Death Battle II - I don't THINK Gara got robbed I KNOW he did.

[Celestia]

1.) Lucario arguably would not be able to sense Renamon using Aura. Digimon are not living creatures in the same way, being literal data given physical form. I don't know if this played into the fight, but probably wouldn't have mattered either way. Main nitpick here: Renamon left a corpse; She should have burst into data fragments. =)

I feel like this is something that can be overlooked. After all, if we consider her just bits of data in a digital world, then there's no actual way for the two to fight, anyways. And, certainly, within the context of her own world, she is surely "alive" just like any character in a video game, so dragging her into the real world for the battle would, theoretically, make her a normal living creature.

I do have to agree with you that the battle was lazy, and I have my own points of contention.

1. Lucario's steel typing was mentioned in the previous battle analysis, but I don't feel like it actually did anything in the battle. As far as I'm aware, Digimon don't have "types" the way Pokémon does, which leaves three options. First, we assign Renamon's moves types based on what they most logically would be. So, fighting for most, fire for the one, and grass for the ranged one (Diamond Storm?). Second, they all default to normal. Third, they all default to typeless. The first two options would run into Lucario's weaknesses and resistances, and I don't think that was actually a factor.

2. Heal Pulse doesn't do what they said it does. Yes, it is a healing move, but it is a targeted healing move. It can heal anyone except the user. Lucario actually has no access to self healing outside of Rest, which probably isn't a good idea to use in a "real" battle.

3. They completely ignored the fact that moves in Pokémon often come with secondary effects. For instance, Lucario's Pulse moves can hit non-adjacent enemies, implying greater than standard range when translated to a "real" battle. Aura Sphere also cannot miss. If he had been given other moves, this would become even more apparent. Low Sweep reduces an opponent's speed, eliminating the one advantage they said Renamon had. Dark Pulse can cause flinching. Force Palm cam induce paralysis. So many things that would have aided greatly.

4. Lucario has an amazing move list with lots of really neat moves. Even if we ignore the TM moves on the condition that they need a trainer to learn (even though I believe there have been examples in the anime of wild Pokémon knowing TM moves, but whatever), Lucario still has some choice picks. Copycat and Me First to use Renamon's moves against her. Counter to take Renamon's attack and give it back twice as hard. Detect to straight up ignore any move. Reversal which deals massive damage when Lucario is low on health. Laser Focus to ensure his next move is a critical hit. Or Power-Up Punch to continually raise his attack while still dealing damage. It's like they just took his iconic Aura Sphere and then a smattering of the more boring choices.

I feel like there was laziness on both sides, but even though Lucario won, he was probably still gimped even more. He had so much variety in potential strategy that he could have adapted to just about anything. Perhaps his best choice would be to use his range advantage, but he never really did. He could have simply kept his distance, played defensively, and then launched an artillery barrage with his Aura and Pulse moves. Renamon has no defensive moves and simply couldn't have just dodges them all. And even if she did get in close, Lucario could punish her for it by using her own strength against her before breaking off to maintain range. Also, if Force Palm successfully paralyzed her, that would end the battle right there.

[Rynjin]

That feeds into my second point even more though. Lucario SHOULDN'T have access to every move he could ever possibly learn. When it comes to Pokemon I have no issue with them letting him have ANY move he could learn, but not EVERY one. They should be picking the four that are (in their opinion) the most optimal for the match up with the specific target.

That's (again) a problem with Death Battle in general. Mixing and matching feats from different variants of characters, like having All Star Superman as the baseline for stats and feats...with New 52 Superman's ability to explode in a burst of solar energy. Those two things shouldn't mix, since both are different versions of the character with different abilities and stats.

[Lemmy]

That feeds into my second point even more though. Lucario SHOULDN'T have access to every move he could ever possibly learn. When it comes to Pokemon I have no issue with them letting him have ANY move he could learn, but not EVERY one. They should be picking the four that are (in their opinion) the most optimal for the match up with the specific target.

