Defeating Yozora On Kingdom Hearts III Nintendo Switch Cloud

February 25, 2022 Orpheus Joshua

Previously, I shared my experience regarding defeating the Kingdom Hearts III Data battles on the Nintendo Switch Cloud on Critical Mode. The natural step following such an endeavor would, of course, be challenging the title’s most difficult boss, Yozora. This is my favorite boss battle in all of gaming, so attempting to prevail against it on the Switch Cloud was a frightening prospect.

I already discussed the issues that arose from playing the game on this platform in the Data battle piece, but some of those points must be reiterated here. To be completely honest, I had a somewhat enjoyable time battling Yozora here because even with the connectivity issues, he’s so well-designed that he isn’t heavily impeded. Still, there are needless barriers in place. For instance, random lag spikes that occur at the exact frame an attack occurs essentially ruin any feasible chance at timed evasion or guarding.

That exact potentiality happened to me near the end of Yozora’s strongest attack, his desperation move, where he summons a crimson orb that emits a gravitational pull. While the sphere lingers in the middle of the arena, Yozora teleports in set intervals to strike Sora and pull him into the attack. Unfortunately, the Cloud connection lagged for just a second as the first strike occurred, causing me to get hit and give up on the idea of evasion.

I’m lucky that I have a robust, sturdy internet connection, but the fact that these unnecessary issues plagued me now and then already makes this platform for the fight the worst by default, precisely like the Data battles. There were also a few attempts where my guarding inputs dropped entirely, resulting in needless damage that would not have happened in literally any other version of the game. Whenever this would happen to me, I would just sigh, purposefully die, and retry. Since I have an extensive history with this fight, my victory essentially equated to luck regarding the Cloud connection.

I feel a bizarre sense of accomplishment at the end of this mess. While I feel some semblance of pride for overcoming these challenges on a distributed platform that should not have ever happened in the first place, I also feel more genuine anger at Square Enix for finalizing such a decision in the first place. If I, someone with a qualitative enough connection, still faced errors that stood out and ruined parts of the experience, then who is this version of the game really for? As I and many others have stated, the advantages boasted by the Switch’s hybrid nature are effectively rendered somewhat moot by the necessary Cloud connection.

Even if all you own is a Nintendo Switch, I still heavily advise avoiding this purchase altogether as you’re going to end up with an inconsistent product that will serve to grant you frustration and anxiety above all else.