0.2's Connections to Birth By Sleep's Secret Epsidoe

[Beamer]

So I just recently went back and rewatched a playthrough of Aqua's secret episode and discovered a few interesting connections to 0.2 (other than that fact that the latter is a direct sequel). Granted there's not much, but I couldn't really find a suitable thread to post this in and I figured others might have noticed something and would like to share. So without further ado, here's two things I noticed in the Secret Episode (Now with pictures!)

So just before you fight Red Eye, there's a fight between Aqua an a bunch of Shadows & Neoshadows. "Ok there Beamer, hold your horses. This fight is to recap and test the player on what they learned before they apply it on a big boss" you say. That may be so, but the enemy placement up to this point included Darkballs, which had been mixed in equally among the Shadows and Neoshadows. In this battle they are surprisingly absent, when it would be reasonable to assume that technical limitations would still allow for Darkballs to be present, if in limited quantities.

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Now going back to 0.2, We have a similar battle with the Shadow Swarm. While there may be a story connection we're not seeing yet, there definitely seems to be a thematic connection between these two battles. The BBS Volume II concept had to have been forefront on Nomura's mind when he and his team were creating the Secret Episode, so perhaps the concept for the swarm sprung from or inspired the battle in the Secret Episode. Either way, it makes a good story tie between the two in that the Shadows are getting stronger and stronger, which Yasue hints will happen to the swarm later in 0.2.


The second tie seems to be a another, smaller story tie. When the portal to the realm of light forms and darkness is sent through it, Aqua actively asks herself what's going on. This is later implied to be the moment where Castle of Dreams fell to darkness. When Aqua meets Illusion!Terra at the end of the E3 demo, she asks him if something has happened to the Realm of Light.

I could be overthinking the connection since I'm super tired at the time of writing this, but what do you guys think about this?

 

[Kaweebo]

I can see even weaker Heartless like Shadows growing increasingly stronger as darkness begins to spread among the RoL and eventually forming 'swarms' that cause their eyes to glow orange as they share their power together. It even makes sense for Sora to encounter one in KHIII since the darkness is growing quite a bit from Organization XIII's revival, as well.

 

[Beamer]

I can see even weaker Heartless like Shadows growing increasingly stronger as darkness begins to spread among the RoL and eventually forming 'swarms' that cause their eyes to glow orange as they share their power together. It even makes sense for Sora to encounter one in KHIII since the darkness is growing quite a bit from Organization XIII's revival, as well.

Well it's only natural the darkness would grow. With a solid foothold in the RoL, more and more people are falling to darkness, and thus feeding it.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

I'm pretty sure that heartless act out of instinct as opposed to order. Maybe they're showing signs of collaborations because an external darkness is influencing them.