To be fair, in pretty much every media other than the game, pokémon have more than 4 moves. Smash Bros, Pokkén and the pokémon anime come to mind (and that's not even considering simple actions that are considered "moves" in pokémon... Like "Bite", "Scratch" and "Tackle").

[Traab]

Based on everything in the video, I can see the outcome. It's basically what I said in my first post on the fight. As close as it was though, three nitpicks I have that might have changed the outcome niggle at me:

1.) Lucario arguably would not be able to sense Renamon using Aura. Digimon are not living creatures in the same way, being literal data given physical form. I don't know if this played into the fight, but probably wouldn't have mattered either way. Main nitpick here: Renamon left a corpse; She should have burst into data fragments. =)

2.) Giving Lucario access to more than four moves. Even in the anime I don't think any given Pokemon is shown knowing more than four moves at any one time. This WOULD have made a difference, since his flexibility and access to both offense moves and buffs/healing was named as a major factor in his victory.

3.) The biggest one here. Renamon being called a glass cannon. I can see how that mistake would have easily been made, she's shown being heavily damaged a lot, often by single attacks...but the vast majority of the time these beatdowns are delivered by Champion and/or Armor or even ULTIMATE level Digimon. A Rookie being able to take attacks from an Ultimate is pretty damn tanky. As tanky as a Steel type? Maybe not. Glass cannon? Nah.

Other than that I was satisfied with the path to the outcome, though the battle seemed really lazily made.

1) We see lucario dodging logs with his aura sight, and how he uses it daredevil style to see everything around him including walls, trees, rock formations, etc. It seems to be more of a radar than any mystical life sensing so seeing renamon made sense.

2) Agreed, its a bit annoying that renamon had no access to the abilities she could have gotten from those card scans or whatever they were called while lucario got to use a wide assortment of skills.

3) This was what got me. As soon as they mentioned lucario tanking massive hits that SHOULD have wrecked him due to type weaknesses, and then mentioned renamon has no real defensive skills, I knew it was over. They had close enough to equal speed, both had high damaging attacks, but lucario was being shown as outright tougher so I knew it would come down to that.

Celestia, digimon have "types". But its stuff like Data, Vaccine, Virus, Free, and Variable. So there really isnt an official crossover between them. That being said, they do tend to have a wide assortment of elemental style attacks similar to pokemon, so im honestly not sure how that works out. For example, would a squirtle have an advantage against agumon? I would say not really as I dont think he is weak to water attacks, though squirtle might take less damage from his pepper breath. So maybe a half an advantage as he doesnt dish out bonus damage, but he takes less.

[Delicious Taffy]

How about Balrog versus THE Balrog? (Durin's Bane specifically.)

Oh, please. The boxer would win that one, hands down. The Balrog might win if it had wings, since that would give it some air game, but the boxer has almost definitely fought stronger opponents.

[Rynjin]

I'm just disappointed they're doing a boxing match and it's STILL not Little Mac vs Ippo. Or at least a match involving one of them.

[Ravian]

1.) Lucario arguably would not be able to sense Renamon using Aura. Digimon are not living creatures in the same way, being literal data given physical form. I don't know if this played into the fight, but probably wouldn't have mattered either way. Main nitpick here: Renamon left a corpse; She should have burst into data fragments. =)

Porygon is basically the closest equivalent to a Digimon's state of being that we have in the Pokemon universe. Per Pokemon rules, Porygon is affected by aura, therefore there's very little that would indicate against a similarly living digital creature like a Digimon possessing something similar to Aura.

[Lemmy]

Porygon is basically the closest equivalent to a Digimon's state of being that we have in the Pokemon universe. Per Pokemon rules, Porygon is affected by aura, therefore there's very little that would indicate against a similarly living digital creature like a Digimon possessing something similar to Aura.

That's actuslly a pretty good point.

