It should be noted noted right away that the Japanese version of this game is a lot easier than the US version in terms of difficulty. Most of the things you see being done in that version on Youtube are out of the question in this run, or simply won't happen in the US version. At least you can watch our speedruns without fear of progressive sound de-sync, which every one of those Chain of Memories videos seem to have for some reason.

I love not only the Riku/Rebirth/Reverse Mode (yes, there are three different names for this), but the character of Riku himself. Sora is such a whiney little bitch. He essentially stumbles around clueless for the first 11 floors, never shutting up and always asking stupid questions, while occasionally fighting "Riku" a bunch of times.
Riku gets to the castle, decides to confront his past, and does so by spending the rest of the game kicking ass.

Riku/Rebirth mode is similar to Sora's story, but they are totally different characters, with totally different battle strategies:
Sora has a number of different keyblades to use as weapons, he can make many, many sleights, and has to charge a counter each time he wants to reload his deck.
Riku has one weapon, about one magical and three fighting sleights at his disposal, and one tap of the reload box quickly reloads his deck.
Sora can modify his deck to suit the world and enemies he's facing. In order to do this though, he has to go after Moogle points, which help him get new and hopefully helpful cards from the Moogle shop, and he also has to hope that these cards aren't outside his Card Point limit.
Riku's deck is stacked for him each time he enters a new world or boss battle. In place of the card points are Attack Points, which cause Riku to do more damage in an attack.

Riku has a form called Dark Mode. Each time you card break, the difference goes towards the Dark Meter counter on the upper left side of the screen. Once Riku reaches the limit (it increases with each meter boost on level-ups), he goes into a much more fast and damaging form. Each time he gets damaged or becomes a victim of a card break, the meter counts back down with the respective damaging card number until it hits 0 and he reverts back to his normal self.

How the number system works on the doors:
Every first door in every world will need a one-or-above card. Each subsequent door will require one number greater to open and move on. You can keep this chain going from one to nine, but then you will need a zero card to continue for your next card. If you put a higher number card than what the door requires, the counter will pick up from there. So if you put a 4 card in the place of a 1, the next door in the 4 room will require a 5 card, skipping the 2 and 3. A zero will also overrule any number and take the counter back to one.
Certain doors will only open if you have certain cards, either above or below a certain number. In some annoying cases, those certain doors will also require the right card color along with a specific number. There are three colors ? red, green, and blue. Red mostly impact the enemies in the room, green effects mostly the card effects and room layout, and the blue are magical cards that make a variety of effects happen. There are also doors where cutscenes and boss battles happen, and are necessary to go through in order to exit the world.

When I'm selecting cards, remember that I have to plan ahead for over one hundred rooms, so if I change my mind on a card or look for a specific one, it's all part of the plan. Also, the joystick is really, really jumpy on that screen, so that's why you might see me hesitate for half a second to make sure I don't select the wrong one.

General information:
What really helped this run was that it was made for a portable system, so that meant I could practice, plan, and play it anywhere. In front of the computer, waiting for my food to cook, before I went to bed, and even in the washroom. Yeah, I'm weeping too.
But I digress.

If my movement appears sloppy, it's because there's either a slight oversensitivity with the controller, or an imput lag. I also got tired and wired at various points in the run, so... yeah. Also, keep in mind that the L and R buttons on the Gamecube controller need to be pushed down a lot further than the usual GBA ones do. The GBA ones sit right on top of the trigger contacts, but the Gamecube ones need to be pushed so far down for such a little one.

The reason I save a few times is to give me (and you) an idea of how I'm doing. I also need to because even though this game has a timer that actually counts seconds, it doesn't let you save after the game is over, though it does recognize you've beat it. This was mostly so the last part count be accurately timed. The Donkey Kong County 2 run did this, and it took way longer because he had to go out of his way to do it, so I think it's okay. The other important thing about the save points is that they replenish your health.

I go after the creeping heartless instead of the experience because they have a phase where they hide under the ground and move around which costs some time, and makes the run look ugly while I'm just waiting for them to resurface.

I throw the overdrive card (Dragon Maleficent) out at the start of many fights where it is seemingly not needed is because if I enter the battle with the first strike, I can finish off some enemies in two hits instead of three. The overdrive card also lets me finish off some enemies up to two hits less than it would normally require.

Stagnant Space and Lasting Daze rooms are annoying because they're so big and the doors like to jump around. Lasting Daze can be REALLY annoying because the rooms are the largest out of any of them and the doors are a total bitch to find a lot of the times. Enemy battle chances are also high because of how long I'm exposed when climbing a ledge or running around looking for the way out. At least with Stagnant Space there's only one way to go, and enemy fighting chances are next to none.

