"What's that? The player should be able to experiment with all kinds of different attacks and command setups? No, that'd mean we'd have to design a genuinely challenging boss so that no one strategy can cheese it. Hard pass."
@matty9460 *Vanitas Remnant:* lol You wanted to use shotlocks? Oh Sorry, I'm immune to the damage. *Vanitas Remnant:* You wanna use Curaga? Go for it, what's your's is mine!
the one but important reason why boss fights are so hard is because they have a possibility to not stun at all and worst of all, break out of stuns at random
A boss is supposed to test the mechanics you've learned and mastered throughout the game up until that point, not exist to render them all effectively useless and force the player into using basically one strategy that has them rework their entire style or otherwise punish them for playing the way the game has taught them. That is the definition of counter-intuitive. That is how you make a bad boss.
But what you just described is how a vast majority of games (other KH titles included) handle optional super bosses. So does that mean that optional super bosses just shouldn't exist then?
@@NEETKitten Except it isn't, at least not in any of the good KH games or good action games in general. Just a couple examples: the optimal strategy for Saix is looping him with peter pan. Just like MF you can abuse a single mechanic to do the whole fight, however unlike MF you can actually use other strategies if you choose to. Saix has actual openings that can actually be punished, with regular combos or magic or what have you. peter pan is one out of many options, and is definitely the most boring. if you try to go for a regular combo, or most commands other than surges or raids on MF you're in for a bad and completely random time, because he isn't consistently responsive to anything other than a singular mechanic unlike other bosses in the series. another example that the guy before me mentioned but didnt iterate on is lingering will. just like MF, you can cheese the fight with a single mechanic, and its the most optimal strat. put on neg combo and fenrir and jump finisher til hes dead. once again tho unlike MF you can actually engage in a real battle with him and it be responsive and fun if you learn how to react to his moves and punish. for both of these bosses, there are plently of ways to take advantage of limits, summons, drives. every tool in sora's toolkit. i could probably go on about how this applies to many superbosses in the main numbered series and even in other game franchises if i felt like it. excusing BBS' terrible superbosses by saying "but all da superbosses only allow one strat" is dumb and false
@@joshreinhardt3719 Look, MF is bad. Really bad. I'm not saying otherwise. But to act like BBS is the worst, most broken thing ever because of one boss is asinine, especially with other challenges in other games offering just as much, if not more bullshit than what MF brings to the table with his random nonsense (hello KH1 Sephiroth!)
They actually attempted to make a counter to the elemental rolls without considering that the rolls' inherent lack of i-frames would actually have majorly negative effects. What a joke.
Really hope The good fan feedback has been listened and Nomura keeps a very close eye to the Osaka team. Hope we can trust Nomura when he said that they learned a lot about what made kh2 great when they were remastering KH1.5-2.5. Beating a boss through effort and learning their mechanic was so damn satisfying in kh2.
Alternate alternate video: why Phantom Aqua is hopeful for humanoid bosses and pre-patch Devil Waves are worrisome for the constant stream of large bosses they show.
Yeah, the music is nice. Too bad you won't be able to hear it most of the time because the only thing you'll be hearing is the ringing of the health bar lmfao.
I think you can see it in the design they probably thought it was really clever to have a boss that responds to all kinds of tactics. Avoids mine square, punishes shotlocks, dooms you if you have too much cure A lot of osaka team design feels largely like they thought "wouldn't it be cool if this happened?" without really considering the player
To set up Young Xehanort for DDD. Looking at the fight's design, I suspect you're not even expected to win it in the first place. They probably though that such an absurdly anti-player-choice kind of design would leave a bigger impression on the player, so that once you play DDD, you'd see Young Xehanort at the end of the game and go *"oh SHIT it's THAT GUY"* Still a terrible choice though. Forgoing good boss design for the sake of making a reveal in a *fucking sequel* isn't worth it at all. Xemnas and Terra were memorable in KH1 and KH2 because they were fantastic battles that genuinely challenged the player and demanded they learn the mechanics proper of their respective games. The team kind of missed the point of those when designing MF
@@mega20able i doubt they had it planned out that far ahead. iirc the devs just liked having really tough & cool secret bosses. whoever designed MF just went overboard
1:25 Oh fucking lovely, so he's an Atlus boss fight. For those unaware, Atlus games like the older Persona games, and the SMT games, loved having bonus bosses that will actually straight up instant kill you if you fail to follow their rules that they never explain to you. Even if you follow the rules, they can still RNG instant kill you. Very fun.
