Sorry this part took so long.
I start out as Sora and embark on the dive to the third world. This one is a little different though. For one thing I'm fighting a boss during it. It's called a Brawlimari and to defeat it I need to dodge various attacks and dash towards these glowing balls on its head. It's not a tough fight if you know what you're doing although this one attack tripped me up the first couple of times. Basically it creates a ring of fire that completely covers the space in front of it. To dodge this you need to press B to brake, something I haven't been doing recently. Anyway I defeat it and enter the third world.
The hell? Sora's in his Space Paranoids get up. For some reason it takes him a while to pick up on this. He then sees some kind of transport ship and gets excited. Wow, Sora you are such a little kid.
I really like the Reality Shift of this world. Basically you're shown a line of code that keeps changing. Certain portions are different colors and by tapping them you can match them up by color to make certain things happen to your enemies. My favorite is the moving spark one. You take control of your enemy and can direct it into a crowd before making it explode.
Before I go on I want to talk about some things I forgot.
1. The Reality Shift for Notre Dame is called Faithline. Basically you connect the dots between enemies and grind along it while damage is dealt. It's largely useless which is why I forgot to mention it.
2. The area changing symbol is a bell.
3. This is the Guardian Bell keyblade.
◊ As you can see the teeth are a bell being held by a gargoyle. The shaft is a bunch of ropes connected to a pulley. The handle appears to be two gargoyles and the keychain is a bell.
Back to The Grid, which is based on Tron Legacy (A movie I never actually saw).
I have to say the enemies in this world look really cool. They have tron lines just like Sora. I also notice they're coming pretty close to killing me which is a big step up in difficulty compared to the enemies of the last two worlds.
I continue along the path until I find that strange ship that Sora spotted when he first entered the world. Sora gets excited again and these strange guys with orange tron lines approach him. They say, "Identify. State your handle, program." Sora says he doesn't have any handles but his name is Sora. The spooky guys (Who kind of look like Vanitas) say they don't know the handle Sora and prepare to quarantine him. Sora says, "Whoa there, that is so unfriendly." (God, so childish...) and I'm now chased by a bunch of them. They seem far too strong for me so I just continue to the next area.
Sora is confronted by another Vanitas cosplayer who removes these two disc things from his back and prepares to...throw them, I guess? Off in the distance two men and a woman are watching as Sora summons his keyblade. The older man says "Tron, he's alive" while the woman says Sora's keyblade isn't like anything they've ever seen. Vanitas cosplayer gets some sort of transmission (He holds a hand to his helmet like he's listening through a receiver or something) and Sora stands there watching him, rather confused.
The three people from before approach Sora and the woman asks to see his keyblade (Which is Tronified by the way). The three people introduce themselves as Quorra (The woman), Sam (Younger man), and Flynn (Old Man). Sora asks if he's in Tron's world which surprises them, they didn't think he'd know about Tron. Apparently the Vanitas dude from before was Tron. Flynn talks about how he and Tron created this world, The Grid, together. Someone called Clu took over and turned Tron into Rinzler, who Sora just met, by messing with his code. Sora says that's horrible (Gee, ya think?) and that most of this is over his head. Flynn says Clu might have a backup of Tron's source code which could be used to restore Tron to normal. Sora prepares to run off only for Flynn to stop him and say he doesn't know the way. Quorra says she'll help Sora find the source code.
We see a man examining the disk from Rinzler's back which shows a recording of Sora. The man, Clu, says "What's this, a keyblade?" Okay, how the hell does he know about keyblades? I get counter rush which is an attack I can use after successfully blocking. I equip it and drop before I make any significant progress in getting Tron's source code.
Before I go on I want to talk about one thing that bothers me about this world. Tron Legacy, like Pirates of the Caribbean, is a live action movie instead of an animated one. As a result they decided to make the humans look realistic instead of anime style. Don't get me wrong, they look very impressive for handheld models. The problem comes when you see them interacting with Sora and Riku. There's just too much uncanny valley going on. I kind of wish they'd just make them look anime style rather than stick realistic humans into a world that is Toon and anime style for the most part. It's a small complaint though.
