Hollow Bastion

Hollow Bastion (, Hollow Bastion) is the final downloadable stage in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, based on the location of the same name from the series. It is the home stage of, and is bundled with him as part of Challenger Pack 11. It was released on October 18th, 2021.

Stage overview
The stage is primarily a floating, traveling platform, with one extra platform on top, that begins at the Rising Falls, before soaring in the skies around the outside of the Hollow Bastion castle, and finally returning to the Rising Falls to loop back around.

When time, stocks, or health are running low, the stage transforms into Dive to the Heart (, Dive to Heart), which keeps the same layout, but features one of seven Stations of Awakening appearing in the background, with cameos from different characters and objects:
 * 's station has Riku,, a , and the . Its background depicts , and its ring border features the series' famous crown design.
 * 's station has Sora,, and . Its background depicts the , and its ring border features cards from Chain of Memories.
 * 's station has, Xion, and Riku, as he appears in 358/2 Days. Its background depicts 's clock tower, and its ring border features the emblem.
 * 's station has Axel,, , and Sora. Its background depicts from , and its ring border features the Nobody emblem.
 * 's station has Ventus, Aqua, and the s he and they possess. Its background depicts a checkered pattern with the series' famous heart and crown designs along with the emblem, and its ring border alternates between a Wayfinder and Terra's own emblem.
 * 's station exclusively has Wayfinders, uniquely lacking any other characters. Its background depicts the, and its ring border features Terra's emblem.
 * 's station has Terra, Ventus,, and . Its background depicts a checkered pattern with the series' famous heart and crown designs along with the Unversed emblem, and its ring border features a Wayfinder.

Ω forms and Battlefield forms
The main platform of the Ω forms and Battlefield forms is identical to how it appears in the normal forms but resized and reshaped to match and, respectively. The three soft platforms of the Battlefield forms also resemble the floating soft platform of the normal forms.

Hazards Off
With hazards off, Dive to the Heart will not occur; the stage will only cycle through the Hollow Bastion environment. Dive to the Heart will also not occur in Ω and Battlefield forms if hazards are turned off.

Origin
is an important world in the Kingdom Hearts series, appearing in multiple cutscenes and repeatedly being alluded to leading up to its appearance as the penultimate world of the first game, and making numerous appearances as both a playable and non-playable world in the future games in the series. Though the original release of Kingdom Hearts first showed the world as the headquarters of, , , , , and after Sora meets with  and  in , the Final Mix version of the game adds an additional cutscene that plays after Sora fights  earlier in that same world, where it's revealed that  ended up in Hollow Bastion after the  attack on , and shows a shot of Maleficent at the very end, alluding to her eventual manipulating of Riku. Later cutscenes reveal that Maleficent and the other villains are watching Sora's progress through the worlds, and kidnapping the, including , to open the. After Sora, Donald, and Goofy visit, where they learn that Riku and the villains have obtained Kairi, they travel further to Hollow Bastion, where Riku reveals himself to be the true Keyblade wielder instead of Sora. As a result, Sora loses the Keyblade, along with Donald and Goofy due to their mission being to stay with the wielder of the Keyblade. With help from, Sora travels through the giant castle with only a wooden sword to make his way to Riku, and challenges him to a battle—to his and Riku's surprise, Goofy and Donald rejoin Sora, and Sora gives a heartfelt speech, causing the Keyblade to return to him as well. After defeating Riku, the group travels further to confront Maleficent, though after emerging victorious, Riku, now possessed by, stabs Maleficent with the , unlocking the darkness within her. Sora once again faces Maleficent, now transformed into a dragon, and again emerges victorious. The trio finally confront Riku at the Grand Hall, where Riku reveals to Sora that Kairi's heart is residing in him. After the two have an intense battle, Sora, realizing he is unable to lock Hollow Bastion's keyhole without all seven Princesses of Heart, stabs himself with the Keyblade of heart to free Kairi's heart. This causes Sora to fall to darkness, and Kairi, Donald, and Goofy leave him for gone, until they realize that he was turned into a Heartless, and Kairi is able to return him to normal by a flash of light. The four escape Hollow Bastion, and return to to request a Gummi Ship upgrade from, which allows them to swiftly return to Hollow Bastion to seal the keyhole, and prevent Ansem from destroying the castle with a. Leon,, and Aerith arrive shortly after Sora defeats the Behemoth via Cid's ship, having wanted to see their childhood home one more time, and explain to Sora that though the world borders will close after Sora defeats Ansem and they may never see each other again, they'll always remember him.

