Haven't made it too much further in the game since my last post, mostly because I am fighting this boss that I cannot seem to beat. It's at Beast's Castle and just before you face it, there is a cut scene where the Beast is thrown over the castle wall (it was actually pretty brutal). My initial thought was 'well, that's not a good sign...'

And boy was I right. The boss is essentially a tank out of some deranged Warner Brothers cartoon. It's this big battlemount with three archer Heartless on top of it. You can't actually hit the archers, but they can sure as heck hit you. Not only that, the thing has a million hit points and whapping it with your Keyblade does only a very little bit of damage at a time. And in the meantime the tank opens up and will either attack you with these exploding balls, a cannon, a battering ram, will run you over or attack you with a mallet (what, no anvil?) And all this time the archers will attack you. After dying about 14-20 times (no exaggeration there) I finally just had to call it quits for a while. I found out later to kill the archers you have to beat back the cannon fire, but that still doesn't solve the mallet/exploding balls/hit-and-run scenario. Plus you just known that when you kill the archers a little while later 3 new ones will show up.

Follow up:

This sucker is probably one of the hardest bosses I've faced in the KH franchise--and there have been some toughies. So here are a list of the bosses I found the most difficult in all of the games thus far:

Xaldin (KH II): This guy has about 4 different attack patterns, including 1 that is actually impossible to dodge and avoid damage. Even playing the game through a second time I die quite frequently.

Special Boss 1 (KH): The special boss from Agrabah in the first game is an exercise in endurance, not only do you use up a lot of ethers, it just takes a long, long time beat him as he likes to run away.

Xemnas (KHII): As much as I whine about this boss I did eventually beat him. Though it probably took me dying in excess of 30 times. Xemnas is an exercise not only in endurance, but also in speed, power, strategy and the button mashing skills of a ninja as he is the longest boss of any of the games and has the most levels of work to defeat him. First you have the one on one battle before the final boss battle, which was already hard, but then you have to fight your way to the castle, fight against Xemnas in his Knight mode, fight against the dragon, fight against the castle and Xemnas as his Knight Mode, fight him as a human again (with new and improved powers), save Sora, more fight Xemnas and then block like your life depends on it (because it does)

Repliku, after Destiny Island (COM, GBA version): I say GBA version (as opposed to RE:COM) for a few reasons, one of which is that I haven't actually played through the PS2 version yet, on account of the fact I need a Sony memory card to play it. The other is the fact that with the GBA version there is no targeting and it's a side scroller. Repliku, right after the Destiny Islands room is incredibly hard. He's super fast, hits hard and almost all his attacks can break all your sleights, so you can barely hit him or barely heal yourself. I still haven't found the magic formula to beating him (mostly because I keep running out of batteries) but I think I'm close.

Secret Boss 2 (KH) The phantom of Neverland is the opposite of the boss in Agrabah. Instead of endurance what you need is speed. The phantom's attacks can permanently kill your comrades and only magic can really beat it, so once again ethers are your friends.

Sephiroth (pretty much any game he's ever in ever) In FFVII, you have the option of using your entire team to fight against, all 8 characters with their ultimate weapons, materia and limit breakers, and the fight is still incredibly difficult. In KH and KHII you're expected to fight against the ultimate boss (with a giant sword and no compassion), alone. You don't get Donald, you don't get Goofy and you don't get King Mickey. I know he is defeatable, but from all the times I've fought him Sora just comes out Sephiroth's Uke.

Hopefully I'll beat the tank boss soon, because I want to find out more about the story.