Lurker > Kamekguy

GANON1025 posted...

Interesting.... let me ask what we're all thinking: If Sonic were turned into a woman, married and had children with Hero, which one of them according to their writeup would gain Sonic's speed and reflexes?

I feel that Sonic's son would gain his speed, but only his daughter would be able to spindash and hold down on slopes to beat robots.

I will argue Banjo over Frank West, and I am confident I could score two, MAYBE three votes.

Yakuza
Tales

It took The Prince 30 minutes to replace the moon.

DK punched the moon in 10 seconds.

DK. Donkey Kong.

I think DK wins if it's Ixion she summons. He definitely gets on its back and rides it as a power-up, and then Rambi's Yuna with its horn.

But if it's anyone else Yuna takes it.

Kid Icarus
God of War

Dragon Quest XI
Resident Evil 2

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Disco Elysium

If I'm in a location with a Del Taco, there is a hole in the wall Mexican food location with much larger portions of better quality for the same price within half of a mile.

If I want Taco Bell, I do not want Mexican food. I want Taco Bell. It is beneath label, it is simply itself.

Old racers are more time trials than actual racing games - I think F-Zero and OutRun actually make out a lot better than Super Mario Kart does in that department, as F-Zero provides the illusion of a race rather than the other racers directly hampering the experience like SMK (and is fast), and OutRun is just outright a time attack game.

Oh okay.

Team Sora

That was like, my one contingent. Otherwise... damn Kefka really is just a Kingdom Hearts boss Sora eats for breakfast, huh? Like obviously Kefka does more AoE damage, but no way in Hell does he win the 1v1; that's Sora's bread and butter, complete with "oh no I almost wiped to the nigh unavoidable attack, better heal up". I was hoping Sephiroth Vs Zero would be closer or that Kefka would AoE enough that Sephiroth would have to support Sora, but I just... don't think that's the case here? Especially if Zero can't regroup with extra power gained from a slain enemy. Zero just seems kinda worse than the Square boys in this element and Selvaria isn't ideal support for him in this scenario. And that's BEFORE the terrain disadvantage is thrown into the mix!

So I dug up what Zero could do from the Zero series since I have no familiarity. I got:

-If he perfect parries a projectile, it turns into FUTURE MONEY (Filter Shield)
-Has a grapple beam that sucks energy (Energy Chain)
-Enemy-piercing laser that bounces off walls (Reflect Laser)
-Create a sphere that absorbs energy and then explodes to damage opponents (Tractor Shot)
-Creates a tiny zone (like the size of him) where he stops time for like three seconds (Time Stopper, this is the most fair time stop I have ever seen in Mega Man it's so nerfed)
-Rip and tear an enemy's weapon from them with a finishing blow (Zero Knuckle)

Again this is just from a quick wiki dive of stuff that was more impressive to me than what I know about Zero slashing through dudes with the Z-Saber (which I tried to find feats for and... he one-shots Vile in an INTRO to MMX3 on like, the PS1/Saturn? I guess?). I do, however, think that if ends up in a fight with Jesse and gets the Zero Knuckle off on her... if that plays nice, that interaction is interesting. I've mostly been digging through that because Zero's team comp is just... really rough, Kefka's basically flying solo drawing aggro and Selvaria doesn't care at all to help because 1. Zero's here and 2. it's Kefka. But if Zero does a HEROES ARRIVE LATE and engages with Jesse, nabbing her stuff... I don't even know if that's possible, my lore on both MMZ and Control is weak, but that matters to me.

2B

Nah my dude. Pod gets a clean boss kill and I do not buy "time slow" and "time stop" immunity to mean the same thing, especially given that I don't entirely buy that Sol resisting the timestop wasn't Axl's doing so he could talk to his weird buff scientist alternate universe idol (especially since it's described as Axl consciously doing Time Kompression).

Sol dumpsters 2B if he gets a hit, and I think he can running this fight a bunch of times. But I also think 2B is adaptable enough to not be run clean through. I think Sol lands a hit, but I imagine it blowing off one of her arms rather than her head or torso. At that point, it's assessment time, and Sol... doesn't really have many tricks past that. Dragon Install and getting stronger, sure, but Sol is ALWAYS a wallbreaker. 2B is not a wall, she's a dodgy girl who has her very specific secret job because she's very, very good at being a dodgy girl. Gravity especially really screws with Sol's day, as he's been TK'd a LOT in his day. And I dunno about your playthroughs, but I never let go of that R1 button once during combat; that's constant damage plus some healing while dodging happens. Sol is just not good at taking that kind of pressure; Nago outright says due to his immortality, he sucks at actual dodging since he's not used to being unable to no-sell everything.

... funny enough I probably vote that Raiden solos 2B here as he matches speed before overclock comes into effect. But Sol smashes Raiden because yeah Raiden ain't parrying that punch.

My guy, I just see the cutscene where she barriers away Potemkin's giant robot and am like "wow that's a giant robot she swatted away". Then wanted to find something that actually measures that force in an environment that isn't a flashy game intro but like, actually happened in-universe.

I don't care about power levels or the past. I care that I saw this guy match power with her, and know that in the same series of cutscenes, her power was "wow bat away giant robot" and "wow big explosion". Which is, y'know. What I'd do with Raiden or whoever else when I wanna see how strong they are compared to other strong guys, and I think works in showing off power without diving into endless lore which requires a study guide to know which routes in which arcade modes were canon and which were I-No just screwing with the timeline.

