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I can beat a lot of fighters blindfolded. This says as much about the AI being abusable as my skill at the games, though.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

If you don't think it's interesting, don't post. You'll save a lot more time ignoring the post than by whining about the guy using Google.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Yeah I'm not like a huge fan of Un-go and if I expanded my list to include all anime I watched this year Spice and Wolf would be number one with it being #2 but it was pretty good. Not sure why a lot of people seem to dislike it.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

By the way does this topic mean that the Blood Rayne game on sale or what? I got an XBL points card for Christmas so I may use some of them on Blood Rayne if it's on sale.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Played the demo of the Blood Rayne game and it seemed pretty good. Quality 2D beat em up. I may get it at some point.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

"Use Google" is fine for things that aren't interesting. Like if someone wants to know the atomic weight of unununium or something.

Lemon coke sucking is a perfectly acceptable conversation starter though.

Then I rant something fierce about b8 and social skills

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Yeah but the point is I think you're overestimating how many of your hints are found in the bad choices there. I recall very few. I think the most favorable thought I recall from Squall in those scenes is something along the lines of "fine I'll do this just so she stops bugging me."

My second point is that someone who is fishing around for the relationship to happen (someone who by nature picks the good choices) is going to interpret things more favorably than someone who isn't. Which is what I mean by the view being less "organic." For instance someone looking for hints in the above thought could say Squall cares about what Rinoa thinks and doesn't want her to get sad/annoyed over something trivial but the more realistic interpretation is he just wants her to stop bothering him.

But yeah I guess I'll hold off on going into more till you actually play!

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Morrigan
BARLOG

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

You should limit all your Squall/Rinoa relationship hints exposition to stuff that doesn't happen in dialogue choice areas. Or pick all the bad ones. Not that I think that would give you an "organic" view on how a normal player would interpret Squall/Rinoa's relationship or lack thereof but it would at least give you less "look hints" fodder. Because I certainly don't recall Squall's thoughts in those areas acting contrary to what you have him say, really. You have him say buzz off and then he whines about her being pushy in his mind. I wouldn't say Squall's thoughts are contrary to his actions very often-- there are times when his thoughts will give you more insight because he's stonewalling in dialogue, but it very rarely contradicts as I recall.

And for the record (I'm pretty sure you know, Leonhart, but other people like Tsunami) I don't think Squall dying is a particularly likely theory to be correct... I just think the story of FFVIII is a lot more interesting and better if you interpret it that way. Also makes a lot of the stupid plot twists more forgivable if you think of them as delusions of a dying man rather than actual stuff happening.

And of course I mention it to annoy Leonhart but that goes without saying.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

And yeah other than slower (but still not too slow) combat everything else is improvements. I prefer the DS game personally.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

The DS version plays a bit slower than the NES original but people who think it's significantly worse as a result are kinda weird. It doesn't play any slower than FF7-FF9.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

What? Mayweather was totally the heel against Show.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Orton has had good storyline potentials-- they just don't want him to have flaws so it's not interesting.

Like uh... against Christian, Christian beat Orton once because Orton got himself disqualified in a title match because Christian pissed him off. If they'd just run with it and had it as a sort of thing where Christian repeatedly abused Orton's violent/aggressive nature to make him slip up and lose, it would've been a really cool feud that would make Orton have to show an uncharacteristic amount of control to beat Christian. Doesn't even have to be "Orton gets himself DQed" every time-- could also be stuff like "Orton leaves himself open in a reckless assault and Christian capitalizes" or "Orton gets frustrated and gets Teddy Long annoyed at him so he doesn't just get tossed into a bunch of tittle matches."

Against Barrett it's the same thing. They're trying to sell it off as Barrett's getting in his head but then Orton keeps crushing so it doesn't really sell it.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Eh, Rock vs Cena has a story in theory. It's pretty much all Cena side, but it's getting there.

It's unfortunately the only story they have that is interesting and it's not very large in scope-- and it's also subtle so the announcers can't really use it to HYPE the show.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

I agree. I'm just saying Canas can do this when you don't have terrain/support to spare in a lot of situations. That's why he's a bit more versatile. Certainly not necessary or even more powerful most of the time, but versatile.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Rey Mysterio has never had a credible title reign. I'd argue Jack Swagger's one reign was more credible than any of Rey's

And it's certainly not because Rey's bad in the ring, the mic, or even that he wasn't given a chance. Rey is in fact an excellent example as to why "the look" matters.

