Vanitas' Remnant is the Standard all Secret KH Bosses Should Strive to Avoid

Vanitas' Remnant is the WORST secret boss in KH history. Literally a reskin of Ventus' secret boss with a ridiculous stat buff... and that's it.
It's so lazy, it's such bad design. With the benefit of hindsight, so is the Mysterious Figure. Because it's pretty clear that MF is just a buffed version of the second half of the Young Xehanort fight from DDD.
A good secret boss? Both Sephiroth fights. Yeah lots of people complain about it being too easy, but the thing is, Sephiroth isn't a SLOG. His attacks are powerful, have huge range, and little lag or start up time... but there are ways to DEAL with these attacks. You don't just sit around waiting for him to stop attacking and hit him with a thunder dash. Sephiroth also introduces new attacks as the battle goes on, and becomes increasingly aggressive as the battle goes on, leading to a good progression.
Unfortunately, it looks like KH final bosses are leaning more towards dodgefests with overly specific weaknesses.

 

It's kinda sad actually. KH secret bosses nowadays rely you on spamming commands (Thunder Surge, Balloonga, etc.), and keep on spamming the square button/X button. I personally think that Vanitas Remnant's design is cool, But I wish thet they had the time to change his appearance a bit more. MF's model in BbS is Saix's model, from what I've read on the wikis. And I agree that Sephiroth is a good secret boss. Wish that Square should have Sephiroth appear in KHIII.

 

Am I the only one who's tired of Sephiroth?

3D changed it up by using Julius as a secret boss and it was an awesome fight!

We need more Disney secret boss fights imo

 

Hasn' t Nomura said in interviews that he (or no one in his team, can' t remember) actually beat MF ? I' m not sure they figured out spamming thunder surges was the way to go, hell, it' s not the only way to beat him, I' d wager this was just the devs stacking the odds against us as much as they could, short of making him invincible, and going "Our job here is done, now YOU figure it out. Good luck, you' ll need it lol."

Sure, if you just followed a walkthrough and/or watched vids to have the "thunder surge and dodge" method spoon-fed to you then he' s a snore-fest. An annoying luck-based snore-fest at that, given his cheap insta-kill whip and Ima going invizibl lul. But I' ve waited months to look for tips online and he sure gave me a run for my money. Let' s keep it real, how many of you actually found that method out empirically ? In contrast both Sephiroths fell to my keyblade much, much more quickly and without any need for tips. The way to beat them is much less elusive.

As for VR I beat him with my own method, the one plastered all over the net doesn' t suit me at all. And no, he' s not just a stat buff, he has new moves. If you tried to beat him the way you did before chances are he stuck your keyblade far up your ass.

So far I haven' t seen any secret boss standard that they should reproduce at nauseum nor avoid. As far as I can tell they try to give each his own spin, which is all I' m asking for.

I haven' t played DDD but ... it was made after BBS. If there' s a copycat in that picture it' s not MF, it' s the other. Besides, I haven' t played any FM either but, Days and ReCoded aside, haven' t KH über secret bosses traditionally been buffed up versions of characters planned to properly appear in the next game ? They' re not just bosses, they' re also deliberate cryptic teasers (i.e. spoilers, not just in terms of story but also in terms of gameplay).

 

Considering elements of KH3D were found in BBS FM, AND the attack pattern of MF and YMX are nearly identical... I'm going with the stat buff theory.
Whether you figure out the thunder dash thing or not, the fact remains that all the average player does in vanitas' remnant, mysterious figure or julias fights is dodge dodge dodge, use quick attack for WAY TOO LONG

 

It might also be that that just happens to be the way that works against those bosses the best. A lot of people that play the game might find it incredibly easy to figure out how to do that, especially if they use the dodge button, but I'm also pretty sure it wasn't made to be like that. People always end up finding the easy/fast way, and it just ends up that everyone else follows it. I have never played BBS, so I wouldn't know fighting against MF, but I can say that in every game, there is always a way to string stuff together to make Secret Bosses a lot easier. I personally never dodge, or if I do it's because I hit the button accidentally or not paying attention at all, but I like to go in ducking it out with the boss. Granted it's not what most people do, but I like to go down fighting, instead of running around like a mad man waiting to get one or two hits in and taking two hours on the fight.

Also, I'm not saying Sephiroth is the best Secret boss out there either. I would say so far I like him best just because he's an awesome character, great songs, and his attacks do his hard and his teleporting his a nuisance more than anything, but I just find it fun that I can wait on him and he can wail on me. I'll find out what Julius is like once I get that far, although he seems annoying just because he's always running around like a mad....actually, what is he running around like?

Maybe I watched too much DBZ, Yu Yu Hakusho, and other one-on-one fighting shows when I was young, and I might like the thought of going down fighting instead of running around, messing up, and getting murdered, but it's just the way I play my games.

