Kingdom Hearts Worlds Guide – Fire Up The Gummi Ship!

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Callum Marshall

Cal is V4M Managing Editor and the lead on all things gaming. So all that you see before you at RPG Informer is under his watchful eye. Despite this workload, he does his best to carve out some time to write up some eyecatching pieces and showcase his love for RPG's. His standout titles within the genre are Fallout New Vegas, Disco Elysium, Bloodborne, Kingdom Hearts, and his main squeeze right now is Elden Ring. Outside of gaming, Callum is a podcaster, a skateboarder, and an all-around sound guy.

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Even from the outside looking in at the world of Kingdom Hearts, it can be quite a surreal experience. With a cavalcade of main and supporting characters, a cast of Disney characters that we know and love from classic movies from down the years, and a further sprinkling of fan-favorite Final Fantasy characters thrown in there for good measure, it can be hard to keep track of things. The game has a pretty convoluted story, a battle system that is difficult to truly master (I’m looking at you, button mashers), and innumerable bosses that will test all you keyblade wielders to your very core. However, amongst all of this madness and confusion, it has to be said that the World system in Kingdom Hearts is pretty consistent and straightforward.

Within Kingdom Hearts, the player will progress through a healthy mix of worlds unique to the series, such as Destiny Islands, Twilight Town, and Traverse Town, to name but a few. Then to progress between these unique world plot points, they will then need to travel to Disney-themed worlds, team up with the heroes of these respective stories, and help them as they play out slightly tweaked versions of their movie’s plotline. You’ll visit places like Wonderland, Port Royale, Monsters Incorporated, Halloween Town, and the Olympus Colluseium (Like a million times), but I’m getting ahead of myself.

In this guide, we will break down how the world system works within the Kingdom Hearts series, how you travel between worlds, and there might even be a few sneaky secrets that will help you drive the heartless back like a pro! So without further delay, here is our Kingdom hearts World Guide.

Kingdom Hearts Worlds at a Glance

Okay, so before we break down world progression and talk about these worlds at length, I think it would be best if we gave you a comprehensive list of the worlds on offer within the series. So I’ll run through each game’s world list, and list them in order of when you visit, and there are quite a few, so try to keep up. Oh, and we are only doing mainline entries here, so no Re: Coded, no Fragmentary Passage, and no Unchained. Okay, Here we go:

Kingdom Hearts I

• Destiny Islands (KH)
• Traverse Town (KH)
• Wonderland (Alice in Wonderland)
• Olympus Coliseum (Hercules)
• Deep Jungle (Tarzan)
• 100 Acre Wood (Winnie The Pooh)
• Monstro (Pinnochio)
• Agrabah (Aladdin)
• Atlantica (The Little Mermaid)
• Halloween Town (The Nightmare Before Christmas)
• Neverland (Peter Pan)
• Hollow Bastion (KH)
• The End Of The World (KH)

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

• Traverse Town (KH)
• Wonderland (Alice in Wonderland)
• Olympus Coliseum (Hercules)
• Deep Jungle (Tarzan)
• 100 Acre Wood (Winnie The Pooh)
• Monstro (Pinnochio)
• Agrabah (Aladdin)
• Atlantica (The Little Mermaid)
• Halloween Town (The Nightmare Before Christmas)
• Neverland (Peter Pan)
• Hollow Bastion (KH)
• The End Of The World (KH)]
• Twilight Town (KH)
• Destiny Islands (KH)
• Castle Oblivion (KH)

Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days

• The World That Never Was (KH)
• Twilight Town (KH)
• 100 Acre Wood (Winnie The Pooh)
• Beast’s Castle (Beauty and the Beast)
• Olympus Coliseum (Hercules)
• Agrabah (Aladdin)
• Halloween Town (The Nightmare Before Christmas)
• Neverland (Peter Pan)
• Wonderland (Alice in Wonderland)

Kingdom Hearts II

• Twilight Town (KH)
• Hollow Bastion (KH)
• 100 Acre Wood (Winnie The Pooh)
• Land of the Dragons (Mulan)
• Beast’s Castle (Beauty and the Beast)
• Olympus Coliseum (Hercules)
• Space Paranoids (Tron)
• Disney Castle (Mickey & Friends)
• Timeless River (Steamboat Willie)
• Atlantica (The Little Mermaid)
• Port Royal (Pirates of the Caribbean)
• Agrabah (Aladdin)
• Halloween Town (The Nightmare Before Christmas)
• The Pridelands (The Lion King)
• The World That Never Was (KH)