There are some parts where I fight longer battles, like Halloween Town and Twilight Town so I can get the experience at just the right level, so I can then grow up to three levels at once.

Run Comments:
I always played this on my Game Boy Advance and never noticed that castle in the background on the file select screen until I played it on a back-lit DS. Just a random trivia fact for you.

For those that know the story and characters, if you look at it, Riku and Ansem are kind of like another duo from a game I did a speedrun of before this; Danny and Leo from Manhunt 2. How odd.

• Hollow Bastion:
  Card farming time! I need enough cards to make it through the next four worlds, so here's where I make sure to get them so I avoid longer battles later.

• Boss - Ansem:
  It's possible to do this whole fight without taking any damage, but I don't get that lucky here. This is an easy fight because they give you a ton of high level cards and you can just push him into a corner and beat him to death.
  For those wondering, they changed the first Ansem in Re: Chain of Memories to a tutorial on the Duel system instead of an actual battle.

• Agrabah:
  I got screwed by the first bit of the Jafar battle thanks to the floor, but it all went well after that.

• Monstro:
  I couldn't believe the luck the Parasite Cage gave me. Usually he just keeps sending out the 7 and 8 cards, which sucks because you can see from my deck that I can't break those. For some reason, he just went soft on me and barely attacked. I didn't even get hit once, and he only broke one of my cards. I didn't take ANY damage from the floor either. More importantly, instead of all the experience bouncing around behind him for some ugly time-wasting seconds (which happens 98% of the time), it all came right to me. This is probably the best battle I've ever had with him.

• Boss - Vexen:
  All I care about here is that he doesn't use his Auto-Life card, which gives him back half his health if I kill him. The only things that go through that shield here the Dark Aura and the Dark Firaga. The rate at which he attacks and the way he faces always seems to be different, so I think I did pretty well here. It's actually possible to defeat him without going into Dark Mode at all, but it's obviously slower.

• Neverland:
  Here we meet one of the four major challenges of this run: Captain Hook. The deck they gave you here is total jokes - it starts high at 7, but decreases by 1 with each card until it gets to zero, and then it counts back up from one to nine and then it's the deck reload card. Captain Hook almost never uses his ability card, which is making all his cards zeros. Since he actually does here though, it makes it really freaking easy for me, because he throws together some of the most deadly sleights in the entire game, mostly because of their speed and the great deal of damage they deal in that short time. I only have one zero card too, and it's in the middle of my deck. Since all his cards become zeros, he can't make any sleights. That means an easy victory for me. Again, I think this is one of the fastest times I've ever beat him, despite the card breaks.

• Traverse Town:
  Just a fair warning that this part is going to be really boring to watch - it's just one large card farm with a boss battle that - beyond a shadow of a doubt - was also went the best I've ever had it. Since I spend about 21:30 here, I'd just skip to the Replica fight (49:20). If you do want to at least see the Boss battle, skip to about 44:30.
  For those that decide to watch all the way though, in the very last room, the game decides to give me the blue cards I need for the next boss door. I didn't even notice they were skimping out on me up to that point until the second or third last room.

• Boss - Riku Replica:
  For some reason, this guy went all wimpy on me. Usually he breaks at least some of my attacks, but not this time. Really good battle again.

• Atlantica:
  I get screwed by a lasting daze room when it hides the door from me, but the boss battle makes up for it.
  Ursula went pretty well, considering my attack cards don't go above 5. Sora can't jump as high as Riku, so that shoulder trick is for this mode only.

• Olympus Coliseum:
  I get into some unintentional battles here, but at least I escape each time without any delay.
  I can't believe I nearly blew the Hades fight after it was going so well. But it's a good demonstration on why this battle is so tough. This is the second of four difficult parts, because Hades, like Hook, throws together high level and highly damaging sleights against your crap deck. At least they give you a bunch of zero cards this time. But man, there are just so many one-cards and other low level cards that I wonder how you're supposed to make use of it.

• Wonderland:
  There's actually a phase during the Trickster fight where it's possible to keep attacking him in the corner and not let him escape for the entire battle. It doesn't happen here, but it's awesome when it does.

• Halloween Town:
  If everything works out perfectly during the Oogie Boogie fight, the 0 Mickey card that lowers the gate will be the first card I get by breaking those dice. It comes out during the second set, but thankfully Oogie sent out the third set of dice quickly so I could break it and lower the gate anyway. Sometimes he just walks around stupidly and doesn't attack. It worked out really well, because it meant I could just use the special card to lower the gate again right after I got booted off the platform.

• Boss - Lexaeus
  They stack the deck so well in your favor (pun intended) for this fight that it's not even funny. You can drain three bars of health without even reloading your deck.

• Destiny Islands:
  Darkside went alright, even though I screw up two attempts at a backflip slash while he's exposed on the lower part of the screen.

