User:Master Knight DH/sandbox

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Copying from my Tropes Wikia page, would want this on my userpage or at least a subpage. This would surely get cleaned up later.

Contact info

If you want to contact me, I recommend using any of the following instant message services, in order from most recommended to least:

  • Skype - mknightdh
  • MSN - mknight735@yahoo.com
  • AIM - Master Knight DH
  • YIM - mknight735

My email is mknight735@yahoo.com in case you couldn't tell. I also have a YouTube account, safe from troll shenanigans. However, I don't recommend using either for quickly resolving stuff.

Awesome moments

Waylon: Aw, nuts! I've heard enough! Folks like you never live very long, anyway. I'm gonna bury you, kid. Give my regards to Captain Courageous.
MKDH: No, I'M GONNA BURY YOU! And no girl in her right mind would touch you with a 10 foot pole! You abandoned your own men! You tried to glorify your own slimy skin! You served Greyfield! You reminded me of the San Francisco Bay Area residents by being apathetic! AND WORST OF ALL, YOU! KILLED! BRENNER!!! ...die now, and leave this world! You'll never belong here!

  • Destroying Caulder's CO Fighter on Day 12 in Sunrise. To elaborate, that's the very Day when Caulder tells the heroes to give up, and considering he has such broken stats that his CO Duster can munch anybody else's CO Fighter effortlessly even considering the self-repair costs, he's not bluffing, which makes seeing the CO Fighter go down right then VERY satisfying.
  • Doing the Majora's Mask 6 Day Run...collecting SEVENTEEN non-transformation masks. Made better by the fact that I accommodate it with commentary, albeit messy. What only makes this better is that I was planning for only 15-16 at the start, rather than 17.
    • Special mention to the Goron Race photo finish. It wasn't even intended to be done, it happened anyway.
  • 15 Minute Melees with everybody without abusing cheap stuff. Enjoy.
  • This humiliates Imprisoned round 1, as I destroy all 8 of the toes during the Turns Red phase in only 35 seconds. The kicker? As I point out in the description, I wasn't even meaning to do a time attack. What makes this even better is that I wasn't even using Skyward Strikes, I was using nothing but melee attacks and my wits to beat the thing.
  • In the final Kid Icarus Uprising multiplayer match at the Game Developer's Conference 2012, I was able to spearhead a comeback after my team had a very iffy start that caused our team's Pit to come out first, teamwork was very helpful. The guy who became Pit, who was sitting right next to me, was wary enough to keep himself alive, letting me gather KOs, and when he was in trouble, I came to his aid to mash the guy responsible (who I think was using claws but I wasn't paying attention) while the third teammate no doubt found and weakened the opposing Pit, to the point where when he and the third opponent came by to flank us, it ultimately proved fatal for them when he simply got rushed, all I had to do was at least shut out his escape options, and my teammate ultimately got the KO.
  • Chapter 7 of Revenge of Meta Knight. Not only do I beat Meta Knight AND his cronies (who I advertise as difficult) without getting hit, but I even make at least an educated guess at Meta Knight's actual motivation there with a simple observation.
  • Battalion Wars may be an all time favorite for me, but you can't deny that this is an accomplishment. Basically, this is doing one of the last few missions on a run with no casualties, all enemies destroyed, in under 2/3 of the time alloted for 100% Speed. Note that I did this run just to prove a point about why safe offensive tactics is good for single player gameplay, and I end up impressing Annihilator567, a fellow expert on the game, from the first 3 minutes alone. Also note the following if that wasn't enough: Scorched Earth gives you just Glass Cannon units to work with. The room for error gets reduced, making both speed and a general body advantage preferable. Yeah.
  • Though this is a rant, it does have this gem of a Reason Smashboards Sucks Speech responding to a Stop Having Fun Guy calling me the cancer of Smash without thinking it possibly ironic:

MKDH: Oh God the stupidity. IF ANYBODY IS THE CANCER OF SMASH, IT'S YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS! YOU WANT PLAYERS TO BE PUNISHED FOR BEING CREATIVE! THAT ISN'T THE LEAST BIT WHAT SMASH IS ABOUT! IT'S ABOUT PLAYING AS YOUR FAVORITE NINTENDO CHARACTERS IN CREATIVE WAYS! NOT! CREATING! A SOULLESS! BREEDING! GROUND! FOR! **OVERTHINKING**!! OH MY GOD! (starts laugh-crying) ..oh my God.