To give Sol actual striking credit, this is Nagoriyuki, a giant cyborg vampire. Sol blade clashes with him to a stalemate here, with Nago then admitting that Sol would win the fight and letting himself get overpowered by Sol's punch, which clears out everything else in the room when he lets the power go.

https://youtu.be/TmrnitQev4o

So the question here is "to one-shot Nago and match power with him... how strong is that?"

https://gfycat.com/embarrassedmemorablegrayfox

Nago is able to blade clash/stall out the full power I-No. About how strong is that? Well if you look at about 32 seconds here...

https://gfycat.com/bonyyawningazurevase

"Very big explosion" strong. As to why Sol isn't punching her, he's busy charging the Special Beam Cannon with a big laser gun while the other guys fight. She also effortlessly tosses around some real big robots.

Just to try and quantify Sol's pure strength visually rather than comparing him to numbers. I do think that covering fire from pod and especially stuff like gravity (Sol get TK'd a LOT durning the I-No fight) will really screw with Sol, but I wanna try and give a more quantifiable measure to Sol's upper end that isn't just "he LIFTS". Even though hitting someone with President Lincoln is very, very funny.

So, in the interest of getting actual points to talk about:

Sol is really quite strong. There are caveats to his best power and speed feats - "caught up to a missile" is relative to the missile being shot out right as he reaches the end of the silo and "blew a hole in a thing so powerfully he could create a pocket dimension" is true... as the conduit for a dude who basically had free manipulation the metaverse behind reality. The fact that Sol was trusted to do both of these is a good good showing for him - like where ICBM's failed, Sol Badguy punching something really hard succeeded. For a general idea of his relative movement speed, check out 2:05 here for a real-time FMV of him moving rather than numbers. For strength, the previously-posted "throwing around a big statue of President Lincoln" will do. Keep in mind he's taking out, like, the entire Secret Service there.

https://youtu.be/Pi_RtJvcr2I

If he touches 2B with a relatively strong hit, she's getting dumpstered. The issue would be actually touching her.

2B is not going to make being touched easy, if at all. This is the first boss of Automata.

https://nintendoeverything.com/wp-content/uploads/NieR-Automata-Engels.jpg

2B individually cuts off some of its limbs before getting into her flight unit and taking the thing on. Namely, she takes direct hits from lasers the size of Engles' head (see: bigger than her, by quite a lot) and is able to go head-to-head with its arm, which is basically a giant sawblade. She can't take MANY of these hits... but let's go over some of the stuff she's got:

-Offensive Healing: Any time she lands a blow, she's healing 30% of whatever she dishes out.
-Evasive System: Passive bullet time whenever a projectile gets near her. If it's less than an actual bullet, she's probably dodging it.
-Bullet Detonation: If she shoots a projectile, it explodes. To damage the one who tossed it out or anything in range.
-Continuous Combo: She can focus on swiping with her blade and dodging at the same time. Literally devoting some processing power in her CPU to do both simultaneously.
-Overclock: Witch time. It's just Witch Time. It's specifically described as slowing down time for a few seconds on a close dodge.

But these just allow her to be functional. She's what you expect from a spectacle fighter, big combo machine and all that. What sets her apart is her support pod. Pod 042 provides constant, uninterrupted machine gun fire through the entire match, no reloading or anything, just constant bullets. But it also has ALL of its programs, which allows for:

-Big laser beam that shreds bosses, ends up going clean through a robot over twice the height of 2B, which was made of the corpses of similar combat models.
-Barrier that blocks melee attacks
-A scan pulse that detects all enemies and allows 2B to slash all of them faster than the eye can keep up with.
-Wire that grapples you directly to your target (it's just Snatch from DMC, you know it)
-Decoy hologram 2B
-Time distortion field to slow opponents
-Gravity well that does not damage, but causes all enemies in the vicinity to hover helplessly before her.
-Missiles, Chain Lightning, Bombs
-Healing circle
-Constant pulse scan of the area

Now, not all of this will necessarily be effective against Sol - he's fought against time manipulators before and has managed to land his share of punches in spite of that. What matters is that 2B is 100% controlling the pace of most of her encounters. If Sol makes even one mistake (and he HAS made mistakes - Guilty Gear continuing to happen proves that he can make mistakes), 2B can likely regenerate to full as long as she doesn't take a direct killshot, and will be dealing CONSTANT pressure on a guy who's been most used to recovering with a healing factor rather than dodging. And he's plenty tanky, sure... but it's gonna add up if he doesn't land the killing blow, and 2B has so MANY different ways to trip him up.

... with that said, yeah, if he gets that blow? 2B isn't the most durable in the world. Durable, sure, able to dish out damage, definitely, but she's much better at avoiding pain or taking explosions than she is concussive force. At the very worst, she can self-destruct and almost ensure a draw (her self-destruct is real good), but if Sol knocks the girl's head off her shoulders... that's a big problem.

Super Star is weird. It came out, was agreed on to be pretty great, and then no games in the style of it came out for 15 years. Most of the modern Kirbies (Return to Dreamland, Triple Deluxe, Planet Robobot, Star Allies) are very much expansions of the Dyna Blade/Revenge of Meta Knight style, whereas the other games available on the NSO service are a lot slower paced and focused around "how do I get this power combo to this location". Still good games, mind! But KSS is more a starting point that the rest of the series eventually branched off from and the most people generally really like rather than 'the undisputed best'.

... I just really love it because it's real quick and has no fat and I can beat it in an afternoon and feel good every time.

RE: EXP, my thinking is that it's one of the few really straightforward things in mercs, and to overcomplicate the game further (as it's already a bit more complicated than it was before - well-defined, mind you, but complicated), I worry in it getting overwhelming for those poking their heads in looking for what this all is. If we did implement a change, my current preference would be toward 'weeks on team' to gain XP, and to only start giving that out after 10 weeks or so, or at elimination cycles; that way, you can end up getting XP to polish off the pieces you founded your team around, and it wouldn't be an immediate stress on players to manage.

