KH3 did Radiant Garden dirty

[Zackarix]

Radiant Garden/Hollow Bastion used to be what was arguably the most important world in the series. It had a central plotline running because it was the birthplace of the Heartless invasion and Organization XIII. It also had subplots like Aqua's Keyblade and armor being there. These plot threads meant that the world had a clear arc of its own. KH1 had it as a seat of darkness, KH2 had the inhabitants rebuilding, and BbS was a flashback to before the fall.

So having it reduced to a cutscene-only world was disappointing, but they also did the bare minimum with it. How are the inhabitants of RG reacting to the return of the people who destroyed their world? We didn't get to see it and with the timeskip we probably never will. Aqua also got her Keyblade back offscreen.

And to top it off, the world we do get to briefly see and visit in photo mode is a recreation of BbS era RG. I don't care if the restoration committee was pulling out all the stops, it's been a few months at most since KH2, not enough time to get the world back to how it was. "Restored to its former glory" was the logical end of RG's arc but it shouldn't have happened offscreen.

 

[okhi12]

It never made much sense to me. Worlds destroyed by darkness restored themselves on their own once the Door to Darkness was sealed, without people reconstructing anything. Hollow Bastion wasn't totally destroyed because what remained of it was still in the realm of light, but why should that make a difference? Whichever parts of the world that were swallowed by darkness should have returned (people did return after all) instead of being physically constructed again by its residents.

Dark Road reinforces the idea of worlds being able to restore themselves, each at a different rate.

Radiant Garden is full of inconsistencies, such as how the castle is different each time, both its exterior appearance (common elements are obviously there but some parts of it don't match at all) and the interior architecture (the areas we see in KH1 and KH2/BBS look nothing alike despite being the same building). Also, where did Maleficent's castle in KH2 come from? It had some debris at its base that resembled the KH1 castle, but that was Ansem's castle...

But you know, Radiant Garden isn't the only world which changed a lot in the course of a year. KH2 Agrabah was completely different from KH1 Agrabah. Having in mind 358/2 Days takes place between both games and Agrabah looked like in KH1, there wasn't any reasonable time window for the remodeling to happen. Unless Genie did it, that is. Halloween Town also changed slightly.

 

[Zackarix]

But you know, Radiant Garden isn't the only world which changed a lot in the course of a year. KH2 Agrabah was completely different from KH1 Agrabah. Having in mind 358/2 Days takes place between both games and Agrabah looked like in KH1, there wasn't any reasonable time window for the remodeling to happen. Unless Genie did it, that is. Halloween Town also changed slightly.

Wasn't Agrabah's remodeling a plot point in Days?

But regardless, my complaint isn't that the layout changed, it's that the entire design philosophy was changed in a way that damages the world's arc. The post-apocalyptic design was reverted to how it was before everything fell apart without even a handwave.

 

[okhi12]

Wasn't Agrabah's remodeling a plot point in Days?

If I remember well Aladdin wanted to rebuild the city because the heartless and sandstorms damaged it. Genie met Roxas and they talked about it, Genie wanted to rebuild it for Aladdin but Roxas convinced him that Aladdin wanted to do it by himself (with the help of the other citizens). Genie respected his will and only made the sandstorm disappear.
The city was remodeled but my point is that they couldn't have made it so different in less than a year without Genie's magic, so KH2 Agrabah makes no sense at all.

But regardless, my complaint isn't that the layout changed, it's that the entire design philosophy was changed in a way that damages the world's arc. The post-apocalyptic design was reverted to how it was before everything fell apart without even a handwave.

I agree. It's kinda disrespectful to the world's past. In KH2 the FF characters were members of the restoration committee and were supposedly struggling to rebuild the city (after all it's supposed to be a slow and difficult process). Some months later the city was restored like nothing happened.
It would have been OK if KH3 showed Radiant Garden as a city still under reconstruction, more advanced than KH2 but still not finished. I guess they didn't bother redesigning it because it was a cutscene-only world and they considered its KH2 story (and FF characters) as finished, so they went lazy and reused the BBS design with Unreal Engine 4 graphics.