[Rynjin]

Porygon is basically the closest equivalent to a Digimon's state of being that we have in the Pokemon universe. Per Pokemon rules, Porygon is affected by aura, therefore there's very little that would indicate against a similarly living digital creature like a Digimon possessing something similar to Aura.

Hm. Argument accepted.

I do want to reiterate, I think this was a pretty well done matchup. It's one I disagreed with but I'm not salty about it since it was a really good, close matchup. I wish all of their battles were this well matched.

[Traab]

Balrog is up for his blurb. They didnt get very in depth, they never do on these blurbs, but they covered his standard move set and showed off the car demolishing stage of the game. We will have to wait and see what sort of feats they pull from aside from breaking cars with your fists. They mentioned his endurance so we will have to see what that opponent of his will be like.

[Shades of Gray]

2.) Giving Lucario access to more than four moves. Even in the anime I don't think any given Pokemon is shown knowing more than four moves at any one time. This WOULD have made a difference, since his flexibility and access to both offense moves and buffs/healing was named as a major factor in his victory.

I know I'm a bit late, but the champion of the orange archipelago uses a dragonite that has around a dozen moves that it uses in a single battle. The creators did this intentionally to show off how much of a threat it was, taking down four of ash's Pokemon if I recall correctly. Otherwise, the anime never shows Pokemon with four moves at once (they can learn and forget moves as the series progresses though, with move forgetting happening off-screen).

[McNum]

Oh, by the way, TJ Combo's blurb is up. So he's from Killer Instinct and he has combos. He looks kind of... meh. I should have guessed he was from KI if only because of that.

So, who do we think will lose first? I'm thinking Balrog. But... I kind of don't care either. The highlight of the battle will be the "Next Time..." segment.

[HolyDraconus]

Oh, by the way, TJ Combo's blurb is up. So he's from Killer Instinct and he has combos. He looks kind of... meh. I should have guessed he was from KI if only because of that.

So, who do we think will lose first? I'm thinking Balrog. But... I kind of don't care either. The highlight of the battle will be the "Next Time..." segment.

I haven't stayed current with TJ but I'm fairly certain that one of Boxer's feats is killing an elephant with a single punch. The fact they mentioned fighting styles makes me wonder tho.

[Future Sword]

I noticed a lot more chatter for the last fight. I can't help suspecting there's a particular reason these two contestants aren't getting much attention.

Maybe this board is low on fighting game knowledge?

[Dragonus45]

Nah, it's more the opposite. There is enough knowledge across the board to know how boring this one is gonna be.

[Kitten Champion]

I found it personally amusing that - when the name came up in the thread - I totally forgot Balrog was from Street Fighter and was certain that he was the boxing dude from Killer Instinct.

Boxing characters aren't interesting in fighting games.

[Traab]

Its two boxers, thats boring even if one can punch out an elephant while the other can punch cars till they shatter.

[Rynjin]

...Why all the hate on boxing? Y'all act like boxing is a boring sport or fighting style somehow.

Particularly video game/anime boxing. You heathens need to watch/read some Hajime no Ippo or History's Mightiest Disciple Kenichi.

[Kitten Champion]

...Why all the hate on boxing? Y'all act like boxing is a boring sport or fighting style somehow.

It is in fighting games. Look at Killer Instinct - you've got a killer cyborg, a sword-and-board animated skeleton, a spy that can transform into an energy leopard or something, an alien ice-based life-form, a dude composed of fire, a really ripped werewolf, a ninja of some kind, a kinda racist Native American character with twin tomahawks, *a frikken super-Velociraptor I just suddenly remember for some reason, and a guy who boxes -- not even a Yeti or anything, just a dude who looks exactly like you'd expect with the exact move-set you'd assume he has.

I could compliment him for boxing against those other mentioned things I guess, but I don't care enough.

As a fighting style, outside of actual boxing games where the perspective and mechanics are built around boxing, it's just such a straightforward and creatively limited concept space to develop fighting game characters around.

