Make a Musou – Kingdom Hearts Musou

Hello, and welcome to the third article in my new series on The Story Arc: Make a Musou. I love Dynasty Warriors, the number of times I bring it up, and the multiple Musou related articles I’ve written should be proof enough of that. However, I am currently in a Dynasty Warriors drought as I have no interest in Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires, so I thought it was time to flex some creative writing.

But what could I do? When it comes to Dynasty Warriors’ content, you can find whatever you want online already. For the past twenty years, the internet has been filled with character analyses, essays on the storytelling, and gameplay deconstructions. I don’t have much to add when talking about Dynasty Warriors itself. However, there is one question that everyone has had at one point in time; “What if ___ was a Musou game?”

That’s right, it’s time to pretend we’ve gone back to the Tumblr days when imagining your ideal game and talking to people about it wasn’t cringe! I have asked my friends to give me a list of franchises, and I will make a Musou roster out of each and every one of them. Last time, I made a Musou roster out of the Thunderbolt Fantasy franchise. This time, I will be picking a franchise that is both significantly more popular and has a lot more characters to choose from!

This week on The Story Arc, we shall be making a Musou roster out of Kingdom Hearts!

How we’ll be designing the movesets!

Now, we must discuss how Musou Movesets typically work if we are going to create a wide variety of them. If you have already read my pieces on making a Batman Musou, Pokemon Musou, or Sakura Wars Musou, you may skip ahead to when we start talking about how many characters our roster will have. First, let’s go over the basics of each character’s normal attacks. You all likely know how Musou movesets work on a basic level; you string together combos consisting of light attacks and heavy attacks. However, there is a pattern that movesets typically follow that I feel need some explaining.

Pressing light attacks once and then heavy will knock enemies directly in front of you in the air, allowing for a juggle or for you yourself to transition into an attempted combo.

Pressing light attack two times and then a heavy will perform an attack that while not super powerful will hit enemies close to you, generally on your left and right.

Pressing light attacks three times and then heavy will perform an attack that, while not your strongest, will hit a wide range of enemies.

Pressing light attack four times and then a heavy will perform an attack that is either straightforward or will move you slightly forward

Finally, pressing light attack five times, and then triangle will perform an attack that does plenty of damage in a short range, the perfect attack for enemy officers.

These are the foundations of a basic Musou moveset; however, there is more to explain and think of for our roster.

The bar you have been seeing below or next to the health bars in this footage is the Musou gauge. Once it is full, you are able to unleash your most powerful attack: a Musou attack. So we’ll need to think of a Musou for everyone.

Next, we have the trickiest part of our roster, the R1/RB button. The R1/RB button is used as a weapon switch in mainline Dynasty Warriors, but various spin-offs have used it as a button that activates a unique skill or attack for a character. These attacks can span from being very average to something atypical, so thinking about each character’s uniqueness will be hard.

Finally, we’re going to incorporate something that main modern Musous like Pirate Warriors 4 and Warriors All Star and several Musou clones such as Fate/Extella Link and Utawarerumono Zan have, skill attacks. Holding down a button will give you an option of activating a skill. Most of these are just buffs like increased attack or speed; however, many Musous gives characters extra moves via skills. As we want to make this hypothetical game seem as appealing as possible, we shall come up with 3 skill attacks for each character.

And that’s everything! 5 Normal combos, a musou attack, a unique skill, and 3 skill attacks for each character. As we go into this, I won’t describe what each and every character’s individual combos will be but rather just how we imagine them playing with a few combo examples. I will mostly focus on describing every Musou, unique, and skill attack we come up with. A fair warning as well that I won’t talk about some characters as much as others, thinking of a variety of different movesets is difficult

With everything about how we will go about this explained, let’s move on.

Our Roster Size

Before we get into picking our characters, we first need to figure out how big the roster could be. While a true dream would be everyone playable, we’re going to have to be realistic with this. Other licensed Musous started with rosters of these sizes

Berserk Musou – 8 characters
Arslan Musou – 16 characters
Dragon Quest Musou – 13 characters + 1 DLC
Touken Ranbu Musou – 15 characters
One Piece Pirate Warriors – 15 characters

It cannot be overstated that Kingdom Hearts has one of the largest and most iconic casts in the history of gaming, deciding a number of characters let alone deciding which characters to use was a challenge. In the end though I think 14 is a fair number, and hey, there’s 14 members in Organization XIII so it’s thematic!

