Board 8 > Trdl Actually Finishes a Ranking Topic: 65 User-Nominated Finishing Moves

(+) Yeah! (+)

Back in...

checks date of Google doc

2018? Sweet Jesus.

Ahem! Back in 2018, I opened a nomination topic for ranking user-nominated "finishing moves" from across all media. I then, in typical trdl fashion, watched all 65 of these things, ranked them, started writeups, and... fucked off, I guess? I don't even remember.

However, this time I will right what once went wrong! Especially since the hard part's already done for me. I'm going to be using my original rankings as in the document I found, but I'll provide commentary if my tastes have changed since then.

The criteria:

All finishing moves have been given a rating from 1 to 10 across the following three categories:

Aesthetics: How cool does it look? How much spectacle does the move evoke, or what does it express? This doesn't mean it has to be complex, but if it's simple, the simplicity needs to carry weight; similarly, complexity for complexity's sake is not looked kindly upon.

Dominance: A finishing move is the punctuation on the end of a sentence, and it should damn well feel like it. How does the move convey the user's domination over the recipient?

Damn: There are some qualities of a good finisher that are intangible. This is the catch-all for them: specifically, how likely is the move to make me say "Damn!" once it's over?

In the event of a tie, the higher score in "Damn" is ranked higher.

Not going to shoot for a number of posts per day since we all know how whimsical I'll be on that, but damn it, this is getting done.

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Ayyy. I think I nominated something for this.

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#65: Grand Calamity Symphony
Nominator: @redrocket
Character: Zell
Source Material: Final Fantasy VIII

Scores:
Aesthetics: 1
Dominance: 1
Damn: 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXWB5jQ_nuY&t=74s

Congratulations, redrocket, on your dubious prize, especially as you specifically said "as portrayed in this video."

Did you watch all seven minutes of it, viewer? Because I sure did, praying it would get better, but alas, no divine aid would come to my salvation - or at least get me those seven minutes of my life back. I'm honestly impressed this video managed to make 1 million damage in 12 in-game seconds look so excruciatingly boring.

I don't even know what to write up. It's the same two mediocre, unflattering moves, over and over, with way too much of a pause in between them. Yes, I know it's game mechanics, but I don't give a damn why I'm about to fall asleep in my chair. I still can't tell if "Booya" is a short punch or a headbutt given how he staggers after it.

Go back to the hot dogs, Zell. Maybe you can spend 12 seconds eating those while I take my seven minutes to put toward self-flagellation for making this topic three years late. "Damn" doesn't count toward the category rating when I say it at the move and not about the move.

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HELL YES

never gave up hope

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nice

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#64: Qlipoth Rhizome
Nominator: @Raka_Putra
Character: Abigail Williams
Source Material: Fate/Grand Order

Scores:
Aesthetics: 1
Dominance: 3
Damn: 2
Total score: 6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqHpQwjr62I

Hoo boy, this choice might be spicy, given how people I know who play FGO seem to love this character.

Let me get this out of the way: Abigail's design here is creepy as fuck, and not in the intended vaguely-Walmart-brand-Lovecraft sort of way. It's creepy in the "I feel watching this is going to make Chris Hansen tell me to take a seat over there" way. That automatically makes things rough for any ratings I could give it toward aesthetics.

Even if I manage to somehow ignore the pedo-ish-ness of the design, the keyhole in her head is just dumb, or at least it's dumb in how the move uses it, which is, er... it glows menacingly after the obligatory tentacles surrounding her give her target a low-animation-budget slappy slap. I can appreciate surface-level dumb designs if used in awesome ways -- that's Guilty Gear in a nutshell -- but this just exists in a way that tries desperately to be menacing in the way that a seven-year-old tries to menace her mother with her new Halloween wax fangs. Is it meant to be more conceptual or metaphorical, given the time-wasting anime chant that comes before and after? I don't care, and I'm not going to bother looking shit up to salvage an abject failure like this.

I think I bumped up Dominance to 3 because whatever that keyhole looks like it should be doing, it's certainly a bad thing, but it should have stayed at 2, just as Damn did. Why were these above 1? Because Zell set the bar so low that it was approaching Earth's mantle, while Abigail merely tunneled down to bedrock.

