Board 8 > ~FIGHT!~ Donkey Kong vs. Squall Leonhart

(+) Yeah! (+)

Donkey Kong has challenged Squall Leonhart to a fight! Location of the fight: Balamb Garden - The wide halls of Balamb, normally packed with students, are empty in preparation for the coming battle. The entire Garden is accessible for this fight (with the exception of NORG's room and the hidden basement it's a part of), so there's plenty of potential for games of cat and mouse. Attackers will start at the front entrance outside the Garden, while defenders will start at the Headmaster's Office. Which side will win?

Guidelines

-The fight will occur in real-time (like an FMV sequence). Gameplay mechanics are less important than how the characters would function in a real-time environment.
-The members of each team are ideal teammates capable of executing a prearranged battle plan.
-Unless stated otherwise, characters have access to their full arsenal of abilities and equipment. They may not always work at full power, however (e.g. a petrifying spell may have only a partial hindering effect not seen in gameplay or even fail outright against sufficiently powerful mercenaries). Use your own discretion.
-No mercenary can ever start in a location where they would die instantly, destroy the arena merely by existing in it, or end up ringed out of the terrain before abilities. If there's no room within a terrain to fit them, the terrain will stretch out until there's at least one yard of available, moving, safe space. Attacks may not damage the terrain enough to cause automatic deaths or ring-outs, save with a concerted effort.
-Mercenaries are considered 'downed' when defeated, unable to be roused except through a revival technique. A revival technique cannot affect a mercenary whose physical body has been completely destroyed and will not relocate them away from danger (ex. falling off of the terrain, being impaled, falling in lava), unless it would naturally do so in its own universe.
-There may be SPOILERS from all of the games the characters are from.

Rules for Voting

-Bold your votes.
-You do not need to justify for your vote, though the admins reserve the right to disqualify votes in the advent of obvious alt voting and other similar scenarios.
-Leaders cannot vote for their own teams, but they are free to argue their case.
-If you want to switch your votes simply bold the change; there's no need to delete your post, though you may if you wish.
-This match will end in 24 hours.

Donkey Kong is as he appears in Donkey Kong Bananza, fully upgraded. He has access to one charge of Apple Juice and five charges of Melon Juice. He is accompanied by Pauline, as she appears in Donkey Kong Bananza, who is unable to be harmed, but can be moved around by other mercs. The terrain is considered to have enough gold nuggets to refuel his bananergy with light destruction. He has access to his feats from the Donkey Kong series and his fully upgraded Coconut Gun from Donkey Kong 64.

~VS~

Squall Leonhart is as he appears in Final Fantasy 8. He has access to all of his attacks, limit breaks and spells featured within, save Zombie, Death, Aura, Apocalypse and Triple, as well as all his attacks and abilities featured in Dissidia NT (including Draw). He is considered to have his best equipment and an optimal junction setup for stat bonuses, but is receiving no other benefits from junctioning.

Boko's Argument:

Squall Leonhart is a skilled and strategic warrior known for his calm demeanor and unwavering determination. He excels in both precise swordsmanship and tactical magic use, seamlessly blending offense and support on the battlefield with excellent mobility. Equipped with powerful Limit Breaks and a versatile spell arsenal, Squall leads with quiet confidence, adapting to any combat scenario with agility and intelligence. Whether striking down foes with his iconic Limit Breaks or bolstering himself with protective spells while debilitating foes, Squall embodies the balance of strength, skill, and leadership.
He has access to these magic spells:

Meltdown Drops enemy Vitality to zero, amplifying physical damage.
Protect Boosts physical defense for survivability.
Shell Raises magic defense against spell attacks.
Haste Speeds up actions, accelerating Limit Break builds.
Cure Reliable healing spell for sustaining allies.
Full-Life Revives fallen party members quickly.
Pain Inflicts multiple debuffs (Poison, Silence, Blind).
Blind - Inflicts Darkness on the target, causing their physical attacks to miss more often
Silence Stops enemies from casting spells.
Double Allows casting two spells in one turn, enhancing buff/debuff potential.
Regen Gradual HP recovery over time.
Dispel Removes buffs/debuffs to maintain an edge.
Drain Converts enemy HP to healing for self-sustain.
Ultima - Inflicts extreme non-elemental damage on all units in the targeted party

Double allows Squall to cast two spells in a single turn, effectively doubling his utility and making him a versatile support and tactical powerhouse. With Double, Squall can simultaneously buff himself and allies alike with spells like Protect and Haste, enhancing their defense and speed to maintain battlefield control and doing so quickly.

