MONSTRO - THAR SHE BLOWS!

Monstrous Monstro: Whether you head towards Atlantica (the bottom 5-star world) or Halloween Town (the top 6-star world), the next 'world' you encounter is the world inside the gut of a huge sperm whale. How Monstro can breathe in space, we'll never truly know (maybe he runs on happy faces too, or eats gummi - mm, Gummi). This is Monstro, from the Pinocchio story and the giant mouth you cruise through at the Storybook Land Canal Boats in Disneyland. Similarly, the gummi ship gets swallowed up, and you are thrown into a new ecosystem of Monstro's guts.

MOUTH - THE PUPPETMASTER

Marooned in the Mouth: When you wind up in Monstro, your first area is Monstro's massive mouth (ok, enough alliteration). A short story sequence reveals Pinocchio's presence in the whale, playing around like the hollow headed puppet he is. Your party heads towards the back of the mouth, where there's a wooden ship, to meet Pinocchio's father Geppetto. Then, Pinocchio runs off. You can save your game in Geppetto's ship. Follow Pinocchio into Chamber 1 to retrieve him.

CHAMBERS - KNOT IN THE STOMACH

Do Whales Get Ulcers?: Maybe not. Walk forward to trigger the next bit of story. After the cutscene, you're up against some Heartless. These Heartless are going to plague you all throughout Monstro's many chambered stomach. There is a new type of Heartless to deal with here.

New Enemies:
Search Ghost: These wraiths are Heartless that will appear in many worlds from now on. They aren't particularly difficult to defeat, but because they appear with other Heartless that have greater damage capabilities, the Search Ghosts are like those small flying Heartless that cast spells at you - in great numbers, they can cause trouble. When these Heartless first appear, they spin their heads around with a yellowish light emitting from their one working eye. Hence the name, Search Ghosts. Once they find you, the light from their eye turns red and they proceed to attack. Search Ghosts have two basic actions: they'll shoot their hands out and scratch you (which also steals an amount of your HP), and they'll disappear and reappear elsewhere (often right before you finish them off with the combo). The ghosts that have stolen HP will have little floaty lights around them, and when you defeat them they will drop a large HP ball.

Green with envy?: There's a subtle trick to navigating through Monstro that not even BradyGames' official guide tells you. You'll notice that as you go through the chambers, there's one particular exit that glows green, and the others only glow blue and purple. These green exits are the exits that you are to take through Monstro. If you ever get lost, head towards the nearest green glowing exit, and rework your way through the directions you're supposed to go. This makes moving through Monstro a lot easier, than having to worry about which Chamber you're supposed to head to next (even though this walkthrough will hopefully help navigate you through.) Neat, hunh? That noted, back to the actual game.

Chamber 1, Middle: After you walk forward to get the story from Chamber 1, jump onto the left ledge towards the Chamber 2 entrance. The other entrances is Chamber 3 and one that's too high for you to reach, but that's going off on your own.

Chamber 2, Floor: From Chamber 1 you are dropped onto the floor of Chamber 2. Going through Chamber 2, and you'll have to fight some Heartless. The majority of the Heartless here in Monstro aren't anything horrible, but Air Soldiers, Soldiers, and Large Bodies will make destroying them a pain, especially in the smaller chambers where you have less space to fight in, as well as the fact that you're sometimes fighting on really narrow ledges. In these cases, jump and attacking is pretty useful at times, but don't get so caught up in your air combo that you fall off. From Chamber 2, on your left on the same level is an entrance to Chamber 3 (you'll see a crate next to it). Go into that.

Chamber 3, Middle: Don't fall off this ledge. Don't. In Monstro, falling off ledges means battling through hordes of Heartless to get back to the area where you can restart on the same ledge you were on before. This can get quite frustrating, so do your best to avoid getting booted off small ledges. That warning over, from here go to your immediate left that will take you back into Chamber 2. Leave the Heartless be if you want - they'll still be around when you want to come back.

Chamber 2, Middle: From Chamber 3 you are dropped onto the middle level ledge of Chamber 2. Again, don't fall off when you're battling Heartless. If you do, then head back towards the Chamber 3 exit on the floor and return to this area. From here, head to your right, to the entrance with a barrel next to it that leads into Chamber 5.