@@MrChaotic4 and beating this boss with terra in particular is worse than a death sentence, in fact, it IS a death sentence. because you will die. over. and over. and OVER AGAIN.
Considering the real op commands in that game aren't the ones the devs obviously *intended* to be op(i.e. the flashy, cool looking, hard to obtain ones like megaflare, ars, etc.) I could see that happenning. Like, Osaka team was so out of sync with how their game actually plays that they never noticed surge spamming was one of the most viable strats their game has. I am not saying that is definitely what happened, but I am saying I can't rule it out. And that is just sad.
I think this is a problem that comes with a command deck like battle system in the first place With the right commands, it makes fights too easy and to make a command deck battle system perfect, every option has to be viable every 100 option but they really needed a stagger mechanic, that's what's important
i find it funny that an ultra boss designed to test your skills is literally coded to avoid d-links when they usually go underutilized anyway, great way to encourage the player to use every ability at their disposal
While i love most of BBS, it does have some flaws. This fight and the Vanitas Remnant are two of the biggest ones. I want to know why something this messy was ever okayed, Why the developers though this was okay and an actual test of skill instead of just mashing square and triangle.
Superslash I do believe the Command System does have potential to be good and require strategy, however in this fight if you try anything besides Thunder Surge or Ariel Slam, MF will probably be able to dodge it and kill you. Again, really makes you wonder you, did the intend the player to find some broken move in the game? Cause otherwise this would be impossible with Terra.
To be honest, Vanitas Remnant is "okay" cuz Terra can dodge his moves like 90% of the time on reaction and generally not get clipped at the end of Slide, the only real annoying problem is that he can break out of every hit...but that's the problem with all superbosses anyway
Gary Tomás Constanza Martinez japanese playtesters who never wanted to fight him ever again lmao, proof that misery is universal and only a sadomasochist would enjoy MF www.khinsider.com/news/MonsterVine-Interview-June-2010-1477
fun fact: nomura helped desing this fight and when he saw that the devs were struggling with 4 hp bars he said to add another one so yeah say thanks to nomura for the pain
Data fights in kh2: has a certain revenge value that can be met if the player attacks but still has vunerable spots the player needs to look out for. Mysterious figure: haha clones and lightsabers go brrrrrrrrr
I fucking knew it was Ice Slide... I had a hunch the last time i was fighting MF as Terra, and I figured I wouldn't be doing any damage with it anyway so I swapped it out for Air Slide. Suddenly, he no longer spammed doom in the first phase. I guess it's reassuring to know it's an actual thing.
Dude I remember in high school when me and a friend kept trying yo beat this dude 20+ tries. On try 24 or so I was close to beating him and he fucking reversed time and used meteor, he never used meteor once on any other try it was ridiculous we didn't even know he could do that.
I was getting absolutely bodied by doom in first phase as terra and had no clue why. I checked my commands and I only had 2 curagas equipped. Watched this video and turns out I had ice slide in the 4th spot. Thank you so much for this video.
They could have fixed this boss so easily in 2.5 just by adapting terras dodge to be more in line with how ven & aqua with a faster recovery and a few more I frames. There are move combinations that are literally impossible to avoid as terra you just have to tank heal through them; this boss was clearly designed entirely around ven or aqua during initial development. It's a shame they go to do much effort to make a flashy fancy boss with such an interesting move set, then forget to make him actually any fun to fight.
Not likely, he can break out of any hit at any time, so while it can possibly create an opening, it probably wouldn't overall be smarter than just Surging him constantly
I've actually been working on a strat to beat MF without dodging, Surges, D-Links, or Finishers (despite knowing it's a terrible fight and that this is a bad idea). You can't loop him, he's far too random for that. However, there is a consistent response to most of his first phase attacks -- in a vacuum, anyway, and only as Aqua. * Tornado can be jumped over. * His combos and charging attacks can be blocked. * The clones can be killed with Fission Firaga -- but you need sufficient MAG to do so (somewhere around level 55). * Light Spears can be blocked. Timing is weird but consistent -- one of the few attacks you can't mash through. * Raging Storm is the hardest to avoid. You have to jump, Doubleflight, Block in midair to halt your fall, then Fission Firaga. It will knock MF upwards, during which time you have to land and jump, Doubleflight, midair-Block again. You have maybe 10-12 frames of wiggle room for this. Proof of concept: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gQi6jMU75s0.html * I'm wondering if Doom can be jumped over, but I haven't made it to phase II yet. The other issue is how I'm going to damage him with Fission Firaga while he's invisible, since that's the only attack Command I've brought in my past attempts.