With all of that out of the way, we can finally get into talking about the characters!

Character 1: Sora

Our first character shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone even passingly familiar with the Kingdom Hearts franchise. Yes the main character of the series Sora is the first person we’ll be talking about. The way I imagine Sora’s moveset is for him to be very similar to Kingdom Hearts 3 incarnation with his heavy combos and attack skills being almost entirely pulled from that game, he’ll also be an excellent juggler as most of his combos would sending foes into the air. Now let’s go over how I imagined him.

His first heavy combo would involve him swinging his keyblade down on the ground in an attack called Last Charge and knock enemies into the air, Sora will then jump after the enemies and the player would be able to perform some midair attacks on them.

Sora’s third heavy combo will have him convert his keyblade into a flag and do a quick sweep at enemies where both the flag and water appearing under it will damage them.

For Sora’s fourth heavy combo we will have him perform a flash step and charge forward at enemies, swinging his keyblade up once and down once on them.

For the fifth heavy combo Sora wil stick his keyblade toward an enemy and perform the attack King of Hearts, launching many beams from his weapon that can devastate the health of an enemy commander

Sora’s musou attack will involve two characters who I sadly couldn’t fit in the roster, his traveling companions and other main characters of the series: Donald and Goofy. When activating the musou attack his two friends will appear and the three will stick their weapons into the air as an orb of light appears, enemies will then be dragged to it like a magnet and all suffer massive damage.

When activating Sora’s special skill his Kingdom Key will be surrounded in an aura of light and his attacks will instantly burst through the guard of any enemy.

For his first attack skill Sora will perform Infinity Circle, he will jump into the and spin briefly as light surrounds him before stretching, once he does light will explode outward and harm enemies

Sora’s second attack skill will have him shoot a small beam from his keyblade, the same attack he uses to defeat Xemnas in KH2.

Finally as a third attack skill Sora will convert his keyblade into two toy guns and launch projectiles at enemies.

And that’s Sora’s moveset! For those of you a bit upset I mostly pulled from KH3 instead of earlier installments, I understand how you feel but wait until a bit further in the list, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

One character done, thirteen to go! Let’s move on from someone who is the pure embodiment of light to someone who walks a more neutral road.

Character 2: Riku

Our second character is Sora’s best friend, Riku! Riku has been playable in nearly as many games as Sora and his popularity among the fanbase cannot be overstated, but how would he play in my roster? I would take moveset inspiration primarily from Re:Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days for Riku’s attacks as he uses a lot of darkness based skills in those games and I think they would help him stand out in this roster. So let’s go over those attacks!

As a third heavy combo Riku will perform Impulse and jump into the air before slamming down on the ground and hurting enemies caught up in the shockwave.

Riku’s fourth heavy combo will be Dark Aura, where he will stick his arm forward and three dark fireballs will launch forward and damage enemies

For his fifth heavy combo Riku will perform Dark Break and repeatedly bounce on an enemy with his keyblade pointed downward, eating away at their health bar.

While his moveset has been entirely darkness based I want Riku’s musou attack to use both light and dark to represent him being an in-between character. Thus we shall be using his limit break from 358/2 days: Darkstrom. When activating the Musou, Riku will do a few rapid dashes into an enemy while covered in darkness before finishing the move off by using a blade made of light.

For his special skill Riku will take a blindfold out of his pocket and throw it aside, after doing so for a brief period of time his defense will be doubled.

Riku’s first attack skill shall be Dark Maelstrom. Riku shall summon both of his keyblade and surround them in dark aura before swinging them vertically as he dashes forward at foes before finishing the attack by putting them together and performing one final slash.

As a second attack skill Riku will perform Dark Barrage, when activating the attack he will jump off the nearest enemy and while in midair he will summon dark swords to rain down on them.

For his final attack skill Riku will pull out a large sword of light like the one he uses in the Eternal Session limit from KH2 and do a few rapid slashes at enemies.

And that’s Riku’s moveset! He was a fun character to think of moves for as I had to really dig through CoM again for some darkness based attacks as they sort of vanish as the series went along. Now let’s move on to our next character, Sora and Riku’s childhood friend!

