(1)Dante vs (9)Lightning 2018

Ulti's Analysis
Feels good to be able to say "quarterfinal". Round 1 in these things takes so long now.

Final Fantasy 13 ate a lot of crap from people, and I legitimately believe it was unfair criticism. A good example to point to is Pat's review from SMPS: http://socksmakepeoplesexy.net/index.php?a=ff13

The game has issues, but it isn't close to being as bad as that review makes it seem. I still remember Albion making dumb topic after dumb topic to trash the game while quoting one dumb review after another. I have a long standing belief that word of the mouth is the only thing worth listening to and that professional reviewers are a bunch of paid off idiots with a bias to push. As a fantastic example, look at any site who defended Blizzard after their Diablo Immortal gaffe this year. Stuff like that is how you know who is or is not honest. Independent reviewers with no bias is the way to go here.

FF13 tried to embrace its linearity, it was a mixed bag, and the game is fantastic once you hit Gran Pulse. Only Hope is truly abominable as a character. Sazh is a bit boring. Everyone else is good to great. The optional content is fantastic. The plot is a bit weird, fighting giant turtles is also a bit weird, and the optional superboss being some metal butterfly palette swap you can just poison to death even weirder, but hey! I had fun, which is all that matters.

I bring this up because Lightning suffers in our contests for two reasons, with this match being a fantastic contrast of why. Lightning comes from a mixed bag video game (I haven't played the sequels, maybe Robazoid can offer more context on how those are), and though her character is one that tries to be cool, she comes off to a lot of people as trying way too hard. She randomly punches party members in the mouth for no real reason, and it seems awkward a lot of the time. I like her a lot as a character, but randomly trying to break Fang's face without ever getting a receipt just comes off as trying way too hard to be a badass.

Compare that with Dante. This dude was in Devil May Cry 2 and DmC: dee em shee devil may cryz LOL, two of the worst games ever made. He was decent in 4, but Nero was legitimately cooler than him in that game. He has scenes that are so hilariously over the top in his games where I should feel like they try too hard, yet somehow it never really feels that way and a scene like this can make sense:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DReUg3OY2Us

Sure let's jump off a building, run down while changing momentum, throw a sword straight down and then shoot it to kill a bunch of bats, then somehow increase speed running to catch the sword, jump off, and get eaten by a flying leviathan monster. Just a regular Tuesday afternoon for Dante. Had Lightning been given a scene like that it would have been laughed at. That's essentially why Dante won this match, even though I personally think Lightning summoning Odin is just as awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzhyF482Jlc

There's just nothing like a high strung, highly educated alpha female that does badassed stuff while retaining a feminine look. It's a shame people hate her game unfairly.