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 a optional boss which can be fought in Agrabah, and does not need to be defeated to progress through the game.

Kingdom Hearts
Kurt Zisa emerged from the Final Keyhole after it was opened by the Princesses of Heart, and went straight to Agrabah. The Carpet soon encountered it in the desert, and flew back to Aladdin's House, where Sora and his friends find it. It leads them back to the wastelands, where they are attacked by Kurt Zisa. However, after a violent battle Kurt Zisa is defeated.

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. He wears a white sleeve trimmed in gold on each arm, a white tunic with puffy gold sleeves over his oddly-shaped upper torso, and white, gold-and-turquoise trimmed pants on his lower body; around his waist is a brightly colored sash in turquoise, decorated with bright orange tassels and a gold apron bearing the Heartless Emblem. His 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.

For as fierce as Kurt Zisa looks, most of the damage is done with his shotels, 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 held two months prior to the game's American release.

Strategy

 * Attacks
 * Silencega: Kurt will Silence Sora's party as soon as the battle starts, preventing Sora and his friends from casting magic spells 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 Sora's party gets too far away, Kurt can perform a dashing attack toward them. It has small range, but touching the blades can hurt.
 * Sword Spin: Kurt stands still and spins its swords around, deflecting attacks and damaging Sora and friends.
 * Spinning Wheel: Kurt 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. Zisa won't use these spinning attacks until he has taken a certain amount of damage and is in the first form you encounter him in.
 * Neck Whip: Kurt flails his neck wildly while defenseless, though the attack can be easily deflected and make him flinch. This attack, however, also makes it harder to hit him.
 * Fire Orb: Sometimes while it has its anti-physical shield up, a sigil appears on his 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 his shield.
 * Tornado: Kurt raises its arms and summons a tornado around Sora. Roll through it with correct timing and it will not pursue Sora.
 * Gravity Balls: Orbs of dark energy fly out of the ground and bounce around. Kurt can also summon and throw larger balls directly at Sora during this time.

Kurt Zisa is a skilled warrior, proficient in swordplay and magic. It can twirl its swords around to deflect attacks and slash enemies. It can also use a spin attack, both horizontal and vertical. It is also a skilled spellcaster, able to defend itself with an anti-physical shield of energy. It can also create a tornado by lifting its hands and create fireballs to act as mines.

Kurt Zisa fights in three forms, each with different attacks.

In stage 1, Kurt Zisa wields two glowing spheres in each of its top hands. Magic is unusable for the group, even for Sora. Kurt Zisa uses nothing but physical attacks in this form. The spheres in its hands must be destroyed. Once destroyed, magic will be available to the party again and battle will fall into stage 2.

In stage 2, 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 its five HP bars. Its only attack is a weak bite attack. After a while, Kurt Zisa will turn into stage 3.

In stage 3, Kurt Zisa will protect itself with some sort of shield and float. As it is hovering around the arena, it will summon tornadoes to cause damage to Sora and make fireballs rise from the ground. Sora can only damage the shield through magic or hitting fireballs it summons back at it. Summon and Thunder spells work well against the shield. If attacked physically, the shield will drop MP balls. When the shield is destroyed, Kurt Zisa will go into stage 2 again. After a while, stage 1 will commence again. If you want to save MP and don't really care about time, wait until he summons fireballs and then hit them. They will automatically go towards Kurt Zisa, track his movement, and damage the protective barrier.

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 party members healed and revive Sora once if all his health is drained in battle. Another option is to cast whatever variation of Aero you have before Silencega is cast so damage from Kurt's attacks are reduced while your magic is sealed. Having Aerora or Aeroga allows you to inflict more damage on Kurt if the shield is in range of Kurt's hands or head, as well.

Another strategy to get past its shield mode quickly is to either summon Mushu, Genie, or Dumbo. Now use Water, Fire, or Showtime to nail through Zisa's shield.

Alternatively, you can summon Bambi and nail it with offensive spells while he supports you with magic orbs.

Video
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Trivia

 * Interestingly, the spinning blade attack is identical to the attack of Luna Bandits, and both base the attack on Abis Mal's henchmen bandits from the Aladdin television series, (specifically in the episode entitled "Air Feathered Friends," ) which could become tornadoes using magical feathers, and held their swords like Kurt Zisa does.
 * In Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, when Xion uses a Organization XIII Device in Agrabah to absorb Sora's latent memories of that world, she takes on a form which strongly resembles Kurt Zisa.