Behind the shelf of fabulous Hafet books lies an exit to an area called the Lift Stop. This looks to be a central elevator hub for the castle, decked out in the same pale, veiny, purple marble, since there are about a hundred separate entrances, all of which are walled off from each other with electric-blue laser beam fences. Junior taps a crystal to teleport them onto the lift, which takes them upstairs and outside, through some suggestive copper tubing, up further and inside again to another area in the Lift Stop. But after all that book hunting and what must have been a full minute of watching a lift float around the outside of the castle, the only thing to be found in this tiny area, surrounded by invisible walls, is a treasure chest that can be brought down to Junior’s level using Gravira. Of course even this takes me four tries to get right, and my reward is naturally an Ultima-G. I suppress my despair at losing those precious minutes of my life as Junior and Co. return to the bottom of the Lift Stop. Oh, look, there was another floating chest in this area! Great, maybe this one–nope, it’s a Tornado-G.

I hate this place.

Steampunk penises!

Junior returns to the library and goes through the first door he unlocked to find himself on the second floor of the room where they fought Riku. It is not lost on me that I could have completely ignored that book puzzle without losing out on anything I actually want, but let’s just get through this place before I go drown myself in the bathtub.

This floor is actually just a balcony ringing the room, and the walls are lined with snarling cat head ornaments with glowing yellow eyes, not unlike the entrance to the Cave of Wonders. Don’t look at me. More importantly, there are tiny, unlit taper candles on end tables all over the balcony, and Junior must use Fira to light them. As far as I can tell, the panther head sconces don’t do anything, and it would have been much more visually appealing if the candles were in their mouths rather than on drab little end tables. But ignore me, since this design gaffe doesn’t affect the puzzle: once all the candles are lit, a blue flame on a pedestal on top of the chandelier (again, don’t look at me) extinguishes and reveals one of the puzzle pieces for the door downstairs. Next, Junior casts Thundara on a stone that may as well be engraved with “Cast Thundara on me,” which elevates a platform to the level of the chandelier for easy hopping. Using the Trinity Hump on an Anubis-head bust (still confused as the rest of you) sends it careening off the ledge to the first floor, where it shatters and reveals another puzzle piece. Next, Junior, not even caring if it’s for a purpose, destroys two pots on either side of a bust that looks like Ganon. The bust flashes and settles into a groove, and downstairs water pours out of a dragon’s head spout and into a fountain, carrying a third puzzle piece with it. Finally, that same bust has an engraving that implores Junior, “O mighty one… Prove your strength by moving me.” Someone clearly thought Samcules was going to be the Mighty Keyblade Hero. When Junior grunts and sweats and moves the Ganon bust a couple feet to the left, a chest materializes downstairs, containing the final puzzle piece.

Back to the locked door, which I swear on everything that is holy had better not be hiding some fucking gummis or I will go on a murderous rampage. Junior has to place each piece of the puzzle individually, and there are four of them so this is hard for him, but eventually he jams them in there, the Heartless emblem shimmers with magical “Oh my God, you did it, good for you” sparkles, and the door opens to reveal nothing but darkness beyond.

Elsewhere in the castle, the darkness fades away to reveal Riku, running and panting his way down a corridor. “Why? It was mine,” he’s muttering to himself. But he stops dead in his tracks when a voice, unmistakably the voice of one Billy Zane, tells him, “Know this. The heart that is strong and true shall win the Keyblade.” He’s clearly asking Riku to drop his pants so he can get a good look at his “heart.” Riku starts at the voice and turns around to find a spectral hooded figure, sheathed in blue smoke, leering at him. And Riku is just crestfallen at what Billy Zane is telling him. “What? You’re saying my heart’s weaker than his?” he asks. The fact that Riku cares about this dopey drivel at all is lowering my opinion of him quite a bit. Billy Zane answers, “For that instant, it was,” and Riku has this look on his face like that is some bullshit.