  • This rant. Let's see:
  • "Good morning, pro-kite people!"
  • This. The opponents are all real people, all bound to be unscrupulous as the next, and I just take them on with characters not (at least on the surface) designed to go into melee...under restrictions that force me to go into melee anyway. Not surprisingly, there are some standouts:
    • ANY match where the opposing character is a Melee Tornado. Enough said.
    • Match 4 as Link, at 9:51. The opposing Little Mac, JDub, learns the hard way not to overextend his recovery. He barely lasted a minute as a result. Hilariously, JDub dealt significantly more damage to me than I did to him.
    • Not for myself but Pac-Man. At 36:00, Pac-Man uses Power Pellet double-blind against Koopa Kid's Mechakoopa. Power Pellet plows through the Mechakoopa as if Pac lives next to a volcano and Roy Koopa appropriately finds himself surprised.
    • Match 4 as Ness, at 14:52. Never let it be said that Captain Falcon doesn't have Affinity Play involved. Not only that, I do show I'm able to be technical enough with Ness, at the very least given that I use the Forward Throw at triple digits, since on my next grab, within the next stock, I actually do use the Back Throw for the KO.
    • Match 1 as Mega Man, at 15:25. The opposing Ryu, Johnathan, was KOed both times by Mega Man's Down Smash, a blatantly hard to land move. Special mention to the 2nd KO where it was a hard read, since Johnathan had used the aerial Focus Punch just a moment ago only to have it thwarted by an Up Smash. For added hilarity, Johnathan had opened the match with the "Talk is cheap" taunt.
    • Match 3 as Duck Hunt, at 65:14. Sure Andrew, who was Kirby, was trying to rely on the Inhale gimmick, but he definitely didn't go down swinging. The match ended up being a comeback that nearly went to time.
    • Match 3 as Toon Link, at 92:01. That is, for Buzani, the Ike, though not for lack of trying on my part. Admittedly, staying on the ground too much as an aerial character was at best a hallmark of the fear from the melee reach disadvantage. If you watched the other 2 matches, I did get an understanding of Tink that Buzani would have surely seen. For the record, this match was actually a decider for 5 matches, 2 of which I had lost off-screen.
    • Match 2 as Robin, at 100:42. Nateman thinks he can mirror match me and exploit the tomes' respawn time irrelevancy to spam. He ends up proven mistaken when I show I have better handle of anti-armor than him. Especially at the end, I successfully stay patient when edgeguarding and catch him with an Up Smash that way.
    • Match 2 as Samus, at 112:57. Another comeback and against another Kirby named Maro. Not as impressive as against the other Kirby, but Samus's Forward Smash shows its reward for precision.
    • Match 3 as Samus, at 116:44. You just know that Mason, playing Fox, is outclassed when he gets hit during the Fox Illusion early into the match. He does start making a comeback, but ultimately gets cornered in an overly intense situation. The music's pace could not be more appropriate.
    • Match 4 as Samus, at 120:41. Another Fox, named Leo, but this one spams rolled to no end. Even in a comeback that nearly went to time, losing to pure melee Samus who doesn't even use Bombs in a liberty will surely leave a mark on his shenanigans.
    • All 3 of the matches as Zelda, at 136:45, 140:39, and 144:41. The first two, against Armando playing as Wii Fit Trainer and then Meta Knight, had some comeback factor with the first match showcasing Zelda having some combo string capability and the second being a stock loss comeback against Meta Knight. The third match, against "god" as Captain Falcon, is fairly bog standard, but points for my taunt upon recognizing Captain Falcon's bad recovery coming back to haunt him.
    • Match 1 as Villager, at 148:35. This Little Mac, byran, was the only one in this video on who I get a KO against Mac that doesn't rely on Mac's recovery failures. For bonus points, it involves landing the bowling ball for KO. Every KO I got as Villager involved the bowling ball (although the Sonic I fought simply lost his first stock in a self destruct) with only one, the first one in this same match, not directly causing the KO, but this one stands out by happening when Mac could have used Slip Counter, and byran was far from afraid of considering that idea in general, especially against the bowling ball itself. It can be explained that his morale crashed from having just lost KO Punch, but that brings up the maneuvers I did to cost him that to begin with by layering pressure.
  • Wrecking The Bayonetta Army, especially with this being Bayonetta we're talking about and the version being 1.1.4 for most of the matches. Of particular note, I deliberately avoid using deemed projectiles.
    • Special mention to the first match in the video, being literally my first experience against the Umbra Witch at all. Even ignoring that Pac-Man is low on the tier list WITH projectiles, it should be noted that I wouldn't know what Witch Time would have looked like so I actually thought that my first KO was off of successfully baiting an Air Dodge--yes, that's right, I actually and unknowingly beat what has been decried as That One Attack simply by making solid use of basic gameplay. The second KO was scored via Awesomeness By Analysis--it certainly helped that Bayonetta's rolls have bad mobility.
  • The rant in this video, a Self Imposed Challenge designed to handle a technical character choice (remember this), is a Kirk Summation of VG communities' behavior before calling them on it for failing to be as strong as they claim. This is the finisher:

