The Superbosses of Kingdom Hearts | A Brief Retrospective (MC4)

playing through games is fun especially Kingdom Hearts games but you know what's even more fun when you keep playing after you beat the final boss sure spent 25 hours going through the story but there was another 30 after exploring every nook and crany of the world finding every chest and collectible synthesizing gear and completing jimin's Journal all of this and for what to get some digital trophies on Playstation no for Glory to overcome some greater power the ultimate Challenge after all of this training to make it all worth something and luckily there's a ton of these powers super bosses are a trend the Kingdom Hearts Series has carried through most of its games a grand test of the key mechanics learn throughout your journey some of the games have a lot and others not so much but the variance of Kingdom Hearts is part of the fun so let's look at Super bosses from this series and how they've changed over time Kingdom Hearts super bosses how strong are they are they fun let's find out starting with the start of it all Kingdom Hearts 1 the genre bending game that combined action RPG and platforming elements into one in a way that holds up really well even 20 years later by the time we got to the final iteration of the game Final Mix there were a whopping five Super bosses so let's start today with the very first super boss in the series Phantom in the original release of this game in Japan Phantom was the only super boss to challenge the player found in Neverland at the clock tower Phantom is what I believe to be the best puzzle boss in Kingdom Hearts one you have to fight him in a way that's totally unique from every other fight in the game he has an orb in his stomach that will change colors and you have to use the corresponding magic or attack to damage him along with that you have to manage your MP to both hit the boss and stop the clock tower this boss is a great representation of Kingdom Hearts one as a whole it has elements of action and RPG games as well as environmental interaction getting into the international release of the game they added three more bosses Ice Titan is now available through the gold match in Olympus Coliseum and he's another puzzle boss with a unique fight he is huge so much so that his weak point isn't reachable for most of the fight you have to deflect icles with attacks or guards to hit his head and make him vulnerable once he is vulnerable you'll have a limited time to attack him before he stands up again and the process repeats this boss is a lot more straightforward than Phantom focusing more on executing the deflections than managing and using your MP overall not too difficult of a boss once you learn the solution unlike another member of the Coliseum the Platinum match a one-on-one fight with sephra the guy from Final Fantasy 7 this fight is the peak of action combat in cage one requiring Mastery of timing to either Parry or Dodge his attacks seph has several attacks with his long sword and more Mobility than most bosses in the game and he is immune to all magic so you'll have to set up your abilities and gear for physical Combos and healing he staggers if hit at the correct time and will have a set amount of hits before retaliating he also has a really unique attack with heartless Angel where he chance to cast a spell that will set sora's HP to one and MP to zero but it can also be canceled if you react accordingly and hit him being generally thought of as the hardest boss in this release he has three phases of increasing difficulty with a variety of attacks and patterns that the player will have to learn this boss takes the basic elements you learn fighting Ru and Destiny islands and pushes them to their limit the final boss in this version of the game is Kurt Ziza in agraba he's got a sword Kurt cesa uses a mix of the puzzle and action elements we've seen so far the fight starts with him silencing s making him unable to use magic so you'll want to start like most bosses dodging his attacks as you see them but otherwise hitting him with the X butt until he gets to his next phase where he creates a barrier around himself and floats around throwing magic attacks of Sora physical hits do no damage to the barrier but produce in P orb giving you the hint that offensive magic is needed to break it once the barrier is broken the party has an opening to freely attack then he goes into the first phase where Sora is silenced and it's a physical fight this forces the player to come and equi to handle both distinct phases and and that takes us to the final super boss that was added in the Final Mix versions of the game unknown he is often the boss that competes with Sethro for the title of hardest boss in cage1 and it's clear to see why once the fight starts fought in Hollow Bastion he's a looming presence with a variety of attacks spread over three phases damaging him relies mostly on physical hits but he can be fought with magic notably having an interaction where gravity magic stuns him similar to sephra learning his attack patterns to dodge imp Perry is key since he staggers and retaliates at consistent points in the fight he also has the increased mobility of Sethro teleporting to close gaps and stay aggressive unknown as maybe most important in that he starts a trend where one of the secret bosses is a hint to a future