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Don't remember what but I definitely nommed something for this! Probably something from RE to name one.

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Tag

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#63: Death Blossom
Nominator: @redrocket (3/5 remain)
Characters: Alex Rogan and Grig
Source Material: The Last Starfighter

Scores:
Aesthetics: 2
Dominance: 3
Damn: 2

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

Sadly, the secret maneuver of the Last Starfighter is a product of its time, budget, technology, acting talent, writing talent, studio talent, and amount of film used to record it.

Would I be saying this in 1984? Given Star Wars came out in 1977 and Tron came out in 1982, then yes, yes I would. I know this movie has historical value as being the first bigger-budget movie to use extensive CGI, and honestly the CGI isn't that much worse than what you'd see in some Tron scenes, but Tron filmed around their technical limitations, whereas this film just... threw things at the wall and hoped for the best, I guess.

Even with those limitations, the aesthetics of just "spin and shoot pink lines in a bunch of directions" don't hold water. There aren't enough lasers! Either the lasers were super accurate, in which case I should see how precise they are despite the spinning nature of the attack, or there should have been way more of them so that most lasers could miss, but the move would still annihilate every enemy in the scene. Points off of dominance, as well, given the only way the move worked was for the enemies to all get in range of the maneuver despite doing real damage to the ship from a safe distance beforehand. If your finisher relies on your opponents to be collective morons, then your dominance thereof ceases to impress. It wasn't even like they deliberately laid a trap.

Man, now I'm imagining how much cooler this move could have been if it took the same premise, but it put the two heroes into a more active role, gunning the engines while spinning through space to cut a path through their enemies. It couldn't have been much costlier than what we got, could it?

Why am I going so hard on overanalyzing a silly early-CGI kids movie? This is what you came to this topic for, folks, and it's what redrocket delivered.

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Funny enough, @Snake5555555555 also nominated a move called "Death Blossom," but that was a bit more impressive.

Also, Snake, surprisingly none of your nominations were from RE. You did have one from Clock Tower though.

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#62: Reverse Bear Trap
Nominator: @TomNook (0/1 remaining)
Character: Jigsaw
Source Material: Saw

Scores:
Aesthetics: 3
Dominance: 4
Damn: 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXzTc-6ggn8

The premise is cool. The device is cool. The action is cool. However, for my rankings, the sum is far less than its collective parts.

The main problem with the Reverse Bear Trap "survival game" (or any of Jigsaw's survival games, really) for this topic is that they are not actually finishing moves -- or at least they aren't meant to be, no matter how sadistic they are. In order to even put someone into this kind of situation, the subject must already be at Jigsaw's mercy, his dominance over them established from the start. The device doesn't establish or even reinforce that; it's already a given.

The aesthetics would be cooler if we got a clearer picture of them than Jigsaw's fuzzy TV screen, and the entire point of the scene is that Amanda survives it unscathed physically, at least. There isn't much else to talk about. I hate torture-porn movies but even I'll admit it's a good scene, but when the goal of your finishing move is not to finish your opponent, it's hard to call it as such.

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Okay, bedtime for me. More tomorrow! I have no excuse.

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Tag

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Oh nice I definitely know which Clock Tower one, it's impeccable.

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#61: Spine Rip
Nominator: @GavsEvans123 (3/4 remaining)
Character: Sub-Zero
Source Material: Mortal Kombat

Scores:
Aesthetics: 2
Dominance: 4
Damn: 3
Total Score: 9/30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0ye7e41X5k

It hurts putting a classic this low, but I'm not grading on a curve. Unlike the previous entry, I don't have ways I could improve this given the technical limitations of the era and medium, not to mention the game rating watchdogs throwing a collective fit back then. I can appreciate what it's going for, it executes it decently enough, but here in 2021, we have Sub-Zero yes I know it's the original's younger brother, shut up doing this instead:

https://youtu.be/lWqKlrP5MTo?t=38

It's just not the same, you know?

