ATTN: Everyone!

[NebulaGregarZX]

Yo, guys! You might have noticed I finally got the next part of Recompleted finished! Turns out, that bridging thing was a little more complicated than I thought. But now, I've got it fixed up. Hell, I think you guys will actually LIKE how it turned out instead of cursing yourselves!

But, see, I kind of went ahead and mapped out the huge portion of the story that I need to write on my own, up to the massive final-battle-with-Org.XIII thing. And I made it complicated, sorry. See, I feel like it's wrong to change it so much without permission, first of all. Is it alright with everybody if the final battle is a massive, scaled-up, drawn-out affair involving tons of lesser Nobodies, some level of tactics, separate groups of heroes, and the destruction of an entire city?

As for the other thing, I need to actually organize those groups before I can write out what happens. The groups are organized so that everyone gets a turn at both fighting the peons and fighting the actual Org.XIII  members. Now, who wants what character to face off with which enemy? If I know what matchups everyone wants to see, I can set them up, probably.

Also, I want to know who might be up for the whole blowing-up-a-city thing. Which members would like to be involved in that, specifically? It kind of involves casting a massive destruction spell, so it's not going to involve conventional explosives or brute force.

Now, I could do this all on my own and decide on matchups without you input, but that'd be more work for me, and your opinions would go unheeded. And I don't want that. I want to make the final battle something worthwhile. Plus, with interesting matchups, writing unique dialogue will be easier, so the fights aren't all of one flavor.

The main characters that will be involved in this are as follows:

Xeromus
Siks
Kotank
Dispatch
Susan
Aaron
Norio
Nori
Josephine
Thananx
Zane
R
MiM
Sally
Kuroyuki Kokoro

...And the remaining parts of the Keys to the Kingdom, unless we want to just drop them, since they're not very plot-relevant beyond Yuki.

So, seriously, I want feedback on this one. It will help tremendously. Unfortunately, since What'sUp isn't helping out, I dunno if I could really write a Nexas vs. Marluxia battle, but I might give it a try. Now, I want to hear from you guys, even if you weren't there! I'll take suggestions from anybody.

Though, bear in mind that I haven't written everything up to the battle yet, so even once I've gotten all this information sorted out at last, it'll be a while before you'll see the fruits of our labor.



To recap:

I'm making the final battle really different and more grand in scale. Is everyone okay with that?

Give me suggestions for who fights who.

This could take a while.

[Haar_Dragon]

Dude, nobody was happy with that "final battle." It was early on, poorly-paced, and crazy-easy. I think making it as big as possible would be the absolute best thing you could do with it.

As for matchups, I'd like to see Dispatch vs. Saix, since they both get power from the full moon and are both on Kingdom Hearts. I remember in FGA, the others seemed to want Aaron vs. Xigbar as well, but...seeing as that would result in basically a Western-style shootout, I'm not entirely sure it's a good plan. I mean, I'd be okay with it, but I'm really not sure what can come of it. Also, because of character stuff involving Aaron, if we're dividing the groups up, he stays with Dispatch.

I say drop the Keys. The only one who stuck around for any length of time was Joe, and that was because I don't really like saying "And so, Joe immediately left." Though he ended up in stasis and is currently a block of ice inside a Gummi Ship, and nobody remembers him.

[khfreak358]

Siks vs Zexion and Kotank vs Lexaeus are kind of a given.

Yeah, I'd also say drop the Keys. I'm not even sure I remember what their purpose was, if there actually was one. Also, the one I wrote hurts me to think about.

[Haar_Dragon]

If I remember right, their purpose was to open the world to the light of Kingdom Hearts...or something to that effect. I remember they were eight of them, they all had Keyblades, they opened KH, and then Light happened. It was stupid and didn't make sense. And it was REALLY stupid.

[NebulaGregarZX]

Alright, then. Of course, Kuroyuki's too plot-important to drop, so it'll be trimmed down to Thananx, Nori, Norio, and Kuroyuki. In fact, Kuroyuki's probably the one providing the plot-significance to the group anyway, while Thananx is a crazy, temporarily-possessed pawn, and Nori and Norio are kind of just two more wielders, one of whom has marginally more plot significance. Norio could probably be trimmed out, too. I imagine the whole thing is a lie cooked up by whoever is possessing Thananx to convince them that what they're doing is somehow good.

I really wish we could clear up what that plan really is.