Squall Leonhart is a master swordsman renowned for his exceptional physical prowess and precision in combat. His signature weapon, the Gunblade, combines swift sword strikes with ranged attacks, allowing him to fluidly switch between melee and mid-range offense. Squalls physical capabilities are highlighted by his Limit Breaks: Renzokuken, a rapid multi-hit combo demanding perfect timing, and Lion Heart, a devastating finishing move that can obliterate even the toughest opponents. Agile and quick on his feet, Squalls mobility lets him close distances, dodge attacks, and maintain relentless pressure on foes. His strength, speed, and refined technique make him a formidable frontline fighter capable of dominating battles through skillful, calculated strikes.

https://makeagif.com/gif/squall-leonhart-final-fantasy-viii-movesets-dissidia-final-fantasy-nt-cEw6_P

Squalls Limit Breaks emphasize high burst damage, combo potential, and precision, making him a formidable offensive force who can quickly dismantle foes when utilized effectively

https://makeagif.com/gif/final-fantasy-8-remastered-all-of-squalls-limit-breaks-0F5Bv-

Squall can overcome Donkey Kong by leveraging his superior speed (particularly with Double Haste/Slow in effect to widen the gap even more), precision, and versatile combat toolkit. While Donkey Kong relies on raw brute strength and powerful melee attacks, Squalls agility allows him to evade these heavy hits and strike with rapid, well-timed sword combos and his limit breaks for burst damage. Squall can start the fight with a quick use of Double and will be able to cast 2x spells and bolster his defenses via haste, protect, regen. With these boosts, while this new version of DK has much more speed to close the gap, Squall will still get some haste time to utilize some debuffs prior to the fight getting into close range. Squalls ability to reduce Donkey Kongs vitality with Meltdown further erodes DKs durability, making each physical attack from Squall significantly more effective. Consider a hasted Squall that has melted down DK with some Pain that uses the Limit Break from the gif.

Kanzaris' argument:

If you haven't played a Donkey Kong game in a while, this might seem like a mismatch. Squall has beaten mechas, witches and robots. Surely Donkey Kong is no match for him, is he?

Hoo boy. We got a lot of ground to cover.

Let's start from the top. DK is the attacker here, so imagine for a second that he ventures into Balamb Garden. Squall, being a badass lone wolf, is waiting for him in the lobby. He draws his gunblade, challenges DK to a fight, charges in. DK, kicking it old school like his antecedent Cranky did, punches the ground or a structural support to turn a chunk of it into a projectile. It turns into gold, he throws it at Squall, who cuts it apart like a badass...and it explodes in his face. Because gold created by DK does that now. Whoops.

Let's rewind and try a different tack. Squall, being a military mastermind, decides to camp out in one of the Garden's upper floors and bombard anyone who comes in with magic barrages to soften them up. Solid plan, right? Indeed. Until DK turns himself into an elephant and starts climbing up the lift support structure like an elephantine King Kong...and when the fireballs or ice shards approach him, sucks them into his snout, dissipating them harmlessly. Then he closes in on Squall and he has to deal with vortex forces strong enough to rip buildings apart. Oh no!

OK, OK, another plan then. Squall buffs himself with a Haste spell and goes to debuff DK with a slow spell. Unfortunately for him, DK has canonical showings against status effects, and being hit by this kind of thing makes him mad. So he transforms into a half-ape half-snake creature that pogos around on its tail, glares at Squall...and suddenly gets much, MUCH faster. Like on the order of 3 or 4x faster. Except it's not that he's fast, it's that Squall and the entire world around him has been slowed down. And THEN he becomes a half-zebra hybrid and just charges WAY fast at Squall, while he's still super slowed.

...Yeah. DK kind of got a big glowup. Donkey Kong Bananza came out and he's just a whole nother animal (pun intended) now. I didn't even mention the Super Saiyan ape form that lets him blow concrete to bits with simple blows yet, and which he uses to send a version of King K. Rool that has just powered himself up with a mystical doohickey to cover an entire human metropolis in boiling rotten gold that sets everything that touches it on fire flying like he's Team Rocket, over the horizon. That's a thing he can just, do now. And he has effectively a 1up, as he heals to full when all his HP is drained automatically. And he has Pauline, meaning Squall won't go for wide area magical bombings because he's not the type of person to just murder a child (not knowing she's immune to damage). Really, the question isn't how DK wins, he has lots of options at his disposal. It's more, how does he lose? Because I don't know how it happens.

Whatever

perfect initial response, thank you rocket

(zero sarcasm, I smiled reading it)

If DK shoots Squall, it's gonna hurt.

Can I get a more clear idea of how DKs general parameters have increased?