gamerprince1999 it’s more inline of how the combat plays out in KH3. A lot of ppl prefer physical combat; instead of flashy moves. Not to mention how there’s no gravity pulling you down mid-combo.
You said yourself SECRET BOSS FIGHT , everything else is meh at best. I mean is too much to ask for actually good boss fights that were present in a 2005 ps2 game on a ps4 game ?
This boss is legitimately the worst boss fight in any video game that wasn't legitimately glitched to hell and back. Kh3, despite being absurdly easy, does not have this. it doesn't have any boss even remotely this bad. I'm legit never going to be not mad about this fight. At this point I just honestly hope kh3 bosses are never going to go this direction. dlc bosses anyways. But hey, at least I'm fairly sure it'll lever be like this... right?
I actually didn't know he could use Doom on the first phase so this is a surprise to me I guess it makes sense why I never saw it since I always brought a max of 4 cures into the fight and never used fire roll/ice slide/ thunder roll because why would I ever use them? I also never knew that he used orbs when using shotlocks, I remember I used a shotlock a couple of times and it just healed him every time so I never used one ever again, don't remember the orbs. Is it not just a thing that just happens to counter the character's ultimate shotlocks?
Man, I always knew this fight was broken, but for him to potentially instantly kill you with a hard to dodge spell based on your setup is just too much. Even if your level 99 on normal difficulty and you have all the damage reducers on, he can still bring you to one hp in just three or four hits. At least Terra’s Will was mostly fair and fun to fight.
I'm relieved to find out that I had a safe set-up when fighting him. I always alternated Curaga and Thunder Surges against tougher bosses out of habit.
This explains so much! I was stuck on this boss for hours feeling like I was making no progress, entirely because I had Ice Slide in slot 4. As soon as I switched it, this became so much more manageable (albeit, still an annoying battle). Beat it 2nd try after moving Ice Slide to slot 5. Thanks!
Good video, i was looking for something like this about 2 years ago when i beat MF on Crit as Terra while he was Doom spamming me. Afterwards i went to watch other people beat him and i was mindblown how much easier their first phase was compared to mine.
Thank you so much for these tips! I just beat him last night and with Ventus and Aqua. Your times really helped keep him from spamming doom in the beginning of the fight thank you!!! I'm forever grateful for all the videos you make.
a handy thing I found in fighting MF was just using a quick hitting shotlock, but only locking on for 3 hits at a time, usually when he hops into the air and tries to thread you upwards. Any more than that and he'll slap up his shield that heals him.
I followed this guide, and it helped me finally beat this bastard! The fact that he rarely ever used Doom, and even then only in the phase where he turns invisible (because that's immaculately fair and not cheap or broken in the slightest) made this battle slightly more manageable.
For new people to this video, his Ai is significantly easier if you unequip most all commands and use base dodge, i found it makes beating him with terra consistent
Easily the worst fight in the entire series due to how restrictive it makes the player. I mean...seriously almost 95% of videos for strats I see use the Thunder Surge spam.
So... let me get this straight, we're they intending to prevent you from heal spamming or using shot lock? That's odd though, when I used Terra Ultima Cannon, he didn't block it. Then again, it might be because the orb is considered a detonate type damage.
I'd just like to take a moment to be thankful for the fact that you can now dash of that whip move. You know, the one where he jumps into the air and stabs you then slams you onto the ground? In the original BBS if you got hit by that you were completely at the mercy of RNG and the odds were not in your favor, since it kills second chance and once more, and you have the lengthy animation of having to get up from it during which there are many things MF can do to kill you without you being able to do anything about it. Now you can just dash when you get impaled and not have to worry
The Osaka team really kind of fluffed up most of the super bosses up until KH3, which actually has good ones. Mysterious Figure is poorly put together and way too RNG based, especially when he starts combining lasers with tornados. Dustflier is just tedious and can, apparently (hasn't happened to me from what I recall) despawn and then respawn with full health. Re:Coded's super bosses are just stronger versions of the other bosses. With the data fights, this worked. With a bugged out Data Roxas with nothing new in the fight other than more health, more strength and getting big, it doesn't. Julius in DDD is the complete other end of the spectrum from MF by being too easy. I like a well choreographed super boss (Yozora, for example, is amazing for that), but Julius just seems like a souped up version of a standard Disney world boss.
