The new-ish player experience: KH1's frustrating bosses

So prior to the Epic games release of the 1.5+2.5 collection, I had only played the GBA and DS games as I was a nintendo kid. I ended up ragequitting at the final boss because it was flight control combat and the Ursula fight was already miserable enough for me. I'm replaying it now, since the steam release was half off so I happened to get the full set.

Choosing Rod instead of Sword is like whiplash, completely different experience. Where before, bosses were short but brutal, now they're easy but painfully long. It seems I have accidentally walked my way into a low level run, as I ended up beating Maleficent at lvl 39.

Honestly, I can't imagine having played KH1 OG as a kid with no computer or strategy guide. The worlds themselves are easy enough. Even some of the labyrinthian ones become easier when you can do ranged attacks and clear out the rooms without getting trapped in odd corners/camera angles. I felt pretty smart noticing that the proper path in Monstro has green strobelights!

But these bosses...bro. I pretty much had to google the strategy for most of them. First few are easy as piss, you could beat them with your eyes closed.

But the first upset is Clayton/Stealth Sneak: So idk if this is a 1.5 collection issue, but for some god forsaken reason, the camera ALWAYS starts, facing AWAY from the boss. so I usually ended up just jumping in a random direction, hoping I didn't get hit in the first second of the fight. Now my gaming background prior to playing the mainline KH games was Character Action( DMC, Bayonetta, Neir Automata) and JRPGs (Final Fantasy mostly), a lot of the design in this game almost comes across as trolling to someone who doesn't play any action RPGs. Getting shot over and over again because I missed the first hit of my combo, even though I'm locked on, and dying was extremely rage inducing. I was thinking to myself, maybe there's some aspect of the game mechanics im not engaging with or something, because a quarter of my interactions with enemies up to this point were similar, the second I swing I somehow miss and then get killed. So I had an a ha moment, I noticed that the party members actually DO something when you press Triangle instead of fucking around all the time.

Jafar: Enemy encounters that are mostly just chasing a guy running away are sins against humanity. Even worse when its a BOSS encounter. I'd rather defend a puppy kicker in court than even sit in the same room as the guy who designed this pair of bosses. Moving on.

Ursula I: Swimming controls aren't good. Room is a weird shape, the camera struggles because of it, partner button spam is a must here, I just let them whittle down the eels and go collect the mana. Still a stinker but not as bad as

Ursula II: bad controls + no dodge roll or block + no summons + stupid ass perpetual lightning attack makes for a very bad time. So the most common advice for this fight is to "try to get stuck behind her head so you only have to avoid the lightning" I think the fact this is the most common advice is proof this boss is poorly designed. This technique is kinda reliant on the physics working in your favor and Ursula not just whipping around too fast for you to stay behind her. Around this time I had another epiphany, I can customize my partners tactics. So I ended up having them purely on offense, no heals. And I found out I can stay at a specific point just above Ursula's head to avoid paying attention to the vore attack. So I would only move for potshots and just let Ariel and Goofy do everything.

Lock, Shock and Barrel: Some of my least favorite characters, from my least favorite Disney movie. Naturally, I wouldn't enjoy this. Why does this game keep insisting to put the fastest enemies in the most cramped spaces? The camera here is a NIGHTMARE, which is doubly bad as the apparent strategy is to knock out the red one(whatever the fuck his name is) first because he jumps and throws projectiles. No leaf bracer yet, so I need to make absolutely sure I follow the strat or else I'll die in like five seconds. a lot of this fight was just letting donald and jack spam aoe magic while i blindly attack because the camera cannot keep up.

Oogie Boogie is so easy, he's only being mentioned by name because why the fuck is the sub boss so much more intense.

Maleficent is the next major pain point, because if you don't have high damage, a lot of this fight is spent waiting for the meteor spam to stop, its not even hard, just REALLY REALLY boring.

but Maleficent Dragon is another one I would say is just poorly designed. She can't speak, so audio cues are out the window, which were pretty reliable for me before because I had to split focus between the boss and actually navigating around the arenas. I would not have beaten this at all without a guide, as I just thought the stomping and tail swiping was completely random. Even knowing how it works, this fight is just annoying, its another enemy that trolls you for even daring to use combo finishers, so help you god if you press Circle 3 times, you either land directly into a claw swipe or ping off of her head when she starts chomping - leading to the most frustrating aspect of this entry, startup and recovery of animations... this deserves its own paragraph.

Having any defensive ability at all from second one is pretty much standard in action games. So coming into KH I felt pretty neutered.

Also fairly standard in action games is the ability to cancel out of basic attacks (for those who don't know: 'cancelling' is interrupting an animation with another one before it ends.) into special moves or defensive actions. By contrast, pretty much every action in KH is committal. So seeing Sora miss when I try to attack an enemy THAT I AM LOCKED ON TO, or get hit out of a combo finisher because the enemy doesn't get staggered by attacks felt like getting a snotty spitball straight to the face every time.

By far the WORST effect of this was the experience of using block after actually receiving it 10 fucking hours into the game. blocking feels like it has very little efficacy compared to dodge rolling as you really don't need to be too defensive with standard enemies and there's this awfully long recovery after you block, you don't *gain* an opportunity to attack after blocking most enemies.

This is most exemplified with the Hollow Bastion Riku fight. If you block ANY of his attacks, he will recover at the exact same time as you AND he recovers out of range of your attack because blocking knocks him back. Just...walking away is both easier, and more effective, so why block?

TL;DR

The true boss of Kingdom Hearts is having to unlearn how every other action game works first to enjoy the combat. I earlier mentioned my gaming history prior to playing to detail what I believe might be a very common experience for people who DIDN'T grow up with the game, because a lot of people lose perspective on things in video games and start to believe their franchise of choice is the norm. A lot of the design of this game is...enigmatic. And I feel the design itself discourages people new to the franchise from experimenting with the mechanics.

I would pretty much never use any magic outside of what I had on my shortcuts because the command menu means I cant switch quickly back to attacking if I lose my opening. Hell, I didn't even use items myself unless I was on the opposite side of an arena from any enemies.

I stopped using block because it rarely ever lead to me being offered an opportunity.

I rarely use combo finishers because so many bosses simply don't react to the last or second to last hits.

For a game that has so much other enjoyable interactions, with puzzles, Sora relating the stories of other worlds with his own, great story and atmosphere. The bosses seem a lot of the time like actively malicious experiences