game in the series if you didn't know unknown is actually zimus the final boss of K2 and the text lines from him hint towards the existence of nobody's overall the first game ended up with a great set of bosses and gives a player plenty to trained for each fight is satisfying in its own way whether that be solving the puzzle learning the patterns or just over powering them with your late Game Gear chain of Memories and rechain of memories don't have any super bosses so we'll jump straight into Kingdom Hearts 2 where the camera is zoomed out and the pants are longer this game resembles the first but you can definitely feel a change cage2 moves more towards boss fights taking place in flat Arenas rather than the platforming environments from K1 there's also a much bigger emphasis on the learning their patterns to find openings rather than using a specific spell or ability similar to the first game there's only one real super boss in the first release of cage to this time it's the returning sephra comparing his fight in each game gives a good idea of how the combat and boss gameplay has changed between them the fight starts with probably the biggest change to bosses reaction commands which appear in several normal and super boss fights some of these reaction commands can just be mashed but super bosses tend to add negative commands to prevent the player from spamming the button another thing you'll notice is how K1 bosses generally throw out one attack at a time whereas in K2 they'll usually perform a full combo similar to the first game Seal's fight focuses more on Sword Play than a gimmick he has a similar three phases and a few moves shared between the games with differences to suit their systems his Supernova attack in cage1 carries over its meteor portion specifically targeting Sora in the arena now his Harless Angel attack now has him floating in the air as he chants and is followed by his reaction command have completed these changes come as a result of the variety of quicker movement options added in cage 2 cage 2 also has a staggering retaliation system applied to humanoid bosses similar to cage1 to both give the player an opening for a combo and the enemy a chance to break free of an extended combo this is satisfying since it rewards the player for finding opening but also gives the enemy a chance to fight back though there is the downside that sometimes a retaliation can't be reacted to by a sort of mid combo similar to K1 seph's battle in this game is a clear step up from the story bosses and shows the potential of this game's combat system if you're playing the original release of the game that's the toughest challenge you'll get but lucky for us there was another release Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix this game added new abilities a new difficulty and a few new fights there's even a whole new area added to radiant Garden the cavern of remembrance it's a really neat place that's totally optional and actually uses growth abilities and getting through it takes you to the Garden of the syil a waterfall room with a kiosk in the middle pressing triangle on the screen introduces us to the next wave of super bosses the love casting spells that's right organization 13 is back at it again but it's not really them they're all dead this is the data organization all 13 members have fights available here and this is the coolest super boss presentation we've seen so far it was neat having the bosses in the first game in different world worlds and starting the fights by talking to Disney characters but the screens coming out of the waterfalls begging to be interacted with is on a whole another level even the members beaten in Castle Oblivion show up here after their abs and Silhouettes are defeated these fights are powered up versions of every org member throughout a playthrough of cage 2 you may notice that each world has a battle level that's the recommended level that Sor should be and is essentially the level of the enemies in that world but there's a few cases where an arena or fight in the world has a different battle level than the rest of the world this is VIs in the Hades Paradox cups but it also affects the super bosses though it takes place in Hollow Bastian with about a level of 45 seph Roth's fight has a battle level of 80 and the garden of assemblage with every data organization member has a battle level of 99 so you're expected to be finished grinding before even attempting these fights this is a big change from the first game where while it helps you're not expected to be max level for any of the super bosses but back to the fights themselves while they take place in the same Arenas as the weaker fights the data bosses have much more health and do more damage now since they've leveled up they also have altered attack patterns and behavior to add difficulty some plant examples of this are zigar no longer needing to reload Lux sword's miname timing being tougher and Dix's water clone numbers changing aside from these changes the difficulty comes from the huge health bars this means you'll have to go through more cycles of the boss's attacks and unless you're experienced with the fights you'll have to handle every boss's desperation move at least once these fights are similar to help the coliseums have stronger versions of bosses previously fought but turned up to the Max and with a really