Those Odds: Leon and Cloud do this during their Back-to-Back Badasses moment while surrounded and vastly outnumbered by Heartless.
  Leon: Think you can handle this many?
  Cloud: Well, might be tough if one more shows up.
  Leon: Then that'll be the one I take care of.
  Cloud: What, you're fighting too?
• I Take Offense to That Last One: When Cid calls Merlin an "old loon", Merlin gets offended by being called old.
• Idiot Ball: Ariel completely forgets about the events of Kingdom Hearts, and how Ursula is not at all trustworthy, so the game can recreate the plot of The Little Mermaid (1989).
• Immune to Flinching:
  • Many of the larger bosses, such as Cerberus, are either immune to being stunned or are just extremely difficult to stun.
  • Riku never gets stunned or reacts to taking damage during his Boss Fight in the Land of Dragons.
• The Imp: Pete is a bit on the large side and surprisingly strong, but he's too dumb and incompetent to be much of a threat by himself. Sora lampshades this early on while speaking with Leon.
• Impossible Thief: At the beginning of the prologue, a thief has been going around stealing photos and somehow was able to steal the word, preventing anyone from saying it. Once Roxas gets the photos back, the word returns.
• Improbable Weapon User:
  • Sora can attack with the stakeboard by doing tricks near enemies, though he only does Scratch Damage.
  • Demyx uses a pretty large sitar as his weapon. While he usually uses it to channel his water attacks, he'll occasionally swing it as a melee weapon.
  • Gambler Nobodies throw giant dice at Sora as one of their attacks.
  • Luxord's weapon is a deck of playing cards. Each card is person-sized, and they're surprisingly effective.
  • One of the Random Drops you can get is a giant book, which Goofy can equip as a weapon.
• Inconsistent Dub: The pronunciation of Tidus's name. In Kingdom Hearts, Wakka pronounces it "Tee-dus", but in II, Selphie says "Tie-dus".
• Inconsistent Spelling:
  • The Lion King world's name shows up as "Pride Land" when it comes up on screen the first time you go there, but is referred to as "Pride Lands" in the dialogue and in Jiminy's Journal. This was fixed in the '2.5'' version, where the name title now has the "S" included.
  • The Heartless known as Magnum Loader in the English translation was known as Magna Roader in the original Japanese version (Maguna Rōdā), and "Roader" does make more sense based on the way the Heartless looks and moves like a bike, to the point where it seems that "Loader" was a mistranslation. It is likely to be a Shout-Out to the enemy of the same name from Final Fantasy VI.
  • The Secret Ansem Reports spell the name of 3 of Ansem's apprentices as "Bleig", "Dilin" and "Eleus", completely killing the Significant Anagram naming scheme that the Organization members have. This is fixed in HD II.5 ReMIX version.
• Increasingly Lethal Enemy: Lexeaus' gimmick for his Optional Boss fight in the Final Mix version is that he has a power level that determines his damage output. He starts off doing so little damage that even if you're Level 1 he's completely non-threatening, but as the fight goes on he will occasionally power himself up and do more and more damage.
• Infinity -1 Sword:
  • Beating the Experiment on the second visit to Halloween Town grants Sora the Decisive Pumpkin Keyblade. It's tied with Ultima Weapon and Oblivion for the second highest Strength bonus at 6, a pretty long reach to ensure it hits targets, and has the "Combo Boost" ability to increase damage dealt by combo finishers on the ground. The combination of its ability and Strength bonus gives it the highest damage output out of all Keyblades when used on the ground.
  • Reuniting with Riku and Kairi in The World That Never Was grants Oblivion, the last Keyblade you get from story progression. It's tied with Decisive Pumpkin and Ultima Weapon for the second highest Strength bonus of 6, a decent Magic bonus of 2, and the Drive Boost ability to restore the Drive Gauge faster during MP Charge.
• Infinity +1 Sword:
  • The Ultima Weapon has great strength and magic, but requires a whole lot of synthesising. The Fenrir is the single strongest physical Keyblade in the game, but requires you to beat Sephiroth. The Fatal Crest is the single strongest magical Keyblade in the game, but requires you to beat the Goddess of Fate Cup in the Underdrome.