General cheatsheet of things DK can do now. BANANZA SPOILERS TO FOLLOW.

-Destroy a four-story building floor by floor in 30 seconds (this is gameplay you just do that)
-Punch through a LOT. Literally cubic miles of smashing things. In-game this peaks at spiked, reinforced concrete.
-Slow down time by turning into a snake. This is not a targeted effect, it slows down in-game timers. He can spam this as long as he can transform into the snake.
-Does not flinch from being hit if charging a punch.
-Turn into an elephant who can suck up terrain issues and then throw them back at people. This includes pure rock walls; he just sucks you to death.
-Turn the ground and his surroundings into gold when transformed and unleashing an attack. If he throws the gold or hits you with the gold, the gold explodes. He can also surf on the gold.
-He can sense where you are by hitting the ground really hard. This can also send off loose objects around him.

I think " time slow" and "yeah he just destroys anything short of solid metal casually" are probably the highlights from Bananza, but in general he just... sucks less, eyeball test-wise? A lot of his one-off feats (punching K Rool through a metal ceiling in DKC2, for example) are just things he does in gameplay now.

Chaeix posted...

Can I get a more clear idea of how DKs general parameters have increased?

Sure! Let's go over them rq with a couple examples:

-Strength: One of the mission series you get is demolishing buildings made of brick and concrete. The last of them (before the postgame, at any rate) involves destroying an entire three-story building, plus enemies within, in 40 seconds. DK pulls it off (it's required for 100% completion). As mentioned above, one clean punch from Super Saiyan DK (which is a form he does have access to here) sends King K. Rool, who is like twice the size of Super Saiyan DK (who is in turn like twice as big as DK himself, and he's not a tiny baby) flying off into the horizon. He's got punching power in spades for sure.

-Speed: DK's Zebra Bananza is fast enough to run on water without sinking. The speed required to do this isn't an exact science, but Zebra form is also bigger than base DK. Keeping this in mind, a normal human would need to run at 60 MPH to keep themselves from sinking. I think that's a perfectly reasonable conservative estimate for what we see him doit could very, very easily be higher, because a giant-ass zebra-gorilla is way heavier than a person by orders of magnitude, but 'DK can run as fast as a car' has a nice ring to it I think.

-Durability: This is probably the hardest one to quantify, as DK doesn't really take hits on the chin that manage to keep him down in Bananza. Anything that knocks him out is moreso weird magic like a petrification attack (he breaks out of it dw) than anything else. For whatever it's worth though, a big part of Bananza's endgame is (spoilering just in case) That DK's past foes come back to the scene and hit just as hard now as they did way back when. An unupgraded baseline DK gets oneshotted by them. A fully maxed endgame DK can take about 3-4 times that much punishment and is bing chillin, even without counting HP refills.

Hopefully this helps clear things up a bit? I can go find videos if any of this needs to be substantiated, of course.

How does DK handle magic? Does he have any way to prevent being absolutely peppered by Squall with Debuffs and magic from a distance?

You cite his endgame durability, but how's his durability after Mercs Squall finally has Meltdown available to him?

Meltdown Drops enemy Vitality to zero, amplifying physical damage.

is vitality the same as HP

Meltdown is an indirect magic spell in Final Fantasy VIII. The spell reduces an enemy's Vitality and Spirit to 0, effectively removing their defense to both physical and magical attacks, and making them much more vulnerable. It can also be be junctioned to boost stats, and provides the third-greatest boost to Vitality. Despite its effect, Meltdown is not associated with any status effect for status junctions.

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Meltdown_(Final_Fantasy_VIII)

Chaeix posted...

is vitality the same as HP

No, Vitality is physical defense. It's not an instant kill, only a 'take more damage' effect. DK's selling point has never been sky high defense though. Moreso being an HP tank.

MajinZidane posted...

How does DK handle magic? Does he have any way to prevent being absolutely peppered by Squall with Debuffs and magic from a distance?

You cite his endgame durability, but how's his durability after Mercs Squall finally has Meltdown available to him?

Meltdown Drops enemy Vitality to zero, amplifying physical damage.

As mentioned, he can literally just absorb most of the magic Squall dishes out, and has cutscene feats for shaking off status effects. Pauline can also help him break out of them with her singing, too.

Donkey Kong

https://youtu.be/jtfNu5wkGk8?si=UjqitFCp4t7awt3W&t=1560

If you watch this part of FF8 at 26:00 for like a minute, I can't imagine how someone who struggles with this handles Donkey Kong.

KanzarisKelshen posted...

