One of the hardest boss battles in the original Kingdom Hearts is the secret platinum match featuring Sephiroth. He has hard-to-dodge attacks that deal massive amounts of damage. Many players struggle to beat him. But streamer and YouTuber SarahKey not only beat the optional boss fight, she did it using a dance pad.
A tweeted clip of her achievement went viral over the weekend, which is where I first saw her pull off this wild feat.
Her setup uses this controller converter box and a USB dance pad. The pad is programmed by her and her fiance and allows her to attack, move, and perform all other necessary actions using only her feet. For example, she has the pad set up so that to attack, and select menu items, she just has to hit its “O” with her foot.
While her Sephiroth accomplishment is impressive, she’s also beaten the entirety of Kingdom Hearts using the same setup. And Kingdom Hearts II.
So why use a dance mat to play Kingdom Hearts? For SarahKey it combines two things she loves a lot. “Kingdom Hearts is my favorite series in the world, and I also really loved playing Dance Dance Revolution growing up,” she told Kotaku. “Combining the two is a magical experience for me and I love a good challenge.”
All the dance pad shenanigans started as a donation incentive while she participated in St. Jude Play Live, an online streaming event to help raise money for the well-known research hospital.
After that first taste of dance-mat-on-regular-game action, she was hooked, and started streaming herself playing and beating the first two Kingdom Hearts games and various bosses. In the future, she plans on beating Kingdom Hearts III using the same unorthodox setup.
That said, she is hesitant about doing too many dance pad playthroughs. “I definitely don’t want to overdo the dance pad thing because I’m afraid of being only known for that, but I’m really grateful for all of the support I’ve gotten from doing it.”