Character 3: Kairi

To wrap up the Destiny Island trio we have Kairi! This franchise has not been kind to Kairi at all over the years and currently she has only been playable in one fight. I tried to take inspiration from her KH3 moveset here but I needed to do a lot of improvisation.

For her second heavy combo Kairi will have her keyblade spin around her and knock away enemies.

For her third heavy combo Kairi will swing her keyblade up and perform Ripple Dive, creating a large field around her briefly that pushes away and damages many enemies

As a fourth heavy combo Kairi will throw her keyblade forward into a group of enemies before teleporting to it, allowing the player to continue doing combos immediately.

Kairi’s fifth heavy combo will have her raise her keyblade into the air and cast Balloonga, summoning a large balloon that will deal a massive amount of damage to any enemy that touches it.

For her Musou attack Kairi will summon a phantom duplicate of Sora and join hands with him, the two will then grow wings and fly around rapidly, hurting any enemy that they hit. Once the attack is over Sora will vanish along with the wings.

When activating Kairi’s special skill she will hold up her lucky charm and think of her friends, her determination to see them again will give her a speed buff for thirty seconds of time.

For her first attack skill Kairi will slide forward while shooting light attacks from her keyblade, similar to the Wisdom Form from Kingdom Hearts 2.

As a second attack skill Kairi will perform Seven Wonders and knock an enemy into the air and begin to dash back and forth, keeping herself and the enemy in the air as she does so.

Kairi’s third and final attack skill will have her use her shotlock and fly around as beams of light damage enemies.

With Kairi done we’ve finished off the Destiny Island trio! Now let’s move on to the next character in our roster, one who is the mascot of the company that owns the series.

Character 4: Mickey Mouse

Up fourth we have our only Disney character on the roster! Donald, Goofy, and Malifecent sadly couldn’t make it because of space but in no world could I leave the king himself off the roster! I imagine Mickey’s light attacks involving a lot of jumping around as he hits enemies, maybe constantly moving as he does them. Then his heavy combos would involve a lot of very quick light spell casting! Here’s what I thought of with that concept.

Mickey’s first heavy combo will be the 358/2 Days version of Holy, where he has light rise from the ground quickly and knock enemies into the air.

Mickey’s third heavy combo will be Holy Burst, when performing it he will briefly spin in a circle as orbs of light launch from his keyblade and damage a wide range of enemies.

For his fourth heavy combo Mickey shall cast pearl and send a ball of light flying at enemies before quickly going back to attacking.

For his musou attack Mickey will actually land an attack he tried to use on Xehanort in Kingdom Hearts 3: Ultima. When activating the musou he will jump into the air and shout the spell name as a white light comes from his keyblade and engulfs the area under him, harming any opponent caught in the light.

For his special skill Mickey will cast reflect around himself for less than a second. It’s unlikely for an enemy to attack during this period of time but if they do the damage reflected back to them will eat through their health bar like nothing!

For his first attack skill Mickey will cast Faith, a spell where light will surround him before exploding outward and knocking away enemies.

As a second attack skill Mickey will surround himself with 3 balls of light that will damage enemies if they get too close.

Mickey’s final attack skill will stick his keyblade into the ground and several crystals of differing colors will appear in a reference to Final Fantasy before a large explosion of light hurts enemies.

Alright now that we’re done with the mouse let’s move on to the guy you’ve all been waiting for, the most popular character in the series bar none.

Character 5: Roxas

Roxas’ second heavy combo will have him jump into the air and throw one of his keyblades down at enemies directly below him, just as he did in the secret ending of Kingdom Hearts 1

The third heavy combo of Roxas’ moveset will have him bring his keyblades close to him before slashing outward, cutting a wide range of enemies in an attack similar to his KH2 boss fight.

For his fourth heavy attack Roxas will cross his arms while holding his keyblades at his side and dash forward through enemies, light bursting from the ground under him.

Roxas’s Musou attack will be his limit break from the final stage of 358/2 Days. In his anger he will call down many lasers made of light to strike down his enemies.

When activating Roxas’s special skill he will perform a reversal and slide until he’s behind the closest enemy.

For his first attack skill Roxas will have his two keyblades spin directly in front of him to drill through the health of enemies.

Roxas’ second attack skill will have him turn into pure light and dash forward at enemies before transitioning into a combo, a skill he first used in KH3.

