A Guide to Understanding Kingdom Hearts Story 2: Chain of Memories & 358/2 Days

Welcome to the second installment in the series of articles aiming towards ending once and for all the myth that the Kingdom Hearts story is too complex to understand! If you haven’t read the first part, you can check it out here in Part 1!

After establishing the core concepts in the saga and having the complete story of the first game explained, we continue our adventure exactly from the point it let off the last time.

Even though it occupies probably the place of one of the least loved games by fans of the series due to the cards mechanic around which the gameplay works, the first spin-off establishes characters and plot points which are essential in the overarching story. It starts directly after the first game’s ending, with Sora, Donald and Goofy following a path between worlds without a single clue about where they’re going to end up. They meet a mysterious figure wearing a black coat, the first of many we’re going to see, who convinces them to go to Castle Oblivion.

Following the marked path and once inside the castle, after another brief conversation with the mysterious figure, in which they claim that there’s something they need inside of it somewhere, the trio of heroes sets off in another journey, ascending through the castle floors, searching for what that might be.

At each floor we have a “mini-level” corresponding to each Disney world we visited in the previous game, accessed, just like everything else in this game, through cards, and each of them have a short storyline to be completed, revolving around memories and the fact that the characters Sora met previously are not remembering him anymore, but what really matters is what happens between each of them.

We’re introduced to a few new characters: Axel, Larxene, Marluxia, Vexen and Namine, in addition to having a few run-ins with Riku, but he’s acting strange and doesn’t answer any of Sora’s questions.

The first four of them all are dressed in the exact same black coat the mysterious figure from the start of the game wore, but without the hoodie hiding their faces. It’s revealed that they are a part of a larger group, Organization XIII, and that they’re there with a plan we fell right into: Namine is a witch, capable of manipulating the trio’s memories, who is being kept prisoner and forced to do exactly that, against her will. Little by little, as the game progresses, Donald, Goofy and mostly Sora completely forget about Kairi’s existence, her being replaced by false memories with Namine, and that group’s leader, Marluxia, intends to use that to control Sora.

As this all unfolds, we also follow a certain conflict between the members: Vexen, the Organization’s resident mad scientist guy, has the highest ranking among those in the Castle, and treats Larxene, Axel and Marluxia as inferior. On the other hand, the three of them start to plan a rebellion. This culminates with the main trio besting Vexen in combat in a new world we hadn’t visited before, called Twilight Town, and soon after we leave Axel shows up and kills off the scientist once and for all, earning the trust of his two co-conspirators. It’s at this point that we find out that the Riku who Sora has been fighting against is not the real Riku, but a replica of him, created by Vexen in his laboratory.

In a not so surprising twist, since he had been acting in increasingly suspicious and ambiguous ways, Axel betrays the other two and lets Namine escape on purpose. She meets up with Sora and tells him the whole truth, about who she is and what she’s done to their memories. Even though in conflict due to the feelings he holds inside himself towards her even after knowing the truth, Sora believes her and heads to the last floor of the Castle.

After defeating Axel - who only opens up a portal and runs away, obviously not dying for real and Larxene - this one dies for real, at least for now, Sora gets to the final floor, where Marluxia is keeping Namine, who ends up being saved by Replica Riku, who also had false memories with her put into his heart (in Kingdom Hearts, people’s memories are stored in their hearts, not their brains. Don’t question.) and therefore, feels a strong urge to protect her.

Sora and Marluxia fight, once again accompanied by transformations into gigantic structures, and Sora wins, Marluxia being the third member from the Organization to be defeated for good.

Namine then offers a choice to Sora, Donald and Goofy. They can keep their memories the way they are and carry on with their mission right away, or they could have their real memories back, but for that to happen they’d need to be put into a dormant state for an entire year, as Namine puts everything back in place, and they forget all about their time in Castle Oblivion. They choose the second option, but vow not to forget about the girl’s existence and about how much she did to help them. Jiminy Cricket, who always accompanies the trio on their journeys and registers in his diary everything that happens, writes down Thank Namine in it.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories - Reverse Rebirth

This is the game mode unlocked once you beat the game once with Sora, and tells Riku’s story, also inside of Castle Oblivion. He’s inside the castle at the same time as Sora, and sometimes one’s actions interfere with the other’s storyline, but unfortunately, they never directly meet face to face with each other.