"To people who would argue against my points as a whole that I don't know what I'm talking about? I dare you to just call me an idiot. [[[Bring It|I God damn dare you.]] Prove that at this point instead of some time in the future that Affinity Play and the Armor Test are mere Algebra, Geometry at the most, not freaking Calculus. Prove I can't possibly be technical enough to understand inticracies involved in handling character choices who simply have to rely on guile and the game's more mental mechanics to function. And prove that I simply don't give a damn about trust and values to where I couldn't possibly be hit by Chained To A Bed literally a single moment after I show wariness of the possibility. And "when" you manage to prove all that, please tell me how much worth you have from doing all that. And if you don't care to try to give me a valid answer to this, and I do mean valid, not telling me to shut up, not calling me just a bad guy and especially nothing more and nothing less, not telling me too long didn't listen, etc., then YOU are the monsters."

  • "BECOME MY B****! MY SAVAGE! COWARDLY!!! C***BAG!!!!!" (Language warning, and spoiler warning for Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice's second case.)
    • For those wondering, Roger Retinz had already proven himself a Hate Sink in the investigation phase alone, first by calling magicians "good-for-nothings" partly to slander Trucy, as well as casually talking about filming girls in bikinis wrestling each other; then shoving a ridiculous liability contract down the Wright Anything Agency's throats, just for mere association with Zak Gramarye; and then not only trying to repossess the Agency's property, but also inciting further harassment of the Agency by whipping up an angry mob VIOLENT ENOUGH TO BREAK WINDOWS. That last part was so shocking that it, along with various other reasons, was why I was already planning to declare Retinz my female dog, as a way to demean his sorry chauvinistic rear once I was sure his inevitable Villainous Breakdown was about to happen and thus he could do NOTHING to retaliate, well before we could find out how he'd prove himself even worse than already shown. The clincher is, I was expecting that too, and he STILL shocks me in that regard, because it turned out that what Retinz had done in his primary crime was MURDER HIS OWN LOYAL FAN HE NAMED AND GROOMED SUCCESSOR FOR 2 YEARS STRAIGHT, SIMPLY TO KEEP BEING A SOLO ACT AND HIDE HIS LEGALLY CLEAN SECRETS! Even for betrayal, that was just particularly heinous. I end up saying it again, admittedly due to the Breakdown's nature, but this time, I fittingly ended up barely even noticing Retinz begging for people to listen to him claiming to be the victim in all of this. Sorry, Roger Rottenz, but I'm long not listening and neither is ANYBODY in their right mind at this point, and all your "points" about Magnifi Gramarye, by all indications rightfully, firing and disgracing you earn you from me is a case of The Reason You Suck Speech for what YOU did to YOUR own clear-cut loyalist.
  • Another unintended one: a No Abilities, No Damage Run of Galacta Knight Returns in Kirby: Planet Robobot, trying to do ANOTHER Self-Imposed Challenge.
  • Open sesame.
  • Rivals Advance Campaign in Advance Wars 1, done with a Perfect S-Rank in a SINGLE segment video. WHERE TO BEGIN?!?!?
    • First off, Rivals AC is INFAMOUS in terms of difficulty for the Nintendo Wars series. This run gets a reliable day-to-day startup going--while it IS built off of another video of the level, the originating video failed to get an S-Rank, relying so much on turtling down through the south. This video puts in creative touches to get the coveted full Speed Score and thus the Perfect S-Rank, despite What An Idiot moments.
    • Then there's the deconstruction of the level's design, which later gets it compared to Bonus Mission 3 in Battalion Wars 1--ANOTHER Brutal Bonus Level in the Nintendo Wars franchise. The Unfortunate Implications also got its own comment thread to chew at underlying idiocy provided by implications of masculinity for its own sake.
    • And finally, the reason why the video is actually pushed up the timetable: being a case of The Reason You Suck Speech against the Advance Wars communities for their INCREDIBLE bias in favor of a guy who would mock lust-induced murder victims. whoisthisgit's Worst Levels Ever #23 also ended up a request responding to a nasty bite of hypocritical harassment by the Advance Wars communities, by the way. Like hell I'm taking their abuses lying down.
  • Watch this run of Dyna Blade with Gim. (WARNING: Sound desync issues.)
  • Some hacking ventures with Game Boy Wars 3 provide surprising results:
    • How do you improve a tutorial level casually? Tone up good gameplay concepts. That "LV Up" for the MB Tank wouldn't happen in the vanilla version...
    • Automatic End Turn for a 1MB game on an 8-Bit system. This obviously doesn't include an option to turn it off due to graphics-based complications, but you can see how it does account for factors that could allow further moves from the other player...as well as the Victory Condition, since the AET would otherwise trigger before the Victory Condition can do so. Compare this to Wargroove, which was released over a year later, not even thinking to have the unit deployment portion of its AET trigger on insufficient funds.