The third and final attack skill of Roxas’ moveset will he the Dual Shot situation command from KH3. He will spin his two keyblades in front of him briefly before shooting a beam of light and a beam of darkness at enemies.

And we’re finished with Roxas! Believe it or not this was the hardest moveset to think of in this entire roster for me as Roxas’ combat is so seamless as both a playable character and a boss it’s hard to discern what could be a full combo. Now that we’re done with Roxas let’s move on to his best friend!

Character 6: Axel

Up sixth we have the eighth member of Orginization XIII, Axel! Axel is easily one of the most popular characters in this franchise and has an unbreakable bond with Roxas and our next character, we needed to have him here. I imagine his light attacks being very similar to Sun Shang Xiang’s in Dynasty Warriors by smacking around enemies at a very close range with his chakrams, but he’ll really shine with his heavy combo where he’ll get to throw them!

The first heavy combo of his moveset will have Axel kick an enemy into the air and then throw one of his chakrams up at them to do even more damage.

Axel’s third heavy combo will have him throw his chakrams on the ground, causing spires of flame to pop up in several locations and damage enemies.

For his fourth heavy combo Axel will throw his chakrams forward toward enemies with flames being left on the ground as they fly. Axel will then ride the flames forward and catch his chakrams before they land.

For his Musou attack Axel will do his desperation attack from Kingdom Hearts 2 and engulf the field with flames until the entire screen goes white. The difference here is he won’t die in the process.

For his special skill Axel will set his chakrams on fire, while this buff is active his attacks will have a burn effect that will eat away at the health of enemies even when he isn’t attacking them.

Axel’s first attack skill shall be the Fire Wall sleight from Chain of Memories. When activating it he will yell out “burn!” And a circular wall of fire will spread in all directions around him before dissipating

His second attack skill will also be a Chain of Memories sleight, this time it will be the Firetooth sleight. Upon using the skill Axel will split his two chakrams into four and thrown them around rapidly, when hitting an enemy they will bounce around to hit even more enemies before soon returning to Axel’s hands.

The third attack skill of Axel’s moveset shall be his limit break from 358/2 Days: Explosion! Axel will throw his two chakrams together at enemies and upon making contact they will explode in a burst of flames, he will do this three times in rapid succession.

And that was Axel! He burned his way into our hearts nearly two decades ago and will have fans till the end of time. Now let’s talk about a character who was initially hated when their game came out but in recent years has been recognized as one of the best characters in this series.

Character 7: Xion

Next we have my personal character in the franchise, Xion! The way I ended up creating Xion’s moveset was kind of funny. I wrote Sora’s moveset first but then realized I made it entirely too Kingdom Hearts 1 focused, so I scraped it for Sora and moved it to Xion. If I wanted to make a bad pun you could say I replicated it. So anyway, here’s a bunch of Kingdom Hearts 1 attacks for Xion!

Her first heavy combo would involve her swinging her keyblade upward similar to slapshot and knock enemies into the air, Xion will then jump after the enemies and the player would be able to perform some midair attacks on them.

Xion’s third heavy combo shall be Sonic Blade, she shall charge in a random direction three times and pierce through any enemies in her way.

For Xion’s fourth heavy combo we will have her perform a strike raid and throw her keyblade forward at enemies before it boomerangs back and she catches it in her hand.

For the fifth heavy combo Xion will perform Ars Arcanum and begin rapidly swinging his keyblade at any enemy, a combo that would eat away at the health of enemy commanders.

Xion’s musou attack will be her limit break from 358/2 days: Event Horizon. Her Kingdom Key shall turn into a blade of pure light as she rapidly attacks before finishing it off by sending 4 vertical lasers in random directions.

When pressing R1 and activating Xion’s special skill she will take a stance briefly, if she is attacked while in this stance she will counterattack with Zantetsuken and eliminate the enemy that attacked her.

For her first attack skill Xion will jump around rapidly and send vertical lasers with a crown shape on top of them flying in random directions.

Her second attack skill will have her perform Blitz and do three quick jumps, smacking enemies overhead with her keyblade each time.

Xion’s third and final attack skill shall be ragnarok! She’ll jump into the air and point her keyblade forward before several red beams launch from it and home in in enemies!