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#60: Shoot the Shit
Nominator: @Johnbobb (4/5 remaining)
Character: Scott Pilgrim
Source Material: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Scores:
Aesthetics: 1
Dominance: 1
Damn: 7
Total Score: 9/30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHHZvNx3zrw

Johnbobb, if you were going for last place with this, you shouldn't have picked something that made me laugh my ass off.

This is such a glorious anticlimax. Despite the brevity of the clip, I was expecting some kind of Persona-style showdown with his Shadow, but instead of choosing violence (like the entire rest of the movie), Scott just... defuses the situation by talking things out off-screen. It's like one of those Friendship gag finishers from various Mortal Kombats, but more poignant.

This is distinctly different from the Saw clip before in that this was, by the most technical definition possible, a finishing move. The conflict was swiftly and totally resolved due to Scott's actions. Of course the nature of the shot means there's no aesthetic to talk about, and dominance isn't established because the entire point of the scene is for there not to be dominance. This kind of thing is what the Damn factor is for -- a quality that just doesn't fit what one might expect. Bravo.

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By the way, is everyone okay with the writeups being as brief as they have been so far? That's been a major deterrent for me to make ranking topics when I see people like Snake, Mycro, etc. have these page-long writeups for every single entry.

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Short writeups can get the point across well, I don't have a problem with them.

I forgot that Scott Pilgrim clip was nominated, lol. I love that one.

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Short write-ups are good, and you can definitely get more out daily too with that style. I get the context of the move from it and your opinion so they work for this particular ranking. I love doing the longer write-ups but they can for sure be very stressful and time-consuming.

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#59: Playmaker
Nominator: @Lopen (2/3 remaining)
Character: Montel Vontavious Porter
Source Material: WWE

Scores:
Aesthetics: 3
Dominance: 5
Damn: 2
Total Score: 10/30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9gHS94WBcY

Finishing moves in pro wrestling are always trickier than they would be in most media. Unlike digital media, they need to be done in real life; unlike in film, there's no editing to rely on. This is done in front of a live audience (pre-covd) after all. Again, I don't grade on a curve, but as someone with a modicum of stunt and stage combat training, I can appreciate how tough the job is to make something memorable without any means of touching up or getting multiple takes.

With all of this said -- I must be missing something here, right? The guy just flips the opponent halfway around. The only thing that looks like it might get hurt by this move is the opponent's arm getting slammed into the mat, but only in the way that losing an arm wrestling match would. The opponent's head isn't getting hurt at all; MVP's leg is cushioning the blow. Now, this isn't uncommon in stage combat. For example, if you watch the Undertaker's signature Tombstone Piledriver very closely, you'll notice that the Undertaker's knees hit the surface just before his opponent's head does, so Taker is the one who takes the brunt of the hit. However, Taker is good enough that his big move looks like it's going all on the enemy's head. I can't fathom what MVP's half-leg-lock over his jobber's head is supposed to convey, though, and that's a glaring flaw.

I'm honestly not sure why I gave this slop a 5 on Dominance. If I were rerating, I'd put it down to 3 and cast it into the bottom 5 abyss like it deserves. I don't know MVP much, but I hope he came up with a better signature than this.

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Oh I remember this.

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#58(*): Turtle Paratroopers
Nominator: @redrocket (2/5 remaining)
Character: Ernest P. Worrell and the Second Chancers
Source Material: Ernest Goes to Camp

Scores:
Aesthetics: 3
Dominance: 2
Damn: 5
Total Score: 10/30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw_8j3MwfZo

I will admit, given my username, nominating a finisher that features turtles is cheating. Turtles are fantastic. This is just pure, stupid kids-movie art in motion. I can tell you turtles can pack one hell of a chomp, and I imagine that if there were an ounce of realism in this movie, the poor fools who got turtle mouths over their noses or ears would have lost them. How did the kids get in a position where they could launch their turtles from a canoe-based trebuchet? How did the bad guy's ominous crates and encampment catch fire? I don't care. I wanted to see some small turtles parachute in and fuck some bad guy mooks up, and I got exactly that. Look at the complete disarray and the retreat that got sounded. Yes, it's goofy and dumb, but so is a lot of stuff; if you can sell something well enough, I'll usually buy it.