  • Metroid Samus Returns without using the Melee Counter. 0% expansions. AND no damage taken. Lightning Armor is additionally not used as Loophole Abuse outside deemed necessity.
    • Special mention to Part 28, where I defeat ALL THREE Omega Metroids in Area 8 within a single segment.
  • Zoda's Revenge Startropics 2's final chapter with just the Katana and without taking a whiff of damage. Let us elaborate:
    • First off, Zoda-Z takes up the second half of the action time. While the fight with him could have been significantly shorter and fatigue erased any guarantees of that happening, it still would have been taking its share of time due to Zoda-Z being durable enough in all 3 phases, during which bad luck could have kicked in and created compromising scenarios--you even see one happen in the SECOND phase, which was being used as a breather to prepare for the third phase's complications, and I only avoided getting hit by epic reactionary dodging.
    • Zoda-Z's first phase deserves its own point, as the single hardest portion of BOTH Startropics to No Damage Run, period, with the only mercy being that the first phase has only 64 HPs, making it effectively less durable than any other boss in Zoda's Revenge. Otherwise, the whole phase is basically a more dangerous version of Mashing Miner's fight, when Mashing Miner was already a case of That One Boss in his own right. And any failure in the latter 2 phases meant having to deal with it again, so I would have had to REALLY had a handle on this phase to the best of my ability to have a chance of making sure I could clear it repeatedly.
    • GETTING TO Zoda-Z required going through refights with the game's bosses, including the aforementioned Mashing Miner. The earlier bosses were even buffed, with Mama (Bear) Scorpion getting the most of it via her children shooting, thus being far more capable of compromising scenarios as a result, and even the subtle buff that Mashing Miner had his AI changed to be more happy to stall was just meaning more chances of a potential bad luck spike. This portion and Zoda-Z are why the game provides Suspicious Videogame Generosity (SEVEN Potions in addition to the availability of 2 full rows of Hearts, in addition to the Vitamin X right before Zoda-Z), and quite obviously all I need is IRL water bottles, partly thanks to summer heat no less.
    • GETTING TO the boss refights also meant dealing with the C-Island tunnel remix itself. While C-Serpent Redux was mercifully not hard to figure out and the timing for handling him properly wasn't too nightmarish, the erratic trash mooks that each take 2 hits from the Katana making it feel like a failure in being a good upgrade from the Dagger were certainly responsible for their clear share of failures happening. Still, I would come to beat this section repeatedly to the point where I got sick of dealing with it before even getting my FIRST shot at Zoda-Z's final phase.
    • And for those who missed the pattern, THERE'S NO SHORTAGE OF RNG MOMENTS TO POTENTIALLY GET ME TOO TRAPPED BY AN OVERLOAD OF OBSTACLES TO ESCAPE IN THE ENTIRE TWENTY MINUTES OF ACTION. Not only that, but the positioning of culprits of special mention aggravate this: Mashing Miner and Zoda-Y (the latter deploying Noctos who have some potentially nasty evasion and can really complicate dodging of the feathers attack) are slightly over halfway through the boss refights (you can't even choose the order you fight the bosses in, unlike in Mega Man); the Dragon, who can invoke his flying at any point without warning and potentially throw off much needed timing for dodging the fireball shower, is at the end of the boss refights; Zoda-Z's last phase can force Mike into a nasty trap with the inferno pillars or the mines; and of course, the worst culprit, Zoda-Z's first phase, already the above mentioned mess in its own right and can have the Zoda Spawns move in an overwhelmingly confining manner, is conveniently very late into this and yet not even the last portion. Let's punctuate this: I refused to yield to the various points of RNG, and kept going through the 20 minute segment in an effort to set up a message, succeeding actually well ahead of the target date, something that would undoubtedly be useful in light of Ultima: Quest of the Avatar being an RPG.
    • Oh, and by the way, even in the successful run, if you don't believe RNG can't be too bad, there are hints of it provided by close calls here and there, particularly with Mashing Miner and Zoda-Z. The successful run even ends the action with a photo finish, with Zoda-Z ending up in his death animation just before he would have touched Mike for Contact Damage and forced me to go through all the misery that already required over 700 attempts again. (I admit that I used RAM Watch to know his remaining HP was low enough, sure, but considering the inferno pillars was next on Zoda-Z's stronger attack cycle, I was picking my poison at that point anyway.) Yep, that's right: the difficulty is showcased in a successful run, itself made after over 700 attempts, just further punctuating what went into achieving this, especially when those close calls required pulling completely on-the-fly reaction to success to overcome them. MULTIPLE TIMES.

