Death Battle IV: The Source Material Loses

[Lemmy]

You really... REALLY!!! don't want to make this about who has the better weapons if you're rooting for Leon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUORnWM_v4c

TBF, in RE4, Leon can unlock a laser weapon that tracks and kills every enemy on-screen and around him, and a machine gun with infinity ammo that kills everything with a single bullet... But, yeah... Frank definitely has the upper hand in the "crazy weapon that makes no sense but is awesome anyway" department... And IIRC, in DR4, he can actually gain the powers of some Street Fighter characters, including Akuma.

Now, if we ignore obvious in-game jokes (like Leon's laser blaster and Frank's Satsu no Hado) and focus on character skill, rather than gear, then Leon probably wins... But I doubt DB would waste the chance of having Frank craft some bizarre weapons to use in the fight. That's the whole point of his games!

[Devonix]

TBF, in RE4, Leon can unlock a laser weapon that tracks and kills every enemy on-screen and around him, and a machine gun with infinity ammo that kills everything with a single bullet... But, yeah... Frank definitely has the upper hand in the "crazy weapon that makes no sense but is awesome anyway" department... And IIRC, in DR4, he can actually gain the powers of some Street Fighter characters, including Akuma.

Now, if we ignore obvious in-game jokes (like Leon's laser blaster and Frank's Satsu no Hado) and focus on character skill, rather than gear, then Leon probably wins... But I doubt DB would waste the chance of having Frank craft some bizarre weapons to use in the fight. That's the whole point of his games!

And while Leon can unlock some crazy weapons. Some of those mech suits shown there aren't unlockables. They are story required. One of the first missions is about making that ice mech.

[Kato]

...It was a part of a boss fight, and consistently replicated similarly by feats shown later in the same boss fight.

Along with stuff in different boss fights like juggling a dragon with his sword slashes and blocking the attack of a monster far larger than those skyscrapers while in the form of a lion cub holding his Keyblade in his teeth.

Nothing about the skyscraper feat is inconsistent with other gameplay elements.

To be honest, this just makes me less interested to give the game (another) try because it sounds really stupid.. Then again, maybe I should not take it serious, like, at all. I sure hope Sora is as indestructible by whatever other enemies throw at him, too.

[Lemmy]

Hmmm... How about matching Martian Manhunter against Vision?

[Rater202]

Then again, maybe I should not take it seriously, like, at all.

Tetsuya Numora, a writer at Square Ennix, showed Disney/Final Fantasy Megacrossover Fanfic to Disney's Lawyers and Disney was like "sure, why the hell not?"

The resulting Crackfic proceeded to take itself completely seriously, with lines like Goofy says "It's Sephiroth!" with his official voice. In complete seriousness. Where God Damned Mickey Mouse is the most badass fighter in a universe that has Cloud Strife and Squall Leonheart. Who both happen to be on a team that consists of several other FF Characters(Yuffie, Arith, Tifa, and a Cid--the one what's good with machines) and Merlin from Sword in the Stone. And they work together to save the computer world from Tron.

Spoiler: This is the Ground Shaker

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The first picture is the whole thing, the second one is a close up of the "rider" of the monster with Lion Cub! Sora(who is about the size of Kid Simba) for context on how big it is.

That used to be Scar! Simba's evil uncle.

The answer to the question "maybe I'm taking it too seriously?" is "You are absofreakinlutely taking it too seriously."

[Kato]

You know, I was going to say something snarky the physics of such a story but that train of thought brought me to some other fight I want..
Bugs Bunny vs Mickey Mouse. (or Daffy vs Donald. Or Porky vs Goofy?) I mean, I think I know who wins but I still want to see it.

Hmmm... How about matching Martian Manhunter against Vision?

Sounds fair enough and thematically fitting. Of course it's Marvel vs DC again which has been done to death by now

[Anteros]

I believe that Manhunter would stomp Vision pretty hard. He can negate Vision's phasing and all of his other stats are waaaaay higher than Vision's. It's Flash vs Quicksilver all over again.

[Keltest]

I believe that Manhunter would stomp Vision pretty hard. He can negate Vision's phasing and all of his other stats are waaaaay higher than Vision's. It's Flash vs Quicksilver all over again.

