O============================================================================O
|    K I N G D O M   H E A T S   3 D :    E A R L Y   R Y U   D R A G O N    |
O============================================================================O
| This is a method to create the Ryu Dragon as soon as possible in the game. |
| It works for ALL VERSIONS and can be used by anyone, and it works since    |
| Traverse Town, once you are able to create and fight with spirits.         |
|                                                                            |
| There's also a videotutorial of this FAQ in YouTube:                       |
|     >> https://youtu.be/nSd8mlUpMeU                                        |
O============================================================================O
| L E G A L   A D V I C E                                                    |
O============================================================================O
| This FAQ is released under Creative Commons BY-NC license. You can copy    |
| and distribute it as long as you credit the author (credit DuskNoun user   |
| from GameFAQs) and it's forbidden for any kind of commercial use of it.    |
O============================================================================O
| C H A N G E S                                                              |
O============================================================================O
| 1.1                                                                        |
|     >> Update YouTube's link video (original was broken)                   |
|     >> Added Megaflare as an ability Ryu Dragon gives on it's board in     |
|        section 1 (forgot to add it in the |first place).                   |
|     >> Minor changes in the text of sections 2 and 3, typo corrections and |
|        some sentences re-written to make them more comprehensive.          |
O============================================================================O
| T A B L E   O F  C O N T E N T S                                           |
O============================================================================O
| Search the text between [] to skip to that section                         |
|                                                                            |
| 1. Why the Ryu Dragon                          [FAQ01]                     |
| 2. Getting the materials                       [FAQ02]                     |
|      2.1 The AR Cards method                   [FAQ21]                     |
|      2.2 Efficient way to kill your spirits    [FAQ22]                     |
| 3. Optimizing the materials                    [FAQ03]                     |
| 4. External links and special thanks           [EXTER]                     |
O============================================================================O



O============================================================================O
| 1. W H Y   T H E   R Y U  D R A G O N                               [FAQ01]|
O============================================================================O

    Ryu Dragon is a very strong spirit with a great offensive power (the 3rd
best strength base stat and the 2nd best HP stat in the game) and is 
considered one of the best spirits of all the game. But it's nos only useful
as an offensive ally, also on his Ability Link board it has plenty of useful
abilities, some of them completely overpowered for the early game.

Ryu Dragon command abilities:

    >> Superglide (Sora only)
    >> Meteor Crash
    >> Firaga burst
    >> Megaflare

Ryu Dragon support abilities:

    >> Combo plus
    >> Combo master



O============================================================================O
| 2. G E T T I N G   T H E   M A T E R I A L S                        [FAQ02]|
O============================================================================O

The recipe we're going to use in this method is:
    >> Prickly Fantasy x2
    >> Brilliant Fantasy x3

    The earliest way to get the Prickly Fantasy in the game is in Prankster's
Paradise and the earliest way to get the Brilliant Fantasy is Symphony of
Sorcery. But fortunately Square make a kind of backdoor that will allow us
to get both of them as early as we want. That backdoor are the AR Cards.

    In case you don't know how to use AR Cards or don't have the required
cards there's a link in the External links section [EXTER] which can help 
you. 

.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| 2.1   T H E   A R   C A R D S   M E T H O D                         [FAQ21]|
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'

    The AR cards give us spirits. Spirits that can be re-created when they
die and on the other hand each time a spirit is KOed and we don't revive them
in 30 seconds dies and leaves a Fantasy type item. We can use this method to
create spirits from AR Cards and get them killed to grind special items. Our
AR Cards spirits are:

    >> R & R Seal: drops Prickly Fantasy
    >> KO Kabuto: drops Brilliant Fantasy

    Now we have our method. But there's a problem in this game. Unlike 
previous versions of Kingdom Hearts here your allies are hard to kill. Even
in critial mode the stand too many foes and I only got my spirits killed 2
times in Traverse town excluding boss battles (while on expert mode of Kingdom
Hearts Donald and Goofy were there only to die, in less than a minute both 
were KOed in random encounters). This makes us think about a strategy to get
killed our spirits in a reasonable time. That's the 2nd part of the method.

.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| 2.2   E F F I C I E N T   W A Y   T O   K I L L   O U R   S P I R I T S    |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
    The method I use is in La Cité des Cloches, Sora's 2nd special   |[FAQ21]|
has rare Drill Syes. Regular Drill Syes were tricky at the time you  '-------'
land on the world but rare nightmares are far more powerful, with out-cannon
strenght, so there's a way to take shelter from rare Drill Syes attack and
expose your spirits to a sure death even at higher levels (I tested it on
level 20).

    There's also a link in [EXTER] with all special portal locations. If the
one active is not the second portal, you must beat the current portal if you
haven't beat it yet or just keep dropping if the current special portal is 
already beaten. Once Sora's portal is the Drill Syes special portal go to the
Town, to the roof near the exit to the bridge.