Now, then, I'm having to shoehorn in the Heartless boss rush a little bit, since I forgot about it while I was writing up the plan, and didn't deliberately leave a space for it. So my apologies for dropping the plot significance of it that we discussed, Haar.

By the way, does anyone particularly want to see the next story update really soon? I'm excited about this one, but posting twice so soon is, uh... something I'd rather not do unless I have a reason. Gotta pace myself, after all.

EDIT: Ah, I forgot a couple of things.

Would you guys like me to post the current plan so you can see it and comment on it? It ruins the surprises I have planned, but it would be a big help if you guys would point out any improvements I can make ahead of time.

And KH, are you still working on that intermission, the one with Siks, Kotank, and Susan's backstory?

EDIT THE 2ND: By the way, just now finished up some of the matchups. Tell me what you think.

Dispatch vs. Saix – Set match.

Siks vs. Zexion – Set match.

Kotank vs. Lexaeus – Set match.

Aaron vs. Xigbar? Aaron must be in the same group as Dispatch.

Sally vs. Axel – Set match.

Sally vs. Demyx? A fight with a former ally and friend, but Sally gets to fight Axel.

R vs. Vexen? Creation vs. Creator.

Thananx vs. Larxene? Battle of the sadist and the sociopath.

Zane vs. Xaldin? Remote weapon battle.

Josephine vs. Luxord? Dice vs. cards.

Nexas vs. Marluxia? Scythe-wielder rival battle. Might not be able to write, though.

Nori vs. Roxin? Hero against his Nobody.

Norio vs. Xion? Hero’s son against a replica of his father that takes on a different form.

Kuroyuki vs. Xemnas? Must be the final match. Yuki won’t be alone.

[Admin (HalcyonWandering)]

I could write Nexas and Marluxia for you, Nebula. Fights are my strong suit, after all.

[NebulaGregarZX]

That would be a big help. I'm mostly worried because we never saw those two interact, so we don't know exactly how they would. What'sUp said there was some massive rivalry between them and all, but that's the extent of what we know. Thing is, I'll have to set up the context for the fight before the writing can begin, so you won't be able to start on it for a while. Especially since I've elected to comb through the rest of the story and write out the plan for the rest of Recompleted before I resume the writing proper.

Speaking of which, while we're thinking ahead, why don't we try to figure out a better way to tie X-Sigma into the plot than "he's the big bad guy who shows up at the end and tries to destroy the universe because he's bored and an asshole"? He himself makes a good enough villain, but aside from being evil and strong, he doesn't have any other reason to be involved with the plot.

Oh, and Admin, how are the Xancel intermissions coming?

[Admin (HalcyonWandering)]

Not as much progress as I'd like, but they're happening. I'm having a tough time figuring out Xancel's personal timeline alongside the Recompleted timeline proper. Does it matter if they're slightly anachronistic compared to the actual story?

And tying in X-Sigma so he's less of a shoehorn would be awesome. Though I feel like he'd need some minions of some sort if we were going to give him any sort of build-up.

[NebulaGregarZX]

That's fine. I don't think we're going to try straightening out how time worked in the story anyway.

Hm... one idea would be to have Maleficent try to summon him from some pocket dimension he's been sealed in, have him completely ignore any and all of her commands, and only decide not to destroy the universe right away when he finds out there are other people in the universe who are strong, so he tests them and then gives them a chance to train and fight him all at once. That gives Maleficent a tiny bit more relevance to the story, gives X-Sigma an origin of sorts, allows for some buildup, and explains why he doesn't just destroy everything right from the start

Of course, we need Haar's permission to change his character. And I think X-Sigma mentioned something about having a plan during the Nexas vs. Xeromus fight, and how it would get messed up if Xeromus won. But that never amounted to anything, so like a number of things, it might just get chucked in the rewrite.

[Admin (HalcyonWandering)]

Yeah, there's a lot of things that I need to straighten out for Xancel's intermissions too. Like the amount of time he spent in Hinterdale (the snow world that he ended up on when he first became a nobody for those who are following) and what exactly he was doing before he showed up on Destiny Islands.

[Haar_Dragon]

X-Sigma had no plan, that was his plan. I was purely making that up as I went along. The problem with making it up as I go along is I forget things. Like that he said that.