He has access to one charge of Apple Juice and five charges of Melon Juice

these seem to be kinda missed in what everyone is talking about.
apple juice is an auto-revive basically. so dude has 2 lives here.
melon juice is used to transform...
https://game8.co/games/Donkey-Kong-Bananza/archives/530202

...into those forms, which he can change to on the fly. 5 charges basically means until the time runs out on his bananza state or whatever it's called.
which is what kamek said already but it's a lot easier to visualize when there's clips of it all and skills are neatly laid out too. each form has extra clips on that site which uhhhh... certainly make DK a lot different than giant strong ape.

but the second life is a huge deal to sleep on since he can legit just get close, die, and punch squall's head off in kong form and i'm not sure what's stopping that.

I think Squall could win with spells, if he's able to keep DK at a distance.

But DK getting an auto-revive seems pretty significant.

Wanglicious posted...

...into those forms, which he can change to on the fly. 5 charges basically means until the time runs out on his bananza state or whatever it's called.
which is what kamek said already but it's a lot easier to visualize when there's clips of it all and skills are neatly laid out too. each form has extra clips on that site which uhhhh... certainly make DK a lot different than giant strong ape.

Well, in practice he has more than 5 charges. His attacks in Bananza form make gold, which destroying is what charges his meter to transform again. Functionally, he can just stay in his powered state the whole match.

To its credit, the auto-revive continues on from DK's health bar. It WILL effectively double his base health, but he's pretty much still going with whatever he's doing; his momentum and damage animations persist. So it's more "he will absolutely live this hit in specific" rather than "he has reset neutral instantly".

I will note the autorevive does NOT come with a 'death and then get up.' DK just never actually falls over and the item is used, so there's no mind games or tricks to be had there. For all Squall knows he just has more HP.

I also want to point out that Squall can silence Paulina, and DK immediately loses access to all those cool Bananza forms, so it's really just how long you think Squall takes to realize he should Silence the very loudly singing support-child. Personally I think he figures this out before the first one times out especially if DK swaps forms and Paulina swaps songs multiple times during the duration. It's not subtle.

DK even without his Bananza's is still pretty strong, but Squall's got answers to a lot of things. Float is a huge equalizer against DK's terrain advantage, and I think Blind and Meltdown matter a lot here too. Fire also causes DK to run around uncontrolled for a few seconds, (it's not AS bad as Mario but it's worth noting.) So while DK can suck up fireballs as an elephant, once Paulina gets silenced, that goes away. Haste and Slow from Squall do a lot to counteract DK's Snake timeslow also. Not completely, I think DK is still faster, but it's not nearly as ruinous as it could be.

I think Squall has this due to tactical thinking and using his tools well. He has enough healing, defense, and regens to survive long enough to disable Pauline, and at that point i think he's got a solid advantage. Mostly he just has the right counters in his pocket and I trust him to be smart enough to leverage them.

i wouldn't call that doubling his base health because that kinda takes away what that power is and continuing on through whatever he's doing would fit in a cutscene style fight anyway.

he's in a fight, he takes a bunch of hits because he's a tank, and keeps going through that.
at a certain point he will be hit with a fatal attack - something strong enough to finally kill him. at that point he just... magically is fully restored and none of the damage up to this point mattered. all the wounds and injuries gone, dude's just at full strength again.

that's a pretty significant thing over "doubling base health" because why on earth would anyone expect THAT to be something you just do. if it's something enough to kill him once it can kill him again, sure. but nobody would reasonably expect that and it's a pretty fucky power to play with when you know it doesn't matter if you die once, you just gotta get close enough.

Mistaya posted...

I will note the autorevive does NOT come with a 'death and then get up.' DK just never actually falls over and the item is used, so there's no mind games or tricks to be had there. For all Squall knows he just has more HP.

nah that's not how this looks like at all.
real-time environment, FMV sequence. in other words, if DK is dying, he's dying. he's bleeding, he's injured, he's got broken bones, he's exhausted, etc. all of that goes away after death and he's at 100% again.

not falling over isn't better for squall, it's worse.

Mistaya posted...

Squall can silence Paulina,

nope.

KanzarisKelshen posted...

who is unable to be harmed,

negative status effect is absolutely harming. doesn't say damaged, doesn't say killed, says harm.

Wanglicious posted...

these seem to be kinda missed in what everyone is talking about.
apple juice is an auto-revive basically. so dude has 2 lives here.
melon juice is used to transform...
https://game8.co/games/Donkey-Kong-Bananza/archives/530202

...into those forms, which he can change to on the fly. 5 charges basically means until the time runs out on his bananza state or whatever it's called.
which is what kamek said already but it's a lot easier to visualize when there's clips of it all and skills are neatly laid out too. each form has extra clips on that site which uhhhh... certainly make DK a lot different than giant strong ape.

but the second life is a huge deal to sleep on since he can legit just get close, die, and punch squall's head off in kong form and i'm not sure what's stopping that.

does apple juice have to be consumed or is it a triggered item

i.e. if DK is just straight up killed before he can react does it have any effect

oh nvm you answered that

Can I get a source on DK just no selling magic that seems a little farfetched.

