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Is he becoming Anti-form without you using a drive form? As in when the world loads on, you are automatically in Anti-form?

Either way if this is PC edition I would backup saves and do a reinstall.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. If you didn't get any good presents this year, don't worry - Chapter 022 is OUT NOW!!!!

022​

Bark and twigs flew through the air as bullets tore through the treetops. Risk’s eyes were closed, his breaths heavy. He heard screams and cries, the fierce metallic ripping of the firing gun, and the sound of leaves being ripped to pieces. Bits of debris smacked against his face and chest as carnage exploded about him. The gunfire stopped. He opened his eyes delicately. Bullets had torn into their crate and even blown up one of the smoke canisters. His team - the brown dogs - had barely even gathered at their home base together before the challenge had begun.
The ****ing center of the island, he grimaced. Of. ****ing. Course. We’ll be lucky if the other three teams don’t pop up and merc us right now. ****ing brown dogs my ass.
He glanced to his right. Behind another trunk was Darkandroid, his fellow team member. In his hands was the sickle he’d gotten as his random weapon, which, in Risk’s opinion, wasn’t exactly helpful right now.
In his own hands was a pistol of his own; a semi-automatic Sauer. Not that he’d ever used one before, but at least he didn’t have to charge the machine gun wielding player if he wanted a chance at taking them out. Darkandroid needs to stay back. So does Yozora. The poor man got a paper fan for his weapon.
Hiding behind a giant tree on the left were Amaury and Explode. Explode had been grazed with machine gun fire and Amaury was wrapping his left forearm up for him using a piece of ripped tracksuit. They both had good weapons as well - Amaury, a Smith & Wesson; Explode, a basic Glock 04A.
The shots started again and the trees were torn to shreds. Risk had no idea where Yozora had gone, and the noise and mess made it too difficult to discern anything. He saw Darkandroid move as if he was going to charge, but Risk held up a hand.
“Hold tight,” he called. “Let them come.”
They heard a pair of footsteps in the leaves and a single word was screamed. “Attack!”
Yozora dropped from the trees and landed in front of Risk. “It’s No Reality,” he shouted. “He’s coming for us!”
“Is he the one with the gun?”
“He’s not the only one.”
"****," Risk cussed. Then he heard it again: “Attack!”
Gunfire erupted and wood chips flew everywhere. Darkandroid and Yozora dived to the ground and covered their heads and ears. Risk knew the one with the machine gun had closed in and must have been only a few meters away now. He turned to warn Amaury, but he stammered when he saw who stood behind him and Explode. No Reality waited, something strapped to his waist, a hose in his hands.
“Amaury!” screamed Risk. “Explode!” But Amaury had been caught in the fire while working on Explode’s arm, and Explode’s Glock had fallen out of his hands in the panic of the attack. Risk aimed his Sauer at No Reality and pulled the trigger three times, but the bullets flew through the leaves and scattered into the evening sky. No Reality took that extra second to pull the trigger on his weapon.
Risk watched Amaury roll out of the way as the fire erupted from the hose, but for Explode, who lay injured on the forest floor, it was too late. The flame thrower roared louder than the machine gun as the fire ripped out of the tube and began to roast Explode’s face. Risk saw his mouth screaming in agony, his face and eyes in pain - but he couldn’t hear anything over the noise of the fire, and soon he couldn’t make out any eyes or face at all. Explode’s upper body turned the consistency of wax and the microchip implanted in his neck triggered, giving off a small explosion that blew the melted mound of flesh that remained to pieces.
“Nooooooo!” It was Amaury. As the flame finished pouring over Explode’s body, he grabbed his Smith & Wesson that had fallen away when he rolled. His hands fumbled but he caught himself, held it up in front of him and pointed it at No Reality.
“Gotcha."
Amaury pulled the trigger and the bullet went right through No Reality’s forehead. He stumbled backward, his eyes looking about in confusion. The flamethrower's hose fell to the ground as he teetered back and forth before the weight of the gas canister on his waist forced him to collapse.
For the first time in minutes, it was quiet. Risk listened as the natural sounds of the forest returned to his ears - the chirping of bugs in the forest and the distant sound of waves crashing off of rocks. He heard twigs crush underfoot as someone moved through the brush. The hiss of the gas canisters on the crate filled the air with a light ambience. Everything he’d just witnessed replayed slowly in his head. There was no doubt in his mind that Explode and No Reality were dead. But had others perished with them?
Yozora got up, coughing. “Who’s here?” he asked. “Brown dogs - roll call.”
“I’m here,” Risk replied.
“Me, too,” Darkandroid called from the other tree.
Risk looked to Amaury. The man was physically unharmed, but he was curled up crying next to the corpses of Explode and NRA.
This is terrible. So terrible.
The team waited for what felt like an eternity. Eventually, Risk decided to peer from behind the tree to where the machine gun had been firing from. He leaned his head out from the trunk and glanced into the twilit trees. There was no one there.
“I think we’re good,” Yozora said. He got up and ran over to Amaury, who was still sobbing.
“I couldn’t save him,” Amaury said. “I couldn’t…”
“None of us could,” Yozora said, patting his back. “It’s not your fault.”
Amaury continued to sob, and Risk had to look away. It was too heart-wrenching.
Rest in peace, Explode, he thought to himself. And you, too, No Reality.
He didn’t want his friends to die, even if they were technically out to kill him.
Yozora went over to No Reality’s body and removed the flamethrower. “At least I can fight now.”
“Be careful with that,” Darkandroid offered. “If you saw what it did, then… well…” They all looked away from the puddle of Explode that stained the ground.
"Maybe I'll just use this, then," Yozora sighed, picking up Explode's old Glock.
Risk sat down and exhaled. What a ****ing mess.
That’s when he caught it out of the corner of his eye. He looked to the crate which spilled brown smoke into the air.
****.
“Team,” he began, gulping. “We haven't just lost a teammate. We’ve lost a flag.”

