Board 8 > ~FIGHT!~ Tira, Kirby and Kazuma Kiryu vs. Crono, Juliet Starling and Geese

(+) Yeah! (+)

I would disagree on that, not that Ayla's even here though

Beat the hell out of Crono's actual solo techs in any case (which as I already said are kinda bad against Tira to begin with because of the nature of how a bladed hula hoop is used in a fight)
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Lopen posted...

The question is how Crono fares against your typical Soul Calibur characters in a straight up melee fight. Like I agree she's fairly low tier on the Soul pecking order, but Crono wouldn't exactly be a powerhouse there given the sword technique he displays in CT. Guy seldom if ever has pure melee duels-- it's about the team dynamic and spells that really makes the guy decent

This is a fair point to consider. Tira loses to people like Maxi... But could Chrono beat him?

Not sure.
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I'd actually argue that's gameplay mechanics, since Ayla specifically doesn't even have any magic to help out with the move. All she's doing is throwing Crono in the air, being ridiculous is all on him
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I'm pretty sure it's a limitation of the graphics and the implication is that Ayla is fastball specialing him in a line through the enemies, but it's hard to have her actually throwing her horizontal through them while making it clear she threw him without making the animation wonky like that.

Mostly because he does nothing like that in any of his solo techs or other duel techs whatsoever.
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Also Crono is frankly fast as hell, at least fast enough that he's kind of a blur once he gets going. Away with your disrespect <__<

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbkEF139D4k&t=1m0s
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I'll have to look into Crono more.

I guess calling Tira a jobber is a bit unfair. She usually loses, but she doesn't have many canon fights in the first place. And losing to Maxi probably doesn't say too much considering he regularly beats Astaroth, which is more of a power showing than 90% of the cast has
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Yeah that's the move I've been saying Tira counters just by... doing her normal attacks.

Kinda not very effective to be circling your opponent when they're swinging their weapon around themselves anyway. He'd get counterhit before he started attacking
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She's generally really disliked by the tourney crowd because half of her moves actually beat herself up. One of her moves involves hitting herself in the head, which either changes her moveset up or actively hurts her. That's Tira in a nutshell <_<

One of the few characters where "I'm so crazy!" is actively detrimental
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That just gives her a high pain threshold and makes her hard to adapt to for a guy like Crono who doesn't fight much in the way of humanoids anyway. Like I said this isn't really Crono's element (and I don't mean lightning) all things told.
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Actually it royally fucks her because she's apt to do something stupid like try to ride her hula hoop, fall off and get stabbed in the face. This is something that actually happens while playing Tira and why she generally sucks.
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Well you literally argued Crono to do something stupid (cast spells in melee combat) so I figure they're probably even in that regard?
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Crono

I think his team is just a bit better here all around and I think Crono is the best merc for this fight, dude's got some good sword skills.
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I'm just saying, in the event that Crono got any sort of spell off, Tira is a dead suck. Meanwhile Tira literally has a moveset that random chance will have her fall on her own head <_<
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Excuse me, 'dead duck'. That was a funny typo
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I guess if Tira has a really bad beat with her random personalities Crono could take her

Seems bad to gamble on that though
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I have always thought Crono is a bit underrated to what people generally give him respect wise. Given what the CT party deals with in terms of threats I have to assume Crono is a very, very scary swordsman - anything else would just be weird. I just think Tira at her best gets beat by Crono in a melee duel. I do admit to probably having higher than usual Crono respect, I do love my sharp bladed objects long.
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Well I mean, dig those two videos I just posted. I'm not sure how one gets "Flies around like a rocket" and "Spins around in afterimages while slicing you" as anything but pretty scary. Yet here we are
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Well I mean I think even if you think Crono wins, it shouldn't be by much, and the overall flow of the fight should be the same

Crono vs Tira
Kirby/Juliet takes out winner without too much issue
Kirby uses his abundance of range, counters, etc to stall out Juliet and Star Soul Power
Kazuma Kiryu cleans up, and then takes out Geese because he's kind of a lot better
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It has been awhile since I brushed up on KoF but my lasting impression of Geese Howard was "this dude's pretty beastly." What does Kazuma have that's A LOT better than Geese?