Fridge Brilliance I have stumbled upon

I fashion myself an expert at the science of game balance, but there are some things I personally find brilliant on part of game developers. I do wish some would hire me...

Video games in general

  • Defense stat being a subtraction factor? Here's why: stronger power gaps means that Fragile Speedsters can't damage you nearly as efficiently, instead having to keep the inherent versatility of their mobility in mind.
  • Adding to it: if defensive power meets a happy medium that makes it VERY useful, don't be surprised if it is simply setting a good, working standard rather than being a cheap bullying tool.
  • Why do army-based games involve a Rock Paper Scissors system so often and in blatant manners? Here's a blatant example that should answer your question or at least clue you in: tanks are durable enough to sponge a whole army's worth of MG bullets. In effect, you need ways to address dealing with a whole army. Smarter games also make sure that each given unit type can shake off a simple numbers advantage led by a competent player to prevent easy domination from the first round of combat.

Super Smash Bros.

Melee Pichu

I'd like to be able to post this elsewhere on the Wiki, but the problem is the development issues going on. Right now, I'm keeping this here.

Recently (as of early-mid August 2011), I did 15 Minute Melee with Zelda, who as it turns out needs smart play to work properly. (See here for the run.) I talked with several friends about it, one of whom mentioned wanting to see 15MM done with Pikachu without Thunder spammage. Considering my KO count of 687 with Pikachu when I had breaking just 600 as standard, it occured to me that Pikachu is one of the better characters at doing the event without cheap stuff. But he had a counterpart who wouldn't have as easy a time with the event: Pichu, even indicated as a Joke Character by the game itself. So I try out Pichu and it turns out he has plenty of non-electrical KO moves on the Wireframes. And thank God Down Smash is non-electrical and KOs too, it's useful for clearing crowds, even if the hitbox duration is kind of blah. So Pichu's only real failing compared to Pikachu when it comes to 15MM is his awful range. Even then, Pichu is also smaller as well as faster. Makes you wonder, don't it.

The successful run is here, by the way.