23 players remaining

• Beast’s Castle has really underrated music.
• Oh that’s right, Marluxia AS is here. Let’s do this.
• Xaldin was SUCH a gatekeeper back in the day. Literally just owned him.
• You know, Mickey kind of trivializes Xaldin. I did die once and he came back and Pearled the **** out of Xaldin, and then that was that.
• I got Peter Pan, gonna grind these Summon levels up real quick.
• Ok, so I’m in Agrabah and I’m almost level 50. I’ve had Gull Wing equipped since I got it and it’s INSANE the amount of random extra EXP I’ve been earning (I have EXP Boost equipped on Sora, too).
• I keep making sure I haven’t missed any side quests and I’m good so far. It’s just more fun this way, the AS are a good ass challenge when you reach them in the story but if you wait too long they’re trivialized.
• Oh ****. Vexen time. I’m gonna save here and then hit this when I get back.

Order a drink for Chapter 021, cuz she's just arrived

021​

The yellow giraffes sat together on the volcano’s peak, listening to Roxas’s announcement. “The third challenge is… capture the flag!”
Boris groaned. “Great,” he said. “First we play who’s the rotten egg, now this? The **** is going on here?”
“I’m sensing a theme,” his teammate Jinx chimed in, sitting on a boulder. “All these games are rather rudimentary, aren’t they?”
“Children’s games,” nodded Hissora. She sat next to Jinx, playing in the dirt with a frayed stick. “Games he knows we’ll know.”
“We’ve played them before. So I guess no one has an inherent advantage,” Deathspank said. “And this whole live stream thing going on? Must be fun to watch a bunch of adults run around playing kids games. ****ing sickos! I hope it’ll be us giraffes capturing the most flags...”
They’d all found a yellow giraffe in their bags and met at the top of the volcano at the coordinate on its back - ‘M-6.’ Boris looked over his teammates. Deathspank and Jinx looked strong and Hissora seemed wise. Calxiyn, the fifth member, seemed troubled by the nature of the game. But this is fine. It’s still a team I can work with… and truthfully, it could have been worse.
He glanced at his phone, where Sara’s avatar appeared back toward the beach where they entered the game. Don’t die on me while we’re apart now, babes. Would hate to have to spend all that money myself.
“Look!”
It was the first thing Calxiyn had said since they’d met at M-6. Boris looked the way she pointed, and saw five helicopters flying toward the island.
Hissora stood. “Could it be a rescue? Quick, make a smoke signal!”
Roxas’s voice came back in over the loudspeakers to snub out Hissora’s dreams.
“Five helicopters are currently on route to the island,” he began to explain. “And when they arrive, they will drop crates that contain the flags you need to capture. Once those boxes hit the ground the challenge begins. Where are they being dropped? At each of the five coordinates found on the backs of your cards. That’s the whole home base thing I mentioned earlier.”
The helicopters were closing in on the island, and one broke off, headed for the volcano.
“Each crate will have flags stapled to it. All you need to do is run up and rip one off, then return to home base and add it to your own crate… at the end of the game, the team who has the most flags taken and least flags stolen will be eliminated.”
I was waiting for that bit. Of course one team is going to go.
“You can only carry one enemy team’s flag at a time, got it? It’s an important rule. We’ll be watching you, so if you try to handle more than one at a time, that microchip is going off.”
Arbitrary rules. Great.
“So what will you do? Go out into the island to steal flags, leaving your crate undefended? Or stay back and hope you can stop anyone from reaching your crate?”
The helicopter flew over the volcano and Boris watched it release a crate above them. A yellow parachute broke from its top and the crate sailed smoothly down to the peak. After it gently touched down a few meters away, canisters began to let out plumes of yellow smoke. Soon they billowed in the air, forming a pillar.
From atop the volcano, the yellow giraffes watched the helicopters dropping crates across the island. A green one fell near the village by the beach. A red one glided into the city ruins. By the dunes fell a blue box. Boris watched the last helicopter drop a crate into the center of the island. He looked at his map. Perhaps F-6, he wondered. That’s the dead center of the place according to this. A plume of brown mist rose into the air. Before them, pillars of smoke marked the location of each crate.