The story of our very own bad boy tortured by his own mind stereotype, also commonly found in JRPGs and japanese media in general, starts off with him floating in a gray void, hearing a mysterious voice saying mean and discouraging things directed at him, right before receiving a Hollow Bastion card and being thrown into the Castle’s basement, and has to complete a world built up of memories, just like in Sora’s gameplay.

For the entire time, the same voice accompanies Riku, provoking him and throwing his questionable- to say the least -actions in KH1 right in his face. Upon completing the level, the owner of the voice reveals himself: Ansem, Seeker of Darkness - or at least, what’s left of him inside of Riku’s Heart, trying to convince the boy that he has no choice and will eventually bow to him and to the power of Darkness once again. Right then, King Mickey shows up and with his help, Riku can fight against Ansem and defeat him.

From then on, Riku goes deeper and deeper into the castle, but going through the same worlds Sora did in his gameplay. Also in the same style as the previous gameplay, we get to see cutscenes between floors which introduce us to two new members of the Organization, but this time they’re completely loyal to Vexen: Zexion and Lexaeus. The first one reveals to the other two that he’s aware of Marluxia’s plans to control Sora, but that he has better plans regarding Riku.

Vexen confronts Riku, provokes a fight and then runs away, having gathered the Data, the necessary information to create Replica Riku, sending him off to fight against the real Riku. Repliku, to shorten his name like the community has gotten used to referring to him as, loses the fight and runs away, swearing that he’ll get stronger and go back to defeat his… parent? Copy? Original model?

He returns to Vexen, and he shows off his latest creation to the other Organization members. They decide to use Namine’s powers to alter Repliku’s memories and make him believe that he’s the real Riku and that he has a strong bond with the girl, and send him off to confront Sora in his storyline.

As Riku goes deeper into the Castle, the story moves forward and we get to see another perspective into the unfolding of the events following Vexen’s killing by Axel’s hands.Zexion and Lexaeus come up with a plan to wake up the Darkness inside Riku, allowing him to become possessed by Ansem again and then using his power to punish the traitorous members. However, Riku-Ansem’s power is stronger than they expected, and in the process of fighting him to wake up the Darkness inside the boy, Lexaeus is mortally wounded, and becomes the fourth Organization member to die.

Larxene dies fighting Sora, and Axel reaches out to the only remaining member besides Marluxia, Zexion, telling him that the rebellion didn’t matter anymore since everyone else besides them are dead or will be very soon. Zexion then decides to kill Riku since he has no use for him anymore, and attracts him into an “illusion”, a Destiny Islands completely destroyed due to Riku’s actions, as Zexion makes sure he remembers him of, due to opening the Door to Darkness and allowing his world to be destroyed and consumed by it, complete with an illusion of Sora who turns his back on his friend and states that there’s no hope of saving him anymore.

However, when all seemed lost, the Power of Friendship gets into play again! Namine, taking Kairi’s appearance, shows up in front of Riku in the void where he was floating again, and says he needs to learn how to control his Darkness, without letting it control him. He follows her advice, and can break Zexion’s illusion, defeating him in combat.

Zexion manages to flee, seriously wounded, but runs into Axel and Repliku. Axel commits another treasonous act, the third one in the first game he shows up in, and tells Repliku that if he absorbs Zexion’s strength, he’ll get somewhat closer to being his own person, and not a mere copy. Zexion is then the fifth Organization member to die.