  • There is a ingredient that increases a synthesized item's rank by one. It is necessary for the creation of the Ultima Weapon and can be applied to Goofy and Donald's highest level weapons making them Save The King/Queen+.
  • Final Mix adds a third variation.
    • Winner's Proof for Sora. It has the highest magic in the game, but it can only be gotten by beating the twelve Organization Mushroom mini-games. Plus its ability is No Experience, which has limited utility—unless one is playing a low-level game, you'll want to avoid using it until you reach the level cap (and note that while the series as a whole is a fan of Absurdly High Level Cap, the big draw of Final Mix is its Post-End Game Content Optional Boss parade—and you will need every last level you can get for those broken jerks) and after you reach the cap, it merely becomes a useless ability where there could be a useful one instead.
    • Premium Mushroom and Ultimate Mushroom for Donald and Goofy. The former gets Save the Queen+'s old ability from the normal version of the game and has the highest magic stat in the game while the latter absorbs 40% of all damage. They are won by getting the best possible score on the Mushroom XIII mini games.
• Inkblot Cartoon Style: Timeless River is a throwback to the old black and while Mickey Mouse cartoons, style and all. Like other worlds, Sora, Donald and Goofy's appearance change to suit the world, with Donald and Goofy reverting to versions of their earliest designs. Though Goofy is the only one who can actually be described as being in the Inkblot style. Sora's look is more akin to a Tezuka styled anime character, and Donald debuted as the Inkblot style was on the way out.
• Inside a Computer System:
  • The Twilight Town that Roxas lives in is actually a virtual recreation found inside a computer in the real town's abandoned mansion.
  • Space Paranoids is a Cyberspace world based off of the ENCOM system in TRON. It's located in Ansem the Wise's computer in Hollow Bastion.
• Insult Backfire: At one point, Sora tries to insult Hades, but the insult is ineffective because Hades considers it to be a compliment:
  Sora: Lowlife!
  Hades: Heh, you're too kind, kid.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: During the first visit to Beast's Castle, two suits of armor block the path to the Beast's room. Examining them will have the game say they are impassable and there's an invisible wall preventing progress, even though there is clearly a gap large enough for Sora to comfortably get around them.
• Interface Screw: Zexion and the Lingering Will can potentially lock out options in the Command Menu, or even outright replace them. When this happens, the only thing you can do is find the right command to free the menu.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • Getting the Reunion trophy in the II.5 Final ReMIX version shows Riku in the attire he wears when he joins the party. At this point, he's still in Ansem's form, and will not be restored until after two more bosses and about fifteen minutes worth of cutscenes.
  • Roxas's levelling notices during the prologue are outlined in yellow, which is the colour used for guest party members. This is a pretty clear way of telling you Roxas isn't actually a permanent player character.
• Invisible Block: The fortress of Organization XIII presents an enormous abyss with random floating platforms scattered throughout. Only by running (or gliding) towards them could Sora reveal the prismatic pathways linking the platforms (and the exits) together. Edge Gravity remained in full effect, making the...invisibleness...just there for show.
• Invisible Parents: Roxas and his friends are apparently teenagers, but the concept of a guardian being relevant to their lives is never broached. Of course, Roxas himself doesn't have any "parents", unless you count Sora.
• Invited as Dinner: Sora and his friends nearly become lunch for the hyenas. Inverted, as the trio just end up there as trespassers when they entered the world, yet Shenzi lets them stay anyway.
• Ironic Echo: When Maleficent intervenes between Sora's confrontation with Saïx and Sora tries to stop her, she tells him, "I don't take orders from you!" When Maleficent saves Sora and company from the Nobodies, telling him to find a way to get rid of the Nobodies, Sora repeats the same line and tries to help her to no avail.
• Irony: Xaldin warns Luxord that "if the cards aren't in [his] favour", he'll end up sharing the same fate as Demyx. Xaldin ends up as the next member of Organization XIII to die.
• It Can Think:
  • As Yen Sid explains, this is what separates the Heartless from the Nobodies; while the Heartless are little more than mindless animals who function on instinct, the Nobodies are fully capable of thinking things through and planning ahead.
  • Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, aka Xehanort's Heartless, is in fact a Heartless himself, but retains all of his human intelligence and selfhood; the real Ansem the Wise theorizes that this is because Ansem/ Terra-Xehanort willingly became a Heartless.
• Item Crafting: Synthesis allows you to create items by using materials dropped from enemies or found in chests. Many of these items are either very hard to obtain or outright impossible to get otherwise.
• It's All My Fault:
  • Hercules declares this because he failed to defeat the Hydra and falls into a depression that lasts until you defeat Hades late in the game. Even though it wasn't really his fault.
  • After Axel kidnaps Kairi, Sora starts to cry inside the Gummi Ship as his friends try to cheer him up. When Goofy tells him that "he's the key that connects everything", Sora mutters "So it's all my fault". Goofy takes back his words in shock, not wanting Sora to enter another Heroic BSoD.
• It's All Upstairs From Here: The trek through the Organization's castle is almost entirely upward. You take an elevator and go up several flights of stairs before eventually confronting Xemnas at the very top.
• It's Personal: Mickey Mouse has this briefly when Goofy pushes him out of the way when a Heartless was about to attack him and gets hit instead. And was thought to be dead.
• Jar of the Bizarre: In a flashback, King Mickey pays a visit to Ansem the Wise in his office underneath Radiant Garden's castle, and tubes are seen containing floating stylized hearts behind his chair.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Past Pete is a bit gruff, but not nearly as mean as his present counterpart and shows his thanks when his boat is returned.
  • Seifer may act tough, but when he gives the struggle trophy to Sora for being "the strongest guy in Twilight Town" after the latter saves his gang from the Nobodies, it is clear that it is a genuine display of gratitude.
• Joke Item: Final Mix gives Donald and Goofy the Plain Mushroom and Joyous Mushroom, a staff and shield with stats similar to their initial weapons. They are won by winning the Mushroom XIII mini games with the lowest score possible.
• Killer Rabbit: Pay the Pride Lands a visit, and Sora turns into one of these. A cute little lion cub who is more than capable of taking on all the Heartless the world can offer, including the effing ginormous Groundshaker.
• Kill the Lights: The Illuminator Heartless assists Captain Barbossa by shrouding the area in darkness. This not only conceals them, but makes Barbossa invincible because he can only be harmed in the moonlight. The Illuminator has to be killed first to lift the darkness and make Barbossa vulnerable.
• King Mook: The Organization XIII members act as this to most of the Nobody enemies.Axel to the Assassins, Demyx to the Dancers, Xaldin to the Dragoons, Roxas to the Samurais, Xigbar to the Snipers, Luxord to the Gamblers, Saïx to the Berserkers and Xemnas to the Sorcerers.
• Kissing Discretion Shot: Sora enforces this on Flounder by covering his eyes so that he doesn't see Ariel and Eric kiss.
• Kneel Before Zod: Played with. Saix simply asks Sora to show just how important Kairi is to him. Sora, who Ain't Too Proud to Beg, kneels of his own volition.
• Knockback Evasion: A regular part of the Kingdom Hearts series starting with this game is an ability known as Aerial Recovery which lets you regain control after being launched. Some bosses and enemies in the series are capable of it as well, and knowing when to use yours and when they'll use theirs is an important part of getting through the higher difficulties.
• Lampshade Hanging: The world of Port Royal is based on a live-action Disney movie instead of an animated feature, and thus has more realistic art and character designs. The moment Sora and co. enter the world, they note how different it feels.
• Land of Dragons: The world based on Mulan is literally called the Land of Dragons.
• Large Ham:
  • Ansem, re-dubbed in flashbacks by Richard Epcar, is depicted in an overly-dramatic fashion. For instance:
  KINGDOOOOM HEEEAAAAARTS! FILL ME, WITH THE POWER OF DARKNESS!!
  • Saïx, during the boss fight with him.
    MOVE ASIIIIDE!