“The last crate is down,” Roxas said. “The challenge has begun. And of course, players, don’t forget that the regular rules of the game apply. You may kill as many people as you want during the course of the challenge.”
“When’s it over?” Jinx asked no one in particular. “How long does this go on for?”
But Roxas’s announcement was over, and all they had to go on was what he’d just told them.
“Who knows,” Deathspank answered. “Maybe it ends when one team has all its flags taken.”
“W-what do we do?” Calxiyn stuttered.
“We need a strategy,” Hissora explained casually. “Duh.”
“Then who’s staying and who’s defending?” asked Jinx.
“Wait, do we really want to send people out there?”
“Shut up, everyone,” Boris shouted. He was sick of listening to them. “I know what we need to do. Everyone else will be freaking out right now. Roxas only just announced the challenge and people are still processing everything he said. We strike now and steal at least one flag. Then, we defend.”
“I like that,” Jinx agreed. “Particularly the defending part. Let them come to us, right? We have the high ground.”
“Exactly,” Boris smiled. At least one person was getting it.
“And who are we going after?” Deathspank asked. Boris studied the island before him. The brown team’s crate seemed like a lost cause. They were in the dead center of the island and the easiest to get to from the four other locations. It would make sense that most teams would go there first, looking for a quick flag. Chaos would ensue. The blue team’s flags were also out of the question, as they were in the dunes on the other side of the island. That meant that the red team in the ruins to the north and the green team on the beach to the south were their best options. Of course, they could also just as easily be targeted by either of those two teams if they were to correctly deduce not to go for the brown team at the center of the island. But since they had such a high position, no one would attack the volcano… would they?
“The red team,” Boris said. “In the ruins. I was there before, and I know the area.”
“You were there?” Calxiyn asked. “We heard gunfire from there, you know… And then Roxas announced the dead. W-was that…?”
“Let’s put the first challenge behind us,” Boris told her. “We’re a team now. And teams stick together. They leave the past in the past.”
Calxiyn swallowed.
“The red team at the city ruins, then,” Deathspank nodded, rubbing his chin and looking at the deteriorated buildings in the distance. “You’ll need someone to go with you, right? How about me?”
“I’m okay with that,” answered Boris. Either Deathspank or Jinx was fine with him. He holstered his rifle. “I’ve got this. You?”
“Uh,” Deathspank stammered. “My weapon was… toy darts.”
Boris winced. He hadn’t even thought to ask what weapons his teammates had received.
“A plastic hammer,” Calxiyn shrugged.
“I got a Glock 19,” Jinx said. “The law enforcement special.”
“That’s a bit more useful,” Boris smiled. “And you?” Hissora looked up from her drawing in the dirt.
“I think they’re mines,” she said. “I have no clue how to use them.” She pointed to her bag by a burned log. Boris walked over and unzipped it.
“My god,” he whispered. “They are land mines.”
“Yeah,” Hissora said. “Thought they were something like that.”
“This is perfect,” he announced. “We bury these in front of the crate and you three hide. Deathspank and I will take the weapons and head for the red team. We should only be a couple hours.”
He quickly buried the mines. It wasn’t his first time. When he stood, Jinx handed him the pistol.
“Be fast,” he told Boris. “We’ll need you back here if things get hairy.”
Boris grabbed both guns and beckoned Deathspank to follow. They made their way down the slope.
“This isn’t good for us,” Boris told him. “Our team is good, but our weapons are terrible. Let's hope our strategy works, beca-"
Bang! Bang!
There were two gunshots from the center of the island. He and Deathspank crouched, looking toward the brown team's plume of smoke.
“But hey,” he added, as they heard screams in the distance. “At least we aren’t them.”

