Game:

Floor is Lava (2021)

Duration: 4:56

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5

This has probably been the hardest of the "floor is lava" runs and while it's possible, it's very difficult, more so than some of the others. Whereas for the other bosses I usually only had to worry about their openings, here I had to deal with both getting the openings and dodging the vines because they'll send you back to the ground. With that being said though, it's also a phenomenal fight and so cool to look at IMO, which makes it one of my favorites.

Regarding the attacks, the first half is reasonable enough since there's enough space between his vine attacks and similarly to Ansem and others, he floats around and follows you into the air, which helped me stay airborne while making the fight look very cinematic. So for the first part, it was just a matter of learning the openings for those attacks more or less. I like that this fight also lets you utilize flowmotion for a bit when he casts the barrier, which I take advantage of at one point to gain some more height. After a certain point, we actually get high enough that the arena is completely out of view and it just looks like a full-on aerial battle.

The DM is where things get really hard. First off, just like with Marluxia and Ansem, the DM resets you to the ground so there's that stipulation to the run. Fortunately, all 3 parts of the DM can be entirely dealt with - albeit I fumble it a bit in this video, ha - though the sequence for avoiding the vines is pretty precise. The third part of the DM was particularly difficult since he starts sending out 2 vines in quick succession so I can't air dodge quickly enough to avoid both. Because of that, I had to find a workaround, which is what Ultimate Form is there for. For that last segment, I dodge the unblockable attack from Xemnas, dodge the first vine and activate the form to avoid the second vine, and then finally block to stall just a bit before using the finisher to get past the remaining vines and Xemnas’ attacks.

The hard part I faced with that though is I needed to make it to the third stage of the DM with the option to activate a formchange (since on previous attempts, the option would run out before making it to that point), which meant I needed to use counters during the DM to reach that point. So for the first phase of the fight, the combos I did in the video leading up to the DM were deliberate and had a purpose. The sequence I followed was:

3 combos of Ultima Weapon to build up the SC gauge
Switch to Oblivion to get Dark Form
1 combo of that to get Double Form
3 combos of Ultima Weapon

and that would get me the results I needed leading up to the DM. Overall, the DM is very hard to deal with staying exclusively in the air and I lost so many attempts to it. Then again, I've only been experimenting with UW, Oathkeeper, and Oblivion, so maybe some of the other keyblades could make it through better like Hero's Origin. As for not getting stunned, I equipped a Master Medal from Flash Tracer A that had Stun Protection since I didn't want to use Nano Gear otherwise.

Then there's the second part of the fight which is also difficult because he now starts throwing vines during his other attacks, which changes how I dealt with them in the first part. It's still possible to deal with the attacks and dodge the vines, but it's also very precise. Right out of the DM, he tries to hit you with an unblockable so I get the opening there. I eventually learned that triggering his RV seems to make him retaliate with the lightsaber combo that ends in a risk dodge, which is one of his easier attacks to deal with for me, so I used 2 fires to do so at 3:05. As for the other attack where he throws out 2 vines consecutively, there’s actually enough time to dodge the second one though I was mashing the dodge button to do it.

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