Simulated Twilight Town

The simulated Twilight Town is a world from Kingdom Hearts II and makes an appearance in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.

The virtual Twilight Town was a false Twilight Town created by DiZ as an attempt to keep Roxas contained while throwing off Organization XIII. It was created using the same technology he used in Radiant Garden's Space Paranoids, and he placed Roxas within it the same way one enters the latter world. It contained every nook and cranny of the real Twilight Town, but had some glitches, as the Seven Wonders of Twilight Town prove. He even recreated every resident of the town, using data samples of each person's heart in the real town. Although keeping to their usual attitudes, they do act differently based on how DiZ needs them to.

Roxas' Story
Kingdom Hearts II opens in the virtual Twilight Town, with the data incarnation of Roxas. His memories had been altered by data to make him believe that he was a normal teen-aged boy who lived in Twilight Town with his best friends Hayner, Pence, and Olette. As the story opens, we learn that Roxas is beginning to have strange dreams of a boy's adventures (which, as the player, we already know to be Sora's exploits of the first Kingdom Hearts). In the digital Twilight Town, summer vacation is coming to a close, and Roxas tries to have some last-minute fun before returning to school.

Unfortunately, however, his fun is constantly being interrupted by strange white creatures, and two men in black trenchcoats. As time goes on, Roxas begins to regain his memories of the Organization, with the help of the Keyblade and Naminé, a strange girl who has some interest in Roxas.

Roxas' one-time best friend Axel was sent into the digital Twilight Town, and attempted to persuade Roxas to return. When Roxas showed no signs of remembering either him or the Organization, Axel resorted to violence to bring him back "conscious or not."

Everything Roxas knew began to crumble around him, and the only thing he trusted now were the words of Naminé. On his last day in Twilight Town, DiZ froze time and summoned Roxas to the Old Mansion outside of town. He went inside and drew Sora's crown necklace in one of the 3 circles on the table. After drawing the symbol, the floor under him disappeared and he found Diz's computer, where he finally remembered everything - that he was once a member of an Organization of Nobodies that had used him for his power over the Keyblade, and that he had left it to find his past, only to be captured by Riku.

In his rage, Roxas destroyed the digital version of DiZ's computer, and fought with Axel one last time, before merging with Sora. Sora then awakened from his year-long sleep in the real Twilight Town.

Sora's Story
The virtual Twilight Town wasn't visited by Sora (or even known to him) for most of the game. He enters at the end of the introduction of the game with the help of Hayner, Pence, and Olette. It holds the only known entrance to The World That Never Was, a dark portal left by Axel after being defeated and the Picture of the gang with the old mansion in the background from the Simulated Twilight Town.

Enemies
Although in the real Twilight Town, enemies only appear in the mansion, Yen Sid's Tower, and the Underground Concourse, enemies appear all over at various stages in the virtual Twilight Town.

Mini Games
In order to progress through the story, Roxas must complete a series of mini-games.
 * In order to earn money to go to the beach (that Roxas never got to), the gang must earn munny from doing odd jobs that are posted around the city on bulletin boards. Better work results in more munny.
 * Roxas and Hayner both sign up to compete in the famous Struggle tournament. This consists of a series of simple battles amongst Twilight Town residents for a prestigious trophy and Champion Belt.
 * When you are collecting munny for Roxas to go to the beach, if you collect a total of 1,350 munny, a text cutscene will appear with Roxas saying "I think that's enough munny." Then the screen will go black and a box will appear saying "You've become more dextrous (AP+2)." Then you will go to the station and the group will comment on how much Munny you made saying "Whoa-Ho! Go Roxas" (Hayner), and "We can even buy a watermelon with this!" (Pence).

Virtual or Reality
Though not easily caught by a player on their first time through the game, there are many notable differences between the virtual and real versions of Twilight Town. These include:
 * The Fabled Countryside only exists in the real Twilight Town. The train to it in the virtual Twilight Town leads to nowhere, and is considered a ghost train.
 * The world and battle music pieces in the virtual Twilight Town are completely different from those of the real Twilight Town. Likewise, as the Twilight Town that appears in Chain of Memories is not the real one either, it uses the same pieces as that of the virtual Twilight Town (however, the music pieces stay the same as those of the real Twilight Town when Sora visits the fake one).
 * Hayner, Pence, and Olette have no knowledge of Roxas' existence in the real Twilight Town (though they feel that they have met Sora, Roxas' original self, before meeting him), but they are his best friends in the virtual Twilight Town.
 * Setzer is the Struggle champion in the virtual Twilight Town. In the real Twilight Town, it is Seifer, though this could be because Seifer beat Setzer in the last competition, taking his place as champion.
 * In the virtual Twilight Town, there is a standalone building with a candy shop. In the real Twilight Town, there is a Moogle Shop instead.
 * The stores aren't functional in the virtual Twilight Town, but are in the real Twilight Town except for the Item shop.
 * Evidently Sora must go to the virtual Twilight Town only once - and he discovers that the computer in the virtual world's Old Mansion's basement is destroyed (by Roxas), while it is in perfect shape in the real Twilight Town.
 * The save points in the basements of the Old Mansion are different - the basement in the virtual Twilight Town uses Type B while the one in the real Twilight Town uses Type A.

Trivia

 * During Sora's story only the Computer Room (since this is where the user is taken) and Basement Hall are playable in the virtual Twilight Town. This is because Sora will say that leaving the computer room doesn't feel right (possibly Roxas's influence to not return to the fake town because of what he learned about his friends), and that something is causing the door to the Basement Corridor to not open.


 * In Sora's ending credits of Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories, you can see Roxas walking past Hayner, Pence, and Olette in the virtual Twilight Town, but Roxas' face is not shown. But in Riku's ending credits, it shows Axel coming and eating sea-salt ice cream with Roxas on the tower in Twilight Town.


 * The simulated Twilight Town has different music than the real Twilight Town, but strangly, in the Final Mix, when you view the cutscenes from the simulated Twilight Town in Theatre Mode, it contains the music from the real Twilight Town. (This applies to most cutscenes.  A couple or so still have the simulated Twilight Town music).  Also when Sora enters the siumlated Twilight Town near the end of the game, the music stays the same as the real Twilight Town (in both versions of the game).