Okay just a little note. My computer turned off at this exact point due to a power outage. Strangely when it came back on later this edit was saved. Yay! Back to KH.
And now, Riku. Riku's drop is not a boss fight and is just him collecting a prize point (Yes, one). Riku immediately notices his clothes (Which have a Dream Eater symbol on his backpack/disk thingy) and sees the transport Sora saw. Rather than run he just stands there and watches as it approaches. The Vanitas cosplayers call Riku a stray and he...willingly walks on board the transport? Riku, what are you doing! Aboard the transport Riku meets Sam who says he's in a world called The Grid.
Riku finds himself face to face with Clu. I'm apparently in the lightcylce battle arena...NO! NO! WHY! WHY DOES THIS EXIST!
Ugh...here's how it works. There are two attack modes, ribbon and blaster. While in ribbon mode the vehicle speeds up and shoots a stream of energy out the back. By weaving back and forth you can make this stream touch enemies which damages them. Blast mode has these little disks come out of the side and blast enemies that are in front of you. I'm now forced to race around the track while fighting a ton of enemies and being unable to heal. While I'm doing this some kind of praying mantis Dream Eater with an obscenely long HP bar appears. I'm forced to fight it and if I die at all I have to do not just the fight but the gauntlet beforehand all over again. Fun...? I finally defeat it which gives me a Max HP up. Riku then crashes through the wall (Why did you wait till now?) and leaves a heart shaped hole. Nice touch Square.
Outside the Arena I meet up with Sam who says he can help me find a way out of The Grid. Riku asks why Sam is here. He says that he came here to find his dad, which gives me Flashback: Father and Son, and the two set off. The flashback shows Sam talking with Flynn who says he tried to get out of The Grid but he couldn't reach the portal because of Clu. Apparently the portal closes and can't be opened from the inside (Who the hell designs something like that!). The portal is open now but only for one millicycle which is apparently eight hours. Flynn says his disk is the master key and if Clu gets it he could enter the real world. Once there he'd destroy Earth because of its imperfections.
Back to the actual gameplay. I make it to the city (Sora's starting point) where Sam tells Riku to kill some time to he gets back...wait, what? Okay...Riku decides to kill some time by fighting a bunch of Dream Eaters which nets me a deck increase. After that rather strange sequence Riku hears a strange sound and I get Flashback: Stolen Disc. Sam and Flynn are waiting around the corner with an unconscious Quorra. We're off to find a solar sailer which is apparently in the underground docks.
The flashback shows Sam realizing Flynn's disk is missing while Quorra just sits in her unconscious state. Flynn says they need to get to the portal before Clu at which point they can get the disk back and leave. The next few minutes are spent trying to get to the solar sailer. I finally reach it after using Code Break to hack some terminals. Aboard the sailer Flynn and Sam are fixing Quorra. While Flynn is fiddling with some kind of projections emanating from Quorra's disk a DNA strand pops up. Sam says she's an ISO. Flynn explains to Riku that Quorra is the last ISO, a life form that spontaneously appeared in the system under the right conditions. Flynn finally fixes Quorra and says that Clu ruined the system by destroying the IS Os. Apparently Flynn is the reason Clu went mad trying to make everything perfect. Riku thinks about how single minded devotion to a goal can cause someone to create an Ansem, just like Xehanort did. Suddenly we're put on another course.
The solar sailer docks and the four of them (Quorra is better now) disembark. Quorra foolishly runs off to try and draw attention from the others after giving Flynn her disc. Sam and Flynn argue about what to do and Riku says they should probably rescue Quorra and get the master disc back first. Riku and Sam run off to throneship which is likely where both are being held.
While en route to the throneship I drop yet again.
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