Hollow Bastion returns as a location in Kingdom Hearts II, with the efforts of Leon, Yuffie, Aerith, Cid, and (forming the ) helping return the town to how it was prior to the events of the previous games. In contrast to its late game appearance in the original Kingdom Hearts, it is the second world visited in Kingdom Hearts II, accessible after Sora meets with at, itself an extension of. The world serves as a hubworld of sorts, with the player frequently needing to make return trips to it for various purposes, and also houses two separate worlds in itself, being (accessible via Hollow Bastion's computer system) and  (accessible via an old book in Merlin's house)—like the first game, the player can find torn pages scattered across the worlds, and return to Hollow Bastion to put them in the book and continue the story. An additional area in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix is the, which contains replica data of the members of Organization XIII that Sora can fight in the , located at the end of the cavern. Hollow Bastion also serves as an important plot device, with undoubtedly the most important event being finally reuniting with Sora, Donald, and Goofy. The three reveal to him that, within Space Paranoids, can access the DTD dataspace with a password. Mickey, realizing that they can find where is, gives them the password—the seven Princesses of Heart (,, , , , , and Kairi). The three join Tron and are able to find the data, which, while restoring Tron's functions, gives the access to Hollow Bastion's entire system, with it threatening to self-destruct the town. Tron quickly changes the password to Sora, Donald, and Goofy, which prevents the Master Control Program from accessing the data, but the Master Control Program still threatens to upload a into the real world. After the four defeat the Hostile Program, Sora, Donald, and Goofy leave Space Paranoids and copy the data over, albeit in a very scrambled state. Shortly afterwards, they are alerted by an explosion, and, defying Mickey's order to search for Riku and Kairi, join the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee, the, Cloud, Tifa, and in fighting off an immense wave of Heartless. During the battle, reveals to Sora 's plan to gather the hearts released by the Heartless by Sora's Keyblade to form a new. Maleficent appears and gives unexpected but brief support, attempting to best Saïx with Heartless of her own and sacrificing herself against his Nobodies, before sending Sora, who is now hesitant to fight the Heartless, into a to escape the battle, which contains clues left by Riku that point him to Twilight Town and eventually. Later, after Sora helps Tron defeat and the Master Control Program, Tron gains access to the main computers of Hollow Bastion, and Ansem the Wise's full data, reminding everyone there of the town's original name:.

Radiant Garden's history is explored in Birth by Sleep, where it is fully seen in its original state as a city of light, and explored by, , and. Ventus, the first to arrive, sees Mickey heading towards the castle, and follows him, but the guards of the castle gate, and, prevent him from doing so, before being reprimanded by  for doing so. Ventus then sees a giant flying around, and chases after it, in the process protecting  in the town square, who gives him three lifetime passes to  as gratitude. Terra, the second to arrive, sees in the town and tries to follow him, before he notices a giant Unversed flying around. Aqua, the third to arrive, hears from Scrooge McDuck that someone was headed for the castle—thinking it was Terra, she heads there, only to find a young Kairi attacked by Unversed, and intends to defend her, before Mickey steps in and offers a helping hand. The two defeat the Unversed, and Aqua notes how she sensed a lot of light within Kairi, determining that she's someone they should protect. Mickey agrees and intends to team up with Aqua, before his whisks him away. Shortly after, Kairi's grandmother picks her up, but not before Aqua places a magic spell over Kairi that will protect her light should she ever be threatened. She then sees a giant Unversed flying around, and chases after it, meeting up at the town's reactor with Terra and Ventus, and the three fight the, the three parts combined into one giant boss. Afterwards, Ventus gives the Disney Town passes to Terra and Aqua, and comments on how he defeated a masked boy who was badmouthing Terra—Terra confirms that it was, and tells Ventus to go home with Aqua, but Aqua confronts Terra about his association with the darkness in previous worlds he visited, causing Terra to believe that Aqua is spying on him on behalf of their master, , and Ventus to deduce that Aqua's new title of Keyblade Master has changed her. Terra ventures down into the lower parts of the castle, finding, who openly admits to having captured Xehanort, who specifically wanted Terra to save him. The two fight, with Xehanort insisting that Terra use his powers of darkness, which Terra eventually does, and Xehanort compliments Terra's skill, even claiming him worthy of the Keyblade Master title himself. When Terra leaves, Ventus tries to join him, but is turned down—he is similarly turned down after attempting to join Aqua as well. However, after saving from a swarm of Unversed, he runs into  and  after dropping his toy wooden sword, and Lea challenges him to a duo and loses. The two become friends, with Lea declaring to Isa that he wants to be friends with everyone so that he can be remembered; Ventus remembers his own friends, and leaves by himself.