 

[Soldier]

I think we're all getting a bit twisted in terms of what actually happened in RG. It is true that the closing of the DTD restored many worlds, but as we saw at the end of KH1, Hollow Bastion was still in its half ruined state when the FF characters are shown, with the library still intact.

Radiant Garden is full of inconsistencies, such as how the castle is different each time, both its exterior appearance (common elements are obviously there but some parts of it don't match at all) and the interior architecture (the areas we see in KH1 and KH2/BBS look nothing alike despite being the same building). Also, where did Maleficent's castle in KH2 come from? It had some debris at its base that resembled the KH1 castle, but that was Ansem's castle...

Most of what we see at the villains vale (Maleficent's base before she abandoned it) are indeed remnants of the world that were in the BBS Radiant Garden (such as the aqueducts and a few pieces of the town). It's also more likely that the darkness wasn't responsible for losing parts of the world, but more of a matter of actual physical destruction. Think about it, Maleficent had swarms of heartless at her disposal which would be very effective in demolition given the infinite possibilities of their forms. So it's possible she laid siege to the town and raised the water level of the rising falls to flood the city, OR raise the castle far above what remained of the town post heartless invasion as that's the only other place besides the falls we can access. The base of the castle seems to be encased in either rocky outcropppings or ice (not sure which) so perhaps a lot of the ruins are frozen. Nomura probably wasn't really thinking that much about the town in KH1, and focused on the ruined castle.

Then when Sora and co. close the door, I would imagine some physical changes would occur just like how Maleficent's demise burned away the thorns in the topmost spire of the castle. The town was restored to its proper place, albeit in a state of destruction for the FF crew to clean up. What comprises the villain's vale is what they removed from the castle site and dumped in one of the many canyons that make up the natural landscape like a trash heap.

 

[Zackarix]

Also, I suspect that one of the reasons why they decided to reduce Radiant Garden to the bare minimum is that it was decided to not use the Final Fantasy characters, but it would have been awkward and difficult to exclude the FF characters from the world. With Twilight Town they had to give the excuse that Seifer's crew was on a "warrior's journey" or something, but the truly important TT characters are Hayner, Pence, and Olette so they could still use the world. With RG they couldn't do that.

 

[Face My Fears]

Are you all really arguing over why KH1 Agrabah and KH2 Agrabah look different? Obviously it's because in the sequel they had to re-design it. The way I perceive it - storywise - is just an expansion of Sora was able to see in KH1 to KH2. Now he can fly on rooftops and go down alleys that were locked. Not only that, but Agrabah was really the only returning world that got revamped in a more noticeable way. Halloween Town has a bit of a redesign, but ultimately about the same.

If you really want an in-game reason, then just consider the people in those worlds remodelling or changing how the town is. Remember time moves differently in each world, so there's no way to really judge how long it took. Also, I don't get why people are holding the world designs to what they were shown to be. That kind of thinking is what makes Nomura NOT want returning worlds because he will obviously HAVE to redesign maps for future games, but people will want to keep it how it was. If there's one thing in KH I don't care about in consistency is world design matching how the previous world was. Look at how Port Royal got a major overhaul - we get to see the locations we visited in KH2, but they're also expanded and improved.

In regards to Radiant Garden/Hollow Bastion, in KH2 they seem to be making real progress. Not only that, but Tron unlocked the original blueprints/schematics for Radiant Garden, which should cut down the architects' and construction crews' renovation time. On top of all of that, they have Merlin and The Fairy Godmother's magic to help. ON TOP of that, Merlin has magic that can slow down/halt time, so maybe he did that and allowed the construction workers years of work to be done in like a week? It really isn't much work to do, especially given the super powered characters involved:

 

[Zackarix]

Are you all really arguing over why KH1 Agrabah and KH2 Agrabah look different?

I'm not the one who brought it up. And it wasn't enough of a discussion to prompt multiple paragraphs reiterating stuff we already know.

