Kingdom hearts, where less is more

The kingdom hearts franchise has gone through a number of game design changes throughout the franchise, I intend to be looking at whether or not these changes were typically an improvement. Specifically, the change in how boss fights work from Kingdom Hearts 2’s system compared to Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep’s system. To start with, the way you pull off “Commands” is entirely different. In Kingdom Hearts 2, you had a menu and went through the various options for what you can do, magic, summons, forms, basic attacks, etc.  were capable of setting shortcut commands to be able to use something the you deem important on the fly. While this keeps you somewhat limited to what they could do quickly in one fight, you are still technically capable of using all of your abilities at any time. In contrast Birth by Sleep has a system of commands cycled through in a deck that you build, as you unlock more commands or create some themselves. This in of itself is fine, as it allows for a wide variety of options for how you can play the game. However, upon trying to fight a super boss, the flaws of this kind of system start to become apparent. This is more the boss design’s fault rather than the command deck system’s fault, but it helps to emphasize what is wrong with the boss design.

	Essentially there are very few strategic differences in how one can fight the super bosses of Birth by Sleep and survive. There are one or two best strategies for each boss, and you are going to lose the fight if you do not use these strategies. Because of this, you are forced to completely ignore a huge portion of the game’s combat options, as they simply cannot work against the challenge the game pits against you. What’s worse is that all of these strategies involve either abusing something the game designers overlooked, such as moves that all give you the most invincibility frames, or a way to trick the AI into hurting itself without having a chance of fighting back. There are strategies like these for Kingdom Hearts 2 as well, but the main difference here is that these strategies aren’t required to stand a snowball’s chance in hell against the super bosses of 2. Make no mistake, if you understand the AI in either game, you can completely decimate them, but as the bosses in Birth by Sleep contain far more randomization than the ones from two, the only things you can learn are how to abuse mechanics to have a shot at winning.

	In Kingdom Hearts 2, there’s a mechanic called a “Revenge Value” that all the boss fights in the game have. (Bl00dyBizkitz, May 2014) Essentially it boils down to the boss breaking out of a combo if they get hit too many times in a row, then punishing you for trying to cheese the boss fight. There are ways people have found to abuse this to speed run the boss fights, but these values are hidden and most players will only end up winning their fights through skill and memorization of attack patterns. Birth by Sleep does not have this system. It instead relies on randomly deciding when it wants to attack you for attacking the boss, typically with a move that is absurdly difficult to dodge. This ends up encouraging you to be cautious with how you approach boss fights, but will occasionally punish you for no apparent reason. This would be somewhat forgivable if the super boss fights didn’t bring you down to one health upon taking a hit. And even that requires an unlockable ability, otherwise you die upon making a single mistake. And those mistakes amount to not spamming the dodge button enough.

	Yes, in these fights you are forced to spam the dodge or block button to survive. This would be somewhat acceptable if it was just every once in a while, or if it was only during a special attack by the boss, but the problem is the bosses never stop going after you to get some breathing room. Kingdom Hearts 2 had frantic boss fights, but even the most difficult ones typically had a multitude of ways to avoid damage, and had plenty of chances for you to fall back and assess the situation. Birth by Sleep tends to have small arenas where you cannot put space between the boss and them. And in the cases where it has large arenas, the boss is so relentless and quick that the same problem rears its ugly head once more. It becomes insanely hard to fight bosses without abusing invincibility frames.  Out of all the super bosses where these issues can be highlighted, none surpasses the “Mysterious Figure” from Birth by Sleep.
The number of problems with this boss are insane, but to summarize: It has a small arena, you spend the entire fight either having to mash the dodge button or using an attack with invincibility frames, there’s really only one strategy possible to have any chance at beating him with, he has an attack that can knock your deck commands out of the interface so you have to go pick them up, he has an attack that can put you in a vulnerable position even if you just got hit with a combo so you’re virtually guaranteed to get hit, he has an attack that causes a massive explosion that is fired without warning, and to top it all off in the second phase of his fight he can just randomly decide to turn invisible so you can’t lock onto him. If a boss had only one or two of these traits, it might be salvageable, but with all of them together it makes a complete mess of a boss. (The Boss Fight Database. Aug 2015)

	By contrast: the hardest boss of Kingdom Hearts 2 has numerous tells to his attack, multiple points in which he’s vulnerable, a wide variety of strategies that can potentially work on him, a huge arena where you can get as much space as you need before he chases after you, the previously brought up “Revenge Value” mechanic, a very clear indication of when he’s using his desperation attack, and while he can drain your health quickly he still doesn’t instantly kill you (or bring you to one hp) if you get so much as grazed by him. The video cited has a very nice strategy for defeating him, but I used several different tools unmentioned in the guide and had success with that method. (Soraalam1, Feb 2015) There are methods to cheese him too, if you feel like it. I personally didn’t, but it’s quite possible to catch him in an infinite loop, and people have been able to beat him in a multitude of other ways.

	So, while the system of a command deck itself isn’t an issue of itself, the problem comes when there is only one method that actually works against a boss. Yes, there is one boss or so in Kingdom Hearts 2 that’s practically impossible unless you do something specific, but it’s only one boss. Almost all of the optional boss fights in Birth by Sleep require specific methods to make them tolerable. And there are less optional bosses that could be classified as super bosses in Birth by Sleep compared to Kingdom Hearts 2 as it is. How did this happen? The team behind Birth by Sleep was different than the one for the main series games, and it shows.

	I’d like to get one thing clear, I love the Kingdom Hearts franchise, but that’s why I’m so critical of this boss fight. The bosses of Birth by Sleep all have a few design problems here and there, but I still think the game is overall good. It’s just abundantly clear that the team behind this game hadn’t figured out what made a fair boss fight just yet. They’ve had a few more game releases since then and are starting to show their understanding of balance and how it applies to video game boss fights, even patching in more obvious tells to one boss fight that people complained about. (Bizkit047, Jan 2017) And as this same team is the one to tackle Kingdom Hearts 3, it gives me hope that they might actually be able to live up to the ten years of hype the game built up since the release of 2. To make it even better, they’re switching from the command deck system that the previous three handheld games use, back to the original system the main two games use. So not only am I hopeful that the boss fights will be better designed, but the combat system will be a more manageable size to allow everything to have a use of some sort. Currently, the super boss of Kingdom Hearts 0.2 is very similar in design to the boss design of the mainline kingdom hearts games, and as such, I’m glad that there’s quite a bit of improvement on the team’s part, and look forward to the finished product (Soraalam1, Feb 2017)

In-Depth Guide to Revenge Value in KH2 and KH2FM. Perf. Bl00dyBizkitz. Youtube. N.p., 15 May 2014. Web. 10 Apr. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV2fM2UtfTU>.
Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep: Mysterious Figure Secret Boss Fight (PS3 1080p). Perf. The Boss Fight Database. Youtube. N.p., 18 Aug. 2015. Web. 10 Apr. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufH-6o0Fp0w>.
Boss Busters - Lingering Will Guide (Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix). Perf. Soraalam1. Youtube. N.p., 9 Feb. 2015. Web. 10 Apr. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig_WxJsjMCM>.
Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 (0.2) - Patch 1.02 Details & What Else to Improve? Perf. Bizkit047.Youtube. N.p., 27 Jan. 2017. Web. 10 Apr. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tapg9Cmio3I>.
Boss Busters - Zodiac Phantom Aqua (Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth By Sleep). Perf. Soraalam1.Youtube. N.p., 2 Feb. 2017. Web. 10 Apr. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhjsMaLBxS8>.