I think that Double Metldown/debuff will certainly impact him one way or another.

Also, how does DK deal with Pauline, who can't be hurt, simply being LAUNCHED away Smash Bros style by Squall?

https://makeagif.com/gif/squall-leonhart-final-fantasy-viii-movesets-dissidia-final-fantasy-nt-cEw6_P

He likes to hit people hard and far, like in the GIF. He my opt to try to KO her before he knows she can't take damage and still send her flying.

I just feel like "DK gets mad and transforms" when getting debuffed is kind of wild. Sure, he gets mad - in slow motion. Now he's mad and slow and in Pain.

I feel Squall hitting Pauline implies a level of coldbloodedness he is not going to go for at all. He doesn't know she's invulnerable and he's not a child killer.

Yeah I don't see Squall resorting to intentionally attacking Pauline. CC is one thing, direct attacks are another. He has a whole Kong to aim his LB's at and he's going to need to do it to take him out.

Even if DK can shake debuffs off after a while, Squall can keep reapplying as needed and DK doesn't seem to resist them, they just wear off sooner. So yeah, Blind, Slow, Pain, etc. In a 1v1 with a more physically powerful opponent, going for negative effects is the smart play. Even it up, keep moving, let LB tick up and don't let him land a hit.

D K

basically the question to me is "can dk weather squalls opening salvo"

And I think he can so.

I just think she's going to take some collateral damage when Squall is aiming for DK

why is that the question? Squall can easily Double reapply his buffs and keep going in a 1v1.

MajinZidane posted...

why is that the question? Squall can easily Double reapply his buffs and keep going in a 1v1.

Because lmao squalls getting his teeth kicked in if DK can close on him.

Squall is faster at baseline, and even more faster Hasted and even even more more faster with Slow in the mix.

Even in close range, Squall with the buff debuff difference is a force in a 1v1. And he has his Limits when the fight comes to that, which are Meltdown assisted.

MajinZidane posted...

Squall is faster at baseline

i'm certainly not the authority on either character but this seems wrong

I would concede Squall has better reflexes/faster strike speed, but DK is 100% faster on the move than Squall by any metric. He is not outrunning the big guy, which is a problem because DK doesn't need to overwhelm Squall's guard with too many strikes to defeat him, he can just go elephant and give him the succ for example

Yeah i have no confidence in squalls ability to kite the big ape and I dont think hes got the juice magically to like dissidia juggle him either.

I think Squall needs to be able to alpha strike him dead to win and I just dont see what squall has that can do that.

Donkey Kong finally got enough combo support to be viable, proud of him

yeah alright, in the end basically DK's got 2-3 forms (elephant, kong, maybe snake) that are relevant here. all comes down to the fact that while squall's a mid to close range fighter, DK's a close to mid range fighter now. if the terrain's destructible for DK, that's just some ranged boulders; if someone's behind a wall DK can just charge punch through it and a ton more at a small distance; if he needs to move around quick and cover vertical distance, he can just go to other forms and do that too. so highly mobile monkey that can do a lot.

if the terrain lent itself to more range tactics and if squall was more prone to that, maybe. as is? the dude's mainly a melee fighter. his best bet is killing DK once, then run into a problem where the monkey who just had a sword in him just fully healed, transformed, and put a hole in his chest. donkey kong

Squall

DK will tear Squall to pieces if he can get into melee range, but I think a giant ape is intimidating enough that Squall won't want to rush in. Squall's got the spells to take down DK (Meltdown + Ultima) and I think he's savvy enough to figure it out.

Squall

swear to God this was an exact mercs 4 match up down to the terrain...?

Squall

Meltdown actually sets both Vit and Spr to 0, and Spr is what determines how susceptible you are to status. So I think Meltdown + Blind just wrecks Donkey Kong here, and Squall is smart enough to go for it. Pauline could act as DK's eyes, but that means she's not singing. Squall might not win in a fair fight, but he has enough tools to make sure it isn't a fair fight.

Bossman_Coolguy posted...

Squall

swear to God this was an exact mercs 4 match up down to the terrain...?

uh

you do realize that dk is no longer m4 dk

Duly noted but my argument, as his owner then, fundamentally doesn't change today.

Donkey Kong (but would have voted Squall pre-Bananza)