In regards to Radiant Garden/Hollow Bastion, in KH2 they seem to be making real progress. Not only that, but Tron unlocked the original blueprints/schematics for Radiant Garden, which should cut down the architects' and construction crews' renovation time. On top of all of that, they have Merlin and The Fairy Godmother's magic to help. ON TOP of that, Merlin has magic that can slow down/halt time, so maybe he did that and allowed the construction workers years of work to be done in like a week? It really isn't much work to do, especially given the super powered characters involved:

None of these handwaves are in the game itself and some of them only prompt more questions. If Merlin and the Fairy Godmother used magic to restore Radiant Garden why didn't they do so before? In the year between KH1 and KH2 the place goes from a ruin with only the castle above water to a place that was recovering, but still a long way off from its former glory. In what was at most a few months but was possibly as little as a few weeks the city went from recovering to restored as if the previous decade had never happened. There's actually a big difference between the two pictures you provided to the point that I suppose "magic" really is the only way you could achieve the result in such a short time period.

Really, if they didn't want to come up with a new design for post-KH2 RG then they should have simply not shown the world outside the castle. It's not like the two scenes that take place in the fountain square couldn't have taken place elsewhere. It was cool to see the world in UE4 graphics, but not worth the disrespect to the world's history.

 

[Elysium]

To the topic title: Yes, it did. You're playing my siren song right here.

As far as why KH2 Radiant Garden looks nothing like the world in KH1--and we have never been back inside the castle......--I remember reading a retrospective that theorized that story changes might've been the reason. Essentially that Traverse Town had been planned to return, but they decided to cut it either because of Twilight Town or for Twilight Town--or perhaps they were worried about Traverse Town, Twilight Town, and Radiant Garden conflicting with one another to be the hub world. And that had something to do with Radiant Garden going from an austere castle world to a comfy town world because one world's plot was absorbed into another's. One of the reasons the writer supposed that could be the case was Merlin's dialogue about a "Zero District" when beginning the 100 Acre Wood sidequest, which could've been an unintended remnant of what was. Not only are there no numbered districts in KH2 Radiant Garden, Zero District would probably be a good description of the place where Merlin's house was in Traverse Town (removed from the other three districts).

 

[Face My Fears]

I'm not the one who brought it up. And it wasn't enough of a discussion to prompt multiple paragraphs reiterating stuff we already know.

None of these handwaves are in the game itself and some of them only prompt more questions. If Merlin and the Fairy Godmother used magic to restore Radiant Garden why didn't they do so before? In the year between KH1 and KH2 the place goes from a ruin with only the castle above water to a place that was recovering, but still a long way off from its former glory. In what was at most a few months but was possibly as little as a few weeks the city went from recovering to restored as if the previous decade had never happened. There's actually a big difference between the two pictures you provided to the point that I suppose "magic" really is the only way you could achieve the result in such a short time period.

Really, if they didn't want to come up with a new design for post-KH2 RG then they should have simply not shown the world outside the castle. It's not like the two scenes that take place in the fountain square couldn't have taken place elsewhere. It was cool to see the world in UE4 graphics, but not worth the disrespect to the world's history.

Time moves differently in all worlds. Problem solved.

I mean, really? Is it that hard to just buy that Hollow Bastion from KH1 gets fixed to what we see in KH3 over the course of several games? But also THAT is the biggest disservice to Hollow Bastion? An appearance change? To be brutally honest, I actually think that your line of questioning should be applied to Hollow Bastion in KH1 to what we get in KH2, but of course no one bats an eye at what KH2 does. It's established that Hollow Bastion was literally destroyed by Maleficent, NOT taken by darkness, which means that after the events of KH1, it wasn't going to be magically recompleted like other worlds. Leon and the the gang physically left Hollow Bastion on their own, NOT by being displaced by the darkness consuming the world.

So for Hollow Bastion to be utterly obliterated and nothing more than the broken down castle in KH1 to turn into the town and everything mostly fixed in KH2 is WAY more shocking and questionable than how the world was in KH2 and what it turned into in KH3. I didn't question it, but since you're bringing it up I want to know why you don't think that's as questionable as the discrepancy between KH2 and KH3. I can buy time and magic fixing up Hollow Bastion into whatever state Nomura wants it to be in, but I'm curious why you didn't question Hollow Bastion's drastic appearance change from KH1 to KH2.