Christian? Same boat as Rey. He's only ever looked really credible as a tag team competitor, a midcarder, or in TNA (when, during his reign, no one had "the look" other than like Monty Brown and Abyss so it was a wash). Call me back when he has a world title reign where he actually comes out of it looking good, because I'm not sure it's possible. Dude isn't short but he's not exactly tall and he's pretty skinny looking. I love Christian to death (I'd vote him over almost all this bracket) but I'm just telling it like it is here.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Name a star who actually got any reasonable amount of success who looks like a bum or scrawny. CM Punk is the closest example you've got at this point. But it's not all about what the bigwigs will give you opportunity-wise-- there's credibility concerns there too. More credible guys are gonna get more reactions from the crowd (and casual viewers) in the bigger storylines that's just how it is. You put Christian vs The Undertaker and I don't care how strongly Christian's been booked leading into that point a lot of people aren't going to give him a chance to win.

The look matters because suspending disbelief matters in wrestling.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Basically you can math it out where Canas literally can't die in a lot of situations, and against multiple types of units, if he's using Nosferatu. His only real risk is against very speedy units or light magic users-- either cause they can double him or because Nosferatu can possibly miss.

It's tough to do that with other units without the help of terrain and even then they won't likely be holding their ground against physical, magical, and (reasonably) speedy/accurate enemies all at once. And they won't be attacking all the enemies back they survive against unless it's a speedy (good luck getting a tanky one) magic user (which is why Serra is the strongest and mightiest unit of all the times). That's what I mean by versatility.

I mean I still don't think it's that necessary I'm just saying why I find it more useful than Luna when I actually use him.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

"The look" and "it" are pretty important, whether your typical Internet smark wannabe wants to acknowledge it or not.

CM Punk doesn't really have those either though, being completely honest.

Kurt Angle should be winning though. Combines everything, probably the best in the ring and maybe the best on the mic too (though could very well be third-- these three are all very good at it)

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

I meant Nosferatu is more versatile for extended tanking in that you can be less creative with the choke/units you have him fight and still have it work.

If you're just using him for Flux most of the time any spellcaster can do that, some with better stat growths, and they'll all get healing and slightly more versatile tomes statwise eventually which will make up for lack of other tricks like Luna and Nosferatu-- just a matter of preference there mostly.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

"Because Luna"
"Because Dark Magic"

Sounds like luna hype to me. And that's the general attitude of most Canas hypers that I've come across.

It's unique, certainly, but it's not necessary in the least. Like I said and Panthera elaborated on, I find Nosferatu for extended tanking to be his more useful tool. But even that isn't necessary usually you can have a speed freak/tank do the same thing with minimal risk-- Nosferatu's a bit more versatile though.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Eh I think Laurinaitis does his job well. I know some casual wrestling fans who think he's hateable just because of his voice. I just don't think seeing "heel authority figure vs rebellious face" is something I want to see again for a while as the selling feud no matter how good the authority figure is.

ESPECIALLY when that's pretty much the only long running storyline on either show that isn't the slow build of turning Cena to the dark side. Random people saying I WANT A TITLE MATCH isn't a storyline. Wade Barrett getting the one up on Randy Orton is a decent match based feud but not a good storyline. All the storylines today are too shallow or something we've already seen-- which is a shame because just 5 months ago we had a storyline with all the potential in the world and they couldn't let it simmer cause "we've gotta have Punk vs Cena for Summerslam"

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

I don't hate Canas but Luna's pretty overrated. Panthera pretty much told the story on that spell. Not really the most useful thing most of the time. Hell I'd say Nosferatu is generally the dark magic that does something other strong spellcasters or physical units can't do. Even for the final boss, you just put your strongest unit with enough hp to take one dragon shot and trade hits with healing till it dies. I usually skip on Canas because I'm not a huge fan of his character (not bad, just not a big fan) and dark magic isn't really all it's cracked up to be.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Oh the dragon OHKOs Athos? "Whoops" on that

I don't even use luna on that guy anyway usually lords are good enough

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Unless you're playing for rank doubling is pretty irrelevant for the dragon considering you can just have Athos stay in attack range of the dragon and heal him.

And if you're playing for rank Canas probably doesn't double the dragon because he's probably not high enough level to get the speed reliably unless you're gaming the RNG for stats.

Technically you could give Athos some speedwings too.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Matt Striker's not good enough to carry the HYPE but if he was with a team where everyone seems excited he wouldn't drag it down. I think if you wanna use Josh Matthews though you need someone who's really into it for an optimal team though. Don West is the only guy other than JR that still works and is alive unless you can get Tony Schiavone or Joey Styles (assuming they can still seem interested-- kinda doubt it especially in Schiavone's case) to announce somehow.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

If they don't want JR they should get Don West.