Chamber 5, Floor: In Chamber 5 you will be on the floor for now. It seems pretty small, but the exit you're looking for is around the corner. You'll have to fight a couple of Large Bodies to get through. Or, you could push them away, but by now you should be able to take on Large Bodies without a heavy problem.

Chamber 6, Floor: Chamber 6 is a series of ledges and a side section. From here you want to look to your right, where the green glowing exit towards Chamber 5 is. You'll go down three steps, while fighting some Barrel Spiders and other Heartless to get there. Head on into Chamber 5 again.

Chamber 5, Side: In this side chamber, you'll see a Blue Trinity. You'll also have to fight Heartless. You'll see that there aren't any green exits in your immediate vision. You will, however, see a barrel. Don't destroy that barrel when you're fighting the Heartless! If you do, go back into Chamber 6 and return. Carefully jump onto the barrel, and then jump onto the ledge. You might have to hold down the O (jump) button to ensure that Sora jumps high enough. Don't fall off the ledge now. Head to your left to Chamber 4. This will trigger a couple of cutscenes.

Chamber 4: Now you're in Chamber 4, and you have a Save Point available. Use this opportunity to recharge yourself and your minions, as well as save. Because we all know by now, where there's a Save point, there's something important coming up. Once you're done saving, jump onto the ledge on the left and head into the Bowels.

BOWELS - TOO MUCH PEP(TO)

Boss Battle - Parasite Cage: HP: 450, EXP: 500. This weird digestive distraction has captured Pinocchio, and it's your task to free the pulpy-headed puppet (can you tell I'm not much of a Pinocchio fan?) Riku is supposed to assist you in this fight, but don't depend on him, much like you can't really depend on Donald and Goofy to be much more than distractions. There's a couple of strategies you can use for fighting the Parasite Cage. One: If you're more of a physical bash-them-up kind of Sora, then the first thing you should do is cast Aero for defense, and then get thee close as you can to the cage, jump up and attack the head on the top. That's the only place that it is vulnerable, and it's invincible from behind. There is a possibility that you can duck underneath its two tentacle like offensive arms by ducking to one side, just under an arm, and jump attacking. I recommend using a short Keyblade for this boss, particularly the Three Wishes as it's the best key for physical attacks at this point. The Parasite Cage will attack you mainly with the tentacles that swing at you, although it can also do major damage by planting its two tentacles on the floor and swinging its bulk at you. In Expert Mode, this attack does quite a bit of damage. Physically blocking the swinging tentacles with your Keyblade will net you some Tech Points. The second method of attacking this boss: Jump onto the ledges where it can't reach you (since it's planted on the floor of the bowels) and cast magic spells at it. Preferably, Fira is the best of them, since it uses the least MP for the most bang. You can also, to save your minions from certain death, Summon one of your helpers - the recommendation is Genie, rather than Simba. When you run out of MP, you could use an Ether and continue casting, or you can jump down and attack the head to regain MP. Overall, the Parasite Cage is not a difficult boss but arrogance will get you dead. Pay attention to your health meter, and if you need to Cure yourself, jump onto one of the ledges and do so before continuing the fight. Once you defeat this boss, Goofy learns the Cheer ability, which strengthens the MP meter of your summons.

MOUTH - JUMP AROUND

Drifting Treasures: Once you beat the Parasite Cage, jump into the hole that it leaves in the Bowels. This will take you back to the Mouth, where the water level in Monstro's mouth suddenly lowers to reveal the platforms beneath (and one platform with a Blue Trinity on it.) You'll also see that Riku has betrayed the good nature of things, and puppet-naps Pinocchio, where he heads into the top hole in the Mouth. You won't be able to get there through regular jumping. Hence, there are some very important things you need to get here before you continue on with the game. The first, is the High Jump ability which will save you so much headache from now on. The High Jump ability comes in a treasure chest right on your right, from the Save Point you stand on. Save your game after getting High Jump. Yay, Sora can jump! Now that you have this ability, jump onto the top of Geppetto's ship and you'll find a Green Trinity there with some nifty stuff. The other important thing to get is the Watergleam stone, located at the front of Monstro's Mouth, where the Blue Trinity platform is. At the very top of that driftwood stack is a treasure chest which contains Watergleam. You'll take this funky stone back to the Fairy Godmother in Traverse Town, to get a new summon.