In the Final Episode of Birth by Sleep, Aqua returns to Radiant Garden to find Terra after the trio's final battle against Xehanort, only to discover that Xehanort overtook and possessed Terra, becoming. The two battle, and the end result causes Terra-Xehanort to force Terra's half out of his body, which causes Terra-Xehanort to fall into darkness; Aqua uses her Keyblade Armor to send him back to the Realm of Light, at the cost of her being stuck in the Realm of Darkness. When Terra-Xehanort awakes, he is found by, and taken under his wing as a pupil. In Melody of Memory, it is revealed that, in between the events of Birth by Sleep and Kingdom Hearts, Kairi was abducted by Terra-Xehanort, to be used in his experiments to send her into the oceans between worlds. He believes her to be a Princess of Heart, and would thus be able to find a world with a Keyblade wielder in it; she does, and lands in Destiny Islands, though this is actually due to Aqua's protective spell placed on her. When Destiny Islands is attacked in Kingdom Hearts, Kairi's heart chooses Sora as a new vessel while her body is relocated elsewhere, though Sora is unaware of this course of events; however, it is alluded to in, where the Hollow Bastion castle itself is among a collection of slides shown to by , and Sora notes how, despite never having been there himself, the castle looks familiar to him.

Radiant Garden also briefly reappears, albeit only in cutscenes, in Dream Drop Distance and Kingdom Hearts III, with an additional small playable section in III's Re Mind DLC; Hollow Bastion is also recreated as part of Sora's memories and 's journal in Chain of Memories and coded, respectively (as well as their remakes).

serves as the starting location in the original Kingdom Hearts, and has become a recurring location used frequently for tutorials. In the numbered Kingdom Hearts titles, the player learns basic combat and game controls here. Each character has their own station adorned with symbols and important individuals, and often appear as a dreamlike realm. Battles atop the station can occur whenever an individual enters another heart, such as briefly attempting to overpower Sora while the former was merged with the latter.

Tournament Legality
Due to the stage lacking stage hazards and possessing a layout similar to the hazards-off version of the already legal Smashville (albeit slightly larger main platform) and having the same blast zone distance as Final Destination, Hollow Bastion is often considered as a counterpick in many tourneys, and a starter in some.

Background details

 * Hollow Bastion

Trivia

 * Many Dive to the Heart station designs have been changed from their original appearances for Ultimate, with all of these changes having previously been made in the 15th anniversary versions of the stations used in merchandise. These changes remove explicit references to other Disney properties.
 * Sora's is missing images of Donald Duck and Goofy. They have been replaced with icons of a raft and paopu fruit from the "Sora's Mind" station from Birth by Sleep. Additionally, Riku's picture has changed location.
 * Riku's is missing the image of Mickey Mouse. He has instead been replaced with art of Sora originating from the cover of Re:Chain of Memories.
 * Terra's has had Mickey symbols on the outer ring border replaced with alternating Terra and Wayfinder symbols.
 * Aqua's has had Mickey symbols in the central checkerboard background replaced with more Unversed symbols.
 * Hollow Bastion is the only stage to change its background for the remainder of the match when a certain condition is met. Additionally, said condition is time running low, being on one stock, or having low stamina, meaning this stage is also the only one to do something besides changing music when this occurs.
 * As a result, Dive to the Heart is uniquely completely inaccessible while in Training Mode.
 * Dr. Kawashima cannot appear from Assist Trophies on this stage. Lunala cannot appear from Poké Balls.
 * Discounting the Dive to the Heart stations, Hollow Bastion is one of two paid DLC stages without any visible background characters, along with Northern Cave.
 * Hollow Bastion's Battlefield and Ω variants will turn into their respective Dive to the Heart variants if stage hazards are on, but not if they are off. This makes Hollow Bastion's Battlefield and Ω variants one of two stages where the Battlefield and Ω variants have differences between hazards on and hazardless versions, the other being Figure-8 Circuit (where Shy Guy racers do not appear in hazards off versions of the Battlefield/Omega forms).
 * This stage's default My Music settings are non-standard. By default, ' is the most likely song to appear, while ', ', ', and  are all equally set as the second-most likely choices.
 * Hollow Bastion features seven Dive to the Heart stations. This coincidentally is the same amount as the.
 * The stations of four of these guardians are featured on this stage: Sora,, , and.
 * Two additional guardians, and  through his nobody  also appear in these stations.