I'm serious.

... what?

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Yeah #3 is the big issue with it-- people don't get to #2 they just tune in briefly and hear this guy putting the dudes down. And to expand on it, Cole is annoying. New viewers that find an announcer annoying aren't going to tune in long enough to know "you're supposed to hate him and here's why it's great" they're just going to say "god that guy's voice is annoying time to change the channel." Him burying guys doesn't help either but I'm not sure that even matters as much as the guy just being grating.

Good booking of the Cole thing would've been to turn Jack Swagger face on him-- that was so perfect and they ruined it by having Swagger stick with Cole.

But even without Cole, I don't think the current teams quite work. Even without un-hype working against you, I feel the HYPE guy is very important for new people to watch more than a few minutes.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

There's nothing to hate him about it's just there's nothing to really like him about either. And it's not even just like, he has characteristics that are interesting that don't resonate with me-- it's like... he has no real notable characteristics at all. Incredibly boring character in my books-- that's enough for me to hate on him. Super bland is worse than normal bad most of the time for me.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

That's a weird final format. I was thinking double elimination not a sudden bridge into a triple threat final-- though I suppose double elim is kinda pointless considering it's a poll

Anyway

Kurt Angle

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Ganondorf is pretty terrible anyway. Even with a "weak field." In like a save my character battle character he's opening round fodder.

If we're complaining about Nintendo characters from big franchises dying early Kamek's the one to complain about.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Booker is a good color commentator. He's not as good as Heenan or Ventura or King in his prime but he's perfectly passable. He's like WWE Tazz level.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

HHM every unit has random stat boosts is the main thing. I think every enemy unit gets up to +3 to a random amount of stats or something.

The maps in Hector mode are harder to do too, which you should've known from the normal modes-- slightly more units. HNM is about equal to EHM in difficulty, really.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Divas are shallow ratings draws, though. Those are just people channel surfing and see women fighting and are like "hey what's this" then flip away after they get bored of it. John Cena same thing. I doubt most of these people who cause the ratings spike last the whole segments, even. It's just a cycle of people tuning in for a minute or two when they'd normally dash right by, which causes the rating to get an artificial boost.

The solution isn't to make those aspects more prominent-- it's to keep them around, but make the product more interesting to keep people watching. And I'm convinced the thing there isn't a lack of stars but a lack of storylines. There aren't really any good storylines these days. There are "this wrestler was used well" and "this guy cut a good promo" and "this guy had a good match" which are fine in a vacuum but doesn't get people interested in watching the whole show, or watching next week.

I feel the announcers are also largely to blame here-- without a guy like Tony Schiavone hyping the goings on when it isn't relevant, or Jim Ross yelling about everything, it doesn't make things seem as exciting, so people aren't as likely to stick around. Josh Matthews is a good announcer, but only because he can do PBP and keep the annoying personalities in check. You need three components in a good announce team-- PBP, Color, and HYPE. WWE does PBP if Josh is there, Color if Booker (and King on a good night) is there, but all the other announcers are a waste of space quite frankly. And Cole is a waste of space to the point where it's annoying.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

I'm not saying they have no charisma. Just less in general.

And yeah IIRC Zedd was the best character on the show for this. Unfortunately he's mostly a supporting guy so. Like uh the main character I don't think pulls his weight nearly as well as Kevin Sorbo or Lucy Lawless did.

But yeah, it's possible I do need to watch more. Just the feeling I got after watching a handful of episodes here and there.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

I think my issue with the Seeker is that the characters just have less charisma in general. Like, it's not so much "we need a comedy episode" as much as "we need characters that can be funny/witty in scenes that aren't meant to be primarily funny." Like the feel is there and I'll take your word for it that the stories are as gripping (or moreso) but yeah I just don't like the characters as much, from what I've seen.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Hah. Totally didn't see that Herc/Xena got brought in before I made that post.

But yeah I generally agree with what Kakashi said based on what I've seen. I don't think Hercules (post season 2) and Xena (ever-- not surprising that this lines up with the end of Herc season 2) had too much "fun" in them at all. Most good stories don't take themselves seriously all the time. Herc and Xena definitely had episodes and story arcs where the humor and whatnot was kept in a strong check, enough to make the storylines seem big.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Yeah it's pretty decent actually. It's a show I'd watch more of if I watched more TV. Makes me nostalgic for the old Hercules/Xena type stuff of the 90s.

Doesn't take much to be better than Ganondorf in any case.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Well, it's somewhat misleading.

I at least know who he is

Though not well enough to actually know his name.