While playing as Terra you can also inflict doom on someone with the dark haze command and it will always be a five second countdown each time like time bomb in dream drop distance
After following what the author said and minimising doom, the key I think is being as aggressive as possible to reduce the fight duration to the least possible. When I finally beat him it happened within 3 mins. Less rolling more surging.
I wish I has watched this before I gave up on it for being to hard, but I wanted to get the platinum and that was the only thing I needed. So I replayed and did the Journal all over with Terra in east mode.
OMG!!!! after hours and days of dying after watching this video learning about the doom in the first phase I moved ice slide and then I BEAT HIM!!!! Thank you so much!!! Now I can finally play as aqua and then platinum the game 🥳🥳🥳🥳🙏🙏🙏🙏
A question concerning the mine section of the Ai. It's coded to jump over Mine Square (unless it's attacking with the blade combo, then it runs right over it). Does the jump also include the Other -mines (mine shield and Aqua's Seeker mines)?
Tibasu Final Fantasy V has a boss where you win by doing nothing, and if you try to beat it the old fashioned way it spits your own moves back at you with even more power. I'd say that's worse boss design than MF, but for completely opposite reasons.
@@HunterStiles651 naah that's just a gimmick, though an outside-the-box style boss fight which is actually hilarious now that you've mentioned it. MF doesn't even have a gimmick...it is just OP moves on top of OP moves that takes exploitable moves to even compete with. His moves are SO OP and vast that you can and WILL be greeted with new ones seemingly every time you fight the bastard.
Man the concept for this fight was incredibly awesome. The idea that this boss in particular will adapt accordingly to your load out, so switching out abilities may not help you beat him, would have made this a fun fight. It may have even felt like fighting another person. The closest to a pvp like fight that Kh could have provided. It was just executed poorly due to MF’s ridiculous move-set mixed with BBS’s unbalanced abilities and lack of stagger for basic attacks. Not to mention some characters have very poor evasive options that just aren’t enough to dodge MF without impeccable timing. And by some characters I mean Terra. Seriously, god forbid you fight this bastard with Terra on any of the higher difficulties. And if you have, you’ve got my undying respect and sorrow for your poor sanity.
i was under the impression you just travel to land of departure before you trigger the keyblade graveyard fight. and you fight vanitas by activating some emblem in the middle of the tornado area in the graveyard.
By the time it got to the final phase I usually tunneled the boss for max damage mostly because of the invisibility ability, so the last couple of bars would go by in about 30-50 seconds if I got lucky, and still haven't gotten past lingering spirit for Terra, yea.
I have tested it when I fought this boss int he psp version and the abilities seem to affect his AI. with everything equipped, he was super relentless. he actually combined his moves and killed me pretty much instantly. Then, I used went in with bare essentials and he was 10x tamer. Never spammed moves or combined moves. It could just be pure coincidence but it felt like that to me.
Is still possible is cancel him casting vanish in second phase on 2.5? I’ve only it done in psp version via surging into him while he’s casting vanish.
I've personally noticed that he'll use doom first phase if you attack him right as the battle begins. If you run around him to start and let him make the first move, he usually won't use doom until the second phase. That's how it works for me, but I could be wrong.
Not sure why, I didn't equip the element dodge moves and I never had more than four cure commands. Maybe my memory is goofing with me, or they changed it in final mix
Everyone out here saying Thunder Surge cheese is the only way to beat MF with Terra... And I blocked and countered for the finishers because I just couldn't figure out Thunder Surge timing
Blocking and countering into finishers, especially with Royal Radiance, is the second easiest way to beat him aside from Surges. As for timing, it's mostly just spam. Even if you time it, he can still randomly break out
This really teaches you to appreciate the fact that Osaka team also made Phantom Aqua, and if videos of CritLV50 that were made within the past 6 months say anything, it's that they've finally figured out what good boss design looks likes.
