"So much to do... So little time. Take your time. Don't be afraid... The door is still shut."

Welcome to Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix! The beginning of the game serves as a tutorial that allows you to familiarize yourself with the controls, actions, and gameplay. You begin by learning how to walk and run. Tilt the left analog stick slightly to walk, and tilt it harder to run. Walk forward into the light in the center to proceed.

Dream Weapon Selection

You are presented with a sword, a shield, and a staff; you are required to choose one as your power and give one up in exchange. If you choose the sword as your power, your strength stat will be prioritized and attack-based abilities will be learned at earlier levels. The same applies for defense if you choose the shield, and for magic if you choose the staff.

Attacking, HP and MP

Press the button to attack. By pressing the attack button repeatedly, you can string together attacks to perform a three-hit combo; the final strike in a three-hit combo (known as a combo finisher) deals more damage and can sometimes result in a critical hit. Enemies sometimes leave items behind, and you can pick up these items automatically by walking up to them. Different items can do different things, like restore HP and MP. View our Items List for more information.

The green gauge displays Hit Points (HP), or health. If you run out of HP, you will be taken to the Continue screen. The blue gauge shows your Magic Points (MP); you won't be able to use MP until you learn your first magic spell a bit later on.

Locking on to enemies

Generally, you'll automatically target the nearest enemy. But you can lock onto a specific target by pressing the button. LOCK ON! will appear in the upper left corner of the screen while you're locked onto a target. Locking onto a target limits the actions available to you, especially against other targets. Press again to release a target lock.

Interacting with your environment

A field icon pops up whenever a special command is available. You can examine nearby objects by selecting Examine. You can push and smash large creates; sometimes destroying objects yields items. You can take these items by walking up to them, and you can use them with the Items command. You can lock on to objects as well as enemies. While locked on, press to switch your focus between available targets. Examine the door to proceed.

Choose Your Experience Curve

Press the touchpad to shift to first-person view. You can then use the left analog stick to look around. Press the touchpad again to return to standard view. When you approach a conversable character, select Talk to strike up a conversation with someone nearby.

Talk to each of the kids on the platform and answer their questions. Depending on your answers, your journey will begin at dawn, midday, or the dead of night:

• If your journey begins at dawn, you will level up faster for the first 50 levels, but slower for the next 50 levels.
• If your journey begins at midday, will cause you to level up evenly throughout your adventure.
• If your journey begins in the dead of night, you will level up slower before level 50, but faster after level 50.

Start Menu & Save Points

Press the button to open the menu screen. In the main menu, you can do things like view your inventory and status, or configure your settings. However, you can't open the menu during battle.

Touch save points to recover HP and MP. Open the menu by selecting Save. Be sure to save your progress before quitting the game. It's a good idea to save often. If anything goes wrong, you can then load your saved data and resume from there.

Final Sequence

Travel up the stairway to encounter the first "boss" -- if you lose this fight, the game will still continue.

	Darkside
	HP: 180      EXP: 30      DIFFICULTY: Darkside is vulnerable at its hands and head. When Darkside slams its fist into the ground, lock on and attack its lowered hand with complete combos. While its hand is touching the ground, you can jump up its arm and strike its head for extra tech points. If your HP starts to get low, you can destroy the smaller enemies to release HP orbs (or use a Potion from your command menu, if available). When Darkside kneels and projects homing lasers from its chest, you can time your attacks to send the lasers back or extra techn points (be sure to lock on to its head when you try to deflect them back for even more tech points). If you lose all your HP during this fight, the game will still continue. REWARD:  None