.....will have more on the "KH2 rewrite" concept by the end of the week, possibly.
Okay, so apparently I'm doing a half-competent job at this so far; let's see how long it takes me to fuck this up.
Olympus Coliseum 1
Canon: Okay, so of all the Disney Movie worlds, Olympus Coliseum is probably the busiest of them all, plotwise, in vanilla KH2. SDG come enter the Underworld to find Meg being chased by Heartless, and are told that Herc's exhausted from fighting the arena day in and day out without a break. They go decide to talk with Hades on her behalf to try and get Herc a rest, and find a Black Coat first running deeper into the Underworld, before the same guy then runs for his life right past them back to the exit. This, we know, is Demyx, and from the first line or two of dialogue between Hades and Pete, he appears to have just stolen the Olympus Stone. Pete mouths off to Hades about the way Herc's been going through literally everything Hades can come up with, inadvertently inspiring the God of the Dead to call up Auron from the depths and try to sic 'im on Hercules. Auron tells Hades to fuck off, SDG come in and help fight only to realize that they
can't, and the party nopes off to the Overworld, with Sora and Auron having to fight Cerberus just before the exit. SDG escape, Pete and Hades scheme about unlocking the Underdrome. SDG meet and chat with Herc, revealing to them the Olympus Stone and offering to go get it. SDG train under Phil, Herc comes back and reveals the Stone has been stolen by a Black Coat assisted by Nobodies. SDG are allowed to borrow the Stone if they can retrieve it, then Hades shows up and says he's got Meg hostage in the Underworld, and that the Hydra will be attacking the Coliseum if Herc isn't around to stop it. SDG go back into the Underworld and are more properly introduced to Demyx and his mind games, before saving Meg and in so doing unwittingly unlocking the Underdrome. Pete tries to off them all with a swarm of Heartless only to be beaten back with help from a Big Damn Herc, before it then turns out that Hades' monster of the day is a lot harder to kill than most, prompting Sora to GET UP ON THE HYDRA'S BACK!
.....sorry, I had to meme after that freaking wall of text up there.
Rewritten version: So one of the annoying things here is that by the standards of the first half of the game, and especially among Disney worlds, Olympus Coliseum is already
incredibly plot-heavy when looked at next to its peers (seriously, just
look at that wall of text up there, and then compare it to Land of Dragons Beast's Castle!). It also, other than Timeless River, is pretty much the only time Pete actually matters much as a villain. Sure, he does show up again later in Port Royal and the Pride Lands, but I don't think he actually
does anything of remote significance there. ....wait, he shows up in Agrabah too and at least provides a Heartless boss duo there, IIRC. Anyway, there's just one thing that really bugs me about this section of this world, and that's the Olympus Stone. Or more specifically: if the Gods of Olympus use it when they go to the Underworld,
why the hell was it apparently already IN the Underworld for Demyx to steal it from there? I mean, it makes sense why Organization XIII would want it: a) resource denial to the heroes, b) it's a potential lead-in on getting Hercules to turn into a Heartless.
Here's how I'd tweak it: introduce a scene of
Riku Unaffiliated Black Coat fighting Demyx in the Underworld, who summons a crew of Nobodies. Unaffiliated Black Coat makes work of them in fairly short order, only for Demyx to "YOINK!" the Olympus Stone off of him. Demyx laughs for a moment or two before realizing how
pissed UBC is and immediately proceeds to GTFO. When SDG find Demyx running for his life and screaming, they also find UBC in pursuit. Remembering how UBC picked a fight with him in Land of Dragons and not knowing if he might be working with Organization XIII or not, Sora readies his Keyblade.... only for UBC to shake his head and disappear into a Corridor of Darkness, ever-silent but still seeming quite annoyed.
SDG are confused, but decide that Herc's welfare is the more pressing concern, and the rest of the episode is busy enough that it can more-or-less follow canon up until the end. After the Hydra's defeated and SDG are about to leave, DiZ makes his presence felt again, and informs the trio that the Unaffiliated Black Coat was the one who stole the Olympus Stone from the Gods, only to lose it to Organization XIII in the Underworld. "While you were recovering in my manor, he worked with me to protect your sleeping body from Organization XIII. However, I have recently seen him in Namine's presence, and I fear that he may be falling under her influence."
Translation: Riku's scenario is diverging ever-more-obviously from Ansem's, so DiZ goes back to driving the wedge. By continuing to implicate Namine as a corrupting (if not villainous) force, DiZ is trying to sow more distrust of her in Sora, Donald, and Goofy. Meanwhile, he's pulling his best David Xanatos impression as far as covering his own ass with whatever Riku proceeds to do going forward -- if Riku continues to work with Namine in a way that doesn't gel with Ansem's plans, then he can play it off to Sora as an ally who's unfortunately being brainwashed and can't be trusted. But if Ansem can convince Riku to work with him again, then he "was brainwashed, but came to his senses". And if Riku's actions regarding Sora remain seemingly inconsistent like they have been, then he's "fighting for control; he's in his right mind when he helps you, and under Namine's control when he attacks you". In other words, DiZ has at least three different ways he can spin Riku's coming actions to fit his own narrative, and about the only way for it to really come undone is if Riku or Namine walk up to Sora and
actually talk with him. Which, for their own respective hangups, is
not likely.
So naturally, that's exactly what will happen somewhere in the last quarter of the game.
.....to those wondering why Riku would have stolen the Olympus Stone, the implication (and possibly something Namine might have brought up/explained later) is that he intended on doing the same thing Meg and SDG were: go down into the Underworld, and [talk with] kick the ass of Hades until he consented to give Hercules a vacation. Riku knows that Sora draws strength from his bonds with others, so the stronger/healthier Sora's friends are, the stronger Sora will be. DiZ isn't in a frame of mind to really
get that, and he'd prefer that Sora lose a few of his friends in order to get angrier and more aggressive. Organization XIII isn't of too dissimilar an opinion on that, with the added caveat that they'd very much like to see what happens when a demigod like Hercules becomes a Heartless + Nobody. With that in mind, you can bet we'll probably be seeing a lot more of Demyx in the revisit.
A~ny~way, after Olympus Coliseum 1 comes Disney Castle + Timeless River, which again is quite plot-heavy as-is, and is basically the height of Maleficent's villainous focus in the entire game. So we'll probably go ahead and leave it alone, with just a note that Maleficent is far from finished after it.
Consequently then, the next post will cover Port Royal.