Couldn't disagree more. LW/Terra, I grew to love Phantom Aqua: I honestly hate more than this. I'd rather they go back to LW style super bosses. Maybe one with a bit more snappy reflexes, I noticed alot of LW's attacks had huge, honking wind ups. In exchange, PLEASE tell me they'll shelve the Shock Release tradition of KH superbosses in the numbered titles.
Except that Osaka team's best boss WAS Phantom Aqua. They can't 'go back' to "LW style super bosses" because they were never there in the first place; Tokyo team designed Lingering Will. Phantom Aqua was their honest attempt at a better superboss compared to BBS and 3D's inspired by LW + the revenge value system and truly, it's a boss that relies on skill and does nothing to hinder the player's available arsenal. To consistently be able to beat Phantom Aqua at CritLV50 after learning the telegraphs for all her moves is a hallmark of objectively better boss design than the pure luck + cheese/spam tactics requirement of Vanitas Remnant, Mysterious Figure, and Julius. I'm curious as to how you could somehow hate PA more than the train explosion that was MF.
I'm talking more about looking more at what made LW's entire boss fight most fun in MY opinion- the variety. Phantom Aqua was stupid frustrating, but it was another thing I can't forgive: Fucking boring. If you see a move coming, you do one specific, no improv accepted, can't think on your toes thing to counter it, and then you mash X and repeat. With LW, you could do a good variety, both in avoiding, and punishing.
You also have to remember the scope of 0.2 as a 2-3 hour game. Aqua's arsenal was extremely limited, and Osaka team still made a superboss leagues better than VR+MF+Julius. We can't assume what they'll do for KH3's secret boss(es) with the concept of Keyblade transformations + active switching in mind based on this. I also don't agree with the "mash X" part. Yes, you could get by with normal combos, but experimenting a little bit with Magic and even Shotlock immediately opens up more variety with how the player builds their combo and maximizes the damage they deal with each opening. While there is always a most efficient way to defend against an attack, there are still multiple valid and capable options that still nets the player an attack opening for nothing if not style points. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GUDYV8eaTiE.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4y38KroOLwA.html To see Phantom Aqua as a shortcoming to Lingering Will rather than a major improvement on Vanitas Remnant, Mysterious Figure, and Julius is really the point at which you might as well be directly broadcasting "But why wasn't Tokyo team on KH3? It should have been Tokyo team! They should have been here to make BBS and 3D too!" over and over again.
Weeell, if I can be honest, I liked the VR, and even Julius wasn't really bad. The difference between what I'm talking about, and what those videos show is a MAJOR skill gap. This is someone who's practiced and fooled with this fight obviously for a longer time than you'd ever need to even beat the boss. Instead, players trying to beat the thing are shown one path to success, and anything else they'd try would end in failure. Keep in mind this thing called "Dominant Strategy". If there's a consistent way to circumvent an obstacle in a game, if allowed, there's a great chance the player's always going to use it. In a game this limited, and a boss THIS harshly punishing for experimenting, why would ANYONE try to experiment this much on the boss if not just to fool around.
years late, but from what i heard, isn't passive abilities just affecting the chances of him using time stop? might be placebo, but i did note he used less time stop when i disequipped most passive abilites. or it could just be me being lucky. It's the one atk of his that always wreck me. time stop.
Last I tested, his time stop only seems to happen if you crit during a physical hit, so equipping keyblades like Ultima Weapon will cause him to time stop more
@@Bizkit047 hmm, can't remember, but i am pretty sure i use the same keyblade for both scenarios(brightcrest iirc) and disequipping passives does make TS rarer. of course, i haven't tested to your extent. So it could just be me getting lucky.
i did actually fight him in the psp version with full set of abilities and then with only the bare esential ones. the former set up had him actually combine his moves and he was relentless. the latter, he was much slower and maneagable and never combined his moves. But it could have also been my set up with how much curaga i had compared to the surges.
I find it hard to believe he didn't use Doom 2nd phase if you beat the game with all 3 chars taking him out, you probably just didn't get hit by it with Aqua/Ven cuz they can dodge it easily, otherwise I'd love to see you do the full fight to see him not do it ever
I'm so glad I did 100% on bbs, so I won't have to fight that dude again...It took me litterally months to beat him with terra even knowing all the basic tips.