 

This is more or less one of the things I complained about in my Second Chance/Once More thread. Julius in DDD was an improvement, not nearly where I want to be, but by all standards better than the ones in BBS imo. It felt about on par with the data fights from KH2FM but just slightly worse.

Like I said in the aforementioned thread, I'm sick of boss fights that rely on luck to beat. I want to feel like I accomplished something significant by beating them (Sephiroth and LS), not like I just lucked out.

 

I 100% agree! These secret bosses were awful. A one or two hit kill with a basic attack is stupid. Like mysterious figure. His combos are pointless if that 1 swing out of that 10 hit combo kills you. You literally had to cheese your way through those bosses by spamming dodge roll. I would really like to see some one do it with out it or at least with thunder roll that doesn't make you invincible. Julius was an improvement but not a fix.

 

If one of those ten hits doesn' t land the next one will kill you, it kisses your once more second chance bye bye. What you can do instead of rolling around is use heal guard, and throw a counter right in his teeth if one of his hits misses.

I actually didn' t know that rolling around non-stop left you invincible 99% of the time (I' m the confrontational type Vivid Green described) so I didn' t do it before I read it was an option online, yet I managed to get to the second half of the fight quite regularly just using glide, single rolls, guards and counters. It' s not as reliable a method, but it works. Spamming square doesn' t work for Terra anyway. Granted, once MF starts turning invisible spamming square is by far your best hope at survival (though you can still keep your eyes open for a heal guard opportunity), that' s why I listed his invisibility as his second cheap move.

I haven' t fought either Sephiroth in years, but what few I remember doing is gliding around way too long, spamming elixirs all along, trying to finally reach him, land a hit and ... darn that coward weasel is already gone. For me he was the mechanical, predictable fight (not saying he has to be fought like that, that' s just what I ended up doing). They all rely on patterns, they have to, the only fundamental difference I can spot between MF and the others I' ve fought is that he requires not just a tactic but also luck, which is fairly common in RPGs. As long as it' s not plain broken and reserved for a few boss fights I' m fine with it.

I do understand how frustrating it is to be denied a victory despite having the tactics figured out already, I felt it myself, but on the other hand when I actually beat MF with Terra I yelled out loud and my hands were shaking. When I beat either Sephiroth I was just meh, what' s next ?

 

I actually want to see Genesis as a secret boss in KH3 this time, though hopefully he won't force you to spam the same commands or just be easy to fool. I loved fighting Sephiroth, though I found him too easy in the 2nd game once I got used to him. His AI's quite easy to fool at the start of the battle, so I just felt like I was getting free, easy hits on him =/ . As for Vanitas' Lingering Spirit, I just didn't like the Strike Raid exploit or how he just felt like... well.. Vanitas. And my complaint with Mysterious Figure is how it feels like you're forced to spam the surges to beat him, other than that, his difficulty was good enough to make me want to rechallenge him again XD. So for the new secret boss in KH, I feel they should make a boss that has a good AI, doesn't force you to spam the same move over and over (or have an exploit like Julius with Balloonga), and has a great difficulty that will make the player want to rechallenge him/her again.

 

I actually liked Vanitas Remnant because it was bound by the same restrictions as the player and still managed to be difficult. It had 8 "commands" and a Shotlock, and all of those had to recharge before they could be used again. The only way that it "cheated" was with its ridiculous speed.

Do your research better. Those elements from DDD were only from the trailers and had absolutely nothing to do with the gameplay. The KH3D engine wasn't totally finished yet, so they made the trailer in BBSFM's engine instead. Further, they were also only in BBSFM, which was Mysterious Figure's second appearance. MF isn't a buffed version of Young Xehanort, YX is a debuff of MF.

 

Obviously I don't know if what I'm saying is true, it's an extrapolation on my part. The signs, to me, suggest that DDD was originally developed with the PSP in mind
MF seems like a common case of a boss built around testing a concept for a future game, and is functionally nearly identical in DDD.
So you know what? I have a degree of confidence in what I say

 

Oh come on I wouldn't say the worst DO NOT REPLY TO THIS COMMENT LOL o_0

 

But it is the worst

 

I don't know if it was made with the PSP in mind, but I do know that since BBSFM had some early DDD assets, I think that it would be fair to assume that DDD runs on an offshoot of BBS' engine. That may be why MF and YMX (who are SUPPOSED to be the same person) have nearly identical movesets.

Honestly, I think the only reason Young Xehanort used his old techniques was to reference the fight from Birth by Sleep.

Anyway, getting back to the point of the thread, the Vanitas Remnant (and MF) are some of the few bosses in KH history that made me so upset about losing for the millionth time that I thought about quitting the game; a videogame should never make you NOT want to play it.

Julius, while better in terms of being less luck based, I thought was really easy to exploit in the AI-department, and I can't imagine him having any sort of importance in the story in the future, unlike most of the secret/extra bosses.