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep

• The Land of Departure (KH)
• The Mysterious Tower (Fantasia)
• Enchanted Dominion (Sleeping Beauty)
• Castle of Dreams (Cinderella)
• Dwarf Woodlands (Snow White)
• Olympus Coliseum (Hercules)
• Deep Space (Lilo and Stitch)
• Neverland (Peter Pan)
• Disney Town (Mickey & Friends)
• Radiant Garden (KH)]
• Mirage Arena (KH)
• Keyblade Graveyard (KH)

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance

• Traverse Town (KH)
• La Cité des Cloches (Hunchback of Notre Dame)
• The Grid (Tron: Legacy)
• Prankster’s Paradise (Pinocchio)
• The Country of the Musketeers (The Three Musketeers)
• Symphony of Sorcery (Fantasia)
• The World That Never Was (KH)

Kingdom Hearts III

• The Mysterious Tower (Fantasia)
• Olympus (Hercules)
• Twilight Town (KH)
• Kingdom of Corona (Tangled)
• Toy Box (Toy Story)
• Monstropolis (Monster’s Inc)
• Arendale (Frozen)
• The Caribbean (Pirates of the Caribbean)
• San Fransokyo (Big Hero 6)
• Keyblade Graveyard (KH)
• Scala Ad Caelum (KH)

How World Progression Works in Kingdom Hearts

Okay, so now that we have the long list of destinations out of the way, let’s chat about how world progression works in Kingdom Hearts. This will vary slightly from game to game, but this is the general way of things.

Humble Beginnings

Firstly the game will open the story up, usually in a world that you will never visit again, or visit again towards the end of the game. Examples are Destiny Islands, Roxas’ Twilight Town, The World That Never Was, or Castle Oblivion. This is where the game will spring loads of tutorials on you, drop heaps of exposition directly on your head, and expect you to roll with the punches. If you were someone that played Kingdom Hearts II with no knowledge that Chain of Memories even existed on GBA, you know what I’m talking about.

Disney Themed Wanderlust

With the main plotline in motion, the player then has to go and solve the Heartless epidemic in a variety of Disney-Themed worlds, because god knows they have enough going on without shadowy demons popping up and causing chaos. You will be given these worlds in batches, usually in pairs. As players complete the stories for these worlds, the game will then ask players to travel to KH worlds such as Hollow Bastion or Twilight Town to deliver more main plot points. Then once that’s settled, you will be given more Disney worlds to explore. Rinse and repeat for a few cycles, and this should bring you to the end-game content.

Wrapping Things Up

This is the big crescendo of the KH titles, and it makes grinding some of those lackluster Disney worlds worthwhile. Yes, I am referring to the Atlantica rhythm Game. This usually brings you face-to-face with the big baddie of the game, whether that be Ansem, Zemnas, Xehanort, or whoever it happens to be. This will occur in a unique KH world, and will usually mean the end of the game, so if you want to complete side-content, or synthesize the Ultima Weapon, you best have that done and dusted before you proceed because it’s the end of the line.

How to Navigate Between Worlds

So now that you know what it takes to unlock these worlds, you now need to know how to get from one place to another, because, as any frequent flyer will know, the commute times can be torture. In Kingdom Hearts, you get around in a little spacecraft called a Gummi ship, this is a ship that you can build with little blocks, not unlike LEGOs, and you’ll need to become pretty handy at space combat to ensure safe travel between worlds. This is a little different from game to game, so here’s how it has changed over the years:

Kingdom Hearts I Gummi Travel

Easily one of the most boring of the three Gummi mission types. In KH1, to travel between worlds, you would need to use your Gummi Drive to get around. You have the Normal Drive, which will take you to any world directly connected to another, and then you later unlock a Warp Drive, which allows you to travel fast to any world you have been to before, regardless of connections. This makes the early to mid-game traveling a bit of a slog, but after you obtain a Warp Drive, it’s smooth sailing.

The Gummi Missions themselves are basically on-rail shooters, not unlike House of the Dead and other shooting games you might find at an arcade. You use your blasters to take out enemies, gather Gummi parts, and eventually, you reach your destination. It’s a fine mini-game, but it never really gets more complicated, so the novelty wears off pretty quickly.

