With Kingdom Hearts 3 coming out on January🥂 25, 2019, a lot of fans are working to jog their memories of what actua༒lly has happened in the series up to this point.
If you’ve only played Kingdom Hearts one and two, then you must have lived in a world of confusion. Suddenly you play a kid named Roxas in a place called Twilight Town. Where was Sora? Apparently, Roxas was a part of Sora and Sora has been in a coma. That’s wild! Then you realized you missed not only one but two very necessary games to understand Kingdom Hearts’ plot and characters.
Those who only had the PS2 but no PSP or Nintendo DS had a wait a long time or watch a “Let’s Play” on YouTube to understand what was going on in Kingdom Hearts. Why? It’s because they missed two entire games, Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days.
These two games introduced essential characters, places, and produced a lot of development for major characters like Sora and Riku. The two ga𝓰mes also taught its fans nearly everything about Nobodies, their goals, Organization XIII, and ma♔ny new bad guys.
If you’ve played only Kingdom Hearts one and two and still have not played the🐼 other games, now is the time. If you don’t believe it, here is a list of twenty-five events that happened between the first and second games. We’ll try to go in order for your convenience.
25 ✤ Sora And Riku Go To Castle Oblivion
All of Chain of Memories takes place in Castle Oblivion. The origin of Castle Oblivion is explained in the later game, Birth by Sleep, and we find out it was created by Aqua to keep Ventus saf🌠e during his coma.
The castle was eventually found by the Organization and was made into a second headquarters.
It is there where Sora travels to straight after the first Kingdom Hearts. Not far behind him, Riku enters Castle Oblivion and goes on his own journey inwards to defeat Ansem, who still lives iꦉnside him.
24 Naminé Is Introduced ﷺ
Naminé proved to be a very special and essential character to the Kingdom Hearts franchise. She is known as a witch who can manipulate memories. She’s Kairi’s Nobody, but a unique one since Kairi’s heart had no darkness and never made a heartless. She plays large roles in the games between one and two, being the force that manipulates Sora’s memories, and then tells Xion of her true nature in 358/2 Days.
Her powers are connected to drawing, as🧸 players can see in cutscenes or by exploring where Naminé resides that she draws people’s memories.
Art was done by Jiyke.
23 Riku Was Cloned 🎐
A lot of nonconsensual experimentation happened in Castle Oblivion. One such experiment involved a Riku clone. He was created by Vexen and is one of the main antagonists of Chain of Memories.
The replica is rather tragic since Naminé gave him memories to think he is the real Riku.
He even fought against the idea, but was beaten and got the original Riku’s memorie𝔍s anyway. He was used to manipulate Sora until he realized he’s a replica and tried to defeat the original Riku. He was ultimately defeated by the real Riku.
Artist is Amano Shiro.
22 Some Organization Membe𝔍rs Are Defeated
The first appearance of the Organization happens in Chain of Memories. The game has Marluxia, La🍌rxene🌳, Zexion, Lexaeus, Axel, and Vexen. All of them though, save Axel, were defeated in various ways.
Marluxia and Larxene are defeated by Sora. Zexion and Vexen are eliminated by Axel. Lexaeus is done in by🤡 Riku. It was very much a party wipe on the Organization’s part. The fact that the Organization was having its own little civil war for control did not help either.
Art was done by Amano Shiro.
21 Sora Forgets About Ka🌳iri
Due to Naminé’s memory manipulation, Sora’s memories get a little scrambled the further he travels into Castle Oblivion. One such scramble is that his memories of Kairi became memories about Naminé. She even changed the🐷🀅 lucky charm Sora got from Kairi to reflect a false memory.
It’s these false memories that make Sora travel further into Castle Oblivion to save Naminé from the Organization since he thinks he knew her since childhood instead of Kairi.
This drove the Kairi and Sor꧃a shippers wild. It’s alright though since his memories were later repaired.
20 Fighting 🍸Wit♛h Cards
A huge complaint about Chain of Memories was the combat. The combat was a card-based system that many fans felt was unnecessary. This caused players to have to build and sort cards to create combos, which is probably not what they signed up for or expected in a Kingdom Hearts ga๊me. The combos and heals were also easily disrupted by🤪 enemies which players found very frustrating.
Every combat action was a card from items to spells to attacks. Some special gimmick cards appeared during boss b♊attles. There were also friend cards that could summon characters like Bambi o𓆉r Genie.
Artist is unknown.
19 Marluxia And Larxene Betr🌠ay The Organization ♓
Marluxia working with Larxene, attempted to overthrow the Organization during the events of Chain of Memories. Using Naminé, ⛦they planned to manipulate Sora into defeating the senior Organization membors.
This whole plot comes from a rivalry between the more recent members and the original six members.
Vexen and Axel were part of Marluxia and Larxene’s team but turned out to have different agendas in the end. Their undoing however was less of their opposing Organization members and more of just Sora coming in and defeating them despite their attempts at manipulatꩵing him൲.
Artist is unknown.
18 Sora Gets Fake Memoriesꦑ💞
As mentioned before, Naminé did not only erase memories, but could create new ones. She accomplished this by repl💜acing memories of ওKairi with memories of her instead. So this part of the list ties in with Sora forgetting Kairi.
It should be highlighted that Sora got fake memories to ꧟replace Kairi though. While this was part of Naminé’s plan, there are hints that it was also because Kairi was so important to Sora that he could not completely forget her. So Naminé used fake memories partly because Sora could not completely f﷽orget Kairi.
Artist is Eva Lara.
17 Axel Revealed As Double Agent 𒊎
Axel is a total trickster in terms of the Organization members, as he often switches sides and fans could not really read into him until playing 358/2 Days. In Chain of Memories, it’s ꦦrev🎶ealed that he acts as a double agent. He pretends to work with Marluxia and Larxene while also pretending to work with Vexen, Zexion, and Lexaeus.
His main goal was to give himself and Saix more power in the Organization.
Through 358/2 Days, fans also learned that Axel 🐟was trying to protect Roxas through his actions in Castle Oblivion as well.
16 ꦡ Ri꧟ku Defeats Ansem
Riku’s final boss during his section of Chain of Memories is Ansem. At the beginning of the fight, he tellဣs Mickey to destroy him if Ansem wins, since Ansem would have taken contr💟ol of him. Mickey, of course, refuses.
During their fight, Ansem challenges Riku that without darkness, he is weak. Riku then points out that Sora defeated Ansem while he controlled Riku in Kingdom Hearts one, so Anse♔m is actually weak. (Let’s admit it though, that was a di꧅fficult boss fight).
Luckily 🗹Riku does win, but Ansem tells him that his shadow will always linger and he will one d🐼ay return.
Artist is Amano Shiro.