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While most bosses in the Kingdom Heartsseries feel quite suited to how, when, and where they appear, there are a select few who can be quite strange. Sometimes these bosses will rely on strange gimmicks to win a battle, or maybe the battle arena will require the player to put in a bit more work to beat them. While there have been many strange Kingdom Hearts bosses throughout the years, some are stranger than others.
6 Genie Jafar - Kingdom Hearts 1
During his visit to Agrabah, Sora makes the acquaintance of Jafar, a vindictive servant of Maleficent who is in search of Agrabah’s Keyhole. He isn’t the most physically intimidating villain in Kingdom Hearts 1, but he becomes incredibly powerful when he obtains the power to summon Genie.
When fought in his human form, Jafar can be quite difficult to defeat, but the second battle against him, where he transforms into a Genie, poses a completely different challenge. Instead of attacking Genie Jafar head-on, Sora will need to jump his way across a series of platforms, all while delivering blows to Iago, Jafar’s parrot. It is possible to cast magic at Genie Jafar during this battle, but it’s much more effective to focus on attacking Iago, which is quite strange considering how spectacular a direct battle against Genie Jafar could have been.
5 Spellican - Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance
The Spellican Dream Eater is arguably the strangest boss in all of Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. Unlike other bosses in the game, the Spellican has a habit of summoning powerful entities to aid it in combat. A few small Dream Eaters wouldn’t be too much of a challenge, but the Spellican prefers to summon the bosses Sora and Riku have previously defeated.
When it isn’t relying on allies to do its dirty work, it will rely on gimmicks to prolong the battle. One such gimmick it uses requires the player to use the Rail Slide ability to chase it down. When the Spellican is fought head-on, it proves to be an extremely capable combatant, which is strange considering how little it relies on physical combat.
4 Lucifer - Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is home to some of the strangest boss fights in the series. Most of what makes each battle so strange are how each boss is designed, but some bosses are unlike anything else. While playing through Ventus’ story, players will eventually reach the Castle of Dreams, wherein they will be forced to face Lucifer, one of the strangest enemies in the series.
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Though Lucifer is nothing more than a slightly aggressive house cat to the majority of those who encounter him, to Venus, he is a towering figure who can dish out some seriously high damage. While the battle functions similarly to most of the game’s other boss battles, there’s still something strange about it. Most battles in the series require the protagonist to defeat an otherworldly entity or someone with magical abilities, but here, Ventus must physically assault a disgruntled pet in order to progress the story.
3 Steamboat Captain Pete - Kingdom Hearts 2
Most battles against Pete in Kingdom Hearts 2 tend to operate with gimmicks in mind, but the battle against Pete’s black-and-white counterpart in Timeless River is different. This version of Pete clearly has no idea who Sora and his comrades are, but that doesn’t stop Sora from launching an attack.
The battle against Steamboat Captain Pete is arguably one of the easiest battles in the series, and though it may not seem obvious at first, there is a good reason for it. Steamboat Captain Pete doesn’t attack during this battle; he spends most of the fight in a battle pose, but never unleashes a single punch. Because of this, it is hard to consider him a boss, but Kingdom Hearts 2 chose to make him one nonetheless.
2 Hades - Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded
Most battles in the Kingdom Hearts series require the protagonist to hack and slash their way to victory, but Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded changed what boss battles could be. While a select few boss battles function similarly to how they do in other Kingdom Hearts titles, most of the bosses in Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded require players to partake in minigames.
These minigame-like battles are quite strange considering the well-established Kingdom Hearts formula, but the battle against Hades in Olympus Colosseum is arguably the strangest. Instead of attacking directly, the player is forced into a turn-based battle wherein they must take control of Sora, Cloud, and Hercules to dish out the necessary damage. Though Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories incorporates a somewhat similar style of combat, Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded only utilizes the turn-based battle system during Sora’s visit to Olympus Colosseum, which can feel quite strange during first playthroughs.
1 Oogie’s Manor - Kingdom Hearts 1
While the first battle against Oogie Boogie in Halloween Town is riddled with gimmicks, it isn’t overly strange. The same can’t be said, however, for the second battle against him, where the bug-filled menace grows to a gargantuan size and uses the remains of his manor to shield himself.
In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Oogie met a pretty swift end at Jack Skellington’s hand, but this isn’t the case here. In Kingdom Hearts 1, Sora must return to Oogie’s Manor and scale to the top while destroying the glowing purple blobs scattered all around. Oogie Boogie doesn’t have a health bar, so it’s up to the player to locate all the blobs if they wish to defeat him. This battle against Oogie Boogie remains one of the strangest boss battles in the series to date, both for how unexpected it is and also for how the player must approach it.
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