It’s no secret that if there’s any feature in Kingdom Hearts that players could do without, it would be the Gummi Missions and their slow, repetitive flights through the Space Between. However, Kingdom Hearts 2 and Kingdom Hearts 3 expanded on the Gummi Ship, making the conscious decision to lean into what may have been the highest criticized section of the original game.
Among the improvements that Kingdom Hearts 2 brought to the Gummi Missions are the Gummi Bosses, a feature that would later be expanded on in the next numbered entry in the series. The Reaper’s Wheel stands out as one of the first of these Gummi Bosses that most players will face and positions itself as a major turning point for the series.
A number of other Gummi Bosses appeared in Kingdom Hearts 2, with many of their impressive designs ranging from overwhelming to some downright creepy Heartless styles. Many of them are intimidating at first, but none quite measure up to the excitement of the Reaper’s Wheel, especially when it comes to how the enemy first enters the battlefield. Then when it comes to actually beating the boss, it likely isn’t something that most players will be able to do on their first trip through the game, keeping the return missions surprising for players who might think they know what’s going on.
The initial sighting of the Reaper’s Wheel is an exciting eruption of action, as Chip and Dale, who are much more present in the Gummi Missions after the first game, give Sora a frantic warning before the Heartless bursts onto the scene. Once it starts chasing the player, the rest of the mission becomes a high-speed chase through an F-Zero type racetrack twisting through space. This entire encounter becomes an early high point for the pinnacle of the series that is Kingdom Hearts 2, taking the originally slow-paced Gummi Ship sections and ramping them up to hyperspeed.
Adding to the chest-pounding experience is the whack-a-mole way that players have to avoid taking damage from the Reaper’s Wheel over the course of the extended encounter. This type of gimmick determining survival in a Gummi Mission was a new direction for Kingdom Hearts at the time, requiring players to pay more attention to any Gummi Heartless than any enemy that came before it. Then the encounter ends with most players escaping from the Reaper’s Wheel when fighting it for the first time, leaving this intimidating presence that can’t seem to be defeated, just waiting to take down passing players again.
It’s uncommon for a player to beat the Reaper’s Wheel on their first encounter against the Gummi Boss, due in part to the initial learning curve of the whack-a-mole mechanic and the strength of Gummi Ships at the time. However, when coming back to earn high scores and acquire extra materials, some players might find themselves fighting the early Heartless boss with a ship that is built for late-game Gummi Missions. As a result, these players are likely to have the firepower needed to defeat the Reaper’s Wheel and see the boss spin out of control before exploding into a massive special item.
This becomes a turning point for Kingdom Hearts 2‘s endgame content, where players are suddenly able to beat these massive Heartless flying through the Gummi Missions. Not to mention the second mission where the Reaper’s Wheel appears, flying towards the player as it periodically abandons the roads that it had previously been attached to. Beyond its own successes, this Heartless also paves the way for similar bosses down the road, both in the same game and improved on in Kingdom Hearts 3.
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