Overview
The randomizer takes items from the game and places them in random locations. Logic is used to ensure all items are obtainable.
Randomizer utilizes a mod that turns the Garden of Assemblage into a “world hub” where each portal takes you to one of the game worlds (as opposed to having a world map). This allows you to enter worlds at any time, and world progression is maintained for each world individually.
Notable Randomizer Changes
Some of these are specific changes made for randomizer, others are just things that can only happen in randomizer due to having tools you weren’t otherwise meant to have in certain parts of the game.
General
- Sora starts the game with a Drive Gauge of 5 rather than 3 so that all Drive Forms can be used as soon as they are obtained
- Finding a Munny Pouch gives you 5,000 munny
- Final Form is an obtainable item, though Final Form can still be obtained in its normal fashion
- Randomizer removes the restriction that usually requires the player to progress past Roxas in The World That Never Was before Final Form can be unlocked
- The Promise Charm item, if enabled, opens a path to the final boss fights if the Promise Charm as well as all 3 Proofs are obtained. This path also contains several Bulky Vendor enemies that can be used to level grind quickly.
Save Warping
Because there is no world map from which to choose a spawn point, the player is placed at an appropriate save point when (re-)entering a world based on story progression. This can be exploited in a few places in randomizer to save some time by leaving a world and re-entering to be “warped” to the next location. The warps that can save time include but are not limited to:
- After the “fight” with Beast, leaving Beast’s Castle and re-entering places you in Belle’s room
- After triggering the Rumbling Rose cutscene, leaving Beast’s Castle and re-entering places you in the Parlor
- After entering the Courtyard, leaving Disney Castle and re-entering places you in the Library
- After triggering the cutscene by entering the Nothing’s Call room, leaving The World That Never Was and re-entering
places you at Twilight’s View
- This particular save warp does bypass two treasure chests, so is usually only utilized if a player is in Go Mode and is trying to get to the end of the game as quickly as possible
- After Auron gets on the boat to the Underdrome with Pain and Panic, leaving Olympus Coliseum and re-entering places you at Cave Of the Dead - Inner Chamber
The World That Never Was
- The door to the final fights is locked until all 3 Proofs are obtained
- The Dragon Xemnas fight is removed
- Final Xemnas (and Data Final Xemnas) can be defeated without Xemnas using the “laser dome” desperation move. This can be done by depleting all his health before he has a chance to start the laser dome move.
Land of Dragons
- If you have the tools to gain enough height, you can jump over a cutscene trigger before the Shan-Yu fight and enter the Throne Room to acquire its many treasure chests early
Halloween Town
- Oogie Boogie no longer has HP gates and multiple cycles, making the fight much simpler and quicker
Agrabah
- The shadow Jafar chase sequences when riding the magic carpet are shortened slightly
Olympus Coliseum
- Obtaining the Olympus Stone item unlocks the Drive Gauge in the underworld, allowing Drive Forms and Summons to be used
- Obtaining the Hades Cup Trophy item unlocks all Underdrome Cups early
- Only one Pete fight is required (the timed fight is removed)
Pride Lands
- Lion Sora starts the game with the Dash ability, rather than obtaining it later
- The second battle with the hyenas only requires one hyena to be defeated, rather than all three
Hollow Bastion / Radiant Garden
- A checkpoint is added after the Demyx fight
- This means if you die in the subsequent “Final Fantasy” fights, you do not need to re-fight Demyx
- This also allows Sora to use Wisdom Form for Final Fantasy fights since Donald is in the party at this time (and those fights are a great place to earn levels for Wisdom Form)
- The Proof of Peace unlocks the two rewards given by Mushroom XIII. Simply talk to the Mushrooms after obtaining the Proof of Peace to obtain the rewards.
- The Unknown Disk unlocks the Heartless Manufactory early.
- A loading zone is added in an out-of-bounds area of the Cavern of Remembrance to prevent Sora from falling
infinitely (effectively softlocking the game).
- This area of the cavern is used in a technique called “CoR skip” where players clip out-of-bounds in order to bypass difficult fights in this area
- Instead of falling forever, once Sora hits this added loading zone, the game warps Sora back to the entrance to the cavern
Disney Castle
- The Proof of Connection unlocks the battle with Lingering Will
Space Paranoids
- The initial Light Cycle race is removed
- Master Control Program has reduced health
- After defeating Master Control Program, the Solar Sailer Heartless fight is skipped, allowing you to travel back and forth without needing to fight again each time
100 Acre Wood
- The minigames for A Blustery Rescue and Hunny Slider are sped up
Simulated Twilight Town (STT)
- Choose any of the jobs and quit right after the starting timer to progress the story on Day 2
- It is not required to actually complete a job, nor is it required to go talk to Hayner to progress the story
- The Seven Wonders minigames on Day 5 are removed
- Limit Form can be used as Roxas if it has been obtained (Roxas turns into Limit Form Sora)
- In most areas of STT, reverting from Limit Form will leave you with a full Drive Gauge
- Roxas can use High Jump, Quick Run, Aerial Dodge, and Glide even though his model does not have animations for those
abilities. Dodge Roll cannot be used (the randomizer un-equips Dodge Roll once you enter STT).
