How do I beat Riku (ansem)?

if your in level forty five, you NEED to level up, some elixers, and final chance!! go to travers town, they have easy heartless. just keep fighting until you hit at least level 80 (it will be a while) look for the 99 dalmation while fighting, or something in the mean time. once you get to at least 80, equipt guard, you will need it, sonic blade, and ragnorok (arc arkanium works too). just guard him alot, and when you see your chances, attack with sonic blade, or the other 2. if you run out of MP, attack normally. if your dying, and you here a ringing noise, use elixer! it will charge health and MP fully. just keep attacking and hope to survive. this is not easy. you will have to try it a couple of tmes. use your STRONGEST keyblade. but remember there are hidden keyblades you might wanna look for (alice in wonderland has lady luck.) just use your strongest!
once you win, face the heart, then look back! theres a balcony with a chest in it, containing the second strongest weapon! (ultimas the strongest, but you have to synthinize it) you have aquird oblivion! goodluck. you WILL need it.

Well you don't need to level up to level to 80 that's exaggerating. Took him down at level 52 I think. I used the Judgement Blade (the one where you throw your keyblade and it comes back) because of the invincibility it provides. Guard and Dodge roll are good skills to have. Equip your strongest keyblade. Forget any other magic except the cure/cura/curaga spells and have a lot of potions. Lock on to him and when you get the chance use Judgement blade a few times. Then run towards him and upload a whole line of combos. Dodge roll most of his attacks because guarding is hard against his fast moves. Having a few ethers and elixers won't hurt either.

To sum this up Dodge, Spam Judgement blades and combos and retreat to avoid unessary damage. You can actually finish this game at lvl 56 if you want. Not advised though.

1.YOU NEED TO BE LEVEL 50.
YO MUST USE METAL CHOCOBO.
3.AERORA would waste your mp.
4.just get how he uses his attacks and then attack him.
5.when his hp bar is green he's gonna stay blue and have a new attack you need to dodge it by gliding away from him.
6.use the mp and attacking abilities.

Level up to about 60 and it will easy

When i got him down to his last "layer" of health he used the "superman" attack on me so i used one of the atk abillities. after that he was as normal and easy 2 kill. remember 2 get aeroga (in neverland in the ship)

well
you equip olympia,(or the strongest keychain you have),
when you enter, start smacking himdown,use arc aracnum to keep doing damage,
dodge all his attacks that you can,(i prefer dodge roll)
when you get him down to last layer, cast Aerora,(and heal whenever you need),
he starts super man, jump and glide, its ok if you get down, (cast Aerora again if it timed out)
and glide
when he finishes, kill him with a combo, but before last attack, use arc aracnum, if he lives and does super man again, just refer to the stradegy(requires at least 5 mp to heal and cast Aerora)

Instead of using dodge roll you should be using guard and counterattack so you can parry him an be able to get an easy combo on him. That's for his sword attacks including when he uses his form of sonic blade(when he throws the key blade like you can). For the move where he shoots back and forth around the stage, the best method for avoiding this or taking very little damage during it is to glide when he does it. If you time it right, you can glide, touch down when you run out of glide, and jump right back up and glide again until the move is over. The best thing to use is ars arcanum if you time it right. If you do time it right you can take away a good amount of his HP. But don't continuously use it because you'll need some MP to heal if you've run out of elixers, ethers, and hi-potions. Just continue these methods and you should beat him eventually. But don't think it will always work on the first try,it may take a few tries to learn his movements and know when to guard and counterattack. Good luck

Okay, I'm doing this on expert and it seems to work just fine, except I end up taking a risk or he just gets me as I'm using cure.
You'll need Cura, Guard, Counterattack, Dodge Roll, and any ammounts of combo plusses and Blitz.
If you don't have Blitz, then Ars Arcanum is a good alt because of it's invincibility while doing the first combo.
Basically you just let him walk up to you and get ready to hit square to Guard his basic attack (where if you dodge it, he hits the ground and makes a tiny explosion)
Guard that attack, Counterattack, and if you have Blitz, just do a full combo, if not, do 2 attacks and then Ars Arcanum.
Counterattack and the other hits should keep you up on enough magic to use Cura, and when you don't have enough for Ars Arcanum, just do 2-4 hits and dodge roll away.
Once he starts glowing blue for a while, just dodge roll around until he jumps and does an attack that afterwords gets rid of the blue glowing attack, then continue with the guard-counterattack-attack-attack-finisher
Once you get to his last bar, stay somewhat close to him and guard when you think he's about to attack to block the strike raid and possibly a slice, leaving him open for a counterattack.
When he uses Dark Aura (spams going back and forth across the room) glide to the edge by one of the 2 machines and use an ether/exlier/hi potion and then jump to dodge the after explosion.
Just repeat and with a little luck you'll beat him.