RE: K. Rool, the invincibility is based on his second boss fight in DKC2, wherein you dodge like a solid minute and a half of his pattern. Like, Diddy and Dixie manage that, and they're... honestly probably the weakest mercs combat-wise outside of Rika? If we defined that the enemy knew about K Rool's invincibility period, would that be enough for balance, or would you like more? In theory, whoever he's firing at is a LOT more adept than Dixie Kong at not dying.

RE: Darknite, funny card man heehee. I am fine with the idea of it coming with a recharge, I'd also like to field the idea of Heart of the Cards only being online coming after a loss, to both be more show-faithful in a desperation kind of deal and make it non-oppressive, while also adding the "card can only be drawn once via this method" stip. Just spitballing here for that sake.

Super Star is a big sampler platter of Kirby - buncha small game modes. If you like one of them in specific, there's probably a Kirby game that's close to in-line with its philosophies.

Game & Watch Gallery 3 is great if you enjoy anxiety and the feeling of multitasking, Greenhouse especially. Can probably reach credits (50 stars) in about 3-4 hours.

Fire 'N' Ice and The Adventures of Lolo are both clever little puzzle games on NES, I think they're both real hidden gems with really limited movesets, but a lot of flexibility in how you use those.

Panel de Pon, likewise, is just Tetris Attack. Which is just Pokemon Puzzle League. Which is one of the most fun 'match three' puzzle games out there.

And yeah DKC1 and DKC3 are definitely worth a playthrough. They're close to DKC2, but have their own unique feel and quirks that set them apart (DKC1 having shorter stages that feel more arcade-like, while DKC3 has a lot more careful and methodical stages).

Would V, personality-wise, see the giant evil demon thing and on-sight wanna go "... that's rad, I want to beat the Hell out of it?"

Because I feel like Team Batman NEEDS V's firepower to take out the Cyberdemon. Zagreus is at least probably getting his debuff suite off, and BJ is durable enough to at least kill Leon and do some damage to everyone else (though I think Kiryu beats him up if he gets close, beating a cyborg in close combat is... VERY Kiryu. Ichiban beat a giant roomba with lasers by punching it, and he's way weaker than Kiryu). The Batmobile absolutely does work here, but Bats has to be able to stay open, which is hard on a terrain with a bunch of ghosty boys who wanna kill him.

Really it depends on what way V swings for me. Whatever team ends up convincing them wins, and if they don't go with anyone, this is an uphill climb for Bruce's squad that IS doable, but I dunno how consistently. Zagreus would really have to screw up constantly to not let Cyberdemon have an upper hand.

Oh I'm pretty sure it is!

But like. I prefer it to Kart 64, Super 64, Tennis, Golf... Smash 64 and Yoshi's Story if you wanna count those.

Every Mario Kart game before 8 has been pretty mid at best, and "F-Zero if it were trash" at worst. Wii's kinda fun to break, though.

As an extension, Mario Kart Tour, through being a weird Tony Hawk-like combo game instead of a Mario Kart game, is pretty good.

Mario Party 2 was the best Mario game on the Nintendo 64.

Wario Land 3 is the least fun entry with "Wario Land" in the name.

Rabbid Peach is the best Mario character introduced or reintroduced in the past 15 years.

It takes 180 missiles to defeat Ridley in Super Metroid.

Now, Metal Gear Rising takes place in 2018. Zero Mission takes place is 20X5. Therefore, I am willing to believe that Raiden's actual damage output is about congruous to Samus', if not just a little less assuming that Metroid doesn't take place during the Bush/Sears administration. Even assuming, quite charitably, that Mario shrinks dudes to a 1/10th scale and that also 1/10ths their durability...

Like, if Ridley is not RIGHT next to the ground? I think he lives. Keeping in mind that this is Omega Ridley and not Super Metroid Ridley - he's been given big tech armor that has then been dipped in phazite, which no-sells Samus' standard missiles. "Raiden can't cut through it" is a silly thing to think, he absolutely can, but I don't believe for a second it's clean cuts straight through. Gordon isn't doing much more than scratching him.

However, Gordon does prevent this from being a complete blowout by sniping Vivi. If Mario uses Lightning on that Auto-Reflect... oof ouch.

Still, Double Dragons. Ridley will demand Raiden's attention for a while, even assuming the best of circumstances, and that basically lets Zeratul have free reign in ganking everyone else. I honestly don't think Cloud needs to summon Bahamut until he's actually ready to engage Raiden; he's got the feats and skills to handle everyone else here pretty deftly and Ridley, the guy who can fly between planets and Samus' Gunship can't keep up with, is most certainly the fastest guy here and controlling the pace.

Team Fulminating Belmont

After thinking on it, here is my general thoughts on how fight distribution goes:

Ouroboros Eunie & TLW Vs RAY & Big DK
Trevor & Sypha Vs Sonic
Crono Vs Bowser

Which leaves the 'free space' to help support any given side as Aigis and Tails. If DK were rushing into the fray, I would absolutely take that he stomps, but he's not, and will probably want to avoid any big shots he sees by assuming RAY can take it. RAY eventually will not be able to take it.

Sonic would normally stomp the god power couple, but Tails' Heal Bot is purely regen-focused rather than an instant patch. I do not think Sonic is back up to full by the time an engagement happens, and "making ice on the floor" and "stopping time" are real solid answers to Sonic's tricks. Not absolute answers, mind you, but enough that he has to take a bit, sustains damage, and most importantly, can't really disrupt anyone else. Plus if he starts, Trevor is absolutely going to mouth off to him. You can't tell me Sonic would NOT be provoked by Trevor Belmont, like. They are absolutely going to quip at each other, and if there's one thing Sonic can get carried away doing, it's showboating against someone mouthing off to him.