25 players remaining

• Santa reminding Sora of something he did 7 years ago is some weird guilt trip ****.
• I’ve barely made notes because I’m so sucked into this game. But I just finished Twilight Town and got Oathkeeper, so I think Tron is next. Gonna detour to Larxene AS first.
• Larxene is down, and now I want to see if I can take Lexaeus out too before going back to Hollow Bastion. Love getting the Silhouettes done early.
• Yep, he’s dead, too. Tron time.
• Sephiroth’s cameo is so random here that I actually laughed. Also I wish Yuna Rikku and Paine came back to do some treasure hunting side quest or something.
• Gonna pilfer the Cavern of Remembrance before moving on real quick.
• Some of the maps in this game look incredible. The use of backgrounds to make them seem huge is such a different take on KH1 that typically had small, closed rooms.
• The game trying to explain Xehanort’s Nobody and Heartless is hilarious. It’s so self-aware of how confusing it is.
• Does anyone else remember the first KH2 trailer that showed the 1000 Heartless Battle with multiple Behemoths in it? It’s so much tamer than that in the final version. Still cool tho.
• 2nd Disney world visits time. KH3 really needed something like this.
• Gonna have Gullwing equipped forever LOL. The incidental EXP gains are too worth it plus I’m shredding everything in sight due to doing all the Absent Silhouettes and Form grinding early.
• Nobodies! This is gonna be such a game changer for synthesis.
• The Keyblades having unique abilities is such a positive change from KH1.
  
• Forgot how good Warp Snipe feels against the Snipers. Oh baby.

It took more time than expected to figure out the teams, and due to some other commitments this evening, I won't be posting the next chapter today. So as a little treat to everyone checking in, here are the team lists. Obvious spoilers ahead:

Spoiler: Team Lists

Green Monkeys
Sara
Tamale
C
Rosey
Aelin

Blue Whales
Misty
Lauriam
Inasuma
Trigger
Kitty

Red Birds
Mish
Cin
NRA
Cia
libregkd

Yellow Giraffes
Calxiyn
Deathspank
Boris the Blade
Hissora
Jinx

Brown Dogs
Darkandroid
Yozora
Amaury
Risk
Explode

I def remember that photo, Mish. It's the image of you I still see whenever I think of you. Can't believe you posted it, I was wondering if it was still around.