Also Kirby doesn't strike me as the 'stalling' type. I looked over his list of stuff for this fight and wasn't really all that impressed. Juliet seems pretty strong.
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Nah, it realistically goes "Crono wrecks Tira, Crono gets in pretty good shots on Kirby, Juliet wrecks Kirby's shit, Juliet either has Star Power left over and super wrecks Kiryu's shit, doesn't have Star Power left and only somewhat ruins Kiryu's shit. If by some odd logic you assume Juliet loses to Kiryu (y'know, in spite of his best feat being taking down a bull and Juliet's best feat taking down a monster bigger than a building), you have whatever is left of Kiryu after Juliet vs Geese at full strength

Not good odds there <_<
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DeathChicken posted...

Nah, it realistically goes "Crono wrecks Tira, Crono gets in pretty good shots on Kirby, Juliet wrecks Kirby's shit, Juliet either has Star Power left over and super wrecks Kiryu's shit, doesn't have Star Power left and only somewhat ruins Kiryu's shit. If by some odd logic you assume Juliet loses to Kiryu (y'know, in spite of his best feat being taking down a bull and Juliet's best feat taking down a monster bigger than a building), you have whatever is left of Kiryu after Juliet vs Geese at full strength

Not good odds there <_<

This isnt even really about a mismatch in power and is just a mismatch in styles. Juliet doesnt exactly strike one as skilled - shes an intuitive fighter that's kinda her thing.

Kiryus skill at disarming opponents is like a straight up counter to Juliet.
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Kirby has ranged tools, why wouldn't he use them. He's not exactly a reckless attacker. He naturally has an evasive/ranged skillset here with the ninja teleports and beam/ninja daggers, as well as Geese Howard form giving him an abundance of counters and REPPUKEN

As for Kiryu...

https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/75365855/879455650

I posted gifs in the first page backing up all those claims

He kinda just blows Geese, and this fight in general, out of the water in terms of superhuman stuff. And it's not all like random thugs, he fights guys who can make magical clones of themselves, for example, or so I've heard. He's got a lot of crazy stuff.

https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/75365855/879455100

Seriously man check out that bull gif (check out all the gifs really, but the bull gif is my favorite)
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DoomTheGyarados posted...

It has been awhile since I brushed up on KoF but my lasting impression of Geese Howard was "this dude's pretty beastly." What does Kazuma have that's A LOT better than Geese?

Also Kirby doesn't strike me as the 'stalling' type. I looked over his list of stuff for this fight and wasn't really all that impressed. Juliet seems pretty strong.

Having been watching Yakuza stuff lately to see who might take this, this is what I've seen so far...

-Has the aforementioned bullet time and pistol feat. That one's p decent for sure.
-Defeats a dude who can clone himself (not like 'move so fast he's cloned', in game he actually spawns clones), Goro Majima. He does this consistently, game in game out, considering he's his perennial rival. How often has Geese handled getting 1v5'd by serious fighters?

Still studying both sides of the match but yeah, suffice is to say Crono's eclipsed by two dudes on both teams. There's like zero doubt Juliet is DC's flagship merc here, and Kiryu's beastmode too.
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And yeah I really think styles are what makes this match decisive

Tira's style is unpredictable, and focused on battling humanoid opponents 1v1 in these exact kinda skirmishes-- she is an assassin. Crono's is more tailored to team battling and battling monsters etc

Kirby's got a great skillset to stall vs Juliet and with the telegraphedness of Star Soul Power combined with his superior range and Geese form would have every reason to. There's nothing in Kirby's character that says he's a reckless melee heavy fighter-- he's got very versatile movesets for a reason.

Kazuma Kiryu excels at disarming, and would abuse this vs Juliet if necessary.

Geese's style is actually really bad against someone with a gun as he's sorta trying to bait you into coming at him so he can use his counter attacks-- and Kiryu is good at counters himself so he's not likely to get caught by those easily.