unique presentation this starts another trend of super bosses being more difficult versions of story bosses but the introduction of the garden of assemblage gives a cool new presentation to a super boss Coliseum and that only leaves one more often considered the hardest boss in the game lingering will this boss follows the trend unknown set in K1 hitting towards bir by sleep with his appearance he wields a keyblade and gives the first instance we've seen of keade transformation with the cannon bow Whip and bike appearing he has eight different attacks with some of the tightest reaction windows in the game his Mobility is also insane dashing across the huge Arena instantly he also has an armor mechanic unique to this fight hits do very little damage initially but as more hits connect they deal more damage this means that longer combos are better for fighting him since they will weaken his armor and make him vulnerable similar to sepo and unknown in C1 L will pushes the action combat of K2 to its limit with it tight Combos and attack patterns and now that we've mentioned all of the bosses I do want to point out a mechanic present some of them that wasn't as easy in the first game cheese this game has a few methods that can be used to easily defeat some of the super bosses without them being able to get an attack off using fener and negative combo or the Peter Pan summon are common examples this can essentially stun lock some of the bosses and combo them to death with them never retaliating this works on roxus CX ax marusia larine and lingering will I thought this was worth mentioning because it's possible in some way on almost half of the super bosses in this game there wasn't really anything like that in the first game and it can be seen as a little blemish that some of the tougher fights in the game can be beaten pretty easily but those are strange methods that are unlikely to be found in most playthroughs in their intended fights these bosses utilize all of the mechanics present in cage2 and push them to the Limit similar to cage1 if you look at the super bosses from the first and second game next to each other you may notice the difference cage2 only has humanoid super bosses and while there are a few bosses with puzzle elements like in luxor's fight most of them lean towards action combat this is a big change from the first game which had several monster super bosses and utiliz environmental and puzzle elements while kage1 super bosses show hints of the many genres it took influence from kage 2 chooses to focus in more on the action aspect it is a shift but each boss still retains the satisfaction from beating them that has been present through the whole series up to this point with every battle feeling fair and possible once you learn the fight and prepare accordingly with the number of Super bosses greatly increasing and retaining the high quality it seemed the series was on an upward Trend and would continue to deliver those engaging and rewarding challenges Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep is the first handheld game we'll be talking about and it had a lot of big changes when it came to the PSP it's the first game to use the command de system greatly changing the combat but let's see what impact it had on the super bosses this time the first release of the game had two super bosses instead of one the first Super boss you'd fight in the game is Bonitas remnet his design is basically venitas but with white detailing he has a lot of attacks similar to the other venitas fights but add some new ones too including using Shadow clones and this dark Fang attack he'll generally attack back to back sometimes even canceling one one attack to immediately start another a lot of his attacks also apply to the new status effects added in Birth by Sleep he has a pretty small health bar for a super boss but that's because of his healing mechanic if the player uses a cure spell so will he forcing the player to bring healing items instead and limiting the total healing possible a good counter to spamming cure he's a neat fight where they take an old boss and put a spin on it to add difficulty he'll also randomly stagger or just ignore the player of attacked at some point and he'll randomly break out of combos to retaliate a trend that affects most Birth by Sleep super bosses defeating him is required to fight the hardest super boss in the original release the dreaded mysterious figure this is sp by sleep's boss to hint at future games with his secret identity being young xehanort as he appears at Dream Drop Distance he has several flashy and original moves like you'd expect from a new boss along those is a whirlwind attack that launches players commands across the battlefield creating Shadow clones of himself and even turning invisible similar to Venit Remnant he can can randomly break out of some Combos and even has the ability to use renewal block while being comboed mysterious figure becomes more aggressive as the fight goes on and uses new attacks while there's several interesting components of this boss and he's a real spectacle to watch he is often regarded as one of the most disliked in the series this is because his attacks have such a huge range and long lasting activity that the player can often be caught by an unexpected attack even when it seems like you played it correctly he also has random stagger