Aside from that, what I think they actually did wrong with Radiant Garden in KH3 was not using the Final Fantasy characters in conjunction with the ex-Organization members at the castle. Not having them interact with Ansem The Wise (or maybe even be part of the storyline to help him). Never having the Final Fantasy characters want to hunt down Maleficent. Not using the world as an actual hub world or even a mid-point world.

And on top of everything else... its cutscenes occur on the Gummiphone. I rather have Sora complete the DISNEY world, then the cutscene just opens with Sora and the gang in Radiant Garden chatting about whatever Ienzo had to say. They could have even had the conversations be in different locations - the lab, outside the castle, the garden, the fountain court, by the Villains' Vale (and maybe even explain what that is or say someone is investigating) etc. I would have even been fine with the world as just explorable parts where we hear segments of the story being told as we traverse to where we need to go. Like Sora lands in the garden, then the mission info is go to the castle and talk to Ienzo. Along the way, we hear Sora/Donald/Goofy having the conversation they would have had in the Gummiship and hear their thoughts about things, maybe even have people along the way you can interact with like Leon. Then get to the cutscene with Ienzo. Kind of like how they do it in The Last of Us where there are scenes with no action, but just chatting as you get to the next story location.

 

[Zackarix]

Time moves differently in all worlds. Problem solved.

This basically exists as an excuse to not think too hard about the timelines of Disney worlds. Never before have Sora's adventures been implied to be out of sync with Radiant Garden's timeline, especially to the point that years are passing for RG while weeks are passing for Sora. The Limit Cut episode has a timeskip with the words "one year later" on the screen, which is a distinction that looses a lot of meaning if a year in one world is a month in another and a decade in a third.

So for Hollow Bastion to be utterly obliterated and nothing more than the broken down castle in KH1 to turn into the town and everything mostly fixed in KH2 is WAY more shocking and questionable than how the world was in KH2 and what it turned into in KH3. I didn't question it, but since you're bringing it up I want to know why you don't think that's as questionable as the discrepancy between KH2 and KH3. I can buy time and magic fixing up Hollow Bastion into whatever state Nomura wants it to be in, but I'm curious why you didn't question Hollow Bastion's drastic appearance change from KH1 to KH2.

Have you actually played KH2? In that game Hollow Bastion is habitable again, but it's a long way from "mostly fixed." There's damage and patchwork fixes in every room that isn't in the castle and you can also find construction equipment. Draining the Rising Falls so that they had access to the town again is one thing, rebuilding is another especially if it's to the point of a full recovery. Also, there wouldn't have been much point to Leon and company returning to HB in KH1 if the world was beyond recovery.

But even if I insert my own handwave and say that a passing helpful reality warper came and restored the world it has has still been done dirty. Why? Because as I mentioned in the opening post RG being restored to its former glory was the logical conclusion of the arc, but having such a thing should NOT have happened offscreen.

In order to be done justice Radiant Garden needed to be a playable world, but for whatever reason they decided not to do that. Maybe to avoid using Final Fantasy characters, maybe because they thought that the KH2 story was enough, or maybe they didn't have enough resources for another original world. (If the last theory is true they should have done RG instead of Twilight Town. How many things in KH3 both had to happen in TT and couldn't have been a cutscene?) But regardless of the reason for skipping these plot points they did, and in such a way that it would be difficult to rectify in future games. How is the restoration committee reacting to the return of the people who destroyed their home and brought about the Heartless invasion? After the timeskip of a year they'll be well past the initial drama. Was Aqua's reclamation of her Keyblade an emotional moment? That moment is long past now, so it doesn't matter. Even if they have flashbacks later it won't have the same impact.

 

[MATGSY]

When it comes to video game geography, I operate on a basic principal: "Video games are not canon to themselves." How many times has an RPG had towns that consists of 4 houses, about 10 NPCs tops, & an item shop that only sells weapons no one but the party buys as the only visible economy & yet the lore says it's the biggest kingdom in the land with tens of thousands of people living there or some shit? Like pretty much every single time, right? How a given location is depicted in a game can not be taken seriously as the canonical nature of said location in story & should just be treated as the level backdrop it is.

