That One Boss/Kingdom Hearts

DANCE WATER DANCE!

This page is about bosses in Kingdom Hearts that give away grief like it's candy. It's rather ironic that a series that's got complaints lodged at it for being easy has a lot of fans raging about difficult bosses...but nevertheless, even some easy games have sudden difficulty spikes. We need no advice for defeating these monstrosities -- that defeats the purpose!

NOTE: Bonus Boss is banned from being That One Boss. It's supposed to be overpowerful and it's optional.

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Kingdom Hearts

• In the first Kingdom Hearts, it's frequently a toss up between the fight against Dragon Maleficent, and the second battle against Riku in Hollow Bastion, which occur within minutes of each other. The first wouldn't be too difficult, except that the boss's only weakpoint hovers out of your reach for most of the battle. The second is like fighting yourself, except with absurdly fast and powerful attacks.
  • The first one also has more health bars than any enemy encountered at that point. Only the Final Boss (not Ansem), Hades, the Rock Titan, and Bonus Boss Sephiroth have more health. And neither of those have hard-to-avoid Flame Breath that chews through your HP like it's going out of style.
• Some would actually argue Ursula. Both times she's hard. For one, you have a 360-degree combat field (Meaning she can attack you from any angle) and the first fight has a gimmick where you must throw magic at her cauldron to stun her and damage her a bit (Because otherwise you literally can't beat her) The second time, she throws all sorts of hard-to-avoid attacks at you. Then again though...as you can read later, she's always difficult.
• Stealth Sneak in Deep Jungle. You fight both him and Tarzan!Clayton. Now, it would be easy if it were just Clayton, since all he does is shoot from afar and give himself a potion to heal any lost health. However, Stealth Sneak can Hadoken you and summon beams of energy from his eyes if you focus only on Clayton. If you focus only on Stealth Sneak, then Clayton can just snipe your party members while Stealth Sneak trounces you. It doesn't help that you learn Cure immediately AFTER this fight, and Potions can't be set to a shortcut.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

• The Vexen fights as Sora. Even if he doesn't break any combo you use with ubiquitous 0 cards, he'll probably end up simply avoiding all damage by blocking your attacks with his enormous shield. This is worse in the Game Boy Advance version; in the remake it's a little easier to attack his vulnerable spots. (The Defenders are the hardest enemies in the Game Boy Advance version for this reason.)
• On the original GBA, the fight with Larxene right after the final battle with the Riku Replica can be very difficult, only slightly less so than the battle preceding it. Mainly because Larxene is fond of backing you up against a corner and unleashing combo after combo at you when you can't escape.
• Marluxia's first form has several extremely long range attacks, particularly the one where the screen flashes and he executes a forward slash, and his Blossom Shower is nearly unavoidable, but thankfully doesn't hurt.
  • The Second and Third form in the Remakes is even harder. After breaking off the two sickles he then opts to ram you at a ludicrous speed making it impossible to dodge and usualy unavoidable because you will be struggling to find a 0 or trying to stock cards to break it. Then there is the two part dive attack which is easier to block and avoid but hits just as hard. After you defeat this form you go straight to the slightly simpler Third form, however he has several strong attacks and the "Doom" Sleight at his disposal and if you die here you have to start the whole fight all over again.
• Zexion can be pretty difficult if one doesn't know what they're doing or how to avoid the cards.
• In the original GBA game, but not the remake, Captain Hook is far more powerful than the other bosses at that point in the game (the Parasite Cage, Cloud and Hades were nasty as well), partly due to the GBA controls and his stunlock attacks. The field makes that fight in the GBA version even more difficult. As the ship keeps constantly tilting side-to-side, it easily puts you almost always on the receiving end of Hook's bombs.
• Riku Replica from COM. The fourth time you fight him in Sora's half of the game, he's just plain hard. His Dark Aura attack requires a Zero card to break it, and he spams the move again and again. The second time you fight him as Riku is worse though, due to your fixed deck: you only have a one-use enemy card and unpredictably spawned Mickey cards to heal you!