Kingdom Hearts II Gummi Travel

Kingdom Hearts II revamped the Gummi Travel to great effect, and even though KH3 is clearly much more technically impressive, I think this is the best of the bunch. To travel between worlds, players would now be able to fly between worlds at their leisure with a hub where they could fly around and choose their destination without the need for world links. Some worlds would be locked, of course, but this took care of KH1’s early game tediousness.

Then as for the Gummi Missions themselves, they were still on-rail shooters, but they were much more dynamic, asking more from players in terms of dodging, picking their moments to fire, and Gummi Ship builds were more important than ever. I would argue that unless you upgrade your ship at least once, you might not be able to access the final world. I would say that this format had a lot in common with bullet hell games like Resogun, and this was enough to turn a tedious chore into a cool way to break up the gameplay.

Kingdom Hearts III Gummi Travel

Then Thirdly, we have KH3. Square Enix would take a step backward when it came to map design, opting for a layout closer to KH1, where players would manually select their destination, and the worlds would be split up into different sections, which were unlocked as you progressed the story. However, thankfully, players were allowed to travel without restriction in this title too.

The Gummi mini-game in this title perhaps best shows how far the series has come. This sees the player fly through an open portion of space, where you could hunt for goodies, encounter gummi-ship boss battles, or simply gun it for the world you wanted to visit. This format is more in line with games like Eve, Star Wars: Squadrons, and other space shooters. It’s very easy to get sidetracked between worlds, and that’s a testament to great game design.

The Best Worlds In Kingdom Hearts

Okay, You now have the 411 on how Kingdom Hearts worlds work. Now it’s time to nail my colors to the mast and talk about the worlds that I think stand the test of time as the best in class within the KH series. Keyblades at the ready, folks! Let’s jump in:

Hollow Bastion (KH1 +2)

How can you not simply adore Hollow Bastion (or Radiant Gardens, if you prefer)? It’s a hauntingly beautiful world, no matter which of the two mainline games you happen to be referring to. The first game has some of the best plot points take place here, as you battle Riku, team up with Beast, battle Maleficent when she turns into a huge dragon, and you become a heartless too! There are some staggeringly cool moments, and while KH2’s design is great, I have a special place in my heart for KH1’s Hollow Bastion design, with the abundance of waterfalls that would serve as the inspiration for the Cavern of Remembrance.

However, KH2’s Hollow Bastion probably edges it just slightly for me. It’s partly down to meeting Demyx here for the first time; it’s partly down to the abundance of Final Fantasy characters dotted around, and it’s also where you find the Organisation XIII Data Battles in the late-game. However, above all, it’s because of the 1,000 heartless battle, which even now is a staggering piece of game design.

Traverse Town (KH1)

Oh, the nostalgia, it’s overwhelming! Kingdom hearts I, as a collective, didn’t have a lot of standout Disney worlds. In fact, they were all pretty lukewarm when compared to later titles. However, the unique KH worlds were stunning, and of all of these, Traverse Town is the one I hold most dear. After the events of Destiny Island, the game needs to create the link between this game, and the Disney worlds, and Traverse Town does this seamlessly with the help of Aerith, Leon, Yuffie, and Cid, Final Fantasy royalty.

The overture is perhaps my favorite of all KH tracks; the way this area plays host to the first meeting of Sora, Donald, and Goofy is beautifully done, and because this area feels like a cozy blanket in comparison to some of the other worlds on offer, you will likely find yourself traveling here time and time again to check-in. It’s such a shame that it never featured heavily in future mainline titles.

Olympus Collusiem (KH2)

I know what you are thinking, which one, right? Yeah, Olympus has featured in pretty much every Kingdom Hearts game going. I guess the Hercules license is pretty easy to come by these days. This world may be done to death, but it’s always one of the best, regardless of which game you refer to. In KH1, this served as an arena where you could battle heartless, Final Fantasy characters, and eventually face off against The One Winged Angel himself, Sephiroth. Then in KH3, this was the world that would show off all the cool new tricks that KH3 had to offer, and with great success, might I add. With scaling the cliff face and battling the rock golem being the main highlight. However, the KH2 Collusieum is a personal favorite.