After over an entire day's wait, Chapter 020 is finally out

020​

It was all a blur. From the plane ride to LAX, to the first round of the game and the challenge on the volcano, Tamale had scraped to survive and barely made it into round two. He’d seen what happened to those who were overwhelmed by the game, like Catch the Rain, who’d lost her head in fear. And others had died, either unlucky or foolish enough to get involved in clashes with hungry players. Tamale emerged from the tunnel on the beach again, wondering if it would be his last time. I survived once, and I can do it again.
He unzipped his bag and sighed with relief when he saw his old weapon, as promised. He’d been lucky enough to get a shotgun, and though he’d yet to use it, he knew it could kill if push came to shove. But what piqued his interest was the twist Roxas mentioned. Tamale searched about until he found a green card with a monkey on it. The back said “F-9.”
A map code, he realized, but he knew this wasn’t the best place to pull out his GPS and start looking. Tamale stayed low and moved across the street toward the old sweet shop. Underneath a windowsill filled with the dead reeds of tulips, he glanced at his GPS and used the map’s x-y grid to find F-9. It’s close! he realized.
The part of the map Tamale was in now was on the southern beach of the island - or, by the map’s standards, in F-10. All he had to do was head north into the square above and he’d be wherever this card was sending him. So who else got this card?
No, he couldn’t just charge in. He’d have to be cautious. But it was his only choice, even if the whole thing did throw him off.
Tamale checked his shotgun again to make sure it was loaded. It was. He also checked his bag once more to see if they had potentially restocked his ammo. Damn. There ain’t **** in here. Whatever shells he’d started the game with were what he was stuck with - at least for now.
Remaining low to the ground, he crawled behind the shops and up a sandy ridge. At the top, the sand turned to grass and gently rolled down into the palm tree forest. F-9 was just ahead. Once he passed the first trunks he got to his knees and began to move at a quicker pace, glancing over his shoulder. Inasuma must be out of the hall by now. It's definitely been five minutes.
Tamale wondered if everyone else had gotten a strange card and was making their way to some part of the island. Even though he didn’t need it to help him get anywhere, he held it in his hand like a key, to signal to those who also had the green monkey that he was a part of them too.
A whistle came from the tree to his right. Tamale stopped and looked up. A silhouette was perched in the branches, waiting. He reached for his shotgun, but stopped. The person in the tree wasn't moving.
“He has the green monkey card.”
“Then he must be the last member of our team.”
Tamale turned around. The second voice had come from a tree behind him.
“How did you all get up there?” he asked. There was silence, then one of them laughed.
“It was my random weapon,” said the voice. Tamale thought he recognized it from the dormitory. If his instinct was correct, the person in the tree was Rosey. “Some frickin’ rope. Come on, climb on up.”
A rope fell from the shadows above. Tamale shrugged and grabbed it.
“Heave!”
The rope was whisked up into the trees and Tamale nearly fell back down below as Rosey grabbed and steadied him on a huge branch. He caught his breath and finally looked around. There were four others who stood in the branches, weapons drawn. Beside Rosey stood Aelin, and behind her was C. Then, on a higher branch one tree away was Sara, an AK-47 slung over her shoulder.
“Welcome to the green monkeys,” Sara said. “Looks like this might be our whole team.”
“The green monkeys,” Tamale nodded. “Think this is the whole team, huh?"”
“Well, there’s five of us now, and twenty-five players left in total. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were five teams of five.”
“Makes sense,” C agreed, grimacing. Tamale noticed his upper arm was moved stiffly.
“You okay, C?” he asked. C decided to outright show him the wound. He unzipped his tracksuit. Underneath, his bicep was bandaged.
“Remember when Evil died?” he asked Tamale. “That was me. And this -” He pointed at the bandage. “ - was Evil.”
“Does it hurt?” Tamale asked. There was a small dark blotch where blood matted the bandage.
“Seems like they fixed it up real well while we were asleep, but it still aches a bit, truthfully.”
“Well, I’ll help protect you with this,” Tamale said, brandishing his shotgun. "Whatever the next part of this crazy game is."
“He’s got us playing a team game, that’s for sure,” Aelin said. “And I’m scared of what it might be.”
On cue, the cute trumpet melody came blaring in and suddenly Roxas’s loud, obnoxious voice was broadcast across the entire island. Here we go, Tamale thought.
“Are we good? No, turn up the volume. I don’t care! Turn it up! Ahem. Players of this great game, it’s the Composer speaking. At this point you are all either at the destination given to you on the card in your bag or are hopefully on your way there. And if you haven’t even looked at the card yet, then, well - ha, I hope you get real with the game, because things are about to heat up. It’s time for challenge number two - and this time, you’ll be playing on a team.”
“Knew it,” Aelin said.
“I’m sure you’re all standing on pins and needles waiting to know, so I’ll get it over with - but I will say this… if you have not yet met up with your team, you better hurry up, because once this game begins, it won’t be over until I say it’s over!”
“Please be easy,” Aelin whispered.
“You all must have seen the map code on the back of your card by now. This square of the map is important - it is home base, after all!”
“Home base? So that’s here,” C pointed down.
“You better to be ready to both attack and defend this location, haha… yeah, you can start freaking out now.”
“Defend?” Aelin screamed.
“The next game,” Roxas continued, “and the second challenge, will be one of my favorite childhood games. A game you would play all night in the garden if your pesky parents didn’t call you home for dinner.”
“Oh please,” Aelin said. “Just get it over with.”
“A game I remember so fondly I still wouldn’t mind playing an adult version of it now. That game, my friends, is-”
Aelin nearly passed out.
“The third challenge is… capture the flag!”
The green team gasped. But before they had time to talk between each other, they had the fluttering of propellers from somewhere over the ocean. Sara climbed a couple branches and looked through the leaves. When she came down, she was perplexed.
“What is it?” asked Aelin. “What’d you see?”
Sara was stunned, but finally answered.
“Helicopters,” she said. “Five helicopters.”