That depends. Are we going with the movieverse version of Vision who has an infinity stone in his forehead? Because that changes the equation a bit.

[Anteros]

That depends. Are we going with the movieverse version of Vision who has an infinity stone in his forehead? Because that changes the equation a bit.

Does it? His best feat is still like blowing up an airplane hanger. He never really utilizes the stone, even when his life is in jeopardy.

[Lemmy]

I believe that Manhunter would stomp Vision pretty hard. He can negate Vision's phasing and all of his other stats are waaaaay higher than Vision's. It's Flash vs Quicksilver all over again.

Is that so? I was never a big fan of either character so I don't know what their stats are... The Vision however is very inconsistent... There're scenes of him being beat by Captain America and others of hin curb-stomping the Avengers all at the same time.

I suspect Martian Manhunter has an advantage due to being more of a protagonist than Vision, that means he probably got more random upgrades and one-shot feats than Vision.

[Devonix]

Is that so? I was never a big fan of either character so I don't know what their stats are... The Vision however is very inconsistent... There're scenes of him being beat by Captain America and others of hin curb-stomping the Avengers all at the same time.

I suspect Martian Manhunter has an advantage due to being more of a protagonist than Vision, that means he probably got more random upgrades and one-shot feats than Vision.

Manhunter is capable of matching up to Superman's strength with a whole host of other powers.

[Gandariel]

Manhunter is capable of matching up to Superman's strength with a whole host of other powers.

Oh, so he's infinite. :P

[Maryring]

Worst fight ever.

They completely used the wrong intro for Pit!

Spoiler: Battle of the idiot heroes

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Anyhow, as I suspected the Shõnen hero won easily. Sora has a ton of showy moves for Death Battle to do their math and Pit... doesn't. His animation fight against Thanatos (the extra h is for hamazing) is an outlier, as in the games his most impressive feats are rather low key. I entered the fight expecting a victory for Sora and that's what I got.

Even so, is it just me or have death battle become more brutal? It might just be me, but these fights, and the DBX ones, just seem to end in bloodiness that feels so... incongruous with characters like these. I end up being hung up on how Donald and Goofy just watch Sora murder an angel and they don't react at all.

Ah well, there's always one minute melee.

[Anteros]

Worst fight ever.

They completely used the wrong intro for Pit!

Spoiler: Battle of the idiot heroes

Show

Anyhow, as I suspected the Shõnen hero won easily. Sora has a ton of showy moves for Death Battle to do their math and Pit... doesn't. His animation fight against Thanatos (the extra h is for hamazing) is an outlier, as in the games his most impressive feats are rather low key. I entered the fight expecting a victory for Sora and that's what I got.

Even so, is it just me or have death battle become more brutal? It might just be me, but these fights, and the DBX ones, just seem to end in bloodiness that feels so... incongruous with characters like these. I end up being hung up on how Donald and Goofy just watch Sora murder an angel and they don't react at all.

Ah well, there's always one minute melee.

I usually turn it off once the murder porn starts as well. These days I basically just skip the "analysis", watch the first half of the fight, and turn it off. Whoever starts the fight winning ends up losing 90% of the time anyway.

[Rater202]

Worst fight ever.

They completely used the wrong intro for Pit!

Spoiler: Battle of the idiot heroes

Show

Anyhow, as I suspected the Shõnen hero won easily. Sora has a ton of showy moves for Death Battle to do their math and Pit... doesn't. His animation fight against Thanatos (the extra h is for hamazing) is an outlier, as in the games his most impressive feats are rather low key. I entered the fight expecting a victory for Sora and that's what I got.

Even so, is it just me or have death battle become more brutal? It might just be me, but these fights, and the DBX ones, just seem to end in bloodiness that feels so... incongruous with characters like these. I end up being hung up on how Donald and Goofy just watch Sora murder an angel and they don't react at all.

Ah well, there's always one minute melee.

Spoiler

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In Castle Oblivion Sora was nonchalantly killing members of Organization XIIIbefore he learned that they didn't technically exist and in II he basically beat Shan Yu from Mulan to death.

Sora's stance towards killing is "give me a reason" and KH Donald and Goofy have had plenty of time to acumulate to that.