Anyway, as far as his actual character goes, "he's strong and an asshole" pretty much sums up his motivation. I was trying to give him a shred of humanity at the end there, with the dialogue with Hartz, but, well, it didn't end up getting very far. The thread went idle for a while and I think we all got sick of waiting for something, so I'd like to see a few more of those conversations.

And I do have an idea of his actual history, but it's kinda vague. Like, I'm not quite sure how it would work, but I can see it happening in the KHverse by some logic.

Maleficent...ehhhh. I think even bringing her in would be kind of a shoehorn at this point. I'm also divided on having him get sealed away by anything. I could easily work being trapped in the Realm of Darkness into his backstory, though. And besides...he's technically not strong enough to destroy the whole universe. More like, Kid Buu in Dragon Ball Z; destroying individual worlds one at a time, and with very little effort, but not really anything more than that. Theoretically, of course.

Though now that I bring up Hartz...probably my most recent embarrassment, to be honest. And yet I still think I could make him work a little better if I tie him into the Replica Project, like a failed attempt to create, essentially, Replica Xemnas, which would make him something like Xemnas' child (and explain why he has no mother...)

Thoughts on any of these ideas would be greatly appreciated, though.

[NebulaGregarZX]

Ballocks! I refreshed the page by accident. Let's try this again. Think I'll refrain from being long-winded about this...


Maleficent actually does capture two of the princesses in the rewrite, but still barely does anything, because of reasons that would be a spoiler for the new writing. Speaking of that, shouldn't I post the plan I've written in this topic? I need to know whether my ideas are good or not. I'd hate to write something huge, only to find that you all hate it.

Oh, X-Sigma is like Kid Buu? Well, the reason I suggested sealing him away was because he needed a reason to not have already destroyed the universe. This way, he can just have been destroying worlds the whole time, creating a mystery early on, and being a source of urgency as the destruction comes closer and closer to the worlds seen in the story. It also opens some potential to make him even more threatening. Seeing him beat up main characters is one thing, but seeing him destroy entire worlds - possibly even destroying the world they're on while fighting! - would demonstrate that he is in no way to be taken lightly. It would make the fight a bigger affair, too. And the characters would've won without Chaos if they'd kept at it, but if there's a need to end the fight right away, then...

Well, picture this. The fight takes place in some backwater world at first, something deserted. Then X-Sigma blows it to hell. They get flung into another world, something more populated, and resume the fight. Then X-Sigma blows that one up, too. They end up on, say, Synthisle, meaning there is a massive sense of urgency, since that's not only a world that's populated, not only is it one that's frequently visited, it's the world where several characters are from! THAT strikes me as being an excellent reason to stop delaying and use Chaos to win immediately, even though they could win without doing that.

Or we could make it so that X-Sigma is unbeatable otherwise. That would work, too.


Replica program shenanigans are welcome in this story. They did NOT do enough with it in KH. In fact, I've got a few planned already. Of course, the thing is, Replicas are explicitly not clones. They're already physically identical to the original from the time of their activation, and we don't know if they grow over time, since the two examples in the games don't last a full year.

I could imagine Vexen developing a Replica that grows into maturity, as he realizes that Replicas like Xion and... whatever Repliku was replaced with in Org.XIV... need memories in order to work right. Xion stole Sora/Nori's, Repliku/??? had fake ones. R, who might well be a Replica, has the memories of other Org.XIII members. So he might be trying to develop something more like a clone: it grows into maturity quickly, but has enough time to develop a personality, acquire memories of its own, and understand everything a person naturally comes to understand without having it all pre-programmed.


...I lied, I was long-winded with it.

[Haar_Dragon]

And then there's this little tidbit: X-Sigma destroys worlds. He doesn't consume their hearts and send them to Kingdom Hearts. He destroys them. They're gone. Probably fight a little bit harder when you realize that these worlds won't come back.

As for his backstory, the idea is that he was basically just some asshat somewhere (I could tie him into the Elementals' world if I really wanted to) who got too close to the Darkness/a Heartless invasion/etc, and in a resulting fight with a Heartless/other Dark Being he (somehow) ends up absorbing it, with the presence of a second, active, awake heart, overflowing with Darkness, essentially driving him completely insane. Insert one-way trip to Realm of Darkness (possibly interlocked with the history/mythology of Artemia). At this point, Maleficent could interfere and bring him out, since...we've largely ignored her in this plot and Nori did a piss-poor job of finishing her off, apparently.