 

[Face My Fears]

This basically exists as an excuse to not think too hard about the timelines of Disney worlds. Never before have Sora's adventures been implied to be out of sync with Radiant Garden's timeline, especially to the point that years are passing for RG while weeks are passing for Sora. The Limit Cut episode has a timeskip with the words "one year later" on the screen, which is a distinction that looses a lot of meaning if a year in one world is a month in another and a decade in a third.

Have you actually played KH2? In that game Hollow Bastion is habitable again, but it's a long way from "mostly fixed." There's damage and patchwork fixes in every room that isn't in the castle and you can also find construction equipment. Draining the Rising Falls so that they had access to the town again is one thing, rebuilding is another especially if it's to the point of a full recovery. Also, there wouldn't have been much point to Leon and company returning to HB in KH1 if the world was beyond recovery.

But even if I insert my own handwave and say that a passing helpful reality warper came and restored the world it has has still been done dirty. Why? Because as I mentioned in the opening post RG being restored to its former glory was the logical conclusion of the arc, but having such a thing should NOT have happened offscreen.

In order to be done justice Radiant Garden needed to be a playable world, but for whatever reason they decided not to do that. Maybe to avoid using Final Fantasy characters, maybe because they thought that the KH2 story was enough, or maybe they didn't have enough resources for another original world. (If the last theory is true they should have done RG instead of Twilight Town. How many things in KH3 both had to happen in TT and couldn't have been a cutscene?) But regardless of the reason for skipping these plot points they did, and in such a way that it would be difficult to rectify in future games. How is the restoration committee reacting to the return of the people who destroyed their home and brought about the Heartless invasion? After the timeskip of a year they'll be well past the initial drama. Was Aqua's reclamation of her Keyblade an emotional moment? That moment is long past now, so it doesn't matter. Even if they have flashbacks later it won't have the same impact.

Have you actually played KH1? If I were to compare what Hollow Bastion was in KH1 and what it was in KH2, I would definitely call that "mostly fixed". It went from only being a destroyed castle to actually having a town again and being able to travel throughout the world. Not only that, but it is CANON that the castle is all that's physically left of Hollow Bastion and not just "everything was taken by darkness". So the transition from KH1 to KH2's Hollow Bastion is WAY more drastic and "unrealistic" than KH2 to KH3, but of course KH2 can do no wrong ever and is never questioned. Only KH3 gets scrutinized to an atomic level.

I actually agree with your scrutiny of KH3's actual use of Radiant Garden and the Final Fantasy characters. There were pivotal moments that could have happened there. I thought Aqua being saved should have been the mid-point storyline and we could have seen her getting back her armor and keyblade - getting ready to save Ven - as the end of Act 2 storyline (happening during The Caribbean/San Fransokyo visits). Nomura could have even had Aqua meet the Final Fantasy characters while walking through Radiant Garden (she could visit where the three fought that Unversed to reminisce) and bring up why the Final Fantasy characters weren't there when she visited. Maybe she could inform them of what's happening and how serious it is - maybe Ienzo didn't want to involve them out of guilt for what happened before - which prompts the Final Fantasy characters to surprise assist in the Keyblade Graveyard with Yen Sid later on. Even like you said, Twilight Town's storyline could have been transferred to Radiant Garden (even the bistro since Scrooge was in Radiant Garden in KH2). It even makes more sense for Ansem The Wise to go straight to Radiant Garden first over Twilight Town. I would have much preferred if Hayner, Pence and Olette were on the Gummiphone and cutscenes only instead of Radiant Garden. But where I disagree with you is the appearance of Radiant Garden being such an issue.