Kingdom Hearts II

• Despite how Demyx appears to be the Spoony Bard slacker who really doesn't care about anything except playing sitar, you'd be surprised how many people think he fits the description for That One Boss. Sure, there's some Fake Difficulty in the form of Luck-Based Mission in there, which most people don't like, but he certainly isn't one to be taken lightly. To expand upon this, he has a move where he'll summon a few water clones that you have to defeat in a time limit. The catch? You have several seconds to do this, and if you don't succeed, you die. Yep, a game over just for failing at a stupid luck based mission. And to make things worse? Demyx is annoying to fight in general as his attacks have a ludicrously wide range, and they will always blast you into the air as he leaps around the arena like an acrobat (He summons huge jets of water when he jumps).
• Luxord qualifies as well, simply because of the Unexpected Gameplay Change aspect of fighting him. Instead of just whaling on him until he dies, there's a confusing little minigame that you have to play, the fight is sort of time based, and his card attacks are really annoying.
• Xigbar also deserves a mention. He is probably harder than Luxord despite being more of a standard boss fight. He teleports all round his arena and blasts you with quick shots from his arrowguns that are hard to avoid. He also can change up the arena into different layouts, making him more annoying to fight. And he has a desperation attack where he traps you in an enclosed area that's very small, and proceeds to bullet spam you to hell. And to note, he's completely invincible while doing this, so there's no way to knock him out of this!
• Xaldin and his hard to avoid Wind Dragon, though like Xigbar, he's just tough in general. Thanks to his battle style that involves the use of wind and six lances, he hits very hard and fast, and he has ridiculous range in general. Not to mention that the gimmick that gives you an edge in this battle can be clunky and tough to master for first time players.
• In the Underdrome, Pete is trouble. Being a Time Limit Boss hurts, but the fact he hits like a truck hurts even more. Pete also summons various Heartless and devices which make the fight a pain. If you cannot outdamage him within the proper time, expect to attempt him over and over.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep

• Braig. Just like Xigbar... and arguably harder with Aqua.
• Whenever you fight Vanitas with Aqua... ouch.
• Needless to say, expect entries about how hard some bosses in Aqua's campaign can be -- she requires some practice to master, so part of the difficulty is actually getting used to her.
• Near the end of his story, Terra fights Master Eraqus. The foe is an absolute beast. His attacks are incredibly powerful, and the most dangerous ones come out with no warning whatsoever. Even after you've gotten his pattern down, you have to have the utmost skill to block and/or dodge his attacks, because if you don't, expect three or four hits to kill Terra. Your opponent is also resistant to Dark attacks, and the only Command Style that will activate during this boss is Dark Impulse, so you're at quite the disadvantage.
• Speaking of Terra's story... |Olympus Colosseum. Helmet-less Zack.. When he gets overcharged with Hades' darkness, he's going to let you know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of an Omnislash. It's just as painful as it sounds.
• The final boss of Terra's story can quickly turn into this if you don't know the best strategy for him (guard against most of his attacks and use Counter Hammer a lot). He has a combo that is just plain unfair: it involves dropping an unblockable meteor which also causes a bright explosion, and then using Ars Solum twice in a row. It's unblockable when he uses it, but when you do it, he just blocks and Counter Hammers you. Even Terra's ultimate abilities won't do you any good. The developers had the sense to program him with the knowledge of your attacks and how to dodge them. Go ahead. Try using Ars Solum, Meteor Crash, or Chaos Blade. He'll perfectly dodge all of them, then smack you down for even daring to try.
• Mimic Master. More HP than the final boss, has a blinding laser attack that he uses very often, (and being blind also takes away your Shotlock!) and when he gets low on health, he creates FIFTEEN clones of you that know every command you do, and they also cast Blackout a lot (again with the blinding!). And you don't fight them all at once; it's 2 at a time.
• Iron Imprisoner IV. The Iron Imprisoner gets steadily more and more difficult through the first three forms. The third form alone is hard enough, to the point where you can only hope to beat him using shotlocks. The first time you fight this form, it is fairly manageable, but you have to fight him again in order to fight the fourth form, and the second time he's been buffed the hell up. And as for IV himself... His new attacks aren't too bad, but his hammer combo has become utterly devastating, and his fire spin lasts forever. If you slip up and hit square intending to dodge and end up accidentally using your counter, then your combo survival ability gets broken, it WILL be deadly. And then you have to start the arena match over again, which includes several rounds of normal enemies buffed up to hell, not to mention the third form again. Also, if you want to complete the journal, you'll have to do this with all three characters.
• The Final Chapter... Terranort Phase 1. It is next-to-impossible to land a hit on him under normal circumstances. In fact, there is only on easy way to win the fight, and it takes forever, even if you are at the right level. Combine that with playing as Aqua, and ONLY Aqua.