I imagine Hartz (now) as being an attempt at recreating Xehanort's Keyblade, an early Replica, who, being made from Xemnas' memories, can't wield a Keyblade. In an attempt to facilitate the growth of a Keyblade, Vexen attempts to use some of Nori's memories, resulting in the Replica gaining an entirely separate identity as a result of the use of two different sets of memory. And of course, being that he can't use a Keyblade, the result is failure. Thus Xemnas isn't really his father (which was an absolutely astonishingly stupid idea...), but could consider him or view him in such a way.

[NebulaGregarZX]

Yeah. That raises the stakes significantly.

You're gonna have to do his backstory, of course. I mean, if we think of a good way to tie it in, good, but I figure that having the world-destroying entity's background be the first thing we learn about him - before the, y'know, world-destroying part - wouldn't be helpful to the story's tone.

The Elementals? Oh, right, your characters. I'm still not totally used to them, to be honest. It'd be nice to see things tied together, really, though it might make things complicated.

Huh, gives X-Sigma a bit of a parallel to Aleri and Rexial. Al just happened to provoke the Heartless like a dumbass and get eaten, resulting in losing his attachments and being able to become strong. Rex ended up taking a nap in the space where all the darkness in the universe was going to pass through, and accidentally took some of it. X-Sigma got too close to some serious sh*t, gained absurd power, and was driven totally insane. Any other characters he happens to bear similarities to? And don't say Nathan. That would be cheating.


Nori never does anything helpful. That is the joke. His son does more to help by the time his dad's introduced than Nori himself ever does! But anyway, if X-Sigma at least has some reason for not already being relevant earlier in the story, then I'm satisfied. Because my big problem with him is that he just kind of shows up at one point, with nothing to indicate that he couldn't have done so sooner.


Fair enough, since R functioned a little like that: she had all the different memories of Org.XIII members, so she developed her own identity. Hartz being an early Replica is intriguing, though we need to figure out what exactly happened with him. Was he thrown out like trash? Did they just ignore him and let the kid wander out because they no longer cared?


...Okay, so in the plan, I kind of have another massive event planned during the whole princess-gathering thing. Would you rather hear about it now, or be surprised? Because while I really want to tell all of you, I also feel that you deserve to not be spoiled on this one.

[Haar_Dragon]

Well, yeah, he's my character, it'd be kind of a bad decision to make someone else decide his past...and anyway, I wouldn't really want it stated explicitly, because...there's really no reason for him to say it, nor is there a reason for anyone else to know. I'd planned to reveal it during a conversation with Hartz, but, well, that didn't end up working out. Because I hadn't actually conceived it at that point.

I don't expect you to be used to them. There's six of them, and they haven't accomplished anything noteworthy yet. They've been talked to, explained to some degree, and are now trying to leave their world. And that is it. Their world, however, does have a history or mythology (honestly, I've yet to decide whether it makes sense in the KHverse) involving two entities known as the Hearts of Light and Darkness, both of which are evil (in an SMT sort of way), and are each sealing the other.

I totally didn't even catch that. Technically he parallels most people who attempt to use Darkness. It went bad, he became evil. The main difference being, he's been training in the Realm of Darkness for a long-ass time.

In all honesty, my thought process was that they just continued to research him until that one thing happened. The only problem with that, though, is the time-scale. It would mean that they'd been performing experiments on a failed test subject for at least a year, even after succeeding with Xion. The only other thing I'd say is that he was basically just shut in a "Vexen's Failed Experiments" room and ignored, which would bring the reason behind his feelings toward Xemnas into question. Essentially, I'm in a little bit of a corner as to things making sense.

As for your idea, would it be possible to give a generalized summary, with minimal spoilery information? If not, I'd kinda just like to see the whole thing, enclosed under a Spoiler tab.

[NebulaGregarZX]

It would be kind of neat to make a point of how we've taken darkness too lightly, and it's much more dangerous than the story makes it out to be. I mean, what with the regular destruction of Heartless in massive numbers, and how several characters use darkness without apparent consequence, it would be an interesting point to make.

Yeah, I'm a little stumped on Hartz, myself.


...I don't know how I could tell you without spoiling it. The two seem to be, uh... the same exact thing. I can either tell you the thing that will happen or let it be a surprise, one thing or the other, no middle-ground.