Skip the Hassle: At this point you have a choice here. Depending on your preference, you can choose to leave Monstro and forget about it, going onto Atlantica and Halloween Town, or you can finish the Monstro world and finish one of the other two worlds mentioned. You only need to close 2 of 3 worlds (Monstro, Atlantica, Halloween Town) in order to proceed to the next important section of the game. Since we like being thorough, though, you ought to stick to beating all of the worlds. Besides, if you don't beat Monstro, then you don't get to see the Secret ending of Kingdom Hearts.

THROAT - SWALLOWED YOUR HEART?

Top Floor, Long's Your Day: Ok ok, that's a horrible section title. Anyway, to get to the Throat, now you take the high road and head towards the smaller exit at the back (near Geppetto's Ship) of the Mouth. Jump onto the nearby driftwood stack's ledges to get up onto the ledge. Notice the little heart above the Throat's entrance? Well, yeah. Not that it's important - it's just a detail I wanted to point out. Anyway, once you're in the Throat, you find that this is a series of pad-like ledges (just what are these things?) going up. There's also a Blue Trinity on the floor if you're interested. There are Heartless galore here, which appear whenever you jump onto the next ledge and the next. They'll want to knock you back down to the floor of the Throat. You can fight them if you want, but your interests are in what's in Monstro's Stomach.

STOMACH - IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

Boss Battle - Parasite Cage II: HP: 900, EXP: 1000. Remember how the Parasite Cage was easy before? Now, it gets a lot harder. There are ledges for you to jump on and avoid the striking arms, but there's an important catch. The Cage has learned a poison breath attack. It gathers its nasty lack of oral hygiene by sticking its arms into the stomach acids surrounding the outside of the floor. Don't stand in that acid too long either, or you take damage. Even if you're standing on the ledges, you can get hit by the poison breath if you're standing in front of the boss. This poison attack reduces your HP bit by bit after you get hit for a short while, so if you're low on HP and you get hit, watch out. You can avoid the poison breath attack by running behind the Cage, but then you can't attack it until you get in front of it again. As before, you could use Genie or Fira and attack the Cage first before commencing any physical attacks. A strategy you can also use is waiting out of harm's way until the Cage gets tired and sags backwards. It will reveal a funky purple glowing section inside of it, which you can hit and it will drop HP and MP balls. Once the boss is down to a little bit of HP (about 20%) it will revert to its old attacks from before. Again, watch out for that bulk-swinging attack or else you'll get killed unexpectedly. Don't forget to cast Aero, as a defensive maneuver that will save you from a lot of damage. Once you beat the cage this time, a heart comes out of it (remember, like the Opposite Armor?) and you will learn the Stop spell.

MONSTRO - A WHALE OF A TALE

Conclusion: When you beat the Parasite Cage the second time, you're shot out of the whale via a sneeze. Bless you, Monstro. You're a pretty fun world, and thanks so much for that High Jump ability.

Bells and Whistles: Now, before you head onwards, there's a few things you need to do, and some things you'll notice. Chip and Dale will let you know that there's a new tournament in the Coliseum - that's the Pegasus Cup. You can go have a go at that if you like. Also, if you have defeated the Phil Cup at the Coliseum, then you'll have all 7 magic spells in your repetoire. Sora will make a note that he thinks his magic is as good as Donald's. Of course, in order to prove it, you should go back to the magic master, Merlin. Merlin is in Traverse Town, just waiting for you to show him what you've learned. Going back to Merlin in Traverse Town, you'll get the Spellbinder key chain for Sora's Keyblade. Also, don't forget to talk to the Fairy Godmother and turn Watergleam into a summon: namely, Dumbo (who is a pretty good summon, offensively). The other Keyblade you can get is the Wishing Star. You will find Geppetto has been relocated in the shop with the green door in Traverse Town's First District. It's right next to the Accessory Shop. Go inside and you will see Geppetto and Pinocchio there. Geppetto will now give you Gummi Ship blueprints for your engineering amusement. Supposedly you can get a Chocobo blueprint if you visit 30 times, and talk to Pinocchio. If you get bored of the Excalibur (or whatever you named your gummi ship), have a go at trying to build the other plans and flying them. There's also a pot on the shelf in Geppetto's workshop that contains a Postcard for you to mail in. The Wishing Star key chain is in a green treasure chest within Geppetto's Workshop. If you don't see it the first time when you go in, then exit the shop and return to get the chest. And from there, we head on to the next world and the next adventure.

End: Monstro.