25 players remaining

• Zexion ****ed us up too much (a couple friends were over making attempts too) so gonna get Wisdom and Quick Run then come back for him.
• Timeless River is such a random world, but really gives the game more depth. Love the world inside a world thing too, they do something similar with Tron in Radiant Garden.
• LOL the UI art for Sora, Donald and Goofy here is great.
• Ok I got Wisdom Form. Love this one. Gonna grind this and Valor up to max really quick to take advantage of all those extra abilities.
• Took 15 mins to grind up Valor and Wisdom. Got Quick Run and MP Rage out of that. You can go in and out of the door in Timeless River to reset your drive bar while grinding in the Mickey’s House window. I think I can take Zexion down now.
• Zexion = dead. That extra Item Slot is gonna be real nice for the rest of the game. Off to Atlantica and then Port Royal I guess.
• Wow these Atlantica songs. I can't believe I used to listen to this part of the OST, too.

• Well this game wins best Gummi Ship hands down. This is actually somewhat exciting.
• The ashen town through the bamboo in Bamboo Grove D:
• Donald in KH1: “No meddling!” Donald in KH2: *attacks random man waiting in line for lunch*
• The NPCs in the encampment have multiple sets of dialogue. An initial one, then one after your first mission and one more after your last mission
• I like how vibrant the town that gets burned down in LoD is before being blitzed. Like they put all that time into those models, and then immediately destroyed them.
• There’s a Monty Python reference if you talk to the Captain right after the village is burned down.
• One aspect this game destroys KH1 in is the menuing and UI, especially equipping abilities using triangle. There are other great updates like being able to equip items to the L1 menu too. They took something already good and made it better.
• Synth’d my first item: Drive Recovery. The Frost Shard in the chest before the Summit got me there.
• The music goes SO damn hard in this game. Battle themes especially.
• I remember getting the KH2 OST for Xmas back in 2006ish. Visited NYC that holiday season too, and this OST will always take me back to those streets.
• After Belle screams from the ballroom, you get new NPC text in the Parlor.
• Chicken Little LOL. Still leveled Summons up to 3 real quick.
• Sora has my favorite running animation in this.
• I have PTSD from running from Hades on my Lvl 1 Crit run. That bit was so hard it’s ridiculous.
• Oh ****, I think you unlock Zexion AS after this. Gonna try to knock him out now because beast mode. (Update: No, not yet. You can interact with the book but the fight won’t open up yet. Probably once you get the stone back.)
• The Demyx mini-game fight in Olympus is the perfect example of what KH excels at.
• Ok, Zexion time.

• There’s so much detail in the background of the worlds compared to KH1. Honestly KH1 sucked at that, it put up arbitrary walls to cover up the sky, but here, like in Hollow Bastion, you can see the entire town and the castle spreading out before you. The game feels so much bigger as a result.
• Good god Aerith’s voice actor in KH2 is awful. Like actually awful
• Is Leon’s voice actor different, too? He sounds worse, but could have just been that one line.
• Merlin still on point, tho.
• Isn’t it funny how if you see Merlin’s house you can walk in Merlin’s house. Wish KH3 would have done that, you know, kind of obvious thing.
• Bout to grind up Valor form real quick before the Bailey fight. Always be maxing.
• Merlin’s House has more NPCs and interactive objects than the next 3 KH games put together…
• When you look at Merlin’s bed and it says “you see strands of Merlin’s long beard.” That ain’t his beard my guy.
• But seriously, the amount of stuff you can check in this game really calls back to its PS1 era FF roots. Square games in general now have less NPCs and things to read and world build, and also the developers of the later KH games simply put less love into the games themselves. It kinda sucks.
• Took all of 4 minutes to get High Jump using the save point in Merlin’s House. Love it.
• Bailey took me three ****ing tries LOL. Ugh... here we go again. Time to remember how to play this game for the 50th time.

