As you can no doubt tell, I’m in a big Kingdom Hearts mood, which means I’m ending my Listmas posts with yet another KH list!  Today, I’ll be ranking the boss battles from the first game, ranging from the absolute worst to the most fun.  Pretty simple, right?  Except, since there are so many bosses, I’m going to be largely focusing on major world bosses and secret bosses because it just seems way too tedious to rank characters like Leon and Yuffie and Cloud and whatnot.  So if someone’s been left out of the list, well, it’s probably because they didn’t seem memorable enough to me…or I got tired.  This is an RPG, after all, and there are A LOT of bosses!  And as usual, don’t forget to leave your thoughts in the comments below!

20: Ursula – Ursula was easily the worst boss fight in the whole game.  The second half has us fighting a giant version of the sea witch, where you have to whack her in the head while she overuses lightning magic.  She can also bite you.  It’s not a fun time at all.  But I actually found the first phase of the fight to be the absolute most miserable part, where you can’t damage her until you’ve hit her cauldron with a sufficient amount of magic.  Sometimes, I felt like I had to use way more magic than normal to get the cauldron to backfire.  And while you can attack Flotsam and Jetsam to recover some magic, this never seemed sufficient, so I’d have to use all sorts of ethers to get through this fight.  And since it takes so long to make her vulnerable, and then you could only damage her for short periods of time, this made the battle last far too long!  Hated it!  Hated it so much!

19: Jafar- Both phases of Jafar’s fight were just tedious.  In the first phase, he flies away a lot, forcing you to chase after him.  (Oh yeah, and Genie is forced to attack you against his will, so you’re stuck hearing, “I’m really sorry about this!” over and over again!)  And then, in the second half, when he turns into a genie, you don’t even fight him.  You just follow Iago around and attack the lamp for far too long.  It’s not nearly as miserable as Ursula’s fight, sure.  But it is boring.

18: Behemoth – This boss is okay.  You need to jump onto its back and attack its horn.  It’s not exactly very tough or bothersome.  It just seemed like a very random and unnecessary boss considering we had just defeated Riku and Maleficent, with the final boss on the way.  Had it been earlier in the game, that would have been one thing, but breaking up the game’s best moments just so I could fight this generic, hulking Heartless just seemed to serve no purpose but to waste my time.

17: Darkside – This boss can initially be fought in the tutorial, and although it was pretty easy, this giant shadowy Heartless was a great starting battle to the game.  It’s eerie and unsettling, and it’s the first taste you get that something dark lurks in the future of what I initially thought would be a lighthearted game with Disney characters.

16: Trickmaster – This lanky creature is the boss of Wonderland.  Because of its height, you need to be able to get up high to damage it, which can be rather annoying.  Normally, you can climb onto the table to better reach its weak point, but sometimes the table gets destroyed temporarily, making it very tough to do any damage.  And then, later on, it decided to hang out by the giant stove and kept using fire attacks on me, while I was unable to get close enough to damage it (again, due to its height).  I started to wonder if my game was bugged because it did this for a LONG time!  The boss’ penchant for juggling is rather amusing, I must admit, but that’s certainly not enough to improve my opinion of it.

15: Clayton – I really didn’t enjoy this battle.  It just seems overly difficult for this early in the game, and if I recall correctly, you don’t get Cure until after this fight, which would have been a very welcome ability to have!  Also, I just think Clayton looks absolutely goofy riding on the initially-invisible chameleon Heartless, the Stealth Sneak.  (It might be an odd reason to dislike this boss, but I find it so aggravating, I’ll use whatever excuse I like!)  Eventually, the Stealth Sneak becomes visible, and we need to fight it while Clayton shoots at us and occasionally heals himself.  I guess it’s kind of cool the first time, when you initially have no idea what the invisible Heartless looks like until the second half of the battle.  But it’s just not fun, and I hate it.  I hate it very much.

14: Parasite Cage – I don’t remember much about this guy.  Mainly, I just remember Pinocchio yelling “Get me outta here!” over and over again, as if he can’t tell that’s exactly what I’m trying to do.  And you also have Monstro’s stomach acid to deal with.  Which is not ideal.  Though I guess this guy was a decent challenge.  Just rather forgettable for me.

13: Oogie Boogie – This battle is…acceptable.  The first phase is pretty easy, though it’s just a bit annoying because you can’t damage Oogie unless you raise the platform at just the right spot to reach his location, which is constantly changing.  Then, when Oogie grows enormous and his creepy burlap body takes over his mansion, all you need to do is platform around and attack these big lumps.  The second half didn’t seem very necessary…or they could have, dunno, maybe actually done a bit more with it.

12: Cerberus – I have a personal grudge against this three-headed dog.  If you’re not sufficiently leveled up, you have no way to level up further in this world (nor are you allowed to leave), so you’d better make sure you’re ready before you face this vicious canine.  Cerberus is hard to get near due to his fireballs, dark breath, and three chomping heads.  If I recall correctly, I had to restart my original playthrough because I wasn’t sufficiently prepared for this guy.  And I will never forgive Cerberus for that.