You know what? The more I watch this again with fresh eyes, the more I realize I criminally underrated this entry. Screw it. I'm breaking my own rules on this and will re-rate it higher up the list because if I don't think of the turtles, then who will?

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That concludes our lowest tier of finishers, named for one of the stupidest ways to die in video games.

Poorly Timed QTEs
#65: Zell's Grand Calamity Symphony (Final Fantasy VIII)
#64: Abigail Williams's Qlipoth Rhizome (Fate/Grand Order)
#63: Alex Rogan's and Grig's Death Blossom (The Last Starfighter)
#62: Jigsaw's Reverse Bear Trap (Saw)
#61: Sub-Zero's Spine Rip (Mortal Kombat 1)
#60: Scott Pilgrim Shooting the Shit (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World)
#59: MVP's Playmaker (WWE)

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that sums up the difference pretty well imo

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trdl23 posted...

Johnbobb, if you were going for last place with this, you shouldn't have picked something that made me laugh my ass off.

I wasn't actually! I just had the same reaction, and it's such a unique take on "defeating the final boss"

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And (sorry for the triple post) I will also agree the write-ups are great as they are

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Johnbobb posted...

that sums up the difference pretty well imo

I didn't even realize that was age-restricted outside of YouTube! It really does show the difference.

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Actual #58:Roar of the Mad King
Nominator: @Pirateking2000 (4/5 remaining)
Character: Susano-O
Source Material: BlazBlue Central Fiction

Scores:
Aesthetics: 4
Dominance: 5
Damn: 2
Total Score: 11/30

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

BlazBlue's choices are so bizarre, and lately, it's made me realize that RWBY is a fantastic pair for it in their crossover tag-team game: Both series have awesome concepts and a few isolated hits marred by idiotic or uninspired design decisions. Astral Finishes are a great example of this. Some Astrals are badass as hell:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seX6ULm5vYM

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgX9f-gqDFk

But then you get Susano, who just, uh, swings some spooky black-and-green energy around, doesn't even bother to hit his enemy with it -- doesn't even bother to have the enemy on the screen -- and makes the screen go spooky green-and-black until apparently he's made the arena into a mini-hellscape of some sort? It's a mildly impressive show of dominance, and the aesthetics get an artificially inflated grade for the hellscape looking kinda neat afterward, but it feels so impersonal and bland that it does nothing for me. I admit I'm not a huge fan of "block out the screen" finishers in fighting games unless they're executed exceptionally well, and this ain't it, chief.

I don't know too much about BlazBlue lore beyond the first game because I value my neurons, but isn't this supposed to be the Big Bad of the whole series? The end-all, be-all, dude who's going to end the world? Why would Arcsys give him such a mediocre finisher? Thank god this travesty of a series is over, and they're back to making Guilty Gear again.

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tbh my issue with the Astral finishers is that the FINISH blots out the entire impact of the attack

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#57: Zesshou Shisen Enbu
Nominator: @Shonen_Bat (3/4 remaining)
Character: Mian
Source Material: King of Fighters XIV

Scores:
Aesthetics: 4
Dominance: 4
Damn: 3
Total Score: 11/30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0qauPNG1Vw&t=11s

I like the idea they were going with here, and maybe if I understood whatever she was saying or the cultural aspect of her design (I think Chinese, but I don't want to assume) I'd appreciate this more, but this fell flat for me. The spin-kicks didn't sell their impact well enough; she looks like a top spinning without any stop frames -- I don't know the technical term -- to show the kick really hitting the opponent well enough to illicit such a stark reaction. The plain white background makes everything feel flat. I wish they'd just kept the stage itself in the background.

This brings me to the mask. Regarding the first sentence above, I know I'm missing something valuable there. As it stands to my ignorant American mind, it's a non-sequitur. If the mask means something, I think the fan reveal of it would make this cooler, but as of now, it's a resounding "meh."

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Oh, that was one. I just think it looks cool, but I can see the complaint.

