Ven vs. Mysterious Figure without Surges or Dodge Roll (Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, PSP non-FM)

You have no idea how much I wanted to actually be able to make a video with "without Surges or [grounded dodge]" in the title, haha. That, plus my being lower than level 99, specifically not using Cinderella, and this being Ven's debut on this channel make this a bit of a different video than normal!

...and since it's Ven's debut, I might as well do a little writeup on how he fares in this challenge. Simply put, he's a glass cannon. Whereas at high levels Terra and Aqua can take a hit from some of MF's more powerful attacks (notably Raging Storm and Doom), Ven is never able to without D-Link support - even at level 99 - in spite of his higher defense. This also means that he can only ever take two hits from laser orbs while retaining more than 1 HP, which makes that attack more of a pain for him than Terra or especially Aqua. (Amusingly/annoyingly, he would be able to do both of these things if he had even just 1 more HP OR defense. Since he has a little more HP in FM, he is probably just outright the best character for this challenge in that version.)

That said, he does have excellent attacking capabilities, having some of the best normal attacks in the game, the best (IMO) ultimate finish command, and pretty powerful unique command styles. Notably, he can do the same short hop/aerial attack/land/repeat combo as Aqua, but with the added bonus of being able to start this combo from further away due to a much faster aerial distance closer.

Also, to go off on a tangent, Cyclone may outright be the best command style for this fight. I already knew that the long range Strike Raid-like attack was good due to being a disjoint which hits from outside his reach, often before he even starts attacking. However, in the course of testing for this video, I found out that Cyclone's short range spin attack is also exceptionally useful by virtue of being so fast - fast enough that even if he successfully blocks it, you can still punish his guard!

I could probably go on! But I think I'll save some words for the next Ven video, when I actually demonstrate the stuff I'd like to talk about.

Stats/loadout:
Difficulty: Critical
Level 72
Keyblade: Ultima Weapon
Strength: 37 + 7
Magic: 37 + 6
Defense: 39

Command deck:
Curaga
Curaga
Aerial Slam
Mine Square
Voltage Stack
Goofy Parfait x3

Finish command: Stratosphere

Action Commands:
All, except Homing Slide and Dodge Roll

Abilities:
All, except for EXP Zero