 

I just remembered the cheap attack where MF grabs you and pulls you upward then slams you (or throws you idk) into the ground. the attack is a one-hit kill and the fact that even if you use once more or second chance he does the same exact move on you right after that. He felt broken every time I died like that.

 

^ That right there, just way too cheap. On top of that, in the original version it's not blockable, you HAVE to dodge it or abuse a surge's invincibility. I heard in Final Mix it's blockable, though I have yet to test that. There's also that part in the original where he turns invisible when you take down enough health ._. . I might end up uploading videos of the MF fights in both the original and in Final Mix as a comparison in the future.

Edit: I also couldn't help but notice a difference in his AI's behavior when fighting him as both Terra and Aqua (I have yet to fight him as Ven). I noticed when playing as Aqua he tended to spam Death and Stopga a lot more than he did with Terra.

 

I'm gonna have to stop you there and explain why you're slightly wrong.

First let's talk about KHI Sephiroth. I actually have no problem with this one. It's one of the most fun and challenging secret bosses I've fought in a game. He starts the fight off slow, with only two or three attacks at his disposal, but even these serve as a check to weaker players who will suffer dearly from being struck by them. Powerful enough to intimidate, but not so strong that you can't afford to make even one mistake. Once you're able to get around those attacks, you've proven your worth and the fight gradually begins to escalate in difficulty. Heartless Angel will seem unfair the first time, but every time after that you begin to understand how massively telegraphed it is, and you can stop it consistently because he's always near you when he starts it. It's at the half-way point that things start to get fun. Changing pace from a leisurely stroll to a full-on sprint is enough to throw most people off their game; but introducing orbiting projectiles, a more dangerous standard attack with wider reach, and an ultimate attack that, though moderately easy to avoid, puts tension on a near-death player during and after, makes him a credible threat to even a powerleveled player. They keys here are that (1) KHI Sephiroth is not wasteful, as he does only what he needs to put pressure on you; (2) KHI Sephiroth has variety in his attacks, as each one requires a markedly different response; and (3) KHI Sephiroth has a smooth difficulty curve, ratcheting up from fairly simple to crazy hard in a way that allows the player to observe and react to the changing conditions.

By contrast, KHII Sephiroth has none of these traits.

He leads the fight with an attack that can kill. He then proceeds to mash absurdly long combo attacks any time you get near him. The energy spheres he summons are now more of a nuisance than anything, and he tosses them at you in waves to burn all of your MP on Reflect. Which, funnily enough, is the only way to beat out two of his attacks, so eventually you have to take damage. Instead of trying to catch you slipping with his fire column, it just has vacuum properties so it can pull you in from anywhere on the screen. His Heartless Angel is less consistently beatable, even if you see it coming a mile away. And he never actually gets harder; he just gets more unfair, every once in a while cranking up the insane attack spams and extending his reach and jumping halfway across the battlefield with one attack, ensuring that no matter how many hits you block at least one of them is going to land because his hitboxes are just too outrageous to be stopped, and as soon as one catches you, all your effort has gone to waste because now you're in a combo and if it doesn't kill he'll probably follow it up with something that does.

KHII Sephiroth. Is. Terrible. It's frustrating, unrewarding, and a pitiful representation of its heritage from the first game, and I feel bad for anyone who's only fought the second one.

Not to mention, if you dislike the direction secret bosses have taken, you can blame Sephiroth's second incarnation. Because it sowed every last one of those seeds. It was a rehash of a successful boss that was way less fun due to long reach, too many hits, and mindlessly bombarding the player with samey attacks that can all be blocked or avoided using the same mechanism until it eventually fails due to either running out of juice or the player f██king up just once. Although I think it's kind of silly to pick on the MF for being a rehash, because several memorable bosses in series history were just alternate versions of either future bosses or playable characters. Unknown in KH Final Mix is a mash of Xemnas's varying fighting styles, and the Lingering Sentiment has a lot of moves the player can use in Birth by Sleep, albeit scaled down somewhat.

That said, what I liked about Vanitas Remnant was that it didn't straight-up battle you to the death; it actually used status effects to confound you and healed when it got an opening to do so. I think KH's enemy design could learn some creativity from that, but otherwise, I would agree that it's more obnoxious than it is difficult. I really had no drive to even fight the MF, much less get to a level where I can competently kill it, so I can't speak on that one - but considering the strategy boils down to "Thunder Surge like a madman and sacrifice a couple goats to Satan for good measure," I'm gonna guess it's just as bad. One boss that does use this sort of formula and was still a fun fight for me is Julius; many of his attacks are fatal, or at least hard-hitting, but they're all set up in a way to pressure you rather than hit you over and over. And he also has the common sense to try and take out your commands. At the same time, if you're good enough, you can beat that fight consistently without taking damage.