Otherwise I just respect Lone Wanderer's sheer damage output, like they're just. Really good at shooting things with stuff that sounds more impressive than bullets, and Taion and Eunie are really good at distracting really big robots that are honestly more impressive than RAY. If DK were stomping them, I think it's a different story, but at most, DK is trying to clap to stun them while hiding behind his big friend, or throwing RAY at them like a giant laser-equipped baseball.

And I think ALL of this is plausible... if Aigis wasn't a free body. But unfortunately, she is, and that does a LOT to act as a battery for anyone who's struggling in their match-ups. I think she's out of her disorientation by the time the fight starts, and I think she's pretty amazing as a free body to lend support where needed be, be that healing, freidyne, as a distraction, buffs, a revive, etc. She can even swap with Eunie when Ouroboros needs to go on cooldown as a solid stall for RAY-KONG.

This is a razor-thin margin, mind you, but I think there are just more situations and permutations where Team Belmont chokes out a victory (though all of them require Mewtwo to be dead, which... yeah I buy, VATS is gonna make sure that guy's taking damage, and Belmont time stop is great insurance that the threshold to kill the 'mon is met).

Alright, so general thoughts after thinking this out:

-I absolutely interpret Fulminating Belmont as "Trevor gets hit by God Lightning and goes super demigod mode for a hot second". This, combined with time stop, I think does really massive damage to Mewtwo before they can escape, or at the very least, rattles the, quite a lot and lets the rest of the squad beat them up.

-Eunie is dead, and Aigis needs a second to get her thoughts in order to revive. Crono can do a less cool revive I guess, and Aigis can top that off.

-Sonic... I don't think beefs it here. Light is legitimately something that he's BEEN before, it's probably the element closest to him other than wind, so I think he manages to live. He's pretty beat up, though, and Tails only really has regen for him. I don't buy him scouting, he'd need a lot more time for it to patch up.

-If Aigis can get off Heritage Liberator here, I think THAT'S a very juicy attack that'll really deal some great damage to one of RAY and DK. If she can combo that with Eunie's Big Ouroboros Laser, I think there's some real great prospects for big damage.

-If she doesn't... that's bad. Tails is basically ensuring that not just Sonic gets regen here; RAY gets a double stack and DK gets some, too. Add in that he has a plane and a tiny robot to scout things out with, and even without Mewtwo, the scope of the terrain is rough.

-Trevor matches up insanely well against Sonic right now, as does Taion's Ouroboros Form... but both of those have pretty strong limitations and Eunie needs to be a damage dealer to handle RAY. With Aigis as the other main offensive output (out of necessity), this leaves Crono, Sypha, and Lone Wanderer open to hunt down DK, Tails and Bowser. Which I do think they CAN manage, but it's a very protracted fight.

-The longer Tails stays alive, the worse things are. I have to figure out how quickly Lone Wanderer susses the guy out as a decent backbone. Tails dropping a flash bomb or suiciding to debuff Aigis is real rough.

Tricky match, lot of variables to consider. Honestly not sure where I'm leaning right now, though I'll admit I need to dive into LW's stuff just a bit more.

... damn I forgot Tails has healing.

https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Medi_Bot

Actually hilariously, this gives passive regen to HP... and PP. Like. Tails is one of the few guys who can actively restock Mewtwo's Recover, if Mewtwo lives.

On the other hand, I interpret 'Fulminating Belmont' as Trevor just. Absorbing all of the light and becoming a strong holy boy, like a full dragon install but it's all god power. And I respect that a whole bunch if he's just whipping out holy lightning bolts, like THAT. That I think does some damn good damage to RAY.

This is probably what I'd base Sonic durability respect on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW33q8YW-jI

Which is "good that he lived... but he passes out from this".

So y'know, extrapolate from there how Tails tries to power of friendship Sonic to consciousness or whatever.

It is hard for me to imagine a better thought than a paranoid-for-his-life DK wildly spinning RAY around as a shield while it shoots a death laser everywhere, destroying everything.

I don't have many further thoughts at the moment, a lot to consider, but I think it's quite funny.

Y'know, I was really impressed with Joshua there.

Then I noticed Alucard had Alucard Shield and not just Shield Rod, but Malbung.

Alucard like. What're we doing here? One-shot immunity doesn't matter since Alucard is a bunch of quick attacks anyway, Alucard has glasses that let him see invisible things, passive soul steal on hit, he just has to TOUCH you and you start melting, and he can combo that with Malbung to ignore the potential defensive buffs and just go in. And this lasts a full minute and 20 seconds. And this is not taking into account that his speed dashes are just natural and not weapon-dependent now.

Like it was a fun thought exercise for JUST Crissaegrim Alucard, but this set-up passively MELTS Dracula by jumping into his face and doing nothing else.

What are Josh and Estelle's durability feats? Like not counting buffs, just base durability.

Because like Alucard and Ancient Arrows...

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/a/uploads/original/11137/111371329/6748070-alucard%20feat%20speed%20%2815%29.gif

Like these are attacks that WILL land. I absolutely do not give credit for being able to tag Alucard with a debuff or status before he's in range, and this is him just punching; he could do that with a sword in SotN! Not to mention Daruk's Protection from Link nulling physical damage and repelling projectiles. Like, if this were a fair fight, absolutely, 100%, Estelle and Joshua would... still lose. But this isn't a fair fight; Alucard and Link I absolutely do not believe let themselves get tagged with the debuffs necessary to bring them down quickly and snowballing.

But I need to know, like, actual stuff the Brights do besides their list of spells. Which sound nice, but everything I have ever heard about Estelle involves a big stick or violence, so I am unsure if they go for optimal here (I THINK Joshua does but like. Alucard sounds like the perfect person to provoke Estelle).

