Overleveling vs Underleveling

[Koh]

Challenge is determined by how much of a threat something is to you, by how difficult it is to defeat. How well a boss is capable of defeating you is intrinsically a part of that. And if you're HP is decently higher than its supposed to be, if you're defense is decently higher than its supposed to be, if your offense is decently higher than its supposed to be, then the fight is no longer balanced. Numerically speaking, it is going to be harder for the boss to consistently pose as much of a threat to you. If a boss is incapable of doing anything to be a threat to your continued existence then that means that there is no difficulty and the battle system is exactly as i described.

Most boss-battles do not last terribly long. That you're so concerned about the time being consumed by using a healing item or doing an action that is not directly offensive shows nothing but a misguided thought process.

You can't use repetition as an argument, because both sides have this issue.

you're assuming a lot, here. not only that healing would be required every other turn but that every turn would play about the same, in sequence. A well designed game would have variance and would actually give you a reason to use a number of different abilities depending on circumstance.

even if we operate under that assumption, if we remove the healing phase, then that removes an extra variable. meaning the fight is just:

Special Skills/Physical Attacks -> Boss Attacks -> Special Skills/Physical Attacks -> Boss Attacks, rinse and repeat.

I'm not sure what definition you're using for repetition, but that is kind of By Definition more repetitive.

Kindom Hearts,

is not a good game lol

All I'm saying is, in most RPGs, being underleveled means 3 basics things most of the time:

1. You do less damage, thus the fight carries on.
2. You have access to less abilities, so again "variance" isn't an argument here.
3. You have to heal way more often. This means, even if you don't have to heal every phase, you'd still have to do it moreso than you would if you prepared beforehand. So naturally, you'd just be using more time to watch the same healing animations, buffing animations, etc. over and over in the same fight, rather than taking care of most of the grinding at various points so you can get the full story in one fell swoop~

Oh and Kingdom Hearts IS a good game series. The Disney meets RPG mashup is a bit weird, I'll admit, but the plots and combat systems are very engaging.