Prepare your loins for Chapter 019!!!

019​

Like the first time round, Lauriam was the inaugural player to enter the game. But unlike last time, Lauriam had nothing to say or directions to give. She knew that drawing any more attention to where she, or anyone else may go, would lead to their deaths. And even though she wasn’t directly responsible, the deaths of cstar and Ghetto weighed on her consciousness.
I shouldn’t have said a thing, she told herself, walking through the metal tunnel. People came flocking, hoping to team with me, kill me, I don’t know… but look how all that ended, Lauri. Really well.
She wasn’t sure what would happen when she asked people to meet her on the northern point of the island. She'd had no idea what the game would really be like, at that point. It seemed a good idea at the time - people could join together, team up, end this!
What a naive thought. Not everyone thinks like you. Some actually want to play this game.
And the new incentives from the “viewers at home” had set Lauriam on edge, too. The dream of being rescued was over. If the whole world was entertained, this wasn’t going to end. In fact, with twenty-five players still left in the game, it was only just beginning.
And what of Arch? If I’d found him sooner, then perhaps…
Not that it mattered. It might have been Arch, and it might not. But someone had to die in that first challenge, and Lauri’s actions could have been the catalyst regardless.
Stop dwelling on it all. Focus, girl. It’s time to play.
Lauriam emerged from the hallway and back onto the island. She was in the same abandoned town as before, but now, the sun was setting, and the twilit glow turned the island orange. The volcano loomed to the east and Lauriam checked west, where she knew from her map that the dunes were.
“A twist,” Roxas had said. “Check your bag.”
Lauriam put her bag down and unzipped it. She didn’t have long until the next player joined the game, but she had to see what it was.
In her bag was the food and water every player received, and the GPS map she’d played with before. Her old weapon was at the bottom of the bag, and she grabbed the switchblade and stuffed it in her tracksuit pocket. Then, at the bottom of the bag, Lauriam found a small, blue card.
“What are you?” she said aloud, lifting it. On the front was a whale, and on the back, was a code of some kind: ‘B-3.’
She had no clue what it was for, nor did she have any idea how it provided a twist. But the B-3 looked familiar, and reminded her of the map of the island. Out came her GPS. Her avatar appeared on the screen and she saw Amaury’s back toward the tunnel. It seemed as if the data location transfer was as permanent as Roxas had said, even between rounds and challenges.
There you are… B-3.
On the eastern side of the map, the tile B-3 seemed to cover the dunes.
Lauriam had no clue what it meant, yet it was the only thing she could think of that connected the strange card with the game itself.
Click.
Lauriam knew that sound.
“Hands up, Lauriam.”
She turned to see Mish with a Glock 42 in hand, pointed her way.
“Are you dangerous, Lauriam?”
“I have a switchblade,” Lauriam replied earnestly. “But I wouldn’t say that I’m particularly dangerous.”
“So you aren’t waiting to take me out? Just checking."
“Ha, no,” Lauriam chuckled. “I just had to check my bag for the new twist before I carried on. Though, doing that here probably wasn’t the safest choice. So let me ask you - are you dangerous yourself?”
Mish twitched. “No,” she said. “I won’t hurt you.”
“And I won’t hurt you, either,” Lauriam said, hands in the air. “My knife’s in my pocket, Mish. Truce?”
“Truce.”
“Then check your bag. Maybe we can figure out what this twist is about.”
“Do you mean the card?” Mish asked. “I saw it when I grabbed my gun."
“Does yours look like this?” Lauriam held her card up. The cute whale smiled in the sunset, blowing water from its hole. She flipped it around to reveal the ‘B-3’ engraved on the back.
“Mine’s a bit different,” Mish replied. She got hers out. It was red, with a bird. When she flipped it over, it said ‘F-2.’
“Ah, let me check where that is,” Lauriam said, glancing at her phone. “Looks like the abandoned ruins where I went when the game first began.”
“Oh, good idea,” Mish said. “I didn’t think these would correspond to the map. But what does it mean?”
“A place to meet, perhaps,” said Lauriam. “Or a goal location of some sort.”
“Should we be heading there now?”
“I don’t know,” Lauriam said. “I mean, Roxas didn’t announce a challenge. We’re just sort of beginning the game again.”