Ansem manifests himself yet again and fights Riku again, and he’s helped once again by Mickey showing up. The King gives Riku a Twilight Town card, and there he meets a new mysterious figure, this time all dressed and wrapped up in red fabric: DiZ, who after identifying by Riku’s smell that Riku has some sort of connection to Ansem (Throughout the entire game, and only for this one, there’s this whole thing about everyone being able to identify Darkness by its “smell”. Once again, don’t question it) warns him that soon Namine will offer him an important choice, and vanishes. Soon after, Riku and Repliku face off against each other again, still in the same world, and Repliku dies.

The meeting with Namine happens, and she offers to “lock” Riku’s heart, so that Ansem will never again be able to have any sort of access to it, but similar to Sora, that’d involve putting him in a dormant state, and he’s losing his memories about everything that happened inside the castle. Riku refuses the girl’s offer, preferring to keep his memories to be able to protect Sora. He then sets off to fight what’s left of Ansem once and for all.

Reuniting with DiZ and Mickey, DiZ gives them black coats just like the ones the members of the Organization wear, and Riku fights Ansem one last time, defeating him once and for all. Ansem explodes, Riku goes into empty void mode for the third time in a row and Mickey saves everyone’s ass for the countless time in a row. Both the King and DiZ remark on how impressed they are with Riku’s capacity to belong both to Light and Darkness at once.

Leaving the castle finally, they are faced with a crossroads made up of three pathways, and Riku chooses to follow the middle one. DiZ claims Riku chose the Path to Dusk, but he smiles and states that on the contrary, that is the Road to Dawn, making his objective from here onwards very clear.

Before we continue on to the next game, there’s one more concept we need to explain, since from here on, it becomes one of the core themes of the series: The Nobodies.

When a person loses their heart, and it becomes a Heartless, as explained in the previous article, the “empty body” left behind, reduced to a simple “husk” without a heart, becomes a Nobody

Just like the Heartless, the “common” people become the enemy Nobodies we fight against by the lots throughout the next games, but in some cases it can happen so that the Nobody of a person who has a strong heart develops a conscience and a personality of its own, becoming pretty much a new person, separated from its original self, and without a heart (which usually makes Nobodies lean a little bit towards being evil, even though it’s not a rule).

And the Organization XIII is entirely composed of “people” like that. Every member we met in Castle Oblivion are Nobodies of people who lost their hearts to the Darkness, and were recruited by the leader of the Organization, putting together this group who intends to destroy as many Heartless as possible, thus “releasing” the hearts who were taken by the Darkness so that they can all merge and summon the Kingdom Hearts, so that their leader can use its power to create hearts for himself and his companions, making all of them “complete” again.

However, they’ve come to find out that, in order for the hearts to be released, the Heartless needs to be defeated by a special tool which serves for that exact purpose: A Keyblade.

For now, knowing what are the Nobodies, the Organization and their main objective is enough, and we can move on to the second spin-off in the series: in the release order, Kingdom hearts 2 came out first, but since the next game in the list happens in the same time period as Chain of Memories and is considerably shorter than KH2, it’s easier for everyone’s understanding if we cover it first.

Days, also known as the most unfairly treated game in the saga, follows an entirely new character, called Roxas. Chronologically, it starts during the final sequence in Kingdom Hearts 1, more precisely at the moment in which Sora and his friends are in Hollow Bastion, having just fought against Riku. Remember the moment Sora releases Kairi’s heart from within himself, but in the process ends up also losing his own, and turning into a Heartless?

As we just learned, when this happens, a Nobody of that person also gets created. Since you’ve probably connected the dots already, yes, Roxas is Sora’s Nobody. And yes, the Nobodie’s name is always necessarily an anagram of the person’s original name + an “x”.

He becomes the thirteenth member of Organization XIII and, due to his connection with Sora, he’s also able to wield the keyblade, the reason why the leader of the Organization shows so much interest in him. Now, with someone capable of using a keyblade in his side, the Nobodies could set their plan into motion.