Particularly video game/anime boxing. You heathens need to watch/read some Hajime no Ippo or History's Mightiest Disciple Kenichi.

I do think it works pretty well in sports fiction, not sure I'd single out Kenichi though. Rocky though, sure.

[Rynjin]

It is in fighting games. Look at Killer Instinct - you've got a killer cyborg, a sword-and-board animated skeleton, a spy that can transform into an energy leopard or something, an alien ice-based life-form, a dude composed of fire, a really ripped werewolf, a ninja of some kind, a kinda racist Native American character with twin tomahawks, and a guy who boxes -- not even a Yeti or anything, just a dude who looks exactly like you'd expect with the exact move-set you'd assume he has.

I could compliment him for boxing against those other mentioned things I guess, but I don't care enough.

As a fighting style, outside of actual boxing games where the perspective and mechanics are built around boxing, it's just such a straightforward and creatively limited concept space to develop fighting game characters around.

Maybe I'm just weird, but I enjoy the profile/stance and movement of boxers even in fighting games. Yeah, the moves are usually less flashy, but there's still a lot of cool factor in a good uppercut or a quick and meaty feeling combo.

I do think it works pretty well in sports fiction, not sure I'd single out Kenichi though. Rocky though, sure.

Takeda gets some good fights later on in the series, and his Master is really cool too. Alas, only once you're WELL past where the anime ended.

[Kitten Champion]

Maybe I'm just weird, but I enjoy the profile/stance and movement of boxers even in fighting games. Yeah, the moves are usually less flashy, but there's still a lot of cool factor in a good uppercut or a quick and meaty feeling combo.

According to his wiki -- TJ Combo was remade into a MMA fighter. So, he can kick now I assume.

Takeda gets some good fights later on in the series, and his Master is really cool too. Alas, only once you're WELL past where the anime ended.

I didn't get much past the anime as far as the manga went. Kenichi was fun, but, I don't know... I guess I felt like I had enough after a point.

[HolyDraconus]

According to his wiki -- TJ Combo was remade into a MMA fighter. So, he can kick now I assume.



I didn't get much past the anime as far as the manga went. Kenichi was fun, but, I don't know... I guess I felt like I had enough after a point.

The biggest issue I had with Kenichi is that the ending was bittersweet. His wins was off screen. He becomes POWERFUL... off screen..

[McNum]

Spoiler: Balrog vs. TJ Combo

Show

I told you Balrog would lose.

I'll give the Death Battle team credit, it was far more entertaining than I thought it would be. And pretty close. Still, Balrog did what Balrog does best. He lost.

Spoiler: Next Time...

Show

I think the Silver Samurai is a Marvel comics character...?

As for The Shredder, this heavily depends on which Shredder they pick. He ranges from pathetic to destroyer of worlds, more or less. I kind of hope it's Utrom Shredder, but that'd be mean to the Silver Samurai. But if they do, they should totally do that scene from the cartoon where Leonardo decapitates the Shredder. Just to get the "But I killed you!" "No, you only removed my head from my body." comeback.

Depending on which Shredder, this goes either way. A Shredder amalgam wins the fight.

[Traab]

Dang, the fight was a good one, but I honestly cant argue that much with the outcome.

Spoiler

Show

with both of them relatively evenly matched in power and durability, experience would clearly turn the tide. Though if I can quibble, they took the minimum force to knock out an elephant, we honestly dont know what balrogs upper limit is. There has to be a gap between "One shot an elephant" and "Make an elephants head explode" Same for durability. We dont know what their actual limits are, just what they have survived. But with the info presented, the outcome made sense.

As for next battle

Spoiler

Show

Im not sure how shredder will do here. The first silver samurai could cut through anything under adamantium with his blade. So blocking will be a bad idea. Which shredder wouldnt realize until after he has lost an arm trying to stop a sword swing. I admit to not being an expert on shredder and all his incarnations, but I remember that in the old movies he was incredibly skilled. Able to take on 4 highly trained ninjas and basically spank them, but even a regular katana strike was able to cut him. Its been way too long since I watched any of the various cartoon series though, so I dont recall what sort of feats he had back then.