I love Xion and really hope that she has a relevant role in the series going forward, but enough about her for now. Let’s talk about the third and final female character we have on the roster.

Character 8: Aqua

Next up we have Aqua! Aqua was an easy character to think up a moveset for as I quickly decided a gimmick for her, all of her heavy combos will involve casting some of the most powerful magic in the franchise! She is one of the most powerful magic users we know and I want that to shine through here while also representing a gameplay mechanic that has always been an important part of the series.

The first heavy combo of Aqua’s moveset will be Waterza, upon activating it a stream of water will appear and launch enemies into the air

For her second heavy combo she will cast Aeroga and push away any enemies that are near her, doing light damage in the process.

Aqua’s third heavy combo will be Thundaza, she will raise her keyblade into the air and yell out the spells name as thunderbolts rain down around her.

As a fourth heavy combo she will cast Firaza and a large fireball will launch from her keyblade and explode once it contacts an enemy, hurting both it and any other enemies near the explosion.

Finally for her fifth heavy combo Aqua will cast Graviga on an enemy and completely crush it under its own weight.

For her Musou attack Aqua will call upon the assistance of a character who I sadly needed to leave off the roster even though I wanted to write about him, Ventus. For the attack Aqua will spin around her keyblade and Ventus will appear surfing on a frozen version of his before crashing into enemies and disappearing again

For Aqua’s special skill she will cast Blizzard on her keyblade and for a brief period of time her attacks will have an ice buff that will freeze them in place.

Aqua’s first attack skill will have her raise her keyblade to the air and a group of landmines shall surround her, if an enemy were to step on these they would be in for a bad time

Her second attack skill shall be Spellweaver, an attack where Aqua shall be surrounded in light as she spins around the battlefield.

The third and final attack skill of Aqua’s moveset shall be Ghost Drive. She will begin to teleport around placing purple spires into the ground that will heavily damage any enemies that they pierce

Aqua is one of the most powerful keyblade masters in the franchise and I hope that cake across in my moveset for her, but there is another character who is her equal we need to talk about, even if he has a completely different style

Character 9: Terra

Up ninth we have our second Birth By Sleep protagonist, Terra! Terra will be the slowest character in our roster but he’ll have great attack and range. I want him to swing his keyblade around like it’s the heaviest axe in the world and for enemies to feel like they got hit by a boulder when it makes impact!

Terra’s first heavy combo will be Brutal Blast, he will take a stance and then swing his keyblade around, knocking enemies up in the air to allow the player to continue juggling them with light attacks.

For his third heavy combo Terra will stick his keyblade into the ground and cause a small earthquake that will knock around and damage a wide range of enemies.

As a fourth heavy combo Terra will perform Sonic Impact and slam his head forward into a ground of enemies, yes this is an actual attack from Birth By Sleep, look it up.

Terra’s fifth heavy combo will have him swing down his keyblade on an enemy before a large rock spire appears from the ground and hurts them even more.

For Terra’s musou attack he will convert his keyblade into a cannon and shoot a large lazer at enemies in front of him, utterly devastating them.

For his special skill Terra will declare that it’s break time and do a few handstand pushups. After 3 pushups he will return to the heat of battle with a brief attack buff. Now let’s move on to the attack skills

Terra’s first attack skill will have him raise his keyblade into the air and call down a meteor to hit his foes.

For his second attack skill Terra will turn his keyblade into a glider and dash around on it for a few seconds, devastating the health of any enemies he hits on it.

Terra’s final attack skill shall be Rockbreaker from BBS. He shall summon three rocks to float around him before sending them flying into different directions.

With Terra done we have talked about the last hero on our roster, how fitting that the last hero we spoke of nearly turned to darkness. Let’s move on and speak about this franchise’s villains now.

Character 10: Ansem – Seeker of Darkness

The first villain on our roster is the villain of the first game, Ansem the Seeker of Darkness! Ansem will have a unique gimmick among the characters in our roster. Despite the player being in control of him he won’t attack at all, instead his light attacks will all involve his Guardian smacking enemies around with it’s fists while Ansem floats around smirking.