Anyway, in one attempt, I saw my percentage at a high value and then realized: I could use my electrical attacks at a point where the next clean hit on me would kill me, causing my percentage to be no longer valid. This relates to all 3 cases of the Fridge Brilliance, as I'll talk about below. Keep in mind that I still think Pichu fails at being a Lethal Joke Character due to how par at best his electrical attacks are, but I thought I'd provide food for thought. Enjoy.

  • As we know, the commonly cited reason for Pichu being God awful is hurting itself when it uses electrical attacks. Now this seems like a bad idea until you realize: because getting KOed in Smash requires being ringed out, and the equivalent of losing Hit Points merely makes that easier, the self-damaging actually doesn't deter Pichu once Pichu is already at kill percentages. Pichu's electrical attacks are actually a pseudo-Turns Red method of attack.
  • Which brings up why he even has this in the first place. Notice how Pichu is basically a kid? This might tie in with his (Lethal) Joke Character status. Early on, you'd want to play smart so as to survive. This also applies to any kid with decent intelligence. If they live through rough stuff, they would naturally stand out and prove to be threatening. That's right: Pichu basically represents a logical kid who grows, and what doesn't kill him makes him stronger.
  • The third case relates to his origin game. Pichu is a young Pokemon. Pokemon learn their moves gradually. The electrical punishment is there to punish Pichu for using special moves.

Other

General:

  • Recoveries in Brawl were toned up from in Melee because there are more tools for gimping recoveries, Mario's FLUDD coming to mind.

Character specific:

  • Meta Knight the Melee Tornado being seemingly powerful that he is easily considered a Game Breaker? There's a rather sound explanation for that. Long story short? He's intended to shut out the overthinking and anti-tanking options of Stop Having Fun Guys. The key points?
    • 1) Understand your character well. Don't focus purely on their strong area, because Meta Knight laughs at that logic. Figure out how your character's weak area works. You might find something surprisingly useful. :P
    • 2) Tank efficiently. Meta Knight can't projectile you, and if he can kill you eventually? Just counterattack efficiently every time he attacks to ensure that you outlast him.
  • And ANOTHER case with Meta Knight, particularly how his moves have disjoint:

Mei Ling (in codec conversation): "They say his sword can break the sound barrier."

  • For some time, I was wondering about something: why is Link's recovery so horrible that he can die in recovery failure even if the opponent doesn't try to gimp him or doesn't manage to hinder his recovery. Unlike Olimar, Link actually has an exploitable conventional weakness, avoiding that Fake Balance bullet. But at one time, I was playing a friend as Link and tore apart his Link (his #2 character, my Link wasn't even close to that number at the time and the other player can frighten me a bit with Ike) with projectile usage, including bombs I get out when the other player cannot do anything to stop me, thanks to this same player giving me confidence about using them that I have lacked up until that point. Now I have no problem getting them out when the opponent is recovering at a distance from one of my attacks. Since I get an even further conventional combat advantage since I don't rely on the Down Air at all for kills (Forward Smash and Up Smash are fine for that, and Up Air even just for juggle-induced pressure helps), it sure would be really bothersome if Link could gimp people. But wait. Earlier the same day, I had made use of Kirby's extra jumps to gimp another player's character--who wasn't even Link. When I fought the Link player in an inbetween match as Kirby, I didn't gimp him with Kirby, because Link's recovery is just that bad and I'd rather beat Links conventionally instead of trying to be a one trick pony. (This same match is where I gained the confidence to use Bombs, as I inadvertently grabbed one and got to use it to my advantage.) What does this have to do with the subject at hand? Simple: I realized Link's awful recovery keeps him from gimping people. Oh, but his attacks still lag. Well, maybe that's the point: to keep his projectiles from being completely overwhelming in the right hands. Basically, Link is supposed to be played as a fairly conventional battle character but one who is a sort of Combat Pragmatist. The key to mastering him is a right balance, just like with playing his games, which itself is another bit of Fridge Brilliance.
  • Mr. Game & Watch is a Glass Cannon because he's the mascot of arcade-esque games.
  • Character builds, as best demonstrated in Smash 4, are designed in an effort to make the characters merely mutate the key rules to follow for the players themselves. Samus's durability is easily eroded because of her big size, but her bad offensive power is made up for by how she easily links attacks, Wii Fit Trainer uses control tools and back-coverage attacks to put people in shape but as a tall figure who is light and easy to combo without having easy access to higher offensive power must stay steady, Robin has solid spellpower but must avoid wasting it on empty shots, and Little Mac punishes openings easily but lacks the reach to stop hard counter attacks from capitalizing on his awful durability and recovery.
    • The most prominent example of this is Shulk with his Monados. Buster and Smash actually make sense: they increase the damage/knockback Shulk deals but also the damage/knockback Shulk takes. Jump and Speed fall to similar pattern recognition: Jump can be used for keepaway (defense) and Speed for hit-and-runs (offense), but Shulk's power changes are purely negative accordingly, in that Jump reduces Shulk's defense allowing the opponent to work with keepaway, and Speed weakens his offense allowing the opponent to pull attrition on him. Finally, Shield
    • This idea, informally named Affinity Play, prevents players from cheesing the other player with some broken strategy as it perpetually keeps them subject to Hoist by His Own Petard. It makes sure that players can't do anything they can't handle. Obviously, this design policy wasn't handled well enough to prevent blatant imbalances, but the effort was sufficient to allow it to be noticed.
  • Pac-Man, for those who haven't noticed how I feel about him, needs his own entry why he's an Ensemble Darkhorse to me. Being innately an evasion character, Pac had the potential to irk me through his mere design by playing it safe while chipping at opponents. This ends up kept under control by his power issues, especially in the air where his attacks generally become unsafe on hit, and his KO moves are difficult to land to the point where a significant damage lead will not mean much at all when it is easily overcome. To keep Pac-Man able to KO on leveled play, Namco provides him with the Hydrant to let him send it flying with strong attacks for long range anti-armor. This could easily have been imbalanced, but Namco thought of a way to let players punish it with a global method rather than something like Villager's Pocket: allow the opponent to attack the Hydrant so that THEY can send it flying. In this regard, Pac-Man is practically about playing a game where he wants to know how to go big or go home.