I beat him on my first try at level 55. the strategy all depends on what you picked in the beginning of the game. I picked the staff and had nine mp bars, so i just spammed aerora and cura and attacked as much as i could.

Look at one of the Boss FAQs
Glide out of the way of Dark Aura/Superman
Have Ars Arcanum equiped
Have elixers/megalixers

It Is Easy To Kill He
Up To More Higher Level (Like 47-50Lvl)
Bring More Potion (Which Heal Only Hp And Mp For One Person) *Sorry I Dun Know What Is The Name Of The Potion
Just Hit Him Hardly
If Riku Is Using Skill, Then Start Dodge It And Wait For He Stop
Riku Will Stop A While When After Using His Skill (Like 1-2 Second)
You Have A Chance To HIt Him
When Riku Is Using His Ultimate Skill
You Have To Calculate The Correct Time And Jump As High As Possible
Riku Will Attack All Place In That Stage
Just Glide At The Air To Avoid It
As Sometime
You Will Still Glide In The Air After Riku Finish His Skill
Straight Away Jump Down And Attack Him
If You Attack Is High
You Will Kill He At 3-4 Times Riku Using The Ultimate Skill
*If Want To Eat Potion
Just Jump Up And Select To Eat Or Heal

Heres what I did, try, try, try, try, try, try, try. He is hard but as long as you are a decent level, he will do down eventaully.

Just equip either olypia or metal chocobo( my favorite) and attack him when he is non-beserk and avoid him when he is blue
as for levels , lv. 50 would be good, but I was around 47 and had no problem.

Equip counterattack(a must), guard, dodge roll, blitz?, mp rage?, vortex?, and combo(and air combo) pluses?.(and all the shared abilities.) The ones with a question mark next to them you may not have depending on your choices in the begining. Equip elixers if you're desperate. Set cure, aero, and anything. When you fight him, keep guarding until he hits your guard(If you're good then you can try to parry his attacks instead). Then, use counterattack and combo him once. When he uses that superman/Dark Aura thing (he says Wellcome oblivion!)., you should jump and glide until he stops moving then hope you're lucky when the shockwave hits. When he throws his keyblade at you, the dodge roll or jump. When he says' here it comes!', he will slash and 2 waves will come from his sides. Avoid it by dodge rolling(not to his sides). If he says'Behold the power of darkness!', he will never come out of his super form. The key to avoiding that is to finish him as fast as you can. This boss is sort of like sephiroth lite(minus the insane difficulty).

Level up as good as you can.When your fighting him you should jump as soon as light comes from his keyblade.Make sure your keyblade is the chocobo or better.

Healing yourself helps a lot. I beat him my second time, and I was only lvl 44. Make sure you run as soon as light comes from his keyblade.

plain and simple:
1. be level 47 or up
2. use the Olympia key chain (told to use in players guide which i have) Chocobo is good too but i suggest the Olympia
3. use ars arcanum and strike raid these will be very helpful especially ars arcanum
4. fly away using Glide and heal yourself when necessary
5. Guard and counter-attack are essential!
6. all of the above should be useful and combine my advice with the others that posted answers. except the first one. hes crazy if he said 80; i beat him on lvl 44.

You can beat him if you are at level 50-60 easily and you should have a bunch of useful abilities and a bunch of elixers. When he does the thing when he zips back and forth, then you should use dodge roll to evade it and learn to use his patterns against him.

i beat the game at level 39. You dont need to be lv. 50
when he charges up and says, "now taste true power!!" or something jump as high as you can and glide around the clearing while he shoots arond, when hes starts his other attacks, remember. DODGE ROLL IS YOUR BEST FRIEND!!!!!!!!!! hell eventually stop. if you get hit, hell stop imediatlly

If you're still confused, you should look up an FAQ on this.