A shadow moved from the corner of Lauriam’s eye and she saw Misty emerge from the tunnel, crossbow in hand.
“Oh, hello, ladies,” she said when she saw Lauriam. She lowered the crossbow. “Thanks for waiting, Mish.”
“Check your bag,” Mish told her, wasting no time. “You get one of these?”
Misty looked confused, but she quickly put her bag down and opened it up. “I saw something colorful in here,” she mentioned. “But I was too busy grabbing my crossbow to care to look.”
“Is it red!?” Mish asked, excited. “Please be red.”
“It’s not,” Misty said. “It’s blue.”
“A whale?” Lauriam asked.
“Indeed.”
“And on the back?”
Misty pulled it out, studying the whale. “Cute,” she said, before flipping it over. Her card also said ‘B-3.’
“Then it must be our next location!” Lauriam deduced. “Interesting, no? Why would Roxas send us to a specific place?”
“Well, he hasn’t sent us anywhere,” Misty said. “Are we assuming we know what these are for?”
“We know it’s part of a twist,” Mish said. “But in a game this ****ed up, who knows what that really means.”
“Ours match,” Lauriam mentioned. “So, I don’t know if that means we should stick together, but…”
“It wasn’t the plan,” Misty said. “We have a team, y’know. And surely you’re waiting for Aelin and Amaury? I saw you all together back in the dorm.”
“I traded location data with Amaury early in the game. So, I told them to stick together and that I’d find them. Standing around here waiting for them, at the entrance to the game - nah, it’s a death trap.”
“I agree,” Mish nodded. “Which is why I’d like to get moving sooner rather than later.”
“Then what do we do, Mish?” asked Misty. “Our cards don’t match. You have the red bird, and I have the blue whale. That means we might have different objectives.”
The two girls stopped, looking distant as the thought of fighting one another crossed their minds.
“Then maybe you should leave with Lauriam,” Mish said. “We can share our location data and find each other when this is all over.”
“Really?” asked Misty. “I don’t want to split up.”
“Neither do I,” Mish said. “But don’t worry. It’ll only be temporary.”
“So we’re a team, then, huh?” Lauriam asked Misty. “I wouldn’t mind having you on my side.”
“I don’t know you, but you seem alright,” Misty nodded. “Now let’s do this location sharing thingy.”
Mish and Misty played with their phones until the transfer was complete and they saw each others’ avatars pop up on the map. Misty slung her crossbow over her back and joined Lauriam.
“Well,” she told Mish. “Soon, my friend.”
“This is only temporary,” Mish smiled. “You two head for B-3, and I’ll go to the ruins up at F-2. Once we know what the next challenge is, we’ll go from there.”
“Wait,” Misty called as Mish began to walk away. “Mish. If it’s been 24 hours and we haven’t seen each other yet, meet back here in front of the tunnel at this time tomorrow. It’ll be our way of making sure we don't lose each other.”
Mish nodded in agreement, but that was the last she said before she walked away.
“So,” Lauriam casually dropped. “We’re a team now?”
Misty cracked a bottle of water and checked her GPS, looking west toward the dunes.
“A team,” Misty nodded, looking sullen as Mish disappeared into the distance. “Yes, Lauriam. We’re a team.”

25 players remaining

Now that it's over, I can say I enjoyed CoM. But that's it. The story is its high point, but I think the jump from GBA to the big screen hurts the game overall. It's basically a rehash of KH1 with worse game play due to the card system. At least on the GBA it was novel and the sprites and horizontal 3D combat were unique and made for an exciting game. I'm glad to be moving on from this but I will say that this game did tell a good smaller story while hinting at something bigger, similar to KH1. The ability to play as Riku is also a huge boost. Honestly, this game accomplishes what it sets out to do and you can't complain about that. I just think it pales in comparison to some of the later side games. Still, for a GBA remake this could be worse.

• This level 99 grind… why!? There’s nothing to even fight once you get OP
• That’s something this game needed. An optional boss in each story mode that pushes your card skills
• 2 levels left…
• HOLY **** that grinding with Riku was so ridiculous. I started getting really good at catching the whole mob with Lexaeus’ warp in the end. It probably took about 8 hours to grind him from 57 to 99. Wow, glad that’s over with
• I’m glad I have a complete file for this game, but what a waste of time LMAO
• I still have a few random trophies to get to. Gonna take a breather then finish those off