Kid Icarus Uprising

  • The power system is a very interesting happy medium for Knockback immunity:
    • First off, it makes sense to limit flinching immunity to flat effort. By doing so, the power guy has to expend stamina on something they need to survive decently.
    • Secondly, super armor using space means that other players can use other powers that they want. But the ability to use super armor by itself is still a very useful momentum increase for power weapon users: they no longer have to deal with attack interruption or being kept out of using other powers.
    • The important thing is, of course, that speedsters still get to live by their "don't get hit" logic, but now power guys can now afford to take hits and even push on that for momentum.
    • The funny thing? I figured all this out on the very first day of having played the multiplayer.
  • Super Speed and Black Hole exist to counteract the problem that KB immunity can effectively be traded for other tools to strengthen kiting, or outright strengthen Fragile Speedsters excessively. Here's how those problems get countered:
    • Super Speed allows the power weapon user to move frighteningly fast to a given location. Fragile Speedsters will burn themselves out because they're not used to having so much power, and Frail Snipers become much easier to melee lock if they don't use powers to protect themselves. Of course, they can use powers to stop Super Speed tags from working.
    • Black Hole fixes THAT: it draws opponents near the created Black Hole beacon right to it, allowing for an easy time hitting them with whatever the power guy wants to hit them with. It seems cheap, but in fact, there are plenty of powers that protect against Black Hole, even excluding Game Breakers like Warp. The powers, in turn, do not last forever, so they can't be wasted or the opponent becomes defenseless. So Black Hole turns out to reward tanking AND creates a bar for resource management to cut down the kiting to more acceptable levels.