11: Anti-Sora – Riku summons a dark version of Sora in Neverland.  While dark versions of characters are nothing new (Dark Link and Dark Samus, to name a few), I guess there’s a reason they’re common.  Because fighting an evil version of your hero will never not be cool, I guess.  Still pretty annoying when Sora’s dark form insists on repeatedly melting into the floor to avoid my attacks.  What a cheater!

10: Guard Armor/Opposite Armor – This pair of boss fights can be found in Traverse Town during two separate visits.  Both of these bosses are pretty dang easy, but they’re pretty fun, as well.  As a suit of armor with detached parts, I like the whole concept of defeating various pieces of the boss to weaken it.  Honestly, a lot of the battles in this game don’t really stand out to me.  So that’s why I’m ranking such an easy boss so high, just because there was something unique to keep my interest!

9: Phantom – This secret boss can only be found in the Final Mix version of the game, and honestly, a lot of the better boss fights came from this version.  The Phantom can be found outside the Clock Tower in Neverland and must be defeated by attacking this orb under its cloak with the appropriate magic (or your Keyblade if it’s white).  You also must stop the hands on the clock tower to halt a countdown that will KO anyone unlucky enough to be targeted by it.  My main complaint was that I sometimes struggled to get the clock hands to stop moving, which didn’t seem totally fair!

8: Captain Hook – I’ve always liked Captain Hook, so naturally, I had fun battling this rascally pirate.  Plus, you get to fly during this battle, which makes it even more memorable!  I just didn’t like having to fight a bunch of Heartless first because, if Hook manages to kill you, you have to fight them all over again.  Not much to say about this guy…just a fun battle with minimal complaints.

7: Kurt Zisa – Another secret boss added in Final Mix, this six-armed baddy can be found in the desert of Agrabah.  He’s not too difficult, but he’s pretty fun.  He can prevent you from using magic, forcing you to destroy these two orbs.  Then he can protect himself within a big barrier that can only be destroyed with magic.

6: Chernabog – On my initial playthrough, I did NOT expect to fight this guy, who just so happened to be from the part of Fantasia that frightened me the most as a kid.  This battle is like an actually good version of giant Ursula, where you fly around and fight a foe way larger than you, and facing off against this giant while “Night on Bald Mountain” plays just makes the whole thing way too epic!

5: Maleficent – The first battle against Maleficent was rather bothersome.  She floats around on this platform, and you must use Gravity to make it fall so you can attack her.  When she’s on the wider side of the room, it’s not that bad.  But when she goes to the narrow side, her projectiles take up the whole area, making approaching her next to impossible!  I barely beat her, and if I had lost, I would have lost 30 minutes of progress because I accidentally started the battle without saving, which made it all the more stressful!  And then, right after, there’s another, even more difficult battle, where you fight her dragon form!  And let me tell you, this battle is insane!  Maleficent just goes nuts breathing green fire everywhere and stomping around and creating shockwaves!  It’s just a super hectic experience, and I barely held on for dear life!  With that said, these two battles were pretty epic, and it’s crazy to think this wasn’t even the game’s final boss!

4: Riku – Okay, I know we fight Riku towards the beginning of Hollow Bastion, too, but I’m just going to talk about fighting him towards the end of this world.  This guy…was tough.  Because of him, I had to rewatch the very same cutscene over and over again, and back then, on the PS2, there was no way to skip them.  Nowadays, that is not the case, so fighting Riku is far less stressful, even if he’s still quite the challenge.  He is fast, and he is angry, and I just make sure I’m very leveled up before I face off against Sora’s friend gone rogue!  If you fought this guy in the original PS2 version, you’ll understand my trauma.  Still a cool fight, though.  And a personal one at that!

3: Ansem – As the final boss, this guy’s many phases can range from a fun challenge to outright aggravating.  Sometimes, you fight him on the ground, where he’s got this big creepy Heartless protecting him, which is pretty cool and intimidating (even though I hated that attack where it would grab you).  But I really didn’t like the part where you fight the giant Heartless…ship thingy?  The battle is tough, which is to be expected, and then when you think you’ve gotta be about done with it, there’s another phase, followed by another!  (And the image of a shirtless Ansem is just something I don’t want burned into my mind.)  Despite some later phases that kind of overstay their welcome, this battle as a whole was an epic end to an amazing game!

2: Sephiroth – Before Final Mix was released, Sephiroth was the toughest challenge in the game.  He is fast, intimidating, and he’s got the most epic boss music to have ever graced our ears, “One-Winged Angel”.  He’s actually pretty easy on level 100, admittedly, but this guy will always be one of the coolest battles Kingdom Hearts can offer.  I don’t need to justify why he’s where he is on this list.

1: Enigmatic Man – I won’t spoil who this guy is, but anyone who’s played pretty much any KH game with Organization XIII will know this hooded man’s identity.  Another Final Mix boss, this guy can be found in Hollow Bastion.  And the battle is just very frantic, difficult, and super epic.  Organization XIII have always been some of my all-time favorite villains, so seeing one of them retroactively added into Kingdom Hearts is just such a cool addition!