and retaliation with the only consistent weak point being after his X slash attack so rather than learning his patterns and weak points players left spamming Dodge roll until this attack is used then countering with a Quick Command these super bosses from the original release of the game are a big change from how the series has approached them in the past going from learning the boss's patterns or gimmick to sneaking in quick hits while the boss is relentlessly throwing out attacks there have now also been 18 super bosses in a row in the series that are humanoid in their character design so the series has definitely shifted from the mix of the first game that is until we get to the next release Birth by Sleep Final Mix where it's you against the world this world to be exact monstro the entire world from the 2002 released Kingdom Hearts but this time we're fighting him first the player will start inside Monro where you defeat a mob of enemies before getting sneezed out then the player will be on a small island with a few rafts surrounding spread around the area will be explosive barrels that can be used to attack Monro from afar and create openings he only has a few attacks with the main gimmick being launching barrels at him there's a timer in the corner during the monstro phase and once it counts down he'll swallow you again starting another mob fight this cycle repeats until either Monro is beaten or the player spit out four times monstro is a unique monster super boss that add a lot of fun idea his whale phas is also a return to the environmental elements appearing in a fight taking us out of the mostly flat arenas for the first time since cage W similar to the monster bosses in that game he is pretty easy Once you figure out the tricks but it's an interesting mixup to how bosses have been appearing and then we get to the next boss the armor of ericus that reels us back into humate Super bosses and flat Arenas this is Mr Eric's armor sort of like another lingering will but now it's in the Mirage Arena he shares similar attack effects to ericus with the chains and light theme there's a few attacks that are carried over from his fight with Tera but plenty of new moves appear among those are his new command style changes depending on which character is fight the armor he will have different attacks and glow a different color his attacks are reminiscent of that character's command style so he'll have attacks giving spell Weaver for aqua critical impact for terara and fever pitch for Ventus he also has a temporary power up if he catches the player forcing you on the defensive as interesting and unique as this boss is taking advantage of the multiple playable characters to change up his attack patterns he shares similar gameplay to mysterious figure where dodging and throwing out quick attacks or shot loocks is the main gameplay Loop but that takes us to the last boss no heart this is Zim's armor from the end of cage 2 sort of like another lingering will this fight takes place in the land of departure and has two very distinct phases the first has no heart sitting on the throne with the noname keyblade floating on a wall of Darkness the target during this phase will be no name while various ways of keyblades and dark volleys are shot at the player after that no heart enters the fight and the real challenge begins many of his moves have a clear influence from Terrace commands if not being taken directly from him like with Sonic impact and dark Haze aside from those he has several unique attacks many new keyblade Transformations also debut here a claw shinard drone and wings each offering a variety of new attacks to handle he also has an attack similar to seph's heartless Angel where he flies up in the air and creates a giant explosion that sets the players HP to one and drains their command and focus gauge these super bosses are all visually amazing and some of the coolest in the series to just look at their attacks and animations though the battle system brings down the experience with it being a little shallow in the late game but the inclusion of super bosses at all let alone five is a big step up for handheld games in the series we even saw a return to monster super bosses with Monstra the gameplay was a little repetitive thanks to the battle system but the creativity and design was there in tros with this entry it was at this point where the Kingdom Hearts series entered an awkward phase where super bosses became fewer and less cinematic starting with Dream Drop Distance there's only one boss generally considered a super boss Julius this is one of the few super bosses to be a Disney Original character it takes place in the Fountain area of Traver toown and it's a neat Arena the fight straightforward with julus using his fists and body to attack once about half of his health is gone he'll enter his second phase where he gets a lightning effect that he adds to his other attacks overall this is a really really neat character full but the fight itself is pretty simple and straightforward well that's the only super boss in Dream Drop Distance this game does have its own data organization sort of portals appear where all of the bosses are defeated and can be used to fight a power of version of them they do a lot more damage and sometimes mix up the boss's pattern so they do stronger attacks earlier but it's never really Remembered