If you’ve played the first installation of Kingdom Hearts before all the way through, then there is one word that will be oppressed in the back of your mind with the rest of the final boss fight because of how unforgiving it seemed 20 years ago, and truthfully how much it still kind of is today.
That word is SUBMIT!
Hearing it now, I’m mentally dodge rolling away as fast as I can.
This game was known for having some really difficult bosses, and for being originally an early PlayStation 2 game, was also incredibly stiff. Most games back then were though. Here’s what I can tell you for going through on Proud Mode!
Make smart choices in the beginning!
Depending on how you’re choosing to go through the game, how you choose your configuration for Sora in the Awakening can have a massive shift in how easy the game will present itself to you! If you plan to focus on just the story but choose to take off at Midnight, you’re going to have a bad day!
In my Proud run, I chose the Shield and forsook the Staff. This gives you the most items, it gives you high defense and keeps your attack high too. You get less mana, but as “magic” isn’t a stat necessarily in this game it matters less because you can equip accessories/Keyblades later on if magic is the path you wanna take. I also chose the midday course to ensure that it was even throughout. Looking back, I do wish I had chosen the Dawn path because I wasn’t doing a full everything run. My intention was to skip the Coliseum and Atlantica but I had to go back and do them both for levels.
Make sure you spend some time familiarizing yourself with Donald and Goofy’s configuration!
Now it’s known that Donald is a bad healer and Goofy is so loose with using items. What if I told you, while you cannot make them “good” necessarily, you can make them better?
In the settings, there is a menu where you can set up which spells you have on your quick command. Donald and Goofy also have a tab here. This is so you can tell them what to do and what not to do and how often to do what you want them to do.
Now, while this is all said and good, how the AI will react to how you try to set it up is going to depend a lot on your play style. If you’re super run and swing without much thought into it, I don’t think even a good healer will help in some of these fights. I did notice, however, when I did my Proud run, when I spent some time doing a bit of guess and check with Donald specifically to get his AI to match up with my play style, he actually saved me once or twice.
Be aware, your partners will go down. A lot. It’s okay.
The most beneficial thing you can do to keep yourself moving in Proud mode is forget that you have people with you. Much like the above point, while yes you can tweak and try to get to a spot where they’re helping? In the end, it won’t matter a whole heck of a lot if you keep going down. Donald, Goofy, and the rest of your team will pop back up after a lil bit of being knocked out. You won’t.
My time through Proud, I had my team mates go down over 200 times, but I went down only 7. The only time I brought up my team members was A – I had plenty of mana or was wasting mana (I’ll go into that next) B – Donald had lots of mana and could heal me or Goofy back or C – Goofy had enough mana do to a mana gift. That was it. Mana is a super precious resource. So are the good items. This game does a great job at making emotional attachments to your team, but do not forget the mission! Survive!
Mana is precious! But don’t hoard it!
Mana is your health, it’s your defense, it’s your attacks. It’s a versatile weapon, but also fades very fast in the heat of battle and can be slow to recharge. Making sure you have abilities that will give you mana back fast can be the difference between life and death.
In Kingdom Hearts 1 and Final Mix specifically, this mana system is different then how it is in later games. Your mana is in segments, not in a bar that will auto recharge overtime. You sit there with no mana, you will continue to have no mana. The more you fight, the more mana you get. It is easy to get to the point that you should be earning more mana back but you’re over full! When you’re charging mana back, you’ll see an orange bar creeping up your mana sections then disappear. That is the extra mana you have that’s not necessarily a segment yet. But if you have full segments and that orange line is all the way up? You’re over full on mana and not getting any more!
Hoarding mana doesn’t help you, if anything it hurts more. And having less mana actually helps you cast more because it requires less time to recharge 1-2 bars then the 6-7th bars. As counter intuitive as that is, it’s accurate! I found many less issues when I was consistently keeping my mana low-ish then when I tried to keep it super high.
Aero and Cure are you’re best friends! Upgrade them!
Once you get to the point where you’d defeat the Opposite Armor, you have earned your best friend and second most used spell family – Aero. The only spell that will be higher will be Cure, but Aero will be a close second! Aero will limit the damage you take as the Heartless are more aggressive and attack focused, which will make it so you need to heal less than normal. Higher versions of Aero make it so that you don’t flinch and it hurts your opponent more! You can get an upgrade for Aero in Neverland, near where you arrive in the beginning once you have the Yellow Trinity (Push). The second is for finding all the puppies! Make sure you get both of these because they are beyond worth it.
Cure is the most used spell in I think the entire KH universe. With it, you don’t die, which is great! Getting the second and third form of Cure will give you back bigger chunks of health. Sadly, in this version of the game, it won’t apply to your team, but soon! You can obtain one upgrade for Cure by getting to the Captain Hook fight in Neverland. The second is after you go back to Hollow Bastion the second time and find the Final Fantasy crew all in the library. Talk to Aerith three separate times and she will not only give you the remaining Ansem reports that don’t require super bosses, but the final form of Cure!
Accessories are your friend!
Now, if you play through the games like I do, you probably put on the accessories that have the highest strength, a moderate increase in defense, and just go to town! That will not work well in Proud Mode. Not only do the enemies hit so much harder, you hit so much less. Those two things together with trying to boost up strength and not defense or health? You’re going to have a bad day.
Having a minor understanding of the moves a boss will use before you go into a fight will help immeasurably. Knowing that having Fire Resist going into Maleficent Dragon is crucial but not helpful at all once you go directly into Riku-nort and weighing which are the best to equip will help out more than you would expect!
The simple answer? Resistance is super important, defense is also very important, health from there, strength next, and I put AP at the end.
I feel like I say this a lot – Grind Smarter!
Are you at the point where nothing seems to be giving you much experience at all but the boss you’re stuck at is still rocking you? There are a couple of tips I can give! I’m putting them in this order due to the fact as you go down the list, some of the options you’ll need things from higher up option to go forward.
1. Find as many Attack Up and Defense Up you can find! Many of them are in chests around the different worlds and some of them are super easy to obtain.
2. Synthesize! Gathering items for the Moogles makes grind work feel slightly less grindy and you’ll get some great accessories and items out of it too!
3. Can’t find anymore Attack Up and Defense up? Make them! This goes hand and hand with the previous ones. This one works for a couple of different reasons and is multi beneficial. For starters, many of the items needed for the boosts are from the special Final Mix heartless. What all of these have in common is they have a lot of experience dropped because they’re so specialized! Take that, put in the fact that you’ll have to fight them multiple times for multiple boosts and you’ll have not only levels but higher stats in no time!
4. Moogle Charms! Now Moogle Charms are difficult to get in general as it requires you to not only beat some of the Final Mix heartless, but it requires more than your typical item of specialized materials. The results are worth it though as it can boost your experience gain from 25% to 50% based on which item you get!
5. Encounter Plus! This is an ability you can only get from synthesizing. After unlocking enough recipes, the crafts Moogle who you’ve been working with will give you the ability. Now in your typical RPG game, this is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because it means respawns are easier! You don’t have to go two screens away, you only have to go one. More fights means more experience which means more levels! The curse is the exact same thing, more fights. Which if it’s in an area where you’re having trouble, i.e. Fat Bandits are one of the banes of my existence, it may go from a massive slaughter to a slow crawl.