My guy if you do Kefka & Juri Vs Tusk & Snake, I will argue both sides (I figure Kefka's Tower is probably the best terrain for all parties involved).

Because of all those characters, the only ones I feel super qualified to argue are Kefka and 2B. and I don't think 2B's got a shot against Sol. She's great close-quarters and anti-range, Sol punching her in the face because "screw finesse, I'm just gonna hit it" matches up real rough.

Team Final Heaven or Hell

My main concern is just a matter of weapons - namely, Doomslayer's pure AoE. The massive shockwaves the BFG leaves are just really bad news for anyone surrounding, and while Chief certainly can fight back floods of enemies, a lot of Chief's weapons are made to focus down one enemy for a prolonged period (part & parcel for Halo's energy shields being so damn good). I just see Squall getting caught in the AoE a LOT more than I do Tifa here, especially considering Chief's likely to want a longer range confrontation with his boy close to keep buffing him, and Doom Slayer... doesn't. I see him bum rushing a lot faster than I see Squall being able to pop support, and even if he manages to get some blinding off, I think Tifa gets some healing in, at least once. And that's a Hell of a lot more than the constant offensive barrage is gonna allow the other guys. If Chief had a better option or the terrain had less corridors and more open space, I think there's a solid argument (take this to Balamb and I think it's interesting with Squall's knowledge and Chief using different levels of elevation to kite and pick Tifa off), but in a terrain where rushing is all but guaranteed and Doom Slayer is aggro magnet supreme? Yeah, nah fam.

What's the highest damage weapon Chief has at about a mid-range, again?

I recall Doom Slayer being, like, ridiculously fast at... well, a lot of things, "outrunning his own rockets" being one, and Eternal has really only solidified that feeling from what I've seen. He is very good at getting in close, and if he gets in close, I respect his AoE a TON and think Squall is just turbodead in the crossfire.

With that said, I think Chief is more than willing to play this cautiously and I have never played a Halo match where I felt like it didn't take way too long to kill a space marine. What's Chief's upper firepower range, as I think that's probably the determining factor in how much he's able to do to the Slayer before he runs out of friends and also space to kite.

I want to believe in the scenario where Mario cappy's into Dixie, Bowser KNOWS what Mario can do and kills Dixie, and then DK and Diddy, so aghast that Bowser would do that, ignore the fight to beat him up, ignoring the fact that DK has also been possessed by Mario because he is so overcome with righteous fury.

I do not think this is likely, mostly because Sonic just. Exists. But I think it's very funny.

Banjo-Kazapple

I think everyone just like. Explodes. This is a baby terrain and Claude is the only one who can really get off of the ship in any meaningful way other than "into the water, where they get lightning fried". Like, everyone is gonna end up real extra crispy here... and Banjo can just kinda chill with Wonderwing and avoid AoE and bullet hell until people start like. Dying. And if they freeze the wyvern's wings with an Ice Egg it's super over (which would be unlikely if, y'know, it wasn't probably wounded severely by oh god lightning everywhere).

I don't think there's really wiggle room here for anyone other than Claude and Banjo to pull anything other than "just start blasting". DD's ensure Zag gets off a bunch of pressure, K. Rool is the bulkiest guy on the field naturally, Claude can't really get to a range where both he would be more effective than BJ or K Rool, and he doesn't really have any time to do poison strats with his gambit or Venin Bow.

Yes

One of DiMaggio's most fun vocal performances.

For a moment, I was thinking Vivi matched up hilariously well here. Sypha, Crono, and Trevor all theoretically have the best range here, and Vivi just auto-bounces anything right back at the former two that would come from a range, and probably lives a single hit from Trevor enough to Double Black Magic him, plus whatever damage he reflected back at the other guys. The Black Mages are more just pure homunculi than creatures of darkness (I don't THINK Mist was inherently evil in FFIX, though I could be misremembering), so the disruption potential for Vivi's kill count here was high.

But Eunie just. Has a gun.

Whoops

Team Glock Town

I do think Batman does a lot here. I totally buy the Batmobile as an effective transit around (like my guy is smashing through pillars and can jet boost to recorrect itself, it'll be fine) and Bats has the effective technology to do some real damage - from the shock gauntlets to putting explosive gel on his fist and punching, he has enough raw force to disorient and disable pretty much anyone here except Zeratul.

... and that's about where it ends as I don't think the raw firepower exists for Team Bats to take this. If Batman could provide openings for Mega Man to deliver finishing blows, I think that's more than fine, but the ability to do so in the time frame that Mega Man has is VERY limited. Quite frankly, I don't think Bats manages to get through Cloud without support - I don't think Cloud exactly scales to Zack in tenacity or anything, but I can't imagine him not being scrappy and getting taken down instantly by a sneak attack. And that's before factoring in Zeratul just passively removing Batman's best aspect of being able to strike from the shadows and immediately retreat. Do I think Mega Man gets off the sneak attack? Yes, absolutely. I think he's a corpse, though, and already has lost the fight while doing so. Like a killswitch being flipped.

I'd detail more but my shift started like three minutes ago, so just dropping a vote for Vivi and his Invisible Friend, I don't think Mega gets as much as is necessary before he goes down and I don't think any individual member of Vivi's team is gonna fall before then.

Am I misremembering that Tornado Man's weapon clears weather?

I have a vague memory of SOMETHING of Mega Man's clearing bad weather, but I don't recall what and that could absolutely be a fake memory mixing with Cloud Man's stage.

So question on visualizing the terrain.

Can the Batmobile not go down the really long pathway that leads to the harbor where the Rex Vs Ray fight is? That's in the same general direction as the snowfield iirc and doesn't require going all the way through a huge military installation? Plus Batman teleporting ahead and guiding the Batmobile to his location with Mega Man riding it.