• Larynx Dissonance: Played a bit well with "Ping" when "he" fights alongside Sora and his companions in battles... before "he" is accidentally revealed to be Mulan who later fights alongside them for the remainder of the game.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Messed around with in the beginning of the game. When Sora, Donald, and Goofy forget their fighting skills, they have to relearn them all. Convenient, since the player's also learning a new fighting system. However, Sora's basic combo in Kingdom Hearts II is more precise and polished than in the original game, and according to Word of God reflects his growing skills as a swordsman, while Donald's magic is visually distinct from Sora's in Kingdom Hearts II, when they shared the same spells in Kingdom Hearts. On the other hand, Roxas in the prologue had his memory wiped by Namine so he would have a normal life before he had to reunite with Sora.
• Last Chance Hit Point:
  • Every boss will always hit 1 HP before you can finish them off, and you're only allowed to do so with a Reaction Command, combo finisher, or magic.
  • The Second Chance ability allows Sora to survive any hit if he had at least 2 HP when it connects, while the Once More ability also him to survive combos if he had more than 1 HP when the first hit connects.
• Last Note Nightmare: The track "Showdown at Hollow Bastion" from the game's OST. The abrupt transitions are heart-quickening (no pun intended) and can be slightly nightmarish: it begins with a mild little score, suddenly picks up the tempo and sounds like montage music, and THEN suddenly becomes all-out battle music complete with a choir that has a similar effect to Ominous Latin Chanting. And the entire piece is under a minute long.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • The opening cinematic and flashbacks during the prologue reveal that the Big Bad of the first game wasn't Maleficent, but a man named Ansem.
  • The opening cinematic shows that Riku was actually at Castle Oblivion during Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and heavily implies that he's playable. This is meant to be a surprise in original game that's only unlocked after beating Sora's story.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Sora gains a speed boost when in the red-colored Valor Form.
• Lazy Backup: If you have a party member that's sitting out due to the three person limit, they won't join the fight automatically if somebody gets knocked out; you have to manually call them. This can be circumvented with the Auto Change ability, which does cause them to tag in.
• Lethal Joke Item: The Sweet Memories Keyblade looks useless at first, as it provides zero boosts to Attack and Magic and its range is pitiful. However, it also has the Lucky Lucky ability (increases the drop rates of items), which is invaluable when farming synthesis materials. Final Mix gives it a magic boost of 4 and the new ability Drive Converter, which makes enemies drop drive orbs instead of munny, invaluable for leveling up Drive Forms, especially Master Form which gains exp as you collect drive orbs.
• Letter Motif: All members of Organization XIII have an X in their names. Initiation into the Organization actually requires an X to be added to the letters of the member's previous name. Dream Drop Distance reveals that the X isn't just a letter, either — it's the Recusant's Sigil, a mark of Xehanort's ownership over them, which he uses to track them (among many others) for his true Evil Plan.
• Levitating Lotus Position: Successfully blocking a Samurai Nobody's attack may cause them to assume a levitating meditation pose. This signifies that you can use the "Duel Stance" Reaction Command on them.
• Like an Old Married Couple: There’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment with Leon and Aerith, in which the former asks the later if she’ll be okay by herself (the whole town was currently in a crisis) while he goes out to retrieve something, and her only reply is to coldly stare at him, who decides to shut up and leave.
• Lilliputians: Lilliput itself is a visitable location as a part of Timeless River. None of the inhabitants appear concerned when their town gets caught up in, from their perception, a Behemoth Battle between a trio of toons and flying demons.
• Limit Break: The game introduces powerful new techniques called Limits. At the cost of all of Sora's MP, he can team up with another party member (or Donald and Goofy if using Trinity Limit) to become invincible for a period of time while doing special attacks.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Picking the Magic-based build during the introduction segments will be a disadvantage early on (especially since you start with absolutely no spells), but sticking with it will make your magic noticeably more powerful toward the end of the game. Conversely, choosing the offense or defense builds don't make a huge difference in the damage you give/take in the long run. If you DO pick Magic as your main focus, you'll be able to shave off multiple health bars from endgame Nobodies in a magic combo, your Explosion finisher (which bases damage on Magic) becomes even more of a game breaker than it is with a physical build, and Reflega turns anything foolish enough to challenge you into Swiss cheese in a single cast. Should you use Magic while in Final form with a Magic build, you'll see this trope at its prime.
• Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: Lampshaded when you travel to the Pride Lands. All three of you are transformed into animals/slightly less anthropomorphic animals in order to blend in. Sora becomes a lion cub, Goofy becomes a tortoise, and Donald becomes a... bird. But with wings that function! Simba also comments on the fact that Sora looks different than he remembered, as he was a summon from the original game who fought alongside a human Sora, and suddenly he's a lion cub!
• Lip Lock: Averted; about half the dialogue uses Mouth Flaps, and the other half animates mouth movements according to the dubbed dialogue in the English version.
• Living Structure Monster: The Thresholder is a creature possessing some dungeon doors which impede Sora and company in Beast's Castle.
• The Load: Mulan is useless when she first joins the party disguised as Ping. She has no offensive abilities outside of a basic attack with her sword, and said attack is weak and slow. You're also forced to use her for Shang's missions, weighing you down considerably since it means Donald or Goofy will have to sit out.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: The PS3 version of II.5 has long load times due to the Blu-Ray discs used for the game, and there is no data install option to ease it. While normal load times aren't too bad, the game hangs for several seconds when entering Drive Forms, using Summons, or sometimes just opening a chest.
• Lone Wolf Boss:
  • Implied with Shan Yu. He has his own army of Heartless, but is never seen making contact with Pete or Maleficent to make any sort of deal. He's trying to conquer The Land of Dragons on his own, and only battles Sora because he's in the way.
  • Hades is shown working with Pete during the first visit to Olympus Coliseum on a joint venture to take care of both Sora and Hercules, but on the second visit appears to have ended the alliance to focus on Herc.
  • On the first visit to Halloween Town, Lock, Shock, and Barrel are working for Maleficent and fight you to buy time for Oogie to get better from his recent resurrection. When they're encountered on the second visit, they're not working for anybody and start causing trouble in Christmas Town just because it's fun.
  • Ursula is back, but now works alone trying to take over Atlantica.
  • On the second visit to Halloween Town, somebody is stealing presents from Santa Claus for unknown reasons. It's later discovered that the theft was caused by the Experiment, a creation of Dr. Finklestein's that went rogue. It stole the presents in a vain attempt to gain a heart, which Dr. Finklestein did not give it during the creation process.
  • The MCP is unaffiliated with the other villains, and tries to take over Hollow Bastion.
• Loophole Abuse: The Summon gauge levels up as you let the gauge drain while a summon is active, earning 1 experience each time the gauge ticks down. However, unlike Drive forms which drain quicker as you deal damage to enemies, the Summon gauge will refill. This means the most efficient way to level up Summons is to wait for the gauge to just drain, then attack an enemy; the damage you inflict recharge the gauge back up one tick, and then it will naturally deplete down one tick. With proper timing and a good combo, you can do this multiple times in a few seconds, earning experience every time the gauge is reset by your attacks.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: The Twilight Town Roxas spends the prologue in is merely a simulation that is intended to keep him docile enough for Sora's memories to be extracted from him.
• Luck-Based Mission: Mushroom #VIII in Final Mix+. True, this is only a sidequest required for 100% Completion, but then again, the type of people who play the Final Mixes are completionists. Anyways, this sidequest, no matter what strategy you use, requires a complicated setup and can be resource-intensive—so you will be Save Scumming. The point is to keep the mushroom in the air by hitting it and never allowing it to touch the ground; what makes it luck-based is the completely random direction the mushroom will jet off to every few rounds of hits. It requires as well very fine-tuned timing and hand-eye coordination, yet if luck is not with you, you will lose. And how many times must the mushroom be hit? Eighty-five times, minimum.
• Lunacy: The Dragon Saïx. He uses the ominous Kingdom Hearts floating over The World That Never Was as the focus of his powers, turning him from The Stoic into The Berserker. The aforementioned MacGuffin is, for all intents and purposes, the moon of The World That Never Was; the theme of the world is entitled Sacred Moon, the city is draped in eternal night with the only light source being Kingdom Hearts.

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