It should be in the Hints and Cheats section.

It'll go into detail on what you have to through.

If you press ctrl + F and put in what you're looking for you'll find it faster.

Hope this helps. :D

Equip yourself with the strongest keyblade you've obtained so far in the game (My reccomendation is the Metal Chocobo if you've beaten Cloud in Olympus Colliseum), as well as equipping yourself with helpful items and accessories. Make sure you also have the high jump ability and the glide ability. The high jump ability can be obtained after defeating the monster that traps Pinocchio in Monstro. Also, make sure you level up to a reasonable level. You don't want to go in with inexperience, or else it will be punishingly difficult, especially in Proud mode. Keep an eye on his HP bar if you've equipped the Scan ability while fighting until its empty. He should have a total of 3 HP bars (orange, yellow, green).

When i beat him i used the keyblade from neverland and had some hipotions. i was only level 45. Other than that jsut keep trying. Trust me it gets annoying.

Hey I got some tips,you know the keyblade metal chocobo?If you do use it to beat him,If you know but you don't have,beat Cloud at Hercules Cup.Set the shortcut(press L1 to activate) Cure or higher to the X mark(It,s easier)but I suggest to bring hi potions and elixirs too.Just keep attacking him.but be careful of his attacks,it gives off REAAAAAAAAAALLLL heavy damages(when his hand is shining).Use dodge roll to avoid it.Equip every best abillities you have(Including Sonic Blade).

(I'm not showing off but I kind of beat him at Lv 43 or 44 and I doesn't use any potions or anything like that,I only used cura.I tried it 2 times,I lost the first one and won the second.Here's another tip,If he said something about "behold the power of darkness" use that time to recover then use aero or higher then jump and glide as fast as you can.you lost many times so you must already identifies his moves.that's all.)

Make sure you are at least at level 50.
This is from the strategy guide:
Like Captain Hook, this opponent is deft of blade. Easier than the dragon? A little, but not by much. Press the [] button to use the guard ability to deflect his attacks. The Counterattack ability enables you to recover quickly and deliver a whole series of attacks before he can counter or evade. The Olympia key chain will significantly aid in this strategy. When you need to cast Cura, glide away to make some space. Riku has two other attacks to watch for. One resembles the Strike Raid, in which he flings his weapon at you. Although it's wiser to dodge this attack, if you can strike the spinning weapon at the moment it's going to hit you, then you can knock it back at Riku and damage him. When Riku powers up, he launches a whole series of attacks, shooting back and forth across the zone. When this occurs, it's best to jump into the air and glide around until Riku settles down. If you can know him off balance, select the Arcanum command (which appears at close range) and let him have it! Show Riku that he still doesn't hold a candle to you, and the Ragnarok ability is yours.

This part isn't in it , but make sure that you have a lot of potions with you for emergencies nd also, try not to use too many of them, they will be helpful later in the game. If you are still having dificulties, then try to level up to about level 56 or 57 nd Riku/Ansem shouldn't be too diffcult. Good luck.

I hope that helped

=^-^=

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"Don't mind me--I'm just indulging my hobby of pretending to be a wall. Please continue." "You're dead!" "Oh, dear."

Ok. Bits and pieces from everyone are pretty much right. Just putting them all together is needed. you dnt need to be LVL 80, 70 or even 50. I took him down with much ease at LVL 43. yes, i know. I need to LVL up some more. lol. But i like challenges. Anyway, before initiating the cutscene, equip the metal chocobo keyblade. Obtain this by defeating Cloud. Make sure u eqip all your abilities such as guard, dodge roll and some combo abilities. This is how you can defeat him.
1. start of by running up to him and guarding. You'll block his attack right away if you time it right. Once his attack is blocked, hit him twice right away and then use ars arcanum and once that finishes, you can squeeze in a couple of strikes. Then back off and heal or whatever you need to do. Elixers are r very handy in this battle. once again, repeat the process. Be carefull though because he only attacks like that in the begining. when you have his life down to maybe half, he'll start going super sayan on your ass and start charging all over the damn place. dont be scared. just jump and glide. or dodge roll, whatever you prefer. right away when hes done charging, break his defense and use another attack combo. then back off and heal again and so forth. within minutes his life will diminish. pretty easy stuff. =]