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance

• Were you among the people complaining that Xemnas was too easy in Kingdom Hearts II? Well, complain no more, since it will likely take you some serious level grinding with Sora to get past him in this one! His insanely long and strong combos, as well as the lack of the "Second Chance" ability make sure of that.
• Young Xehanort. Being the Mysterious Figure, he is hard. At first, he has a Keyblade, and uses a mix of combo moves. When his HP is depleted, he'll use a time rewind spell, that, if not halted by Reality Shift, basically revives him. Even after using the move, you have to deplete another bnuch of lifebars..while clones of him attack.
• To round out the Xehanort group, Ansem the Seeker of Darkness is fittingly one hard son of a bitch. The first phase of his fight is tough enough, given how he spams a tough-to-dodge ramming attack that will more than likely trap you in a juggle. But he's manageable if you can survive the initial onslaught, his second phase is MUCH tougher. Due be hiding inside his Guardian, Ansem takes very little damage from your attacks, and all the while his Guardian can nail you with all sorts of nasty moves such as poison spheres, laser discs, and all sorts of assorted nasty attacks. To make things worse, he can blow you and your entire party far away from him, and he's almost always bound to follow up with a hard hitting nasty laser attack that is very hard to predict.
• And before him, Riku has to deal with the Anti Black Cloak nightmare. It's an all around tough opponent to fight, but it's worst move is easily the one where it drains you down to ONE HIT POINT, making it easy to finish you off with. While it does scatter around your health in the form of HP orbs, it can pick these up itself, and you're basically a sitting duck if you try to avoid it and pick up the orbs.
• The Spellican boss is an all around pain thanks to packing all sorts of powerful spells (as you'd expect form the name) and the fact that it teleports all over an arena that's very annoying to traverse. But what makes this fight so annoying is that it can lock you in a flowmotion attack where you have to grind after it on a rail while it sends rocks and dark blasts towards you. In a Flowmotion section, you have now way to heal yourself at all, so if you're having trouble getting to Spellican? You're screwed. And to make things worse, it will do this at random later into the fight, which means that you're likely to be dropped in the Flowmotion section with minimal health!
• Both forms of the Wargoyle boss in La Cite Des Cloches. The melee form Sora fights is very speedy and hits ridiculously hard, and Riku's version flies and spams you to death with fireballs. Combine those with the fact that it summons meteors, and you have one hell of a nasty boss to put up with while you've been dealing with easy ones until this point of the game.

Other Kingdom Hearts

• Leechgrave in 358/2 Days. It has a lot of HP for that point in the story, hits like a truck, and it doesn't help that there are four regenerating tentacles around that you have to deal with.
  • Also from Days we have the Ruler of the Sky, who is pretty frustrating if you are not ready for him. The fight lasts a long time, and there are some pretty nasty attacks.
  • Pretty much ANY of the bosses in Mission Mode. They all fight identical to their Story Mode counterparts, except with sky-high stats. For example, trying to get past Xion's second form's Ragnarok spam is pretty much impossible with anybody except Xemnas (who's highly resistant to Nil damage). Unless you're really good at dodging, that is.
• RE:Coded isn't exactly the hardest KH game to date, but the side-scrolling bosses might give you some nasty surprises on your first few tries. Dragon Maleficent comes to mind. For a "normal" boss, we have Sora's Heartless, especially its third form, where it WILL kick your ass within the first ten seconds of the battle over and over.
  • And, of course, the fight against Roxas. He's ungodly fast, hits like a truck, can inflict multiple stat effects and even his blocked attacks are very hard to punish. Through the fight, he'll teleport around the arena, fire unblockable, homing light pillars while he dashes at you and attacks and will rain down Frickin' Laser Beams once he Turns Red. For extra sadism, when you're almost finished with him, he'll attack with Frickin' Laser Beams, only to finish the attack and follow up with even bigger laser beams. It gets better: These beams will cripple your DEF stat if it hits. Get hit once, you take ungodly damage. Get hit twice, you die.