I only remember one of the moves I nominated, guess it's a mystery

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I guess I should have specified that I meant the Saw franchise, when I nominated Reverse Beartrap. Your write up is accurate if based only on the first film, as it is only a "test" in that one. But it is used more times in the series, and later is 100% used as a finishing move with no "test". I wasn't able to link videos probably because of the gore.

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TomNook posted...

I guess I should have specified that I meant the Saw franchise, when I nominated Reverse Beartrap. Your write up is accurate if based only on the first film, as it is only a "test" in that one. But it is used more times in the series, and later is 100% used as a finishing move with no "test". I wasn't able to link videos probably because of the gore.

Ahh, got it. I admit I've never seen most of the movies since it's not a genre that appeals to me, so this is the only one I knew about besides Amanda using them in Dead by Daylight.

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#56: Wind of Destruction
Nominator: @Mewtwo59 (0/1 remaining)
Character: Cyril
Source Material: Star Ocean: The Second Sory

Scores:
Aesthetics: 3
Dominance: 5
Damn: 4
Total Score: 12/30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmMuXnD1PEo&t=105s

Another contender that has the unfortunate fate of being on antiquated hardware. I'm don't know much about Star Ocean, honestly. It looks like some kind of proto-Tales Of game from my brief glimpse here? If I'm right, having this kind of extensive sequence might break the pace, but I'm not going to ding points from it due to my own ignorance of the mechanics.

You know what this reminds me of? Some of the summon sequences in Golden Sun. I mean this in a good way since Golden Sun was one of my favorite games growing up, and this move reminds me of the rank 4 Earth summon just in terms of presentation.

This is a move that has all the trappings of a good move, but beyond the reality of contemporary graphics of the time, it falls into another trap: It's a wind move. Other classic elemental moves are far easier to sell as big painful hits without needing to do anything fancy: Earth smashes stuff with rocks, fire burns or causes explosions, ice either impales or entraps, even water can flood the arena. In sprite games, the "impact," so to speak, doesn't require much work with the units that get hit. They don't need to move much aside from a general "I got hit hard" reaction.

Wind has more trouble in that the method in which it deals damage is less clear. The methods in which wind damage makes intuitive sense are as follows:

• Picking up or otherwise displacing the enemy and slamming them into something
• Scouring the enemy with the friction caused by high winds
• Pelting the enemy with debris picked up by the windstorm

Cyril here does his best, and the random explosion effects add a bit to it, but these just aren't easy to convey with the level of technology in question.

That said, I think I rated this a bit too low. This probably still could have gotten a 4 in aesthetics for the vortex being present in addition to the tornado. It's a nice touch on what is otherwise a trite attack.

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#55: Eye for an Eye
Nominator: @Snake5555555555 (4/5 remaining)
Character: Deathstroke
Source Material: Injustice: Gods Among Us

Scores:
Aesthetics: 4
Dominance: 4
Damn: 4
Total Score: 12/30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eexBJ0eHTtM

This move gets up here for one part and one part alone: the backflip into kicking the sword into the other guy's chest. That is awesome.

The guns actually detract from the move! If you're going to do something acrobatic and badass like "backflip kick a sword into another guy," don't surround it with mediocre gunshots we've seen a million other times. The guns are distractions from the reason we're here. Now, I know this is Deathstroke, and we can't very well fail to include guns in his arsenal, but they should be as inspired and performative as his sword work. Some ideas off the top of my head:

• Use the pistols to shoot his enemy in the foot, staggering them in a more intuitive manner for him to aim his sword backflip.
• Shoot the sword with the SMGs to drive it through the enemy.
• Hit the enemy in the kneecaps after the sword is in them, then calmly walk over to yank the sword out.

Speaking of which, where the hell does that sword go when the move is over? The answer appears to be "it gets out of the enemy's chest and back in Deathstroke's possession somehow and please don't pay attention to this," but it's a real immersion killer to see such a flagrant flaw in choreography.

With a few concept changes and idiot-proofing, this could have been a top contender. Alas, it is doomed to mediocrity.

