5. Level 49 of the Paradox Hades Cup is Hell on Earth
You fight Final Fantasystars Cloud, Leon, Tifa and Yuffie. Simultaneously. Alone. With no friends, no summons and no drive forms. It may be the most awesome fan-service battle in history, and it's definitely one of the hardest.
Want our advice? Reflega, Thundaga and patience are your best friends here. Keep your distance and be patient. Go after Tifa first (especially with magic - she's murderous up close), then Leon, saving Cloud - who is actually immune to Thundaga - or Yuffie for last.
The kicker? After this, the 50th and final round is a walk in the park.
Below: Tifa's as sweet as she is sexy most of the time, but in the arena: she will wreck you. And she's bringing a lot of friends with similar mindsets and abilities.
6. The Ultimate Weapon comes from... cooking?
If you want to finish Kingdom Hearts II completely, you will not want to be without the strongest keyblade in the game, Ultima. Be prepared to work for it, however. The recipe, found in the Mansion Basement of Twilight Town, is complex and full of rare items, some of which are dropped only rarely by rare monsters:
13 Orichalcum +
1 Orichalcum
1 Mythril Crystal
1 Dense Crystal
1 Twilight Crystal
7 Serenity Crystal
Only seven Orichalchum + exist in the game, so you'll need an Energy Shard on hand to cut the cost in half. Energy Shards help out with Serenity crystals too. Once you're done cooking, combine your new Ultima keyblade with your Fenrir (which you get from beating Sephiroth) to be the baddest dual-wielding kid on the block.
The original Kingdom Hearts was initially "more hardcore" until Square Enix toned it down: "We had some puzzles in there that would make you go, 'what is this, Takeshi's Challenge?'"
When making Kingdom Hearts, the "one thing" RPG icon Tetsuya Nomura "wasn't willing to budge on" was a non-Disney protagonist
