Kingdom Hearts II/Hollow Bastion





Once you land in Hollow Bastion, you'll discover that all of the shops are in the first area (the Marketplace), and that they sell exactly the same items as Twilight Town, with the addition of Ethers in the Item Shop. As you move onward, you'll see a Moogle hanging out in front of the Synthesis Shop. If you wish, you can hand over your two types of materials, and receive an Elixir in return.

When you enter the Borough area, you'll be greeted by Yuffie, but are then attacked by Dusks. Use this opportunity to test out Valor Form (this requires Goofy to be in the party and alive). Even without this, you'll be helped by the town's defensive system, which launches enemies into the air via beams of energy from the ground. After the battle, you'll receive the Marketplace Map for your troubles. Head to Merlin's House where you'll be greeted by the "Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee", consisting of Leon, Aerith, Cid, Yuffie and Merlin. After the cutscene, you will receive a Membership Card and the ability to use magic in the form of Blizzard.

Afterwards, feel free to pick up the treasure scattered around the "Borough". Grab the Hi-Potion to the left as you exit Merlin's House. For a Tent, follow the path to the right as you leave Merlin's House, and it's between two houses (found to the right of the two). A Drive Recovery can be found on the walkway leading to the Bailey, on the left-hand side. Find an AP Boost straight ahead of you as you walk up the ramp to get to the top of the Borough, and lastly, pick up the Mythril Shard to the right immediately before you enter the Bailey. Head to the Bailey, and, after the cutscene, you will be presented with your next task: defend the gate from the hoards of Nobodies.

Defending the Gate
The gate has a health bar, and if it happens to runs out, the task must be restarted. The enemy ranks consist of the familiar Dusks and Creepers, as well as newcomer Samurai. These Nobodies are unique in that they only seem to attack Sora when he attacks them first; while this gives them the appearance of slowness, they tend to hit hard and cause a great deal of damage, particularly when their reaction command is not formed successfully. The aforementioned reaction command, called Duel Stance, has Sora's command list empty if activated. This is with the exception of a sole command that may appear at any place in the list, called "The End". When this appears, you must select it quickly. If you don't select the command with enough speed, Sora will get hit instead. Make sure to make use of the Blizzard magic that you just received, as it may prove useful against the Samurai as well as other faraway foes. Additionally, the Nobodies drop many MP orbs, constantly giving Sora new opportunities to test his magic.

Donald and Goofy are not present for this task, so the use of Valor Form is impossible, but to make up for this, a powerful guest character aids Sora in the form of Leon. Leon's attacks include a fireball and slashes of his gunblade. After a while, his gunblade will glow white and grow considerably, giving it a much larger range and doing more damage.

Once the battle has finished, you will receive Fire magic. A cutscene shows the remaining members of Organization XIII arriving in Hollow Bastion to taunt Sora. Despite the sudden appearance and subsequent disappearance of the mysterious enemies, the Keyhole for the world will be sealed, and you'll receive Secret Ansem Report 7.

After you leave the world automatically, you have two choices - either The Land of Dragons or Beast's Castle. This walkthrough will assume that you head to the former first (which also has the lower battle level).