I loved that there was more of a focus on the Hercules story rather than just making it another arena level and nothing more. I loved that the action took place in the Underworld, which offered a nice change of pace. Plus, James Woods as Hades is something that I simply can’t get enough of. I will admit, the arena was a little lackluster by comparison to KH1, but overall, I think KH2’s iteration was the whole package.

The World That Never Was (KH2)

One word, Iconic. I am a sucker for a good boss battle, and in The World That Never Was, which is essentially the stronghold for what’s left of Organisation XIII, you basically go on a boss battle gauntlet run, with every battle delivering a new and exciting challenge. The world itself is striking, with the tower area from the secret ending hidden movie in KH2 being one of the first places you visit, and the way the story wraps up while in this world is wonderful too. However, it’s the bosses that make this area.

Some are a bit of a letdown, most notably Siax and Luxord. They aren’t bad bosses, but they certainly aren’t good. Thankfully though, the battles with Roxas, Xigbar, and Xemnas more than make up for that, making this a fitting ending to what is, in my eyes, still the strongest KH game out there.

Space Paranoids (KH2)

Look, it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, especially because DDS arguably did a better Tron world centered around Tron: Legacy, but I have a soft spot for Space Paranoids. The reason being that it comes out of the blue on a visit to Hollow Bastion, and while many didn’t take to the classic Disney film, I actually really enjoyed Tron as a kid. The neon presentation, the Light Cycle sections, and the battle with the MCP all made this area a memorable one. Plus, aside from perhaps Beast, Tron is probably the best temporary Disney companion in the series. A bold statement, I know. 

Toy Box (KH3)

I don’t know what is so appealing about being shrunk down to miniature size that is so appealing within video games, but it seems to be the general consensus that it’s a tonne of fun. Having played games like Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue, Little Nightmares, Mister Mosquito and Hypercharge Unboxed, I know what it’s like to be tiny in a big world, but this was different. It was different because here, I have a keyblade, and I know how to use it. 

The sense of scale, the whimsy, the world design, and the smaller implementations like the Mechs were truly inspired. I’ll admit that the final boss of this area is dreadful, but aside from that, this captured that Pixar magic, and offered that all-important KH twist. 

The Caribbean (KH3)

Let’s be honest; Port Royal in Kingdom Hearts II was kind of rubbish. The fact that it had a darker tone and included a beloved live-action franchise in what was largely an animated cast pathed over a lot of the cracks. However, when you look at it closely, it was a dreary, linear affair, and the less said about Jack’s voice actor, the better. However, in KH3, Square Enix opened up the gameplay by allowing players to take to the high seas and explore an incredibly open world. 

Players were able to engage in naval combat in a way not too far removed from Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. Then when the sea was calm, players could run on shore and explore bountiful islands for hidden treasure. At the second bite of the Cherry, they did Pirates of the Caribbean justice, and it really felt like an adventure fit for a pirate. Now, where did I put that rum? 

San Fransokyo (KH3)

Then lastly, we have San Fransokyo. KH3 managed to do something that no game before had even tried to do. The game managed to include verticality. Sure, you could jump and leap and glide in past iterations, but now you could scale walls, spring into the air, and really explore all axis of a level. No world managed to exemplify this change more than the Big Hero Six-inspired world, San Fransokyo. 

This world, as you would imagine, was a pocket-sized city with an abundance of skyscrapers and seedy alleyways to explore. On the ground level, the world still had plenty to offer, but it was only when players took to the skies that they witnessed the true potential of this franchise within KH. The story was fun, the fights were good too, and the mini-games in the form of timed races were great too. It’s an action-packed world, and one you have to try. 

Worlds That Suck In Kingdom Hearts

Then we have the worlds that swung for the fences and missed badly. As a lover of Kingdom Hearts, I tend to see the good in most worlds, but there are some that, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t muster up any praise for. They are as follows:

Deep Jungle (KH1)

I could be cynical and say Deep Jungle was the reason Tarzan didn’t make a comeback in later games, but that was purely down to a licensing issue. However, Square Enix may have dodged a bullet there, because their first attempt at a Tarzan world was a big old mess. Why, you ask? Well, answers on a postcard. The vine sections were dull and lifeless, the navigation around the jungle was awful, the platforming was far too precise for where the game was at mechanically, vine-swinging would sometimes not work, and the battle with Clayton and his chameleon-heartless at the end of the level was a huge, unnecessary difficulty spike. 