• Non-Boss - Zexion:
  Since this isn't Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories, you don't get to beat up the Emo kid. Damn. Better for the speedrun, but still not as satisfying.

• Twilight Town:
  That Moment's Reprieve card I had from the beginning finally gets used up here.
  For those wondering, they actually changed the requirement on the first key door in Re: CoM. It's no longer a two-or-below blue card, it's a zero blue card. That should make speedrun attempts of that game quite fun.

• Boss - Riku Replica, round CMXVIII
  Here's what most consider the hardest battle in the game. In terms of timeline, this is after he's fought Sora four times, and even after Marluxia has been defeated, so that means he's the most powerful he's going to get and going all out. It's also obvious that he's in permanent Dark Mode, which is what makes this fight so hard. But what makes it really interesting is that you can't heal with Mickey because he's unavailable. That means I've got to drain his three health bars before he drains my one, and I've got to do it quickly. It's also pretty confusing once I get into Dark Mode, since we look the exact same.
  If you're wondering why I don't stack the Dark Aura, it's because my opponent is actually smart enough to use a 0 card to break it this time.
  I almost completely screwed this fight by not using a zero card to break his Dark Aura attack at one point, and accidentally switching to the deck reloader next to it. This fight could have been faster, but my main goal was to not let him use a stun attack on me (a three hit combo goes slash, stun, 2-3 hit "rah!" jump) because that's actually the biggest threat. He only attempted it twice, once near the start of the fight where I broke it before it hit me, and once while I was near death running to the other side of the screen (where I didn't realize how close it came to hitting me until I watched the replay). I've actually had him hit me from one side of the screen all the way to the other a few times before by just spamming that stun slash, and I couldn't do anything about it.

  As I progressed after that, I had a bad feeling I didn't have enough cards to make it out of the town and/or make it through the next level. It's a damn good thing I went with my instinct and stopped for the cards and the experience. You'll see why later.

  Between this level and the next, for the cutscene where Riku is talking to Mickey, my finger slipped off the tiny pause button which you hold down to skip cutscenes, so you watch about 2-3 seconds of it. I'm really sorry about that one.

• Castle Oblivion:
  I still to this day remember my shock and amazement when I first discovered that this version of the castle consists of two rooms as opposed to Sora's fifteen. I love Riku's mode so much.
  If I did have enough cards to make it to this point, but if I skipped getting some in Twilight Town, I wouldn't have had enough to advance to the next room or open the final door. I'm not fighting bad guys here, because Nero Shadow heartless are reason enough alone not to fight here. Those big shielded enemies from the first level are also back with a vengeance, and lots of HP.

• Final Boss - Ansem:
  Ah yes, the guy with the best six-letter attack phrase ever. It's also funny because the matching attack involves spanking Riku's ass. And he does it every 2 seconds if you get close. Anyway, this guy is cheap and hard. You'll notice before the battle even gets fully started he's already begun to attack me. Unlike Marluxia, he moves really fast and attacks with many single cards instead of sleights. He uses sleights too, but you'll notice that his special card prevents me from seeing them. There are only two, one that is very quick and damaging, and one that can drain pretty much all of your health before it's over. The first is what I have to be prepared for, since the second takes so long to launch that I can break it without any worries. He wouldn't be so bad if he didn't block and break so many of my attacks. That monster using Guard is what prevents me from doing the Dark Aura attack by the way.
  Some people don't find Ansem all that hard, but then again, I'm sure they weren't doing speedruns. Ansem almost completely fucked my run (by ending it). He threw out a bunch of high level cards that screwed me out of Dark Mode a few times and I was forced to heal twice. Usually it goes smoothly, but I guess I got all jittery since I had come so far with such good luck.

I know no one cares about the story, but to players of the Kingdom Hearts series, did anyone else find it odd that they didn't send Luxord (the British card guy) to the castle? If all the attacks are at the mercy of the cards and he's got 52 of them, he'd be perfect. He knows more about card stacking than anyone else, and he's the easiest guy in Kingdom Hearts II, so they could have made better use of him here.

In closing I'd like to thank AquaTiger (a.k.a. FrostyTheDragon), who re-sparked my motivation to do this, and saved the world from the somewhat shoddy Sora speedrun I would have submitted in order to get this one on here. Actually, I doubt I would have ever gotten around to doing a Sora speedrun because of all the extra stuff involved, so scratch that. He's the reason this speedrun exists, so keep that in mind if you decide to link this run or comment on it.

The members in the Chain of Memories thread for their helpful information and encouragement. For example, I had no idea you could skip the cutscenes in this game. That's why you should always read the instruction booklet lady and gentlemen.

People who have done single segment runs for the inspiration and standards they provided.

The SDA staff for their continued hard work and being awesome guys.