Totally watched that show a few times though.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

I was actually anti-voting Ganondorf lol

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Rock'd

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Zeddicus

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

I thought it did, but you know it might not have.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Brothhherrrrrrrr!!!!!

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Red XIII I disagree on his village seems kinda significant to stuff.

Cid yeah maybe. Though Cid uh leads the party for a while that counts for something.

But yeah it's close for either one of those.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Oh yeah, I guess I should do that wrestler of the year thing. I'm expecting a lower turnout now that it doesn't have its own topic, though.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

4.5.

Dude gets hated too much. He looks kinda dumb and it's hard to care much either way. But people say he's pointless but I can't really agree-- he's got more point than Vincent, Yuffie, and hell even Barret after the first few hours of the game. Not that having a point makes him good but I don't really know the reasons to really hate him. He's slightly boring, slightly silly, slightly pointless. But that to me doesn't make him a character you hate on.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Well since all the cool people are doing it I'll post my ginormous list of anime from this year that I finished. I know you're all interested given how often I post in here!

*light spoilers for Oreimo, Deadman Wonderland, Fate/Zero, Mazinkaiser, and Un-Go follow*

5. Oreimo specials

Kuroneko is my favorite character in the show, so it's pretty impressive that they somehow managed to screw this up to the point where I actually prefer the original. The plot somehow manages to crossover into "too geeky" for my western mind to wrap itself around and probably gets doubly hurt that I find it kinda like, too unrealistic for a programming club, being someone who is actually involved in Computer Science. Then the fact that Kuroneko is ultimately thrown to the side to get Kirino back, making the end a lot like the disappointing first ending, is kind of a slap in the face and makes this thing feel pretty pointless. 4/10.

4. Deadman Wonderland

The premise was interesting, but it got really repetitive after the first four episodes or so, and the characters got too uhh simplistic/cliche. It never really dragged, though... to a fault, almost, because it ended like, abruptly as hell. Shiro's awesome though. 5/10.

3. Fate/Zero

This show was amazing at first. The dialogue and fight scenes were good. I loved the scene where they all showed up at the docks or wherever when Lancer made himself obvious for a fight, and I agree that Rider's noble phantasm is great, and that Rider himself is the star of the show (though I like most of the characters to some extent). And it had Fate/Stay Night influence which is good. My only problem with the show is that... nothing happens, ever. The talking is interesting but does nothing but flesh personalities out a bit and entertain. None of the fight scenes ever see anyone die, good or bad. It's not that I felt that the heroes were never in peril-- I didn't feel like anyone was in peril.

I'm pretty sure this anime would be leagues better right now if Lancer (due to his master dying) and Caster (due to Saber and Lancer taking him out) were out of the picture, but right now it just seems like build up. The fact that the final battle of the season didn't start and just served as a cliffhanger pretty much drives it home.

It's like DBZ with good animation and dialogue in some ways. Hopefully season 2 actually has things happen. 6/10.

2. Mazinkaiser

Just pure badassery and ass kicking, and it's good for that. It doesn't try to be deep or involved but it doesn't have to. Mostly this high due to flaws from the others more than it being that great though. 7/10.

1. Un-Go

Pretty consistently enjoyable show and the main is pretty great. The plots are pretty interesting too. The problem then, is that none of the characters really give a **** about anything. Embok thinks that makes it cool, which it kinda is, but for the most part the only people that seem to care about how the cases go are the unlikable suspects/victims, which kinda hurts my ability to care about how the cases go as well. There's also no real build to a big finish, though the episodes do get better throughout. 7/10.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

5

I like what he does, but nothing about the character draws me in. I don't hate him, I don't like him. He's just sorta doing his thing and I sorta just nod and say "that's kinda cool I guess"

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!

Eh I think it depends on how well you get along with your players, there. I don't recall any issues.

But it's also how workable your hosing is to get around. For instance just giving every enemy the ability to see invisible would neuter the problem ninja outright, but that just makes it not fun for him. But if you have very narrow hosing methods that are clearly identified and possible to defeat, that makes it fun for the DM and the player imhhho. I've done other things that were less hilarious like have a wizard that spams glitterdust in the fight that the ninja would need to prioritize to do his thing, or monks that catch thrown weapons, etc etc.

Obviously if the power gamer is ridiculously far ahead of everyone else then the approach becomes more and more difficult to take and yeah you gotta talk to your players at that point-- but I've never had to even when the party isn't exactly balanced. The illusion that everyone is balanced/useful is more important than them actually being that.

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I tried to have a fierce rivalry with SuperNiceDog, but he made me look worse than a GameFAQs Contest!