Roxas is sent in several missions which consist in defeating several Heartless and make up the core gameplay. Accompanied by different Organization members each time, which really deepens each one’s character building, and visiting different Disney worlds, the player helps Roxas to play his part in releasing hearts, even though neither are fully aware of the purpose of what they’re doing, at this point.

Meanwhile, Roxas forms a close friendship with another Organization member: Axel. The two of them get the habit of, at the end of the day, after finishing their respective missions, eat icecream together atop the clock tower in Twilight Town.

Eventually, Axel is sent off to his mission in Castle Oblivion, which we know very well how it will turn out, and for the first part of the time he’s absent, Roxas ends up getting close to the fourteenth member of Organization Thirteen. We’re still not questioning anything.

This new member is Xion, a girl who physically resembles Kairi in KH1 a lot, but with black hair. He finds out she’s also capable of wielding a keyblade, and they go on missions together, in addition to taking up the same habit of eating ice cream on top of the clock tower and become friends, but when Namine starts to mess with Sora’s memories, Roxas ends up being affected as well. He falls into a deep sleep, in which he stays for around twenty-something days, time that Sora, Donald and Goofy took to defeat every floor and Nobody in the castle, and only wakes up once Sora is put into the sleeping state and starts to get his memories put back together.

Because of that, Roxas starts getting his own memories affected, mixing up sometimes with those of his previous self. However, he continues his missions as usual, and after a brief first clash, Axel and Xion also become very close friends, finally solidifying the second trio of main characters all from the franchise: The Seasalt Trio, named after the flavor of the ice cream, they eat every day.

Unfortunately, it’s by this point that Xion starts to find out the truth about her existence. During a mission, she ends up having a confrontation with Riku, who insists that both her and her Keyblade are fakes, and when she goes searching for answers, Xion finds out that she’s actually a clone similar to Repliku, created by Vexen as a Roixas clone, but mixed up with the memories about Kairi that Namine had taken from Sora’s heart, thus explaining their similar appearance.

As Sora’s memories get increasingly restored by Namine, Xion starts to have more memories of him, which torment her and her behavior becomes erratic. Eventually, she deserts the Organization and decides to become a complete person once more, which means reuning both with Roxas and Sora.

Xion then provokes and forces Roxas to fight her, in the battle with the saddest ending among every single other battle in this entire franchise: Inevitably defeated by Roxas, her objective for starting the fight, she erases her existence from the hearts of everyone who knew her, including her two best and only friends.

Her last request to Roxas is that he frees the hearts which are being gathered to summon Kingdom Hearts, and by absorbing what’s left of her, Roxas gets the ability to wield two keyblades at once.

Roxas then also deserts the Organization, determined to keep his promise, but ends up being confronted by Riku, who gets into a conflict with the Nobody. He defeats Riku in battle, and this forces our favorite tormented bad boy into a corner, and he finds himself with no choice other than to access his full potential, meaning also using the power of Darkness which inhabits his heart. Riku releases all of his power and defeats Roxas, but as a consequence, he once again assumes the appearance of Ansem. This time, though, he’s not possessed and is fully controlling the Darkness inside himself.

He then takes Roxas to DiZ, who places the Nobody’s consciousness inside a virtual version of Twilight Town, pretty much inside of a simulation, to keep him there, safe and under surveillance until Sora has all of his memories back in place and is ready to reunite with his Nobody and become complete again.

And here we finish another part of this story! To recap, Sora is still unconscious as Namine finishes up restoring his memories, and Riku -who’s completely devoted to redeeming himself from all the hurt he’s caused and protecting Sora- DiZ and Mickey have captured Roxas to make sure Sora will be able to “absorb” back his Nobody and wake up at last.

The Organization, which before was composed of 14 members is now down to half their numbers, with five of them killed by Sora, Riku or Axel, Xion being absorbed by Roxas and him in turn being trapped and waiting to have the same destiny with Sora, but the remaining members haven’t given up on their objectives at all.

The next game, Kingdom Hearts 2, will bring even more to the table, so prepare yourselves, and see you in the next article!

Thanks for reading!