Other games

  • Advance Wars Dual Strike made infantry defensive charging stronger probably to stop FTA shenanigans. But sadly, this becomes Fridge Logic when you realize that the game should have guarded better against Recon rushes in the first place.
  • Meta Knight looking like Kirby underneath that mask actually makes it clear that he's a Shadow Archetype to Kirby. Okay, that's not much? That's actually the indicator, as he's actually one on several levels:
    • First is the difference between their abilities. Kirby is known for being able to copy enemies' powers and turn them against them. Meta Knight, being a master swordsman, would have a simple skill set backed the experience to be able to combat various things and be able to adapt to anything he is unfamiliar with, as well as keep his own power from being used against him. This is why he's so dangerous as an opponent: he answers Kirby's abilities on a base level.
    • The two tend to have a good cause in mind. But where Kirby approaches situations with simplicity and optimism, Meta Knight makes use of experience and cunning to try to dismantle threats.
    • The fights with Meta Knight, especially on a no damage, no ability run, end up being all about striking a fine balance. Being too aggressive (idealistic) allows Meta Knight to use his superior speed much more easily, but being too passive (cynical) allows Meta Knight to control the combat with sheer ease. This is best exemplified in Amazing Mirror (via Dark Meta Knight, granted), but it applies in any other Kirby game where you fight him too. (More or less, anyway.)
    • Ultimately, Meta Knight is an ideal rival for Kirby. Not only does he teach Kirby to work with natural skill, he is ultimately answered by staying in tune with one's own ability and mastering one's own emotions rather than simply burying them.

Anime Edit

  • Death Note - three cases:
    • Light's God complex and need to challenge AND kill opposition results from making sure that nobody else can silence him and derail his plans. In the end, Kira's ideology is its own worst problem, which justifies It Gets Easier at the same time.
    • (Major spoilers) Rem being arranged to kill L was so that L could not make his death proof of Light's guilt. Magnificent Bastard indeed.
    • Light probably thought only he would kill Takada as casually as he did. If that's the case, no wonder he failed to expect that Mikami would do so too. Though it still doesn't explain why he didn't use more caution so as to have Mikami act more cautious anyway, especially when Mello had proven too random for otherwise.
      • On second thought, that actually fits, surprisingly well. Light acted as a vigilante because he's not nearly as steadfast as he should have been. So a completely unpredictable enemy would have left him at a loss and the right answer would be less likely to occur to him. Once again, Kira's ideology is its own worst problem.
  • Code Geass - the show is likely a subtle parody. If it is, suddenly, having an Esoteric Happy Ending where Lelouch and Suzaku get more punishment than they deserve while characters who actually do deserve likely as much as the two of them got get their own happy ending makes a lot more sense.
  • Naruto - based on current information, Tobi is Obito works for thematic reasons: yes, he's an Uchiha, but that's the point: he was a White Sheep. From what can be figured, he was corrupted not for reasons starting with something akin to the Uchiha massacre (which had both sides being guilty, although still undeserving victims one way or another), but because he had a sense of virtue. Yes, Tobi is a case of Pure is Not Good. (Update: confirmed: nothing like seeing Rin die at the hands of Kakashi only a few days after Obito had rescue her to break his ability to care.)
  • Bleach - Aizen's search for a Worthy Opponent to alleviate his loneliness could have been dealt with by Yamamoto this whole time? Well, if consistently sparring with the guy who can destroy the world by accident when he doesn't hold back, such that the Wonderweiss shenanigans could be necessitated in the first place, when the Soul Society itself is corrupt is in the first place, is such a good idea then okay, sure. I buy that. (Ironically, this makes Aizen a Shadow Archetype to Yamamoto.)

Comic Books

  • Clark Kent being a reporter is awfully convenient: it means he can legally keep tabs on fellow reporters so as to know how close they get to finding out Superman's secret identity.

Western Animation

  • Ben 10 - The Omnitrix didn't make Ben change into an unwanted alien in the first 2 seasons of Alien Force, but in season 3, it sometimes did. It seems to be justified there simply by having been screwed up at the start of the season, but this wasn't a problem in the original series. But then I realized when Ben tried using Humongosaur in one episode and he ended up being turned into Lodestar: Ben habitually uses stronger aliens. And when his ego decides to be a problem, he doesn't give much thought of strategy. The Omnitrix most likely is trying to make sure Ben's ego doesn't get in his way.
  • Codename Kids Next Door - Chad's true alligence (read: with the KND) was hinted as early as Op. END. In a show that parodies Xanatos Roulette mercilessly, giving freaking Nigel Uno a fighting chance by interacting with him to tell him that he's been framed is a good way to get detected in your (supposed) plans.
  • Star VS The Forces of Evil - Marco Grows A Beard is a Wham Episode (Ludo gets deposed by Toffee after losing Star's wand to childhood trauma and then continually being a Bad Boss if you're wondering why). Hmm...
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