in the same light as cage to's data organization whether it be to a not having a cool visual like the garden of assemblage or the difficulty not really being as super as other bosses but that's it for dream do distance there was no Final Mix version to add more bosses so let's talk about some of the other games with very few quick super bosses starting with 179 days there's no boss directly called out as a super boss but it's generally agreed that the dust flyer heartless is the closest it's God he's an optional enemy in Mission 89 after the other six heartless bosses are defeated he's a stronger version of the Flying Dragon heartless that appears several times in the game and has attacks are the same as the tougher versions of those since he's bigger so are the attacks and they also apply status effects that were introduced in days but he's a pretty simple boss which makes sense since he takes inspiration from a more common enemy a decent challenge in days with its simpler combat system really testing the player's fundamentals heading into recoded now it's another DS game and has two enemies that could be considered super bosses after completing the highest level system sector can fight a bug roxus and on the floor 100 system sector of the Avatar menu you can fight a Bugg rku these are similar to the story fights but become powered up as the fight goes on getting really big in their Final Phase the last game I'm putting in this section is Kingdom Hearts 0.2 a fragmentary passage since this is a short game it's understandable that there's only one super Boss Phantom Aqua after you obtain every zodiac sign you can fight a small Boss Rush before facing a powered up version of phantom Aqua though this seems to be a repeat Boss Phantom Aqua adds a new challenge to the game the coolest thing that this boss introduces is her orange attacks these are attacks that indicate they will break through your block forcing either a Dodge or counter she attacks in combos with various openings that can be punished and hits stagger her consistently liking cage 1 and two she also breaks free of combos at consistent points she uses attacks that Aqua herself would use including her desperation move being the spell Weaver command style she has multiple phases as the fight progresses where she becomes more aggressive compared to the last few games this was an exciting battle that returned to the satisfying action boss design that had peaked in cage 2 thus far the arrow from Birth by Sleep To Dream Drop Distance had a few interesting bosses with plenty of neat ideas but the gameplay and satisfaction from Conquering the bosses had definitely taken a bit of a dip Phantom o was fighting 0.2 gave a lot of hope that we'd see a return to the boss fight design expected from the number titles in the series into the last numbered KH game at the time of making this Kingdom Hearts 3 was an overall return to the boss battle styles of KH one and two taking more influence from two than one with fights focusing mostly on action combat both of the numbered games so far only had one super boss in its original release and Kingdom Hearts loves Trends so they did it again allow me to introduce the only super boss in base Kingdom Hearts 3 the ultimate challenge set for the player who is going the extra mod dark Inferno at the keyblade graveyard in a large flat Arena this boss fight can be started and rematched using a battlegate he uses sords to fight and as the fight progresses he transitions through three phases flowing a different color in each and upgrading his attacks to be more aggressive overall he's a solid boss and defeating him as satisfying with several different strategies being viable he's a good representation of the fundamentals of kh3 with telegraphed attacks that can be blocked or countered easily once learned he's often criticized for being too easy though and he wasn't given much in terms of cinematics he just appears when the portal is activated and doesn't have any cut scene when defeated compared to Phantom and Sethro in past games he felt like a step down at height but still had a solid fight that brought back the system of finding an opening to stagger the boss then comboing them since this was a numbered title there were additional bosses added later this time in DLC after you finished the remine DLC you unlock the limit cut episode where all the super bosses are located this includes the data or that's right it's the organization again but this time it's the real organization 13 Sid gets a setup on his computer to play a SORA and fight the data real organization in a data Garden of assemblage unlike in cage 2 where fights are unlocked by beating them in the main story or their acent silhouette you start with 11 of the fights right away during the fights in the keyblade graveyard the organization members use a few attacks but with all the chaos of facing multiple members you don't get to appreciate each interaction here you get a chance to take on each of them oneon-one with way more depth the fights are all unique to the character and full of flashy attacks you'd hope to see from them similar to the super bosses in cage 2 combat is very action heavy but these bosses push it further every boss has several attacks and phases with openings spread throughout to combo them in return most of them even have attacks brand new to the data fight