Basically I think if you crack through double parameter hype, or trying to literally play Tira off as worthless, you realize this is more in the favor of Kirby's team than not here, and it's entirely due to the ordering of the match-ups. A different order and this becomes a lot more shaky.
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Just want to throw in one more nice Kiryu showing, since those gifs and videos covered a lot already:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YO2swWXqFc#t=3m46s

Very good reflexes.
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I'd say of everything in this match, Kirby somehow being given credit to stall instead of actually trying to fight Juliet is really gamey and weird. Why would he do that, he doesn't know Juliet from a hole in the wall, and she doesn't exactly look threatening barring the big chainsaw
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Also no, I totally write off Tira as worthless because as anyone who has actually played Soul Calibur would know, she is pretty much worthless due to half of her moves being self destructive nonsense. Kind of like Yoshimitsu if you had no say over when you wanted to be suicidal, she just does it <_<

Crono meanwhile is a pretty dang good RPG protagonist with feats to his credit like running around in flashsteps and literally sticking his sword through a big metal dragon durinig the prison escape. Yeah, I completely am saying that Crono smashes Tira good, and if Crono can then hurt Kirby at all, the whole house of cards falls apart because you are counting on Kiryu to do everything
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It's more like Kirby opens with range cause he has no reason to close in with all his ranged attacks

Then Juliet doesn't come back with any sort of range

Then she does her soul power hype thing like some crazy invincible enemy out of a Kirby game and moving really fast and Kirby is like "oiii~" and trying to figure out a way to deal with an opponent who has just started being an overwhelming force. Of course he'll try to stall as he tries to figure her out at that point, and ninja teleports + ranged options + geese counters + floating give him a lot of tools to do that.

Like you're trying to paint Kirby as some sorta reckless barbarian in how he fights who will default to melee at all times. He's not. Stop playing Smash Bros and play actual Kirby games and realize how many ranged options he has and realize that him gaining those abilities wouldn't make sense if he was all in your face all the time, nor does Kirby really show that type of berserker personality, generally. Kirby's strength has always been in his adaptability-- trying to argue he wouldn't adapt to the opponent is rather silly.
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They're literally 10 yards apart at the beginning. Juliet can probably close that via Armadillo Spin and have Kirby dead way before this hypothetical situation where Kirby goes "Oh no, the unassuming cheerleader is now overwhelming, I must retreat and rethink my options"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k40bAU7RId4&t=15m15s
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1. That doesn't cover close to 10 yards
2. It's TELEGRAPHED Kirby can just dodge it
3. Even if Juliet gets hits on Kirby, Kirby can counter with his ninja teleport which activates on damage.
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There's actually no telegraph at all to that except a low swing that starts it out, with no indication that she is going to follow that up by covering swaths of ground through the air with chainsaw blazing <_<
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Kirby has fought disgustingly cute things before, I don't think he's even knowledgeable enough to think a cheerleader's particularly unassuming. His archrivals are a blue penguin in bath robes and a black kirby.
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It's TELEGRAPHED in that if you're covering 10 yards with it you're spinning a while since she doesn't cover all that much horizontal distance per rotation, and it's not really all that fast.

I think she'd be better off just running at him and doing normal attacks.
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Also hella spammable. Best way I found to make many things dead in short order in that game was to just keep Armadillo going, since nothing can really touch Juliet while she's flying around as a death saw
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DeathChicken posted...

Also yeah, Tactical Mastermind Kirby deciding he needs to immediately fly away instead of going "HIIIIIIIIIII", covering the 10 yards and punching Juliet in the face is kind of silly

Are these the same.people who argue that kirby is so smart that he can fly an arwing better than fox and is a master of any thing within seconds? Is he dumb or is he a prodigy? Can't have both.
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The correct answer is Kirby is a prodigy

That's literally the basis for Kirby's character. He inhales a little beast thing who has a gimmick and he's instantly way better than they were at their gimmick.

Not too unlike Kiryu and fighting styles, minus the inhaling
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Personalities and terrain adapting to fit the ideal situation? In my Mercs? Well I never
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At their core, the gameplay of Kirby games, for boss fights, has always been

- Observe enemy while dodging them
- Find exploitable weakness in their attack pattern
- Hit them when they expose a weakness

In fact in the first Kirby game, you had no powers and that was your only mode of attack. You had to inhale certain attacks and spit them back at the opponent to do damage. You couldn't rush them down if you tried.

