Kurt Zisa

Kurt Zisa is an Emblem Heartless that is found in the North American, PAL, and Final Mix versions of Kingdom Hearts. It is one of the bosses in Agrabah.

Kingdom Hearts
Kurt Zisa emerges from the Final Keyhole after it is opened by the Princesses of Heart, and it goes straight to Agrabah. The Carpet soon encounters Kurt Zisa in the desert, and it flies back to Aladdin's House, where Sora and his friends find it. It leads them back to the desert, where Kurt Zisa attacks them. However, after an intense battle, Kurt Zisa is defeated by Sora and his friends, leaving behind a piece of Ansem's Report.

Design
A six-armed beast, Kurt Zisa also boasts a brown and black segmented body and a golden head that bears a strong resemblance to the cobra head on Jafar's staff. It wears a white sleeve trimmed in gold on each arm, a white tunic with puffy gold sleeves over its oddly-shaped upper torso, and white, gold-and-turquoise trimmed pants on its lower body; around its waist is a brightly colored sash in turquoise, decorated with bright orange tassels and a gold apron bearing the Heartless Emblem. Its feet appear to be clad in gold and brown shoes at first glance, but the toes are curled into fierce hooks that point down towards the ground. Each arm ends in three sharp segmented talons.

Despite its fearsome appearance, Kurt Zisa deals most of its damage with its es, two large sharp silver crescents that end in gold-trimmed holes on one end and lethal hooks on the other.

Kurt Zisa is named after Kurt Zisa of Medford, New York, who won Square's "KINGDOM HEARTS: Name-In-Game" contest, which was held two months prior to the American release of Kingdom Hearts.

Strategy

 * Attacks
 * Silencega: Silences the party as soon as the battle starts, preventing them from using magic and summoning. The effect lasts until the two dark orbs in its hands are destroyed. Every other time it "wakes up" it will summon the orbs and cast Silencega again.
 * Dash: If the party gets too far away, Kurt Zisa can perform a dashing attack toward them. It has small range, but touching the blades can hurt.
 * Sword Spin: Stands still and spins its swords around, deflecting attacks and damaging the party.
 * Spinning Wheel: Leaps up and rapidly spins before dive-bombing Sora. Roll under or jump over the horizontal spins, or roll to the side of the vertical spins. Kurt Zisa won't use these attacks until it has taken a certain amount of damage and is in the first form it is encountered in.
 * Neck Whip: Flails its neck wildly while defenseless, though the attack can be easily deflected and make it flinch. This attack, however, also makes it harder to hit it.
 * Fire Orb: Sometimes while it has its anti-physical shield up, a sigil appears on the shield. Large fireballs appear around the arena and hover slowly around, acting as mines. These orbs can be deflected back by using Guard and actually damage its shield.
 * Tornado: Raises its arms and summons three tornadoes around Sora, which then fuse into one larger tornado. Roll through them with correct timing and to avoid damage.
 * Gravity Balls: Orbs of dark energy fly out of the ground and bounce around. Kurt Zisa can also summon and throw larger balls directly at Sora during this time.
 * Gravity Falls: Jumps up into the air and sends a powerful wave of gravity, which can easily defeat the party if caught in it for too long.

Kurt Zisa is a skilled warrior, proficient in swordplay and magic. It fights in three phases, each one granting it different attacks.

In stage one, Kurt Zisa wields two glowing orbs in each of its top hands. Kurt Zisa only uses physical attacks in this form. The party cannot use Magic until the orbs are destroyed. Once destroyed, the battle will fall into stage two.

In stage two, Kurt Zisa will become stunned and fall into a sitting position and its head will coil out like a snake. Kurt Zisa is vulnerable now and Sora can harm it. Its only attack is a weak bite attack. After a while, Kurt Zisa will turn into stage three.

In stage three, Kurt Zisa floats in the air and protects itself with a shield. As it hovers around the arena, it will summon tornadoes to deal damage to Sora and make fireballs rise from the ground. Sora can only damage the shield through magic or hitting the fireballs it summons back at it. Summon and Thunder spells work well against the shield. If attacked physically, the shield will drop MP orbs. When the shield is destroyed, Kurt Zisa will go into stage two again. After a while, stage one will commence again. To save MP, simply wait until Kurt Zisa summons fireballs and then deflect them back. They will automatically go towards Kurt Zisa, track its movement, and damage the protective barrier. Though this will make the battle longer.

The battle continues like this until Kurt Zisa is defeated.

Since Kurt Zisa is a rather difficult boss to defeat, it is highly suggested to Summon Tinker Bell right before Magic is unusable as she can keep the party healed and revive Sora once if all his HP is drained. Another option is to cast Aero magic before Silencega is cast so damage from Kurt Zisa's attacks is reduced while magic is sealed. Also, having Aerora/Aeroga allows Sora to inflict more damage on Kurt Zisa if the shield is in range of its hands or head.

Another strategy to get past its shield mode quickly is to either summon Mushu, Genie, or Dumbo and use Fire, Showtime, or Water to break through the shield.

Alternatively, Sora can summon Bambi and hit Kurt Zisa with offensive spells while Bambi drops magic orbs.

Trivia

 * Interestingly, the spinning blade attack is identical to the attack of Luna Bandits.
 * In Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, when Xion uses an Organization XIII Device in Agrabah to absorb Sora's latent memories of that world, she takes on a form which strongly resembles Kurt Zisa.