Like if I'm wrong I get it, but I figure that actually gets Rock in a position to contribute past corpse sneak attack?

Oh I do agree with you. I just think the shock of being suplexed by something that should not be able to suplex you against the guy with the magic glowy whip that can freeze time to hit you with said magic glowy whip (which I do think affects Pamela due to the magic damage it would inflict, rather than the whip actually hitting her) that explicitly hurts the undead real bad hurts a lot.

I agree it's the proper strategy, I just don't think Pamela's in a good space to use it, and am taking Castlevania's precedent of banishing/sealing away the undead over Pamela's gameplay function of revival (which is totally on me and my interpretation, but I don't think there's a definitive sway on which a person should necessarily take as 'correct' in that instance).

The tacking on was to give further support to Trevor directly (since Fake Sypha is very directly in service to supporting Fake Trevor), plus to give her SOMETHING from an in-game appearance, not to mention the fakes being based off the souls of the originals. It felt like a natural extension to me for more utility and fit their actual dynamic well.

I... don't understand the gaps in the Kuriboh logic, though? Pamela likes cute things, it's horribly depressed, it's gonna wander out and get killed, and I dramatized a bit for the sake of a better narrative? And I also assumed that getting unexpectedly suplexed was surprising? Like however I can smooth it out, lemme know, but I thought I covered stuff fairly thoroughly.

You see, not all Kongs are created equal. Usually every man got a 100% body, but I'm a genetic freak, and I'm not normal, which means with Diddy and Dixie at percent, times the square root of Bowser, I got a 300% size body, that's 3200 pounds of gorilla canonical according to Donkey Kong 64 but times four, making it Donkey Kong 256. But then, you add BJ Blowskowitz to the match, and BJ KNOWS he can't beat me, so you take BJ's 33 1/3 percent body, and you add 33 1/3 percent because he's a robot, so he's better at math and twice as heavy , and I got a 366 2/3 percent chance of being a 5312 pound gorilla.

BUT if we was to go one-on-one with Zagreus, he slows the percent by 40%, so you REMOVE my 40% of my 300%, and now, I'm down to 120% of Donkey Kong. But you take my 3200 percent mass weight time and you subtract it to Sonic's 77 pounds, and Sonic Hedgehog, I am drunk, and you are 0.2% of my body weight, which means you are VERY DRUNK. Snoic Hedgehog, the numbers don't lie, and they spell disaster for us at Castle Wolfenstein.

... yeah I think the debuff here is just crippling with DK's sheer size. It's still a boon to DK himself, but the fact that Aphrodite and Dionysus are spreading to a team that was already struggling in the raw damage dealing department is very, very rough. I do think the Cyberdemon fight goes well, Sonic is definitely not getting touched there, but... like, the Imperialist is a legit laser sniper rifle from Samus. DK doesn't have the reaction speed for that, even at his heightened reflexes, nor does he have a durability feat that lets me believe he wouldn't be melted by a headshot. And that's before we get into Samus slowing down time or even ask BJ to contribute. And then we throw Zagreus into the mix.

Team Samus. Mewtwo being AWOL to not give the offensive pressure really, really hurts matters here for me.

Part 4: Does Raiden Solo?

... but does that matter? Raiden can certainly take a licking and keep desperately kicking, no matter how torn to pieces he gets in the process. Even taking a potshot or three from time freezing belmont and luminaire, to say that Raiden would be put down before he lets it rip is only possible if he gets REAL unlucky with debuffs. Almost assuredly, he's taking down more guys with him. If no one has anything to stop him in his tracks, that's game.

... but Sypha has Break. And I see temporary petrification, especially on a target who's getting revived, providing a LOT of openings.

The critical weakness to Raiden is being able to end his onslaught - if you're capable of getting room to breathe instead of the guy mauling you mercilessly, there is nary a thing to do about it, he will just keep winning. But having disruption, being able to either endure and counter or somehow stop the pain, that allows for openings. I would normally consider Sypha waaaay too squishy for this strategy, as it's a rather short-range cloud of effect - but Raiden's up close and her team is uniquely built to make sure that this status can get off. And unable to defend himself and already wounded... THIS is where I see Raiden falling. Needing a full stall and multiple party members worth of effort to beat him... but I think he's beatable, even while motivated.

While this is a very long narrative, I wanted to lay everything out, out of respect for both teams. Both have very strong merits and bring a lot to the table - an endless bag of tricks versus utterly overwhelming force that's been allowed to thrive. I wanted to judge this, not just by raw statistical powers and feelings, but how I felt every merc would be able to cooperate, feel, and contribute at every step of every encounter, while also considering the permutations. Please, accept this decision in the spirit of that.

Tingle Tingle, Kooloo-Limpah.

So I've been thinking for a good, long while for this. And I want to create a cohesive narrative for how I think the battle takes place - I think it's only fair to give it absolute focus, and try to list all of the variables here.

Part 1: Ghost Suplexes

The match starts and Aigis is suplexing Pamela. The argument is that 'Pamela phases through the ground because ghost'. I do not immediately buy this - I feel the shock of actually being suplexed, regardless of the actual damage it deals, will keep her from auto-phasing through the ground instantly. And if that's the case... Trevor absolutely murders the crap out of her. I do feel that the revive would go through - Pamela would absolutely want to defend her suicidal friend Kuriboh here - if that revive was guaranteed going through. I combed for any evidence of Castlevania protags actually banishing or sealing away undead, and there were a few examples (Soma's magic circles, Charlotte undoing vampirism, etc.). But then there's this.

https://youtu.be/LoQLnVdsBeQ?t=58

... yeah those are just Sypha using magic circles. I think that would constitute Pamela being completely banished, even when the gameplay of her series would ensure her revival. This is probably my biggest sticking point - Pamela's neutralization - as she would be MASSIVE if she came back, sucked up the enemy and healed off of them, and let Raiden run through a buncha enemy raises. That actively swings things for me. But I don't think it happens. Even in situations where I think that Pamela does get through, I don't see her doing the thing necessary - hitting silence on Aigis - in an effective manner with Aigis properly on the backlines and knowing where she is due to monitoring. If a sneak attack were possible, that'd be a whole 'nother thing, but it presently isn't.