Presentationally, it was super, and all the parts were there to make this a great introductory world, but in the end, it just felt like a rather frustrating missed opportunity. 

Wonderland (KH1)

Well, if Deep Jungle wasn’t your bag, then at least the other mandatory introductory option will be decent, right? Nope, Wonderland is your other introductory destination, and it suffers from a lot of the same issues. The navigation in this world is terrible, and the reliance on obtuse puzzle-solving and platforming makes this another frustrating affair.

Plus, the boxy design of each area, while leaning into the surreal and otherworldly nature of the IP, does feel a little lazy and underdeveloped at times. With the Queen’s Castle area being the main culprit. I would say that Deep Jungle was slightly worse, but overall, two really poor opening levels that probably didn’t help with player retention back in the day. 

100 Acre Wood (All KH Games)

I love Winnie the Pooh; I think it’s one of the cutest, most wholesome IPS around. So I have always had an issue with this franchise being lumped into KH as a boring bunch of mini-games, and as an achievement hunter, I had to endure those bloody mini-games too. The saving grace of this set of worlds across the series is that, aside from a few quick visits, these are optional, but I feel like, once again, this was a missed opportunity to do something fun with the classic franchise. 

To its credit, Kingdom Hearts II manages to do this best with an amnesia storyline caused by missing pages in Pooh’s storybook, meaning you gradually acquire pages and piece together a quite engaging narrative. However, all other games simply toss in rather lackluster mini-games and call it a day. So amongst all the brilliant, multifaceted worlds, 100 Acre Wood usually pales in comparison. 

Atlantica (KH2)

Atlantica in Kh1 wasn’t brilliant. Underwater combat and traversal were always going to be a struggle, and it meant you had to rely on magic a lot more. Yet, many loved that world in the original game because of that change of pace. The obvious move from developers would have been to fine-tune the underwater combat and give it another go, but that’s not how the story goes. 

Instead, they decided to include a mandatory rhythm game where players would need to perform off-brand versions of The Little Mermaid’s score. Now, if this was done well, like in the later produced Melody of Memory, maybe I could have looked past it. However, the actions were off-beat and not in time with the music, it was patronizingly easy, and it went on for way too long. Hands down the most vilified KH world ever, and for good reason too! 

Arendale (KH3)

Then lastly, we have Arendale in KH3. Holistically speaking, KH3 was a triumph in world design with much more verticality, much more to engage with, and, as Donald would point out, lots of ingredients. However, one world just didn’t cut the mustard, and that was Arendale. This felt like a cash grab that was thrown together to capitalize on the runaway success of Frozen. However, the world just felt very plain, boring, and even the key sections like building Olaf, the Windy sections, the sledding sections, and the Yeti fight all fell a bit flat. 

Then to top it all off, there was a four-minute unskippable scene where it played the entirety of ‘Let it Go’, which mirrored the scene from the movie, with brief snippets of Sora, Donald, and Goofy patched in there. It was a real low point in a game that wasn’t short of flaws, to begin with. 

What Worlds to Expect In Kingdom Hearts 4

That’s right; it’s speculation time! As we all now know, Kingdom hearts 4 is coming sooner or later, and we need to be as prepared as possible. So that means we need to predict what worlds we will be visiting in the next outing. I reckon there will be quite a few unique and Square Enix-affiliated worlds rather than leaning on Disney next time around, but equally, it’s not Kingdom Hearts without some Disney. Here’s what I’m thinking: 

• Quadratum (Shibuya, Tokyo)
• Montunui (Moana)
• Stark Tower (The Avengers)
• Casa Madrigal’s Village (Encanto)
• Paris (Ratatouille)
• Great Barrier Reef (Finding Nemo)
• Riley’s Body (Inside Out)
• Metroville (The Incredibles)

It’s a Big World Out There!

As you can see from the guide above, there are so many worlds that you can visit throughout the long-running Kingdom Hearts series. The USP for this series has always been that you can jump right into your favorite Disney properties and become a tangible part of the story, and that remains one of the most magical aspects of these games to this day. We have been treated to some real gems over the years, but if I were pushed to choose my absolute favorite, it would have to be The World That Never Was; I just loved that boss battle gauntlet run; it was fantastic, hence, why I loved the Organisation XIII Data battles so much too. I hope this guide gave you everything you needed to zoom around in your Gummi Ship and get to your desired destination. As always, thanks for reading RPG Informer.

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