Here's the short-short version

Spoiler:

[Haar_Dragon]

Not entirely sure how that would work, but it definitely seems like any intelligent group of people would attempt to replicate success, or make minor modifications to failure which would result in success. *is trying to be vague*

Yeah, Darkness is...sort of just a thing that exists. Kinda feels like they're intentionally trying to downplay it now, with the whole "balance" angle. Although, I played the Secret Episode of BBS not too long ago, and...holy crap, I want that boss in a bigger role, because it kicked all kinds of ass.

[NebulaGregarZX]

The best way to gather information from an experiment is to do it multiple times. And it means they get extra cannon fodder in the meantime. So it's a win-win for them. *Also trying to be vague*

Wait, which part don't you get, exactly?



Yeah, all of a sudden it's no big deal for Riku to say

Spoiler:

like it's no big deal.

Maybe they're just trying to escape sounding old-fashioned and stereotypical, or justify keeping darkness-aligned characters around without making them either evil or non-dark. I liked how Bravely Default handled being stereotypical and old-fashioned about the issue while still being morally complex and interesting about it.

[Haar_Dragon]

Spoiler:

Honestly, it's just stuff I could overlook if I wanted to, but they did pop into my head.

[NebulaGregarZX]

It's the latter; go read my new post in the rewrite topic. I put in some foreshadowing with regards to that. Though it then begs the question of why they didn't use it on the one introduced in the same post, though I think I justify that one with "it was still being tested, the one we saw was a guinea pig for it".

[NebulaGregarZX]

Okay, got some bad... well, I have some news. I'm going to stop working on the current version of Recompleted.

I think it was arrogant of me to start working on this without making a timeline of the original story first and putting together the events of the new version. I mean, whose of us who were a part of the original don't mind, because it's a massive step up from what it was originally, but... it's still not exactly good. I want to make it so that it's a story that even people who are unfamiliar with Org.XIV can like, in more than just the 'it's that one RP I read, and it was fun' sense.

I want to make it all fit together and make sense, and break out of all the problems stemming from 'it has to follow the same events'. If we do it this way instead, by rebuilding it from the ground up, all we need to keep are the things that were established that carry in to the ongoing part of the story! We don't have to worry about trifling details that held things back before, we can have our characters be faithful to themselves and develop, we can really make it into something awesome!

I want to make an actual timeline, with dates and a calendar for the story, and for the passage of time to be felt. I want to make it into a universe of its own, with locations that matter for much more than backdrops, and stories that expand and interweave to fill that universe. I want us all to be proud of this story.

...Thing is, I figured I'd have to tell you guys that I'm going to stop working on the current version of Recompleted. I might post the rest of what I've written, but then I'm going to focus a little more on that timeline, and we'll have to discuss some things. Stuff like 'when does the story begin, in what year, on what day?' and other stuff that never came up because we kind of played fast-and-loose with the flow of time.

And I'll have to ask you guys to help me out from time to time. I'm not absolutely certain I could write all of your characters totally correctly. We should also discuss the sequences of events and plan that all together. I feel like kind of a jerk, since this means more work for everyone, but, uh...

[Haar_Dragon]

I just want to say a few things with regards to this. First, I'm not really sure anyone reads this who isn't a registered user on the site. As for "following the flow of events," as you put it, I'm not sure I consider this a problem, as such. I mean...sure the bit we tried to present as Coded was nothing more than dumb filler, but then again, Coded was dumb filler. Fun to play, but dumb filler that isn't necessary in this timeline.

Now that that's out of the way...one last thing. Kingdom Hearts and time...kinda...iffy. I mean, it's never really stated how long each game takes, but if we assume that KH1's worlds all pass time similarly, then it goes something like this:

Destiny Islands: Days 1, 2, and night of 2.
Traverse Town: Night of Day 2
Day 3: Wonderland-Deep Jungle
Day 3 Night: Traverse Town revisit
Day 4: Agrabah, Monstro
Day 4 Night: Atlantica, Halloween Town, Neverland
Day 5: Hollow Bastion
Day 5 Night: Traverse Town
Day 6: End of the World

Meaning that the entirety of KH1 takes place over the course of less than a week, CoM passes in at most a couple days, and from KH2 onward it's completely unclear how long anything takes. Because despite being an AU story, I still feel like Org XIV's first loyalty is to being KH-centric. And I'm reeeeally not sure how time passes in this universe...

