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. The massive Heartless is eventually destroyed.

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: Kurt Zisa will Silence Sora's party as soon as the battle starts, preventing them 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 Zisa can perform a dashing attack toward them. It has small range, but touching the blades can hurt.
 * Sword Spin: Kurt Zisa stands still and spins its swords around, deflecting attacks and damaging Sora's party.
 * Spinning Wheel: Kurt Zisa 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 spinning attacks until it has taken a certain amount of damage and is in the first form it is encountered in.
 * Neck Whip: Kurt Zisa 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 its 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: Kurt Zisa raises its arms and summons three tornados around Sora, which fuse into one larger tornado a few seconds later. Roll through them with correct timing and they will not harm Sora.
 * 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: Kurt Zisa jumps up into the air and sends a powerful wave of gravity, which can easily defeat Sora's party if caught in it for too long.

Kurt Zisa is a skilled warrior, proficient in swordplay and magic. It can twirl its swords around to deflect attacks and slash enemies. It also uses 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 create a tornado by lifting its hands and create fireballs to act as mines.

Kurt Zisa fights in three phases, each one granting it different attacks.

In stage one, 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 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 will protect itself with a shield and float. As it hovers 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 orbs. When the shield is destroyed, Kurt Zisa will go into stage two again. After a while, stage one will commence again. If one wants to save MP and doesn't care about time, simply wait until Kurt Zisa summons fireballs and then hit them. They will automatically go towards Kurt Zisa, track its 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 available before Silencega is cast so damage from Kurt Zisa's attacks are reduced while magic is sealed. Having Aerora or Aeroga allows Sora to inflict more damage on Kurt Zisa if the shield is in range of its hands or head, as well.

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