I was out with friends recently and while talking about it, the age-old topic of gaming came up, which got us to the point where we had to throw away controllers Smashed Pro riddles do just that at a big tournament last year. The usual suspects were discussed over a drink: FromSoft games like Dark souls And Ax: Shadows Die Twiceas well as Cup head, Ninja Gaiden, great meat boy– all games that pissed me off once or twice during my time with them. However, nothing has ignited the Gamer Rage™ in me like Kingdom Hearts has, especially since Sephiroth is such a fucking asshole in this game. So much so that, I have to admit, the guy made me want to break a controller in half.
This is not the first time I voiced my complaints about Sephiroth in the 2002 action RPG Kingdom Hearts. Final Fantasy VIIThe silver-haired prince of evil is never a pushover in any incarnation, but here he’s a real masterpiece. At least he’s an optional boss here, so you can avoid the hair-raising, controller-breaking frustration if you want.
But if you really want to put your skills and stats to the test in this challenge, complete all the battles in Olympus Coliseum, a series of rounds that test your strength against the game’s toughest villains, and eventually you achieve the platinum match. Once inside, a beam of light shines down from a magenta sky. “Oh, who could that be?” I wondered when I first played through the game in my youth. You see the black wing, the silver hair, the 1st class soldier’s clothing. “Ah shit, it’s Sephiroth,” I said. Well, no problem. I smashed the other five trophies in the Olympus Colosseum with flying colors. I thought I was hot shit. “Whatever,” I said the iconic “One-Winged Angel” theme. entered. “I got that.”
Dear reader, I did not Take that.
The game starts out pretty painful, but isn’t particularly difficult at first. Sure, Sephiroth doesn’t shy away from most of Sora’s Keyblade strikes. However, there are some cases where you can interrupt his attacks. None of this matters, however, as Sephiroth can easily reduce Sora’s life bar to mere pixels with two or three hits. This is what pissed me off about the fight: Sephiroth is OP. I mean, I understand. He is also an operating room surgeon Final Fantasy VIISo it makes sense for Square Enix to continue this in its collaboration with Disney. But what makes this unfair is that it’s a one-on-one fight against him. Yes, while the other five Cups allow you to bring Donald and Goofy, the Platinum Match is a 1v1 match our big boy and the silver-haired menace. It is unpolite.
What makes the fight even rougher is Sephiroth’s second phase. When you get him to about half health, he becomes serious. Instead of running around the arena, he starts sprinting and in some cases even flying and teleporting around the ring. His spells become stronger and last longer on stage. He attacks more frequently and with such reckless abandon that his Masamune appears to span the entire length of the arena. He summons meteors that swing around him and hit Sora. In short, Sephiroth really wants to bury you at this point in the game. And fast!
So I went into the Platinum Match with the game’s maximum level of 100. When I started the fight, my confidence went through the roof because I was doing a lot of damage. Then I was surprised when I suddenly died a few minutes later. “Fuck it, I’ll try again,” I said, trying to be more aggressive on the second try while simultaneously monitoring my health more closely. It didn’t matter because I died. Again. “Oh my God,” I exclaimed as I restarted the game for the third and fourth time.
On about my tenth attempt to impersonate Sephiroth, I got him to less than 10 percent health. Even though I ran out of items to replenish my health and mana, victory was still in sight for me. In a final attempt, I flew into Sephiroth’s meteor storm, thinking I could stealthily avoid all the circling rocks floating around him. I did, but just as I pressed the attack button, I heard Sora’s death scream as a stupid rock ball hit me in the face. That’s when, in a moment of complete rage, I let the controller fly from my hands and watched its cheap plastic shatter into a million pieces.
Luckily it was fair a Mad Catz PS2 controllerone of those clunky wired gamepads that cost about $20 at Game Crazy (rest in peace). Sephiroth made me sweat; There was no way I could pass up Sony’s more expensive DualShock 2 deceased grandmaHowever, he wasn’t proud of my anger. I had to buy a new controller with the money I earned from chores and working around the neighborhood because as my grandma told me, “I don’t spend my money on trouble.” Sorry to let you down have, grandma. Sephiroth is just an asshole. You wouldn’t get it if you didn’t fight him Kingdom Hearts.
I didn’t play Final Fantasy VII Rebirth still. (Busy with Rise of the Ronin and now, Dragon’s Dogma 2.) So it’s possible that Sephiroth is just as much of an asshole there as he was there Kingdom Hearts. However, I finished Final Fantasy VII Remake and completely beat him up on the first try. I thought it would be easy there (and inside). Kingdom Hearts II), so I suspect he’ll probably be easy to beat in the 2024 sequel too. I wish he wasn’t so tough Kingdom Hearts, because its appearance here still haunts me over two decades later. And that Mad Catz controller broken in two is a memory I will never let go of.
Fuck Sephiroth. (I still love him though.)