Now that I've said allllll that, I should say that...well, Org XIV is your story, not mine, so I might have completely the wrong idea. And, truth be told, maybe the characters that are introduced later in RP time should be introduced sooner in the timeline, so as to avoid being Deus Ex Machina-esque. And for what it's worth, I feel like in this story, the worlds individually are more than backdrops. We don't really use too many of them, but when we use any given world, it's because it's the world that fits best.

Despite what it may sound like, I'm not trying to change your mind, just giving my two cents...though with the number of words I've used, I kinda hope it's closer to fifty cents. Anyway, as a quick finisher, just figured I'd add that I'm happy to help pretty much no matter what in just about whatever way I can. I definitely think you have a point and we should establish some sense of relative time (for example, I always imagined that Ansem's invasion of Vegeta was one of the first things to happen), and as experience will hopefully show, I'm always willing to give an opinion. Whether that's for better or worse is up for debate, though

[Zeldaman2.0]

Haar I hate to be a dick but you have several things wrong. Assuming that Sora could even keep up with that pace you set up in the list (which I will get to later, mark my words ) but you additionally neglected to throw in the two mandatory visits to Olympus, despite the fact that Sora would likely explore when prompted by Goofy and Donald after acquiring several more trinities or sealing Hollow Bastion. Sure, things like Kurt Zisa and Phantom fights might not be canon but I think Sora would still spend time with his friends again if he could. 

And then we have something that lines several events up for us rather nicely: Days. Since I need to watch it anyway, tomorrow I'll spend the time I need to and mark out several events, but in the original game on day... 25, I think it was, they show Roxas getting knocked out and then showing off a vision of Sora entering Castle Oblivion, skipping a crap load of days and then him waking up once Sora is asleep. Which was about Day 52 if I'm not mistaken, which means that CoM took about a couple of weeks at the very least. My guess would be that they took around a couple days per floor for Sora, and Riku woke up in the middle of Sora exploring it, with Riku finishing up a few days after Sora did. While the mechanic of "holy shit this castle has WAY too many rooms, consider that Axel (perhaps less exaggeratedly than we thought) said it was like counting grains of dust in a room full of sneezing people. At the very least they'd be in a maze, and if this holds up, then each of the worlds in KH took at least 2-3 days each, also considering that Roxas goes and meets up with Xemnas right after the fight in Hollow Bastion.

Considering that it also shows us that from that point to Sora getting to Hollow Bastion to seal up the Keyhole to beating Ansem was something 2 and a half weeks and then another half week of wandering around until he hit Castle Oblivion, there should be a lot more stretching going on for the projected calendar.

Additionally considering that Sora visits twice as many worlds in KH 2 and that he does it twice as much, we could probably expect for that adventure to go on for probably several months.

[Haar_Dragon]

Oh, no, I don't consider it being a dick, not by any means. Though when I said "Wonderland-Deep Jungle" I meant "through Deep Jungle." And when is the second mandatory Colosseum visit? Is that the one on the way back to Traverse Town, or to seal the Keyhole? Or were you referring to both?

As far as everything else...I dunno, I find it hard to believe that during CoM they spent (according to Days' timeline) nearly a full month exploring one castle that was a straight shot through. It's only 13 floors, meaning that they'd have to spend a little more than two days on every floor.

Either way, I guess this is exactly the point I was trying to make, really: it's hard to gauge time in this series.




...Also I totally forgot that Days was a time-based mechanic. Given that it was one mission per day, I kinda replaced "Day" in my head with "Mission." Plus that game's pacing was slow, so most of it didn't really do anything to advance the story. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that outside of the first handful of days (meeting and going on a mission with Xion), the whole rest of the first half is filler for character development. But this isn't really the place to be having that discussion.

[Zeldaman2.0]

Well, from experimenting and doing a KH 1 Beginner mode speedrun (9 hours fuck yeah) I learned that the Phil Cup and Pegasus Cup are optional, and that once you seal Neverland the Hercules Cup opens up which is the only required one after you go and do the first set. I would say that Sora would go to Neverland first, then to Deep Jungle, and on the way back would hit up Olympus, deal with that, and then head to Agrabah that way.

And as for them taking their time in Chain of Memories, remember that the rooms are representative of the gameplay aspect of the game. Granted, maybe they explore few rooms, but the rooms' layout to us is already known. From Sora's perspective he's running through, stomping a few heartless and then going "uhhh, this door!" and heading through.

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