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#54: Tri-Beam / Kikoho
Nominator: @ZenOfThunder (0/1 remaining)
Character: Tien Shinhan
Source Material: Dragonball Z

Scores:
Aesthetics: 4
Dominance: 4
Damn: 4
Total Score: 12/30

Sadly, the original link to this move got copyright claimed, and I can't find another one in an expedient manner. Still, it's DBZ. You probably know Tien. You probably know what the Tri-Beam is.

I do remember this getting ranked higher than I'd anticipated since the video sold the move far better than I'd seen before. It's from the Cell saga where Tien is using the Tri-Beam to blow a hole in the ground and keep blasting non-perfect Cell back into it whenever Cell tries to fly out. It works for a while, buying his friends time they need. (I hope I'm remembering this right from three years ago, anyway.)

The trouble is just that, though: When has the Tri-Beam ever worked to finish off someone, let alone someone that matters the modern fighting game notwithstanding? It's always been something the enemy either shrugs off to Worf the poor guy, or it simply harasses well enough for the aliens of the show to do the real heavy lifting. Furthermore, I think this is effectively a "cast from HP" move? That's a bonus if it's something that can finish people off, but a bane if it's simply for a support role, so to speak.

Poor Tien. He's a proper badass, but the series in which he finds himself is full of cheaters.

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yeah as much as I enjoyed playing as Deathstroke I didn't find his finisher all that impressive, at least not by the standards set by some of the others


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Oh hey I think I remember this.

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#53: Menacing Moonraze Maelstrom
Nominator: @Shonen_Bat (2/4 remaining)
Character: Necrozma / Lunala
Source Material: Pokemon UltraSun/UltraMoon

Scores:
Aesthetics: 4
Dominance: 6
Damn: 3
Total Score: 13/30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKb34yK_VH8

This is going to be a brief writeup because everything here should work. It's perfectly serviceable: charge up in true anime fashion, shunt them into some kind of parallel dimension (which is neat and sells the cosmic aspect of the pokemon), and blast them with a good converging beam attack, Bob's your uncle. Nothing fantastic, but respectable.

Given all of this, why do I find myself so bored by it? Maybe it's the cartoony design side of pokemon and Lunala's stupid-ass face. Maybe it's the obnoxious dance that bestows the "Z-power." Maybe it's the lack of follow-through that doesn't show the two pokemon coming back into the normal dimension again. Maybe it's all three of these and more. I wish I had a better way to express why I find it so "blah," but I don't.

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^

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Thank you Shonen.

#52: Earthshattering Kaboom
Nominator: @LOLIAmAnAlt (0/1 remaining)
Character: Smoke
Source Material: Mortal Kombat 3

Scores:
Aesthetics: 3
Dominance: 6
Damn: 4
Total Score: 13/30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxTBLKH4tZ4

Another one whose aesthetics suffer for its hardware, but I like this entry more than its grade makes it look. It's so goofy and hilarious, perfectly in keeping with Mortal Kombat's quick move into as much a parody game as a "brutal" one. There's something oddly aggressive about "I beat the hell out of you so hard I have time to summon a billion bombs from hammerspace and blow up the world." Does Smoke need to do this? Absolutely not. Does he sacrifice himself for no good reason? Yep. Adorable.

You know, I'm surprised none of the modern games (9 and onward) tried to remake this one, considering it's an old-school fan favorite.

The reason it remains low despite my enjoyment is that it's just so ridiculously implausible and nonsensical that I can't take it seriously, even as a parody. Still, this was great. Sadly (or perhaps not?) the nominator's name can no longer be tagged, which means they closed their account or it was closed for them.

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they were online four days ago

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my favorite part of that isn't the explosion, but just how comically long it takes for all the bombs to fall out

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Huh, that's bizarre. The tagging works now, but it wouldn't fill in the name when I was writing it, so I assumed the worst.

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All right, back into things.

