In Defence Of Twilight Town And The Kingdom Hearts 2 Opening
Kingdom Hearts 2 starts slow. I didn’t play Chain of Memories on the Game Boy Advance as a kid, so I went directly into the numbered sequel after finishing the first game and found myself completely lost. I had no idea why Sora was in cryostasis, who Organisation 13 were, or where on Earth Sora and Goofy had wandered off too after the original ending.
It was the beginning of the series’ worst sin - demanding that hardcore fans play every single game and consume all Kindgom Hearts media in existence to have even the slightest idea of what was happening. The narrative is defined by layers upon layers of convolution that have no right being this complex, and the yarn woven throughout Sora’s second (well it’s technically his third) adventure only further compounds this problem. But I still love it.
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If, like me, you hadn’t played Chain of Memories first, the opening hours of Kingdom Hearts 2 are downright bizarre. Except for initial cutscenes, Sora is nowhere to be seen, the game doing its best to fill in the blanks before we dive into the thick of things. We awaken as Roxas, another spiky-haired anime boy who has spent his entire life in Twilight Town. It’s a humble little place with a welcoming vibe, one where local businesses thrive and everyone knows everyone after years of walking the same streets. It’s an idyllic lifestyle, but as we’ll soon come to learn, a fabricated one.
Roxas and his friends - Hayner, Pence, and Olette - are your typical teenagers, keen to spend the last few days of summer vacation to their fullest. Normally they would just meet up in their makeshift hideout to gossip about the usual happenings before climbing the clock tower
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