As a second heavy combo Ansem will encapsulate himself in a shield of lasers and take a few steps forward, damaging nearby enemies

Ansem’s third heavy combo will have the guardian launch energy discs from it’s hands at enemies in random directions

For his fourth heavy combo Ansem will have the guardian move in front of him and the two will charge forward at enemies at a high speed, crushing all in their path

Ansem’s Musou attack will have the camera pan in front of him as he laughs before panning out to reveal that a Darkside has appeared behind him. The Darkside will pound its fist down on any unlucky enemies before returning to the darkness whence it came

As a special skill when pressing R1 Ansem will yell out “Come, Guardian” and the Guardian will appear in front of him, protecting him from attacks for a few seconds.

For his first attack skill Ansem will yell submit and hit an enemy, the enemy that is hit will be immobilized by the Guardian as Ansem launch a dark firaga into them before calling the Guardian back to him.

Ansem’s second attack skill will involve the Guardian Sinking into the ground only to pop up swiftly under a group of enemies.

His third and final attack skill will see Ansem stretching his arms to his left and right and creating two large orbs of darkness. These orbs will suck in and damage any nearby enemies.

Character 11: Marluxia

If you have made it this far, you have my permission to begin complaining about how Marluxia made it onto my roster, but Ventus didn’t. My justification is that I really like Marluxia and think that both being a final boss and being one of few characters on our roster to use a non-keyblade weapon justify my decision. Speaking of that weapon, Marluxia’s scythe will give his some of the highest range in our roster, and he’ll be swinging it around at high speeds.

As a second heavy combo, Marluxia will spin his scythe around him and knock away enemies that are too close.

For his fourth heavy combo, Marluxia will swing his scythe vertically and charge toward enemies at high speed.

Markuxia’s fifth heavy combo will be a rapid combo of scythe slashes toward an enemy in front of him to utterly devastate a commander’s health.

For his Musou attack, Marluxia will summon the large angel-like Nobody from the final boss fight of Chain of Memories to perform a few devastating slashes to enemies.

Marluxia’s special skill will be a reference to his data fights in KH2 and KH3; he will whisper something to an enemy in front of him, and a number will appear over their head. If he were then to hit the enemy the amount of times the number displays, they will explode and receive massive damage

For his first attack skill, Marluxia will create 3 black holes in the ground from the thorns of roses; any enemies caught in them will take a large amount of damage.

Marluxia’s second attack skill shall be his limit break from 358/2 days: Bloom Out. When activating it, he shall spin his scythe on a circle around him three times, the range of each slicer being larger than the last.

The final attack skill of his moveset shall see him jump into the air and slam his scythe on the ground, causing a shockwave of roses to knock enemies out of the way.

Marluxia deserves to be on here, and I’ll stand by that! We need to move on, however, and the next pick on the roster will probably be much less controversial.

Character 12: Xigbar

Our 12th character is the only villain pick on the list who isn’t a final boss. Xigbar is one of the most popular villains of the franchise and will have a very important role in the upcoming years. He also has a very cool weapons, crossbow guns with purple spear bullets!

For his first heavy combo, Xigbar will have his hand appear from portals on the ground in front of him and launch enemies into the air.

His second heavy combo will have Xigbar stick his left and right arms through portals and shoot the opposite sides of him they would naturally be aiming in. An unnecessary move but one a show off like him would do.

For his fourth heavy combo, Xigbar will begin running forward while shooting rapidly, knocking enemies out of his way as he does so.

Xigbar’s fifth heavy combo will have the game briefly change to an over the shoulder view and allow you to aim and fire a few shots from his guns yourself, similar to Zhu Ran in Dynasty Warriors 8.

For his musou attack, Xigbar shall use his desperation move from KH2 and BBS. He will teleport into the air and begin to rain bullets down on the battlefield in a circular formation.

When activating Xigbar’s special skill he will say “reload” and reload his guns, what they are reloaded with shall be a random type of bullet that shall either do poison, Ice, or electric damage to enemies.

For his first attack skill, Xigbar shall launch a large blue bullet from both of his guns that will pierce through a large number of enemies.

Then, his second attack skill will have Xigbar briefly charge up his guns before shooting out 8 bullets in a wide range.

Finally, for his third attack skill, he will begin to run around in a circle while shooting, doing a full circle until he ends up where he was where the attack started.

Xigbar rules and was a pretty easy character to think up a moveset for despite being so different from everyone else on this roster. However, with 4 Organization members on the list already, I think we’re long overdue to talk about their leader, so let’s do that!