[Rynjin]

Yeah, Sora has no real compunctions toward killing his enemies. Or in the case of Nobodies making them entirely cease to exist (at least to his knowledge at the time).

[Maryring]

Spoiler

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Are you seriously gonna argue that you see no thematic difference between a fight that leaves a bloody corpse and a fight that has the enemy puff into nothing?

Also, spoiler tags people. It hasn't been even a week yet. There may be people who haven't seen the fight yet.

[deuterio12]

Spoiler

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In Castle Oblivion Sora was nonchalantly killing members of Organization XIIIbefore he learned that they didn't technically exist and in II he basically beat Shan Yu from Mulan to death.

Sora's stance towards killing is "give me a reason" and KH Donald and Goofy have had plenty of time to acumulate to that.

Please.

Spoiler

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Donald was probably the one who taught Sora how to be like that.

[Reddish Mage]

I've noticed in the commentary they admitted that there standards for the arensal of Final Fantasy characters have "evolved." They give Sora everything but summons (because summons bring in other characters "not part of his arsenal").

This is the closest I've heard to an admission that Cloud vs Link was a mistake, or at least Cloud (and by extension Tifa) was gimpier than they could have made him. Ben also sounded defensive when Chad brought up Cloud vs Link a few weeks ago in the chat as a "close battle" which could have had many different outcomes if they tweaked things slightly.

Now if anyone wants to jump on this to criticize them as anything but deciding on new standards over time, I would suggest first watching the commentary and the weekly live chat.

I'm not sure I agree with Sora's speed here. It doesn't look like he's dodging lighting so much as you get a sign that lightning is coming down way before it happens and move out of the way. At best Sora should have a danger sense or magic sense ability, not super speed beyond what the animation actually suggests. Sora does, however, have a really powerful, really fast laser he occassionally uses to attack, so that seems determinative of the outcome (he can also stop time and heal).

I don't know too much about either Sora or Pit, but I feel like both of them were horribly represented, being nerfed in some areas and overblown in others. I get the impression that the research team didn't care enough to try.

This sort of lazy critique makes me think its not worth discussing things in this thread. What specific places in the video gives you the impression? If its just a matter of the video games don't make them seem so powerful when you actually play them, we've been talking about game mechanics ad naseum. It should be something much more specific though, since you claim you see both nerfing and munchkinizing.

[Rynjin]

I somewhat took umbrage with using Stop to stop projectiles (it doesn't do that in the game) but that's close to all I saw of overblowing Sora.

Given he could have cast Reflect there instead for an even more devastating block, it could be argued to have been a nerf.

[Delicious Taffy]

I somewhat took umbrage with using Stop to stop projectiles (it doesn't do that in the game) but that's close to all I saw of overblowing Sora.

Given he could have cast Reflect there instead for an even more devastating block, it could be argued to have been a nerf.

If Sora had used Reflect, it would have been a much shorter battle.

[Rater202]

To be fair, while Stop in gameplay only freezes enemies it's cast on, Stop in Cutscenes freezes everything.

Granted, the most prominent example was Stopza, which is a spell Sora can't cast yet.

[McNum]

To be fair, while Stop in gameplay only freezes enemies it's cast on, Stop in Cutscenes freezes everything.

Granted, the most prominent example was Stopza, which is a spell Sora can't cast yet.

Mickey Mouse is just that OP.

Though I will give him style credit for interrupting a gathering of time travelers with a time freeze spell. That's both a very good opening move and a very fitting way to establish that you're going to be a problem now.

[Reddish Mage]

Mickey Mouse is just that OP.

Though I will give him style credit for interrupting a gathering of time travelers with a time freeze spell. That's both a very good opening move and a very fitting way to establish that you're going to be a problem now.

They've mentioned recently in the episode "Permanently Banned from Death Battle" that part of the reason they won't do a Mickey Mouse fight is that KH Mickey is just way too overpowered.

I think its fascetious to bring in Kingdom Hearts Mickey however, not only because they expressed that Disney had an old reputation of savagely protecting the Mouse, but because KH Mickey doesn't just differ from canon Mickey, he's a completely different sort of entity...going from sorcerer's apprentice to sorcerer supreme.