    Once triggered the portal 3 Drill Syes will spawn, 2 common and one rare.
You must kill the 2 common Drill Syes so 2 more rare ones appear on the roof
beside you. This can be very tricky because you have 3 huge rhinos attacking
in a small space and one of them can make a 1-hit-KO so the best thing you
can do is spam flowmotion attacks. Start sliding to a wall, jump and press A
(Shock Dive), luckily you'll stun all 3 of them, if one of them has already
dug into the ground, tough luck: it'll appear beneath you with the spining
attack, killing you if it was the rare one, but that's really odd. If it
happens just try again.

    Once the 3 are stunned and a bit further, chase and kill the 2 common
ones. Keep spamming the Shock Dive flowmotion, because it's shockwave will
stun the other 2 if they try to attack you from behind, if you do a regular
attack a behind attack from a 2nd Drill Sye would leave you exposed to other
hits from both forward and back Drill Syes, and if the rare Drill Sye hits
you with the spine-ball attack or spining from beneath you, you'll surely die
(unless you are on beginner or standard mode) so it's really important to spam
this flowmotion over and over to avoid attacks from behind and move constantly
to avoid any drill-from-underground attack.

    When you kill the 2 common Drill Syes 2 more rare Drill Syes will
appear in the roof, in that moment you must retire, use flowmotion to move
sticked to the walls high enough until those rare nightmares fall from the
roof when they try to chase you. Then, go to the now lonely roof and stay
there.

    In the roof the Drill Syes can't reach you and your spirits are totally
defenseless with 3 rare nightmares chasing them. Wait and they'll die a small
amount of time later. Once your spirits are dead, dismiss the portal challenge
by pressing start and exit, then stick to your spirit's body and don't revive
it, in less than 30 seconds it'll vanish leaving behind our precious item.

    Just 3 more things. This is useful because at the beginning the 3 Drill
Syes choose different targets, some chase you and the others chase one of your
spirits but sometimes the 3 of them chase you. And you'll end up receiving 3
secuential attacks leaving you no time to attack before the next hit comes.
When that happens press the B button to jump and then run to the roof and
heal, they'll stop chasing you and start chasing your spirits. Then just come
back and kill the 2 common Drill Syes.

    Second thing is, it would be a lot easier if you go to the roof at the
beginning and let your spirits with one rare and 2 common Drill Syes. But that
is risky because your spirits are no match for rare Drill Syes but they can
handle common ones. If they manage to kill the 2 common Drill Syes you'll be
alone in the roof and 2 rare Drill Syes will spawn targeting at you. So
unless your spirits are too weak the can't kill common Drill Syes, don't do
it. Also this alternative method would be too slower.

    And at last, when you dismiss the portal challenge be careful while going
next to your spirit's "body", you can trigger a regular dream eater fight,
walk close to walls to minimize the odds.



O============================================================================O
| 3. O P T I M I Z I N G   T H E   M A T E R I A L S                  [FAQ03]|
O============================================================================O

    When you repeat the previous process with KO Kabuto and R & R Seal you'll
get enough items to make your own Ryu Dragon but I recommend you to wait. that
items would make a rank C Ryu Dragon, but if you wait until a Risky Winds day
the rank will increase. Keep dropping until there's a Risky Winds day, you can
tell it is from the forecast in the start menu. Just creating spirits in a 
risky winds day makes them 1 rank higher, in this case you would have a B rank
Ryu Dragon.

    BUT MUCH BETTER. You need 2 Prickly Fantasies and 3 Brilliant Fantasies to
make a B rank Ryu Dragon but if you are patient and repeat this process untill
you have 4 Prickly Fantasies and 6 Brilliant Fantasies in a risky winds day
you'll have a great Star rank Ryu Dragon, with the best stats you've ever seen
in that save. You'll see it is really overpowered with it's aerial area
attacks and all it's strength but what is more important: it's a competitive
spirit in all the game, since you create it untill the post-game superbosses,
keeping it on your party won't be a burden and it will make easier to get the
massive amount of LP you need to finish it's board, maybe with The Grid and
Prankster's Paradise is enough to complete it and you have those 4 commands
before the 2nd visit to Traverse Town.


O============================================================================O
| 4. E X T E R N A L   L I N K S                                      [EXTER]|
O============================================================================O

Report if there's a broken link.

AR Cards info. A link explaining everything about them, make sure to read
until the very end if you don't know how to get them and another link with all
scanned AR Cards in every region for Kingdom Hearts 3D.
    >> http://goo.gl/AJ1WyS (http://www.destructoid.com/...)
    >> http://ar.essh.co/decks/kingdom-hearts

Special portals info: Rebel_Dante's FAQ about special portals
    >> http://goo.gl/KIqDDQ (http://gamefaqs.com/...)

Also special thaks to below pages I used to gather part of the information I
used to discover this method.
    >> http://www.khwiki.com
    >> http://www.destinyislands.com
    >> http://www.ign.com