But yeah Kirby is a guy who rushes in and goes hard in melee against a heavily melee combatant, every time. He'd never pace himself in a 1v1 match, nor would he change his strategy for his opponent.
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Lopen posted...

The correct answer is Kirby is a prodigy

That's literally the basis for Kirby's character. He inhales a little beast thing who has a gimmick and he's instantly way better than they were at their gimmick.

Not too unlike Kiryu and fighting styles, minus the inhaling

I disagree. I think Kirby magically mastering stuff is gameplay mechanic.

But, people here arguing he is dumb as shit also argue he is a prodigy. How the hell can you argue both ways. It's very contradicting.
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It's only a gameplay mechanic in the sense that say, being able to cast Ultima as a mage in a Final Fantasy game is a gameplay mechanic.

Like that's literally Kirby's lore-- his super power if you will. He inhales something and becomes a master of it. You're trying to argue the basis for his character is gameplay mechanics. Dumb.
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kirby beats that reactor core in super star that can only be damaged by making it laser itself, so he can't be THAT dumb

on the other hand i actually wouldn't doubt crono being able to get off some lightning at close range. iirc the whole reason spekkio does those duels with you is for you to test out your magic, and that's done on, well, spekkio's arena. if crono can get magic off there he can probably do so here

I dunno about this I feel like Spekkio is basically going easy on you for teaching purposes there. Especially considering Crono ' long ass cast animation
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This is a tough match because I really like both Kiryu and Juliet and they are both somewhat disrespected in mercs.
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...it's really weird to be hyping up tira due to style yet completely disregarding that Geese's style is perfect against Kiryu. and the idea that Geese can't deal with gunners is laughable, the dude's a mob boss and even his underlings are bullet blockers. a 9mm isn't anything to him.
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Oh yeah, since this is Yakuza 5 Kiryu, he's also got Rage of the Dragons mode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKBuedCsrn8#t=1m07s

Both him and one of the enemies activate it, makes them glow red. It makes you invincible, changes your moveset, and notably gives you a super fast dash-in. Of course in mercs, I doubt it's making him invincible, but the dash-in you can see at around 1:07 in is pretty nice, and any added durability on top of that's good too. It's pretty much like a controllable gameplay version of the webm Lopen posted earlier.

And just for fun, another ridiculous thing Kiryu can do:


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Yet again, the problem here is that it's very unlikely Kiryu ends up in a fair fight with anyone. The turn order here is not in his favor being the last guy up, since to even get to an even fight with Geese, you'd pretty much have to assume that the Crono/Juliet pair failed badly enough on Kirby that Juliet didn't have enough left in the tank to even fight with Kiryu, since a hurt Kiryu versus a fully healthy Geese is pretty bad

And that's the *best* case scenario for him, since really I see Juliet just plowing through Kirby handily enough that she has plenty in the tank to make Kiryu's life miserable. Then she either wins or Geese wins. Other team just has a *lot* of slack to make up with Kirby essentially fighting off two people just to try and prop up Kiryu.
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dashing into geese, punching geese, these do not seem like very good ideas considering his entire martial arts style revolves around countering and using your opponent's strength against them.

or tricking them into close range and blasting 'em with raging storm, i guess.
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I think my thoughts right now are, a lot of things have to go just right for Kirby's team to win. And while I do think that scenario is within reach, it is much easier to imagine Juliet just laying waste to the enemy team.
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Wang, Geese's martial art style gave him a win over Jeff Bogard and two losses to Terry Bogard, a self-trained mixed martial arts striker who incorporates aspects of street fighter and boxing. It's not doing him any favors against Kiryu, a guy who's not only got the same fighting styles down, but waaaaay more, including Geese's own counter-throw, multiple anti-grab moves, and his biggest signature move being the Tiger Drop, a counter.

He's just straight up done more impressive things than Geese has, for a longer time.
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