If you are planning on travelling between the worlds in the Kingdom Hearts universe, you're going to need some sort of reliable transport. Those Corridors of Darkness are just too unstable. And creepy. Fortunately, Chip and Dale are experienced in the art of building and maintaining Gummi Ships which can be used for interplanetary flight.
Nifty, no?
Just as in the original Kingdom Hearts, the Gummi Ship allows the party to fly from world to world through dangerous routes and operates as the "world map" equivalent. However, there are a number of important changes between the two games:
What's New?
- Courses need only be flown once.
- The gummi ship section is self-contained.
- It's up to you.
- Failure is an option.
- Ship construction is more detailed.
Worlds are separated by gummi combat sequences, but once a route is opened and an area unlocked you can fly there at leisure from anywhere else. No more Warp Gummies!
The only way of improving your ship is by flying the missions. You cannot gain new gummi blocks or ship designs out there in the field with Sora.
These two points mean that if you don't want to tackle the gummi missions, you don't need to. It doesn't affect the adventure in any way, so you can have a level 99 giantkiller Sora and complete the game having only flown each route once. It's not even mentioned in Jiminy's journal.
The gummi missions are considerably more action-packed than the rather mellow journeys in the original game. Put it this way: To gain an S rank in the destroy enemies missions, you generally need to shoot down more than 500.
There are more gummi pieces to play with and fewer restrictions on what you can do. Weapons can be embedded in the hull to make smoother designs, and pretty much anything can go anywhere. Want three cockpits all facing straight up? No problem. Want to fly a single plasma cannon with wheels? Go for it.
All this means that the gummi experience can be pretty overwhelming at first. The learning curve is alpine, but it is a fun way to spend some time between swings of the Keyblade.