There's a battle for you Mickey Mouse vs. Dr. Strange. Dr. Strange wins obviously by looking into the future and calculating the only way to win the fight...shut down Death Battle for good (they said if they did use Mickey Mouse it would be in the last battle ever).

[Devonix]

So about Frank vs Leon. My money's on my boy Frank. Better weapons, and higher physical stats in every way other than agility.

[Rater202]

Unless you count the time Frank was temporarily turned into a super-zombie but retained his mind, I'm gonna have to give it to Leon.

While the early T-Virus zombies were about on the same level as the deaders that Frank fights, Leon's also fought several giant monsters, super-soldiers, and freaky mutants as well as T-Veronica, Las Plagas, and C-virus infected whoa re all singificantly more dangerous. He's also a professional Zombie killer while Frank, for his experiance, is an amature with impovised weapons, and Leon is consistantly shown to be the equal of people who are actually Superhuman.

[Devonix]

Unless you count the time Frank was temporarily turned into a super-zombie but retained his mind, I'm gonna have to give it to Leon.

While the early T-Virus zombies were about on the same level as the deaders that Frank fights, Leon's also fought several giant monsters, super-soldiers, and freaky mutants as well as T-Veronica, Las Plagas, and C-virus infected whoa re all singificantly more dangerous. He's also a professional Zombie killer while Frank, for his experiance, is an amature with impovised weapons, and Leon is consistantly shown to be the equal of people who are actually Superhuman.

The simple power of the weaponry frank has outclasses anything Leon gets ahold of. Add in the speed and stamina boosting drinks as well as the raw physical strength frank has.

And as for being better trained. Franks been beating special forces solders easily since the first game. Even hand to hand.

[Lemmy]

The simple power of the weaponry frank has outclasses anything Leon gets ahold of. Add in the speed and stamina boosting drinks as well as the raw physical strength frank has.

And as for being better trained. Franks been beating special forces solders easily since the first game. Even hand to hand.

Saying Frank can beat Leon because he beats a bunch of SF agents is like saying Buffy can beat Alucard because she beats a bunch of vampires in her show. These enemies are on completely different tiers in the "mook-main protagonist" scale. One thing to remember is that while Frank has a really cool arsenal, his weapons can be (and constantly are) resisted by normal humans (unless you want to count every unlockable joke weapon, like Akuma's powers, but then we have to consider Leon's crazy stuff as well, like the laser that kills everything on-screen, the machine gun that kills everything with a single bullet, the infinity-ammo rocket launcher that one-shots even the final boss, etc). Frank doesn't one-shot enemies even in cutscenes, AFAIR. Well... Neither does Leon (unless you count using a rocket-launchers post-fight), but his boss-enemies are giant monstrosities, not insane humans.

I believe Frank has a real chance, but he's definitely not a clear winner. RE4 and some of the movies show Leon doing a lot of impossible BS to match Dead Rising's cartoonesque tone.

[Devonix]

Saying Frank can beat Leon because he beats a bunch of SF agents is like saying Buffy can beat Alucard because she beats a bunch of vampires in her show. These enemies are on completely different tiers in the "mook-main protagonist" scale. One thing to remember is that while Frank has a really cool arsenal, his weapons can be (and constantly are) resisted by normal humans (unless you want to count every unlockable joke weapon, like Akuma's powers, but then we have to consider Leon's crazy stuff as well, like the laser that kills everything on-screen, the machine gun that kills everything with a single bullet, the infinity-ammo rocket launcher that one-shots even the final boss, etc). Frank doesn't one-shot enemies even in cutscenes, AFAIR. Well... Neither does Leon (unless you count using a rocket-launchers post-fight), but his boss-enemies are giant monstrosities, not insane humans.

I believe Frank has a real chance, but he's definitely not a clear winner. RE4 and some of the movies show Leon doing a lot of impossible BS to match Dead Rising's cartoonesque tone.

Oh I know that Leon has better training. I'm just saying that Frank's not simply an amateur.

[Lemmy]

Oh I know that Leon has better training. I'm just saying that Frank's not simply an amateur.

I mean... Technically, he is. No one hired him to beat those agents. XD

But, hey! Frank can totally beat Thor in Marvel vs Capcom, so there's that!