Part 2: Infinite Blade (Mode) Works

I absolutely buy that when Raiden is able to hits the enemy, it's with Taion set-up. The revives on Team Crono are crazy - I interpret Limitless Resurrection as "for a limited time, if they get knocked down, they get up again", probably with some kinda turn limit. Even if you interpret it as soft resurrection, that makes anyone - even TINGLE - an effective scout, because he is going to scream really loudly when he dies multiple times.

The thing is... I think that Raiden is absolutely gonna exceed those expectations. Very likely, suicidal Kuriboh is gonna go and find a merciless death, probably sniped by Belnades after she makes a quip about calling it cute. And that Kuriboh took a bullet for Raiden, an emotional bullet he can't possibly repay the little guy for. And if there's one thing that motivates Raiden, it's children with PTSD being horribly abused or dying. Raiden's close-combat speed exceeds anything in Xenoblade 3, and his actual movement speed, while not comparable to stuff like Mio's Ouroboros, is still real good. A similar swordfighter (N) was able to utterly overwhelm three Ouroboros at once, taking them apart piece by piece, and this isn't a form that'll reincarnate on death - this is going to SUCK. I do believe that Body Double can get off some debuffs... but I think it's rather unreliable at doing so due to its randomness element, and I don't think the optimal strategy of 'flood EVERYTHING' is gonna be primed because, quite frankly, Eunie's Ouroboros has the best individual kill move on either side with its giant laser cannon. That is likely gonna be the planned finale, to not exhaust the Ouroboros form before she can get there... and I don't think she does, I think Taion needs every second he can get. This will create a great wall, and there's like a 25% chance a good debuff gets dropped and the fight's basically over... but I see Eunie falling here, I really do. Plus her getting revived and dying repeatedly is probably gonna re-traumatize her.

Part 3: OKAY BUT WHAT DOES EVERYONE ELSE DO

While I think Raiden does eventually cut through Eunie & Taion, the nature of Ouroboros constantly regenerating itself and just how damn dodgy the Taion form is presents a problem: this is an enemy that Raiden can't just cut through and move onto the next with. He HAS to dismember and take his time (well, as much as "Raiden takes his time" can be expected) for this to work. Thus leaves Crono, Aigis, Sypha, Trevor, and Gordon open to take action.

Gordon is pivotal to his team's success here, as his ability to keep the enemy off of Raiden for long enough for Raiden to run out the ouroboros clock is paramount. To see how long Raiden needs, I checked this cutscene:

https://youtu.be/DVuxu3lzyp4

Taion and Eunie here do about four solid attacks/support actions and are horribly torn to pieces twice. This leads me to believe that a dodgy enough Taion CAN stall Raiden... but not for a terribly significant amount of time, maybe two or three exchanges. I would personally give it about 30 seconds of total interaction before Ouroboros would need to overheat if Eunie and Taion are the active battle participants, which is about similar to the Noah/Mio transformation. During this time, Gordon has to ensure that Raiden isn't whomp'd by Luminaire, Grand Cross, any measure of Sypha's magic, or Akasha Arts/Freidyne/big laser blast from Aigis. The important thing is, if Ouroboros is facetanking, Aigis and Crono do NOT have to focus on healing, as all damage is based off of a timer.

And this is where I find the match has its turn: if Raiden could break through the frontline, there's no doubt he goes on to create a pile of corpses that he just continues stabbing when they show signs of life. The issue is, he's a terrible match-up for Eunie, but Eunie is a wall that will refuse to leave him alone until her time is up, and Raiden absolutely goes one at a time for these enemy encounters. Gordon is capable of handling the enemy well - I even buy him grabbing Aigis with the gravity gun as a possibility - but there are potential counters to everything he can do because he ALSO primarily focuses on one target ahead of him at a time. If he gravity guns Aigis, not only can she still cast at him by activating her persona without moving a muscle, but whoever he's not ragdolling her at (say, Crono or Sypha) will get direct hits on him, which he CAN take, but not for longer than Eunie can take Raiden. Same if he goes to snipe someone, Sypha and Trevor are fast enough to close the distance and get into Gordon's face. PLUS, the reraising element will make the whole thing particularly annoying, as Gordon isn't getting definitive kills - when he looks the other way, oh no, Crono came back and hit him with not-really-lightning-more-like-holy-I-guess. Even if you take Pamela to be here, she has to shut down the exact right target while simultaneously avoiding one or two bodies that are open to hit her for damage that she'll actually be hurt by. No one on Team Tingle other than Mr. Fairy-Man himself and some of Trevor's arsenal really has damage that Pamela and Gordon would naturally resist. By the time Eunie's lost her lives, Raiden's on his own and has definitely sustained damage from at least one member of her team (let's say Crono or Trevor, I think they're the most flexible).

(Cont'd)

... so looking up Pamela's stuff I am real impressed. Kiss 2 Everyone looks like an insanely disruptive attack, and her using Happy Twins to inflict seal on Aigis is a BIG gg, no re.