Character 13: Xemnas

Next on the roster, we have the leader of Orginization XIII himself, Xemnas! I am proud of the idea I had for Xemnas, while for his light combos, he’ll be flipping around and using his Ethereal Blades to quickly slice through enemies. For his heavy combos, we’ll have him use the weapons of every Orginization member we didn’t put on the roster! He won’t be pulling out the weapons and using them though, no, like the first phase of the armored Xemnas fight in KH2 he’ll have these weapons float in the air and attack for him as if he was using telepathy!

The first heavy combo will have Lexeaus’ axe appear and swing upward, knocking enemies into the air and allowing him to juggle them.

For his second heavy combo, Xemnas will summon Saix’s claymore and have it swing around him to deal massive damage to enemies that are too close.

Xemnas’ third heavy combo will have Luxord’s cards appear and launch in all directions around him

As a fourth heavy combo, Xaldin’s lances will appear behind Xemnas before launching forward and stabbing through enemies in their path.

Then, for the fifth heavy combo, Xemnas will summon Vexen’s shield to freeze the feet of an enemy before he sticks one of his Ethernal Blades directly into them.

There’s really only one thing we can do for a Musou attack for Xemnas; it’s one of the most iconic moments of the entire franchise. That’s right, we’re going for the laser dome! When activating the Musou the entire environment will be shrouded in black and only illuminated by the red lights of thousands of Ethereal Blades, those blades will then begin launching at all enemies and destroy them all within seconds!

For his special skill, Xemnas will put up a square shield for a brief period of time. While enemies won’t be able to attack through this shield, he will.

As a first attack skill, Xemnas will summon water clones of Demyx to defend him as he continues to attack enemies.

For his second attack skill, Xemnas will have Zexion’s book appear and suck in an enemy. For the few seconds the enemy is stuck in the book, Xemnas may attack them freely

Xemnas’ final attack skill shall have Larxene’s knives fall from the sky and create a lightning cage between them; if Xemnas were to knock enemies into the electricity, they will take damage.

Xemnas is one of the most iconic villains from the PS2 era of gaming, and I can only hope I did him and all of Orginization XIII justice.

Character 14: Xehanort

Our final character on the roster is the main villain of the series, with one of the most memorable names in gaming history: Xehanort! I was conflicted on whether or not to design Xehanort’s moveset around No Name or the X-blade but in the end I decided on the compromise of having his light attacks and heavy combos use No Name while his attack skills will all involve the X-Blade. So let’s knock out this final moveset!

Xehanort’s first heavy combo he will flick his wrist, and rock pillars will launch enemies into the air.

For his third heavy combo Xehanort will stick his keyblade into the ground quickly, which will create a shockwave that knocks away a large range of enemies.

As a fourth heavy combo, Xehanort and 3 heartless clones of him will lunge forward at enemies.

For his fifth heavy combo, Xehanort will morph his keyblade into a claw and bring an enemy in close before launching a dark firaga right in their face.

Xehanort’s musou attack will have him look up to the sky and see the Kingdom Hearts moon, then a ray shall shoot down on the battlefield and destroy his enemies

For his special skill, Xehanort will cast Stopza and everything around him will freeze for a few seconds, allowing him to attack freely.

For his first attack skill, Xehanort will have 3 copies of the x-Blade appear and shoot four lasers each in various directions.

The second attack skill of his moveset will have him throw the x-blade forward as it spins like a buzzsaw, cutting through all foes.

Xehanort’s final attack skill will have him teleport around through random keyholes, slicing at enemies as he does so.

Conclusion

And we’re somehow done! 14 characters with full movesets with representation of each trio in the series with several iconic villains. The only disappointment here is that I didn’t have enough space to include Ventus, Young Xehanort, or anyone from Union Cross.

In terms of writing, this was the easiest Musou roster I’ve ever had to write! Almost everyone’s moveset came to my mind instantly and it was a pure joy to write. It helps that Kingdom Hearts combat would be really easy to translate to Musou combat and that I have been a fan of the series for my entire life.

This was a bit of an impromptu article to celebrate the anniversary of Kingdom Hearts, so it wasn’t scheduled but I swear next time I put out a Musou article it will be the actual one I said would be out next. So stay tuned for Horror Musou next time on The Story Arc!