#52: Mega Legends
Nominator: @tazzyboyishere (0/1 remaining)
Character: Mega Man
Source Material: Super Smash Brothers 4

Scores:
Aesthetics: 4
Dominance: 4
Damn: 5
Total Score: 13/30

https://youtu.be/1wnnv5zySAk

How impressive this attack is hinges entirely on how much nostalgia you have for the Mega Man franchise. I have precious little; they've never been my kinds of games.

Still, the bones of it are solid, if remarkably similar to the beam attack from Pokemon a couple of entries ago. Suck someone into alternate dimension, have a bunch of beams converge into a big laser attack, and sadly, show no follow-through on how that translates back to the "real world" (by reference anyway). This time it just happens to be a team-up.

This is a touch better than the Pokemon one, so the ranking here expresses that well. There's a bit more "oomph" to it. It just tries to stand on its franchise's merits more than its own, and I find that tedious.

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#51: Bubble Head
Nominator: @Raka_Putra (2/4 remaining)
Character: Cassie Cage
Source Material: Mortal Kombat X

Scores:
Aesthetics: 5
Dominance: 4
Damn: 5
Total Score: 14/30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3hepvnuivE

Ah, modern Mortal Kombat games. I don't know how Ed Boon . managed to get all the resources to make these look so damn good even if the gameplay animation in MKX can be janky as hell but it really shows.

That's why something that would otherwise be super boring can be somewhat impressive. Let's be real: Cassie does nothing impressive here. She shoots someone in the legs and then the head. That's it. There's no backflipping and kicking a sword into someone, no giant laser convergence, just pew pew pew.

The level of polish is insane, though. The shots feel painful. The real stuff that makes this unique, of course, happens after the deathblow, and it's disrespect in a quintessential millennial fashion. That said, it does feel... blas? I think it takes too long and takes away from the snappiness of the actual gunshots, and it doesn't have the dramatic tension (by design) to pull it off the way they want.

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#50: Giga Slave
Nominator: @KanzarisKelshin (3/4 remaining)
Character: Lina Inverse
Source Material: Slayers

Scores:
Aesthetics: 7
Dominance: 4
Damn: 4
Total Score: 15/30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqEvG06iU78

Ah, 90s anime. In this 2020s hellscape, where the world feels miserable and media keeps trying to subvert everything, it feels so quaint and pure to see stereotypes played straight.

The way the move tears up the terrain and so effortlessly displaces the Dark Lord's own beam attack is delicious, and the animation of Lina controlling it -- and the devastation to her stamina afterward - give the move an appropriate feeling of weight. The fake-out regarding its efficacy, followed by complete petrification and crumbling, says all you need about its power. Even thirty-ish years later, it holds up.

However, I have enough nitpicks that they become... is there a larger unit for "nitpick"? Something in metric, maybe?

First, there's the two entire minutes of buildup to it. Again, this is 90s anime. We all know how Dragonball Z was. This is nothing new. However, it's a stereotype that detracts from how cool this could be; as I said earlier in this topic, if your move relies on your opponent being dumb without you setting a deliberate track and/or trick beforehand, the domination thereof is less impressive. Furthermore, Lina is calling on a power that is not her own, nor is she making it feel more like a team-up attack the way Bayonetta and her demon buddy do. I'll probably make myself a hypocrite for this later, but I struggle to be impressed with borrowed power without one adding one's own strength to it. Finally, though it's not relevant to the scoring -- why the hell is this move called "Giga Slave"? It's a petrification beam.

Can we appreciate how magnanimous the dark lord here is? Dude is petrifying and crumbling, his opponent has passed out from fatigue, and he doesn't lash out or bemoan his fate. He just applauds his slayers on a job well done. Nice.

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Putting Cassie Cage and Johnny Cage in the same game always feels so weird. Seeing him blow a hole in her stomach and stick his face through the hole just feels like... aggressively bad parenting?

https://youtu.be/a-lpTwOnW7s?t=138

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Johnbobb posted...

Putting Cassie Cage and Johnny Cage in the same game always feels so weird. Seeing him blow a hole in her stomach and stick his face through the hole just feels like... aggressively bad parenting?

https://youtu.be/a-lpTwOnW7s?t=138

At least The Shining reference is a bit more relevant.

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