Radiant Garden: Now and Then

[New2Ya]

When I first played KH2, I was surprised how drastically the castle of Hollow Bastion changed. I didn't understand how it could look so different. And that surprise grew even bigger when I found out that the whole world was different.

First for reference, it went from this...to this..... to.... this:
-> ->

What happened to the Rising Falls that Sora needed to climb first, which was very memorable for most of us? I mean, that's where he lost his keyblade in KH1 and where he first met Beast. And yet it was gone in KH2.



And the shock was complete when there was ANOTHER castle apparently on the other side of the world. I always thought this was the Hollow Bastion I rememberd from KH1, only all messed up. Now I understand this is not the case, but that confuses me even more. What is that place? What purpose does it have? None if you ask me. I hear you say "Well, it's a place where Malificent could scheme a plan."



Yeah sure, that's why they put it in, but essentially the castle was useless. It didn't contribute to the storyline. Right? Or am I wrong here?

So maybe someone can explain to me how:
a) Radiant Garden's castle changed this drastically, misshaped towers and all?
b) The Rising Falls have completely disappeared
c) What happened to all the water that surrounded the castle in Birth By Sleep
d) What the castle is on the other side of the world

 

[whodeany]

To my knowledge

a) the castle looked that way in kh1 because darkness had taken the world and morphed
it into a twisted shadow of it's former self. Once the worlds were restored, it went back to it's original appearance.
B) prob same reason as a
c) havent played yet
d) it's villians vale, and yeah it's importance thus far is giving maleificent a base for a short time

 

[DiceKiller]

My guess is when Radient garden was taken over, the darkness had corrupted the world and caused the distorted buildings and of couse, the upward rising waterfalls. But from KH1 to KH2, when everyone had returned to live there, some of the darkness had been removed causing the town to somewhat return to its original form, but not quite. Water kinda represents purity so when darkness took over Radient Garden, the loss of water might have occured, as well as being replaced with a corrupted waterfall.

I'm not sure about the castle though.

 

[Khfan01]

I think the deep canyon where Sora and others fought the group of heartless in Hollow Bastion is probably used to be river currents.

 

[VagueSimplicity]

It's kind of funny looking at the BBS version and the KH2 version comparatively. I should've guessed those walls were acting as reservoirs or something of that nature. Anyway, I'll go with the theory that darkness morphed that castle and was sucking up the water or something like that. I'm surprised in just a year though, that all of the water disappeared.