Simulated Twilight Town

The Simulated Twilight Town is a world from Kingdom Hearts II and makes a brief 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 a similar way to the 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.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
After Sora, Donald, and Goofy's journey in Castle Oblivion, DiZ convinces Naminé to move the trio to his lab in Twilight Town to protect them from Organization XIII, as the castle was still under their control. However, in order to restore Sora's memories completely, DiZ sends Riku to capture Sora's Nobody, Roxas. Once Riku defeated Roxas, DiZ created the Simulated Twilight Town to hide Roxas from the Organization until it was time for Roxas to return to Sora.

Roxas' story
To prevent Roxas from escaping, DiZ altered Roxas' memory with data to make him believe that he was a normal teenage boy who lived in Twilight Town with his best friends Hayner, Pence, and Olette. In spite of that, Roxas begins experiencing strange dreams of Sora's exploits during his first adventure. In the digital Twilight Town, summer vacation is coming to a close, and Roxas and his friends try to have some last-minute fun before returning to school.

Unfortunately, his fun is constantly being interrupted by strange white creatures and two men in black coats. 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' 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 he could only trust the words of Naminé. On his last day in Twilight Town, DiZ froze time inside the simulated realm and summoned Roxas to the Old Mansion outside of town. Roxas entered the mansion and witnessed DiZ and one of the men in black capturing Naminé. Roxas then obtained her drawings, identical to one on the library table, and drew Sora's crown necklace in one of the three circles on the table. After completing the symbol, the floor under him disappeared, and Roxas' found DiZ's computer. There, he finally regained his full memory, remembering that he was once a member of Organization XIII, who 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 was first visited by Sora late into his fight against the Organization. He enters the virtual Twilight Town with the help of Hayner, Pence, Olette, and King Mickey. Sora enters a portal left by Axel in the virtual basement of the mansion to access The World That Never Was.

Differences from the real Twilight Town
Though not easily caught the first time through the game, there are many notable differences between the virtual and real versions of Twilight Town.

These include:
 * Yen Sid's Tower only exists in the real Twilight Town. The train to it in the simulated Twilight Town leads nowhere, and is considered a ghost train.
 * The field and battle themes in the simulated Twilight Town are completely different from those of the real Twilight Town. Likewise, as the Twilight Town that appears in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories is not the real one either, it uses the same pieces as that of the simulated Twilight Town (however, the music pieces stay the same as those of the real Twilight Town when Sora visits the fake one). However, whenever Roxas visits Twilight Town in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, the music is the same as the simulated Twilight Town.
 * Hayner, Pence, and Olette have little knowledge of Roxas's existence in the real Twilight Town (though they feel that they have met Sora, Roxas's original self, even before meeting him), but they are his best friends in the simulated Twilight Town. In Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Roxas and Axel briefly met Pence; later Roxas met Hayner and Olette as well, although they never reached the extent of friendship shown in the simulated Twilight Town.
 * Setzer is the Struggle champion in the simulated 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 simulated Twilight Town, there is a standalone building with a candy shop. In the real Twilight Town, there is a Moogle Shop instead.
 * Only the item shop is functional in the simulated Twilight Town, but all shops are in the real Twilight Town.
 * Evidently Sora must go to the simulated Twilight Town only once—and he discovers that the computer in the simulated 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 simulated Twilight Town uses Type B while the one in the real Twilight Town uses Type A.

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, the gang must earn munny from doing odd jobs that are posted around the city on bulletin boards. Good work gives 50 munny (or, 100 munny for Poster Duty) whilst mediocre work gives 30 munny and poor work gives only 10 munny.
 * When collecting munny for Roxas to go to the beach, collecting a total of 2,000 munny or more will trigger a text cutscene with Roxas saying "I think that's enough munny." Then the screen will go black and a box will appear saying "You've become quite dextrous (AP+2)." Roxas will go to the station and the group will comment on how much munny he made, with Hayner saying "Whoa Roxas, that's awesome!" and Pence saying "We can even buy a watermelon with this!"
 * Alternatively, gaining at least 1200 munny and going to the station to talk to Hayner will yield the same result. It's more recommended to do so since Roxas won't get to keep the extra 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 the Champion Belt.

Kingdom Hearts II
All treasures found in the simulated Twilight Town are only available to Roxas.

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. If Sora tries to leave this part of the mansion, he will say that leaving the computer room doesn't feel right, and that something is causing the door to the Basement Corridor to not open.
 * The simulated Twilight Town has different music from the real Twilight Town, but strangely, in the Final Mix, when viewing the cutscenes from the simulated Twilight Town in Theater Mode, it contains the music from the real Twilight Town. (This applies to most cutscenes. Some of them still have the simulated Twilight Town music.) Also, when Sora enters the simulated Twilight Town near the end of the game, the music stays the same as the real Twilight Town (in both versions of the game).