[HolyDraconus]

Dang, the fight was a good one, but I honestly cant argue that much with the outcome.

Spoiler

Show

with both of them relatively evenly matched in power and durability, experience would clearly turn the tide. Though if I can quibble, they took the minimum force to knock out an elephant, we honestly dont know what balrogs upper limit is. There has to be a gap between "One shot an elephant" and "Make an elephants head explode" Same for durability. We dont know what their actual limits are, just what they have survived. But with the info presented, the outcome made sense.

Agree on this point. With what was presented the fight was obvious
As for next battle

Spoiler

Show

Im not sure how shredder will do here. The first silver samurai could cut through anything under adamantium with his blade. So blocking will be a bad idea. Which shredder wouldnt realize until after he has lost an arm trying to stop a sword swing. I admit to not being an expert on shredder and all his incarnations, but I remember that in the old movies he was incredibly skilled. Able to take on 4 highly trained ninjas and basically spank them, but even a regular katana strike was able to cut him. Its been way too long since I watched any of the various cartoon series though, so I dont recall what sort of feats he had back then.

Spoiler

Show

This is a lot closer depending on WHICH Shredder is used. A few of which run on toon physics, a few that are aliens, several that was a turtle, and some that have super powers. If they pull a Supes v goku again, then an amalgam of Shredder should have this in the bag. It comes down to which honestly

[Traab]

Shredder blurb is up

Spoiler

Show

They mention the various incarnations of shredder, but dont seem to be ready to announce which set of abilities they will go with.

[Traab]

Silver blurb is up.

Spoiler

Show

Looks like we get the unblockable blade. Unless they want to claim shredder has something on par with adamantium he wont be tanking any hits. Im thinking silver has the win, because honestly, most of what shredder faces are teenage turtle ninjas while silver has fought ninjas, samurai, and super powered mutants of all shapes and sizes.

[Devonix]

Silver blurb is up.

Spoiler

Show

Looks like we get the unblockable blade. Unless they want to claim shredder has something on par with adamantium he wont be tanking any hits. Im thinking silver has the win, because honestly, most of what shredder faces are teenage turtle ninjas while silver has fought ninjas, samurai, and super powered mutants of all shapes and sizes.

Wonder if they'll delve into the various super groups he's been a part of. Like him leading Big Hero 6

[McNum]

Silver blurb is up.

Spoiler

Show

Looks like we get the unblockable blade. Unless they want to claim shredder has something on par with adamantium he wont be tanking any hits. Im thinking silver has the win, because honestly, most of what shredder faces are teenage turtle ninjas while silver has fought ninjas, samurai, and super powered mutants of all shapes and sizes.

I still say they'll copy that scene from the 2003 Turtles cartoon where Leonardo decapitates the Shredder, but then adding the line from his return where Leonardo protests that he killed the Shredder only to get the line "No. You merely removed my head from my body." thrown at him. Let's just say Leonardo had a bad time following that.

I really hope it's Utrom Shredder, but if they're actually going with an amalgam, then... ouch.

[Traab]

I still say they'll copy that scene from the 2003 Turtles cartoon where Leonardo decapitates the Shredder, but then adding the line from his return where Leonardo protests that he killed the Shredder only to get the line "No. You merely removed my head from my body." thrown at him. Let's just say Leonardo had a bad time following that.

I really hope it's Utrom Shredder, but if they're actually going with an amalgam, then... ouch.

Honestly, unless there is some version of shredder I havent seen that grants him greatly superior strength and speed, or somehow gives him durability on par with adamantium, I just dont see it ending well. Even that scene you quoted, I could see it quickly devolving into the black knight from monty python. "Your arms off!" "No it isnt!"