for me this gives them more hype than the cage2 data organization since it feels like brand new fights instead of an enhanced version of a previous fight like I mentioned earlier you start with the 11 fights available and two portals locked after this first batch is beaten you unlock Shion and master xor's portals as the final challenges I think the data real organization fights are the best Squad of super boss fights in the entire series everyone is uniquely cinematic to a point we don't often see in the series with new ideas introduced throughout a great example is master stort and Shion having attacks that just lower sorus Max HP instead of doing damage totally changing how you regroup and retaliate in the fight there's also hits that break through guard similar to what Phantom o we Ed while the series has maintained its interesting visuals in most super bosses up to this point the data re organization is a full return to the fun difficulty of the first two games and yet they're fair and satisfying like we've come to expect from number titles in the series that takes us to the end of our journey the final super boss yora from baram Rex in the secret episode s runs into yora in the final world and they start a fight in a city I'm pretty confident in saying that this is the toughest boss in the entire series he has insanely fast attacks making an unblockable hits throughout and having Tight Windows to punish as it's custom with super bosses there's also some brand new ideas he introduces he has a combo that can trap Sora and let you Zora steal his keyblade temporarily forcing the defensive play style from the player there's another attack where he shoots this Beam at Zora and if you stay inside it he can steal Health orbs healing items and even your Koo coin if you're unlucky enough he'll will even use the Koop coin once he's beaten and his desperation move may be the most cinematic attack in all of Kingdom Hearts he creates a projector orb thing to totally change the environment taking you into space where even the gravity changes eventually it turns into this polygonal background and gigas Mech launch at Sora all while yora keeps attacking and the orb explodes after this yora upgrades some of his attacks and adds some a new bait attacks and when you finally get through all of his health there's another series first where the cut that plays will be different depending on if you win or lose a really unique and satisfying ending to a game that gave a lot of new challenges and based on secret endings in cage 3 yor picks up on the trend of super bosses hinting toward future titles with him likely returning at some point these fights were a really high note to end on they met an exceeded expectations of super bosses and provide so much replayability while we wait for the next game and that's the last of the super bosses 44 in total we really ended on a high note with the DLC of Kingdom Hearts 3 having some of the best in the series there were definitely some ups and downs throughout but defeating super bosses is almost always a good time in these games in the credits I'll have some of my rankings and other opinions on these bosses I was a very surface level throughout the video mostly giving my Brief Review having beaten all of them before but I'd highly recommend watching an in-depth analysis on your favorite super bosses there's videos on almost all of them and the small details are really interesting but let me know in the comments comment some of your favorite bosses and why my personal favorite fight is Shion and cage 3 I just love the aesthetic and Shion as a character is one of my favorites I'll give an honorable mention to zimus in cage 3 and Lexus in cage 2 they are also great fights that I really enjoy my least favorite is absolutely mysterious figure and birth by it's just not fun to do anything in the fight my top games are definitely the main number titles cage 3 2 and one in that order probably my favorite but I hope the future non-titled games get a little more caregiv sort like how 0.2 had Phantom Aqua I loved Birth by Sleep super boss design and that there's so many of them but the battle system's a little shallow once you get to the late game and just sort of spam Dodge roll but yeah that's about it let me know in the comments what some of your favorite experiences have been with these super bosses or if I got any small details wrong or missed out on something important I probably overuse the word satisfying but I think it's the ultimate compliment to a boss fight and just goes to show how solid the games and fights actually are thank you so much for watching

Channel: elbow juice

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Keywords: Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts 2, KH, KH2, KH3, Kingdom, Hearts, elbow, juice, elbow juice, Remix, 1.5, 2.5, Final Mix, keyblade, 13, best, Shadow, The, World, PS4, PS3, Riku, level, square, enix, Disney, dearly beloved, softlock, file, KH1, Boss, Skip, Glitch, Freeze, weird, facts, mechanics, birth by sleep, sanctuary, Sora, simple and clean, BBS, Secret, boss, super, strong, overpowered, retrospective, history, evolution, brief, depth, analysis, ranking, top, 2.8, DDD, Dream Drop Distance, 0.2, Days, Recoded, Data, organization, Sephiroth

Id: D-K9ypNe9yU

Length: 28min 51sec (1731 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 29 2024