- As of release 2.1, the randomizer seed generator has a “Roxas Magic/Movement/Trinity” option that, when enabled, ports Sora’s movement animations to Roxas, therefore allowing Roxas to use all of the movement abilities properly, as well as magic and Trinity Limit.
Win Conditions
The community has come up with several common variations on how to “win” the game. Several common ones are outlined here.
Beat Final Xemnas
(also called Any% or 3 Proofs)
The only real goal is to defeat Final Xemnas (the normal final boss of the game) at the end of The World That Never Was. However, the door to the final battles remains locked until the 3 Proof items (Proof of Connection, Proof of Nonexistence, and Proof of Peace) are obtained.
While the 3 Proofs are the only required items, players usually need to spend some time finding other battle tools and/or gaining enough levels to feel comfortable fighting through to Final Xemnas.
This mode can generally be played with any of the common hint systems (or no hints at all, if desired).
If the Promise Charm item is enabled for the seed, once all 3 Proofs and the Promise Charm are obtained, the computer at the center of the Garden of Assemblage opens a path to skip over The World That Never Was and go straight to the final fight gauntlet. This path also contains several Bulky Vendor enemies that give large amounts of experience points for a way to gain levels quickly.
All Blue Numbers (ABN)
(also sometimes called All Important Checks or AIC)
The goal is to obtain all items designated as Important Checks for the seed.
- The most common variant of this mode is commonly known as “All Blue Numbers” (ABN for short) and uses the Shananas hint system. Since the tracker uses a blue number to designate all Important Checks are found in a location, the player knows every Important Check in the game is found once all numbers in the tracker are blue.
- The Points hint system can also be used for All Blue Numbers. In this variant, the numbers will all end up at 0 (as well as being blue) once all Important Checks in the game are found.
- A less common variant is “All Important Checks” (or AIC) using the JSmartee hint system, where all 50 Important Checks must be found (or 51 if Promise Charm is enabled). Since not every Important Check must be hinted, this may involve a bit of a scavenger hunt to find the last few Important Checks.
Some variations of ABN/AIC consider the game won immediately once the final Important Check is found and shown on the tracker. Other variations also require Final Xemnas to be defeated after all Important Checks are found.
Hitlist
The player is given a certain number of objectives to fulfill (usually defeating either certain story bosses or superbosses). The goal is to fulfill all or a subset of these objectives.
Bingo
The player is given a Bingo board using an external website and must complete several tasks to fill in squares on the board, either to make one or more lines of Bingo, or to fill in all squares on the board (known as Blackout Bingo).
Timed Points
The goal is to earn as many points as possible within a designated time limit. Points are earned by obtaining items in the game as well as accomplishing certain tasks in the game (such as defeating bosses).
This mode is often used with random boss/enemy placement.
Known Issues
Some of these issues exist in the base game, while others are specific to the randomizer.
Halloween Town
- Using the finisher of Dance Call to kill The Experiment causes the game to crash. It’s often recommended to outright avoid using Dance Call to finish this fight.
Twilight Town
- Using the Trinity Limit finisher on the Station Nobodies fight can sometimes cause the game to crash. A suggested workaround is to kill the first 3-4 waves of enemies before starting Trinity Limit (or just don’t use Trinity Limit at all in this fight).
Hollow Bastion / Radiant Garden
- On the PCSX2 Emulator version of the game, the game sometimes crashes when obtaining the rewards from Mushroom XIII. It is recommended to save and/or create a save state before talking to the Mushrooms.
Port Royal
- On the PC Epic Games Store version of the game, the game sometimes crashes when choosing a location on the map
(commonly known as “map crash”). It is recommended to save anytime you’re about to talk to Jack on the ship to choose
a destination.
- As of release 2.1, the randomizer seed generator has a “Remove Port Royal Map Select” option that, when enabled, replaces the map location selection screen with simple text options, hopefully preventing the crash altogether.
Simulated Twilight Town (STT)
- Roxas will T-pose if you use Dodge Roll or Trinity Limit (the randomizer un-equips these abilities once you enter STT, so this is semi-difficult to do accidentally)
- Being in Limit Form when Twilight Thorn starts the Reaction command sequence will softlock the game, as Sora does not have animations for the Reaction commands in this fight
Note that as of release 2.1, the randomizer seed generator has a “Roxas Magic/Movement/Trinity” option that, when enabled, ports Sora’s animations to Roxas, eliminating these T-poses/softlocks.