What's the estimate for teams meeting in this terrain? I buy that Aigis knows that Pamela revives - she's used to tracking ephemeral beings and her ability confirms she's always on the lookout - but if Raiden ends up clashing before that happens, Aigis doesn't really have the luxury of being able to peel off of the frontlines to take Pamela out, given she's the core of reraises keeping the gang in the fight. Also, if there are any feats to a Belmont 100% exorcizing a ghost, that'd be incredibly decisive - I buy Trevor killing Pam just like that, but resurrection... that family has a bad track record with that!

I think the gravity gun is MUCH better suited to ragdolling the environment around. Aigis doesn't need to move to activate her persona and it casts independently of her.

I do think Pamela's super dead here - like you put an undead right in front of a semi-competent Belmont and his far more competent sorceress friend, of course they're getting shredded, the Morning Star is oozing with magic specifically for this kinda situation. What interests me more if how long Eunie can hold out. Taion's form has the following ability:

Body Double (Frontword AoE): Applies 1 randomly chosen debuff(s) when Art hits.

And this can apply things including the inability to block, inability to move, sleep, and a debuff to make resistance to debuffs weaker, among about four other debuffs. This has about a 15 second cooldown in-gameplay, but does create an AoE spread of body doubles. If Raiden cuts down enough of those in close combat (which... y'know, he's want to do), that's REALLY bad. With the sheer amount of revives on the enemy team (Eunie's Ouroboros form having a GROUP revive in addition to the known Crono and Aigis ones), I do think this is likely to go off.

... and I'm not sure if it matters? Like, Raiden is an AWFUL matchup for Ouroboros, as he can just keep cutting off pieces of them before they can even react and properly regenerate. I do think that the revives let Taion get off an optimal debuff strategy, but Ouroboros does not reset on revive - in Xenoblade 3, it explicitly continues cooling down in the background even when you're a corpse. While everyone else gets a ton of shots at max efficiency, Eunie MIGHT be able to squeak out two if she dies, like, a lot. It is possible to see a situation where Raiden is just standing in a field of corpses, waiting for them to revive and casually stabbing them as they get up again like it's whack-a-mole.

I'm trying to figure out how much damage Gordon does and how much he's able to take away from the enemy before he goes down. I think targeting any one of them for stasis is a real bad idea, but crossbowing one of them might be very much within his wheelhouse. The issue is, I'm just seeing Trevor & Sypha open in most situations, and I'm not sure he handles that well with just shooting. Need to think of what terrain advantages he'd have.

The team with three revivers and time stop is pretty good.

I do wanna clarify how Ouroboros durability works - it's an extension of stamina. In Ouroboros form, the two fusing are immune to harm, but their bodies are not invincible - you can easily tear their bodies apart like any other body. They CAN regenerate, but that decreases the overall amount of time the transformation lasts, hence why you see so much dodging. Once it overheats, the users either have to forcibly eject from each other and wait a lengthy cooldown to try again, or push it and... kinda just stop thinking and die horribly.

It's real good, Raiden is a bad match-up against it if he keeps cutting them up. Illusions will help with this considerably, but also Gordon spraying and praying helps a lot at dispersing that.

Real fun match-up, the sheer amount of revives and potential stuns is keeping this real interesting. I don't buy Eunie's close-quarters stuns on robots working very well here because if she's using those, she's not fused with Taion and is prrrobably dead being that close-up to Raiden.

Also Kuriboh probably beats Tingle. He just has 1,000 Needles, pops all the balloons. I think that's important to imagine happening in the background.

One-Armed Woman In An Ass Spanking Contest

I just... don't really know what Mega Man DOES that lets him effectively 1v1 Samus. Like, I get it, he'll likely use an early loop to do some lasting damage, get in a Marvel super or whatever, but most of Mega Man's tools are made to enable team plays, and he's... pretty much having to go solo here. Of all of his weapons, the ones I see doing any significant contribution are:

Atomic Fire (Damage)
Rain Flush (Damage)
Gravity Hold (Damage)
Slash Claw (Damage)
Astro Crush (Damage)
Homing Sniper (Damage)
Laser Trident (Damage)
Black Hole Bomb (Damage)
Time Stopper (Escape)
Centaur Flash (Escape)
Spark Shot (Escape)
Concrete Shot (Escape)

Ice Slasher (Threat If He Specifically Targets Her Missing Limb)
Tundra Storm (Threat)

Now that's a lot of weapons when I put them in a list that I think are viable! However, I don't think that a single one trades well with the Power Bomb, and I think in all exchanges other than "super and then IMMEDIATELY stall Samus and peace out", Mega Man has a losing trade there. This assumes Mega gets the drop on Samus every single time and she's not prowling about actively hunting his friends, because once she has them in her sights and Mega Man can no longer go back to base camp to learn what to do next from the 10-year old child, that's game. He HAS to kill Samus before then, and he just... doesn't have enough firepower. Using the ice weapons to specifically target her missing arm would give hope - Metroid DNA makes her weak to ice and "200 degrees below freezing" is a pretty good attack to use on someone like that, but the Gravity Suit is otherwise insulated. And I don't see "knowing Samus' capabilities out of fear" ending up being like "she is a terror who can absolutely murder is... but also she hates ice so if we pour a bucket of ice down her back she'll go down easy. BUT OTHERWISE WE'RE DOOMED". Can Rock possibly sus out that weakness? ... if he had less options to try, maybe, but even with loops, I don't see how he's getting that info back to Rika and choosing one of two weapons that can both target her weak point AND are her weakness (most of the other ice ones either go along the ground or are weird snowflake shotguns) .

tl;dr, I just don't think Mega Man has the firepower to beat Samus in trades before she either beats him or kills all his friends, even if he tries like 20 times. The sheer gap in durability vs firepower is too much. Give Mega Man some more support, remove BJ, or replace Mega Man with a stronger damage dealer (I think Joker or Zeratul does WORK here) and we might have a miracle.

Miracles aren't real.