Like MATGSY rightfully said, RPG world geography cannot be taken as the end all be all of it. Imagine if those towns in Pokemon games were solely 2 or 3 houses, a Pokemon Center and a Pokemart with items ONLY for Pokemon - how would the humans live? How does the protagonist even live if we never buy human food? So yeah, Radiant Garden being broken/fixed doesn't matter to me, nor does the logic behind it. It would have been questionable if the very next day Radiant Garden was fixed, but it was like a year and then additional months to get it to where it was in KH3. I can buy that and not question it.

I think the team probably ran out of time and couldn't include Radiant Garden. They probably had Twilight Town mostly done and just made that the hub world. I mean, even the 100 Acre Wood appeared there, even though it was in Radiant Garden twice before. If it were up to me, Radiant Garden would have been the hubworld and Twilight Town could have been just the interior of the mansion (everywhere else is cutscenes). Now that I'm thinking about it, they probably felt chained to Twilight Town being playable since it was the first world shown in trailers. But I suppose we'll never know why Nomura didn't use Radiant Garden more.

 

[Zackarix]

Like MATGSY rightfully said, RPG world geography cannot be taken as the end all be all of it.

I have never been talking about the geography, I've been talking about the aesthetics.

Have you actually played KH1? If I were to compare what Hollow Bastion was in KH1 and what it was in KH2, I would definitely call that "mostly fixed". It went from only being a destroyed castle to actually having a town again and being able to travel throughout the world. Not only that, but it is CANON that the castle is all that's physically left of Hollow Bastion and not just "everything was taken by darkness". So the transition from KH1 to KH2's Hollow Bastion is WAY more drastic and "unrealistic" than KH2 to KH3, but of course KH2 can do no wrong ever and is never questioned. Only KH3 gets scrutinized to an atomic level.

Oh. You think that they rebuilt everything but the castle from scratch. I suppose that would explain your attempt to support your claim of the place being "mostly fixed" with a picture of a city that's still half ruined. I guess if I was running off the assumption that they rebuilt the whole place from the ground up in a year it wouldn't be too big a leap of logic to assume that a few more months would be enough for a complete restoration.

The flaw in your assumption is that the city walls are clearly not new construction. There's a big crack in the middle, it's the skeleton of the old city. The town wasn't taken by the darkness. They haven't said it outright, but the town was taken by the water. Between the Rising Falls in KH1 and Radiant Garden seeming to be in the middle of a body of water in BbS it's likely that the town was flooded with only the castle (which is the highest point in the city) remaining above the water. In KH2 they've drained the water and can access the town again.

When Leon and company talked about Maleficent destroying the world in KH1 it doesn't necessarily mean that she completely razed the place to the ground. If she came in, attacked, caused a bunch of damage, and forced the survivors to flee for their lives that would be enough to justify the word "destroyed" while still leaving parts intact.

Please don't accuse me of being one of those "KH2 perfect" blind fans. I think that KH2 has plenty of flaws and could go on and on about, to the point where I've had people tell me to stop whining. I just don't think that how it handles Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden is one of them.

 

[Noivern]

The most obvious reason is probably that Nomura and the rest of the team changed their minds over what they were going to do with the original World from KH1 to KH2 resulting in Hollow Bastion blossoming into the city of light we now know as Radiant Garden.

In universe, thought, there's a lot of hints that Radiant Garden was ravaged by Darkness itself, unlike other worlds which were engulfed by it. Partially because of the way the apprentices and Xehanort were slowly unfolding the heart of the world and letting Darkness in culminating into Maleficent herself showing up eventually, but also the whole deal with the Ark and how the narrative seems to unfold.

Most worlds are directly consumed by Darkness when the Door to Darkness is opened in their hearts, we got to see that directly through Destiny Islands in KH1. But Radiant Garden was a victim of it's own residents experiments. Maybe the way they slowly took down the world's inner defenses to the outside made it so it got actually thorn apart? Who knows, really.

As for the transition from 2 to 3: After 2, they had restored Tron and the rest of the Castle's computers, speeding up the whole process. Just the self-defense system itself should already be a huge help as the workers would've been able to make faster progress without having to be scorted by the Restoration Comitee every time they spotted a Heartless.