“However,” Billy Zane creeps at him as he inches closer, “you can become stronger. You showed no fear in stepping through the door to darkness. It held no terror for you.” While Riku stares with his mouth open, Billy Zane goes on, “Plunge deeper into the darkness [hee!], and your heart will grow even stronger.” Yeah, I bet it will after all that deep plunging. Riku responds to this, “What should I do?” like Billy Zane didn’t literally just tell him what he should do. I mean, yes, in a practical sense, telling him to plunge deeper into the darkness (hee again!) is not helpful guidance, but in the context of this game Billy Zane practically just drew him a fucking diagram. But he decides to elaborate. “It’s really quite simple,” he tells Riku, who is hanging his head. “Open yourself to the darkness. That is all.” Wait, now he’s opening himself to the darkness, not plunging into it? This is confusing. Is Riku the top or the bottom for darkness, here? Even worse, Billy Zane adds, “Let your heart, your being, become darkness itself.” Come on, dude, Riku does that in the shower every morning. As he imparts this sage villain advice, Riku looks at his mentor with this incredibly stoned gaze and begins to emit a bright green glow. Or haze. Whichever. As Riku stares at BZ, all, “Duuuuuuuude, the daaaaaaaarkness is, like, in my heart,” the scene fades to black.

Hey, Riku thinks it’s a good size.

Back to Junior, who hasn’t moved one inch from his position in front of the door but is now surrounded by seven dozen Heartless. Well, at least it’s not gummis. Eventually, he’s done killing them and heads through the door, which leads, as every other door has so far done, to the Lift Stop. After wandering aimlessly and wasting nearly all of @%$#!!!’s MP just to hit a blue trinity mark and not open a chest because it’s got fucking Float-G in it, Junior moves outside via a door opposite where he came in.

Okay, this is where I’m gonna get stabby. The Heartless that haunt the area immediately outside the castle are called Wyverns, look like pink legendary Pokémon, and can fly. Their battle tactic is to hover over open air, just outside Junior’s Keyblade reach. Glide or no Glide, this results in Junior repeatedly falling head-over-clown-shoes off the building, ending up down at the basement level where he started with Beast, and having to backtrack all the way back to the Lift Stop. In the time it took me to type this, he’s fallen off three times. Every time this happens, @%$#!!! and Goofy serenely glide after him, to their doom, because they’re not very smart.

God, this is such a dumpster fire. At this point I would rather have a stranger see me naked than have witnesses when I’m playing Kingdom Hearts. Anyway, once he doesn’t have to worry about Heartless for a moment, Junior activates some moving platforms and does a little more hopping and gliding to rescue puppies and find more precious gummis. Then he and his pals–who must miss Riku immensely after watching Junior flail around like a dying goldfish–head up to the next level and ride on a large moving platform with a helpful electric railing. I’m not being sarcastic–I’m sure it will save Junior’s life multiple times along the way. Because, of course, Heartless spawn on the platform on its journey around the edge of the castle. The floating mage ones, too, which are second only to the Wyverns in their preternatural ability to make Junior look like even more of an incompetent doofus than he normally is. Our heroes find a Dispel-G (YAY!) and a swag-concealing blue trinity at the end of their ride, and then re-enter the Lift Stop from this side of the building. And from there it’s just another “quick” elevator ride to an area called the Great Crest, which sounds like something @%$#!!! might display during a mating dance.

I just realized I am trapped in yet another building, ostensibly designed for people to live and work, that has a bizarre, counterintuitive, elaborate elevator system. What the fuck? Why does this keep happening to me? Do any of the mad geniuses who design these places think of their neighbors and employees having to put up with crystal switches and platform-hopping just to get a cup of coffee?

Ugh. Anyway. The Great Crest has much higher railings around the edge than the lower areas of the castle, and thank goodness, because that is a long fucking drop and a truly untenable amount of backtracking through the fucking Lift Stop. But, short of killing some more Heartless and opening a couple of chests, Junior’s progress is impeded by a large block in the path engraved with the Heartless emblem and done up with gold leaf. Rotating the camera around reveals that this block is sitting on absolutely nothing, and that there is a door underneath it. The only way to reach this door is to–gulp–jump off the platform at the spot where there is no railing and glide over open air to the hole in the wall. Amazingly, I manage to pull off this feat on my first try, only to find that my reward is a chest with another Float-G I cannot pick up. And the only way back from this trip is to jump off and take the elevator up again. I really need to start looking at what is in these chests beforehand.

So, with that embarrassing bit of idiocy out of the way, Junior hits a switch “hidden” from me in a corner, which moves one half of the block partway down into the hole in the wall. Junior then fights through some Heartless inside this area’s section of the Lift Stop to reach the other side and fully bring down the other half of the block, creating a staircase to the next level. At the top, another switch brings that same half back up to make the staircase go higher. Next, Junior…Jesus, this is so boring. I mean, this entire fucking place is just elevators and crystals, and it uses great background music to trick the player into finding it interesting. So let’s just skip ahead several excruciating minutes to Junior stumbling his way into the right doorway after finding some more puppies and Orichalcum.