But more so, what probably helped the most was the apprentices coming back to life. They actually knew the world and the castle's systems, and this is where we remember that Ansem was not only the castle's lord but also the world's leader, as well as most likely the one who built the entire thing in the first place.

Thus, they would not only have access to the tools and resources he had used, but also the knowledge on how to use them properly.

And that's within the field of what is reasonable to assume offscreen, of course. There's also the possibility that King Mickey paid a visit to the world's Keyhole in the time between KH2 and 3 (including DDD and 3D) and reconstructed the whole thing like how Land of Departure got fixed.

 

[Soldier]

And that's within the field of what is reasonable to assume offscreen, of course. There's also the possibility that King Mickey paid a visit to the world's Keyhole in the time between KH2 and 3 (including DDD and 3D) and reconstructed the whole thing like how Land of Departure got fixed.

Hey! Long time no see!
Why do I always forget that this is something Keyblade wielders do? Though I always took it to mean they can only manipulate their specific world and nowhere else. Like, Mickey can't go to Wonderland and use the kingdom key D to rearrange the place into Disney Castle II right?

In universe, thought, there's a lot of hints that Radiant Garden was ravaged by Darkness itself, unlike other worlds which were engulfed by it. Partially because of the way the apprentices and Xehanort were slowly unfolding the heart of the world and letting Darkness in culminating into Maleficent herself showing up eventually, but also the whole deal with the Ark and how the narrative seems to unfold.

Most worlds are directly consumed by Darkness when the Door to Darkness is opened in their hearts, we got to see that directly through Destiny Islands in KH1. But Radiant Garden was a victim of it's own residents experiments. Maybe the way they slowly took down the world's inner defenses to the outside made it so it got actually thorn apart? Who knows, really.

That actually does make a lot of sense, Sora and co. never actually seal the keyhole to Hollow Bastion (What is formed from the seven princesses is an artificial one that would guide the villains to Kingdom Hearts) as the actual one is found by Ansem which kickstarted his interest after he peered inside. Given that he already saw shadows near the keyhole to begin with, I'd presume that they likely were scoping it out and a more direct force is needed.

But more so, what probably helped the most was the apprentices coming back to life. They actually knew the world and the castle's systems, and this is where we remember that Ansem was not only the castle's lord but also the world's leader, as well as most likely the one who built the entire thing in the first place.

Ah what I wouldn't have given to see their interactions. By Re:mind everyone seems to be pretty much buddy-buddy despite the apprentices having a pretty heavy hand in what was effectively mass genocide on a planetary scale. I could see Leon and Aeleus clashing with their weapons while Yuffie eggs him on.

 

[Noivern]

Hey! Long time no see!
Why do I always forget that this is something Keyblade wielders do? Though I always took it to mean they can only manipulate their specific world and nowhere else. Like, Mickey can't go to Wonderland and use the kingdom key D to rearrange the place into Disney Castle II right?

Hey there. I do lurk on the forums from time to time, but there isn't much actual content happening lately to warrant a post, lol.

And they probably cannot? The way the whole scene in BBS played out seems to imply that Master Keeper was the one with the ability to terraform Land of Departure, so it MIGHT be something along the lines of using a Keyblade whose keychain had something to do with that world or something?

They do have Kairi in the cast whose Keyblade was born there, but ehh, idk. I'm sure if they truly wanted to go down that route for the retcon, Nomura could've easily come up with a justification.

 

[Soldier]

Hey there. I do lurk on the forums from time to time, but there isn't much actual content happening lately to warrant a post, lol.

And they probably cannot? The way the whole scene in BBS played out seems to imply that Master Keeper was the one with the ability to terraform Land of Departure, so it MIGHT be something along the lines of using a Keyblade whose keychain had something to do with that world or something?

They do have Kairi in the cast whose Keyblade was born there, but ehh, idk. I'm sure if they truly wanted to go down that route for the retcon, Nomura could've easily come up with a justification.

I guess that would make sense if it were part of the established canon. I could definitely see it being one such power, but the limit you mentioned would make a lot of sense. Though I can understand why they wouldn't want to go through with that. Imagine the engine the game would need to run on if you could terraform an entire KH world.