Birthday Cup Review: Cloud/Marlene vs. Fear

In terms of sheer offensive force being thrown about, Cloud definitely takes this one, tossing some of his more powerful offensive options out like candy from a parade. However, the amount of damage being taken was rather low by all parties, even despite the wild offenses being dished out. Though for the purposes of this review requiring a winner in each category as long as it's possible, I'd have to give it to Cloud, with credit due Marlene in later sections.

In terms of skill and style, both parties brought a fair amount to the table. Marlene did very well providing distractions and support for Cloud even without being an actual combat character, something my hat is off to her for. And while Fear did well trying to target her to keep Cloud defensive, and even try to split them apart, his tactics and the way he played was not very..."stylish"? That is to say, despite the style that he brings to his post, his repertoire on display in this battle is rather bland. As a result, he suffers in this category, and rather greatly in the next as well.

Here we come to a crossroads, as I have some less than ideal pieces of critique for both sides in this regard. First, I'll cover the descriptive writing--all parties involved did very well there. I never felt like the picture I was seeing was unclear, and everyone did a good job with that. However, as far as sportsmanship goes, I felt there was a fair bit of brutality and disregard between writers in this one. Cloud starts off with what is in my opinion a very uncharacteristic display of power considering how he normally battles, and winds down a bit from thankfully. However, Fear seems unfairly evasive of everything Cloud throws at him at the same time. Entirely avoiding Ultima and Meteorain without taking even a touch of damage? Seems rather unsportsmanly to me. Both sides were a touch less than sportsmanly, though I ultimately have to give this one over to Cloud and Marlene as well for being a touch better about it.

As expressed by my other co-reveiwers this promising fight between Heartless Bobo-Fett and Cloud turned out surprisingly sedate. It was mostly a battle of attrition, solidified by Marlene’s presence here. Concerns about dodging and so forth will be addressed in the appropriate section, and thus I will just take on damage as dealt in the scenario. With this in mind Fear wins easily, having dodged nearly everything and wounded Cloud repeatedly. He dictated the flow of battle, though it Marlene's presence was the major contributer there. 

Firstly, lets acknowledge that Fear had to fight most of this without a partner and thus had no one bounce off of style-wise. Overall Marlene had by far the most personality and style of this thread, even though I was initially dubious whether she would contribute anything narratively, but her writer did a great job with very little to work with. While Fear did a couple creative dodges, his tactics didn’t vary appreciably during the fight, making it repetitive. While I will give credit to Fear to facing off against a character with a much vaster arsenal (always a hazard when going up against canon characters from big-name franchises ) I feel far more could of been done with what he had. While the same criticism could be leveled at Cloud (who basically just spammed big-name attacks for a while there, using a huge canon character arsenal as a crutch), he was admittedly limited by his obligation to protect Marlene, and did some pretty interesting stuff with those fusion blades. Overall I think he thought through the evolving battlefield more and Marlene gave alot to the thread. 

While I’d like to say otherwise this is section is where both team’s fall a bit flat. (except for Marlene naturally) Both Cloud and Fear evade/block spammed post after post, which was a real shame considering how well written many of those posts are. In the writting department id like to give Cloud some real cred here for not only describing Cloud's emotions while protecting Marlene, but also elaborating a bit on their relationship. Fear, despite using legitimate abilities to dodge some attacks, nether-less escaped some rather enormous attacks with a cleaness that was head-scratching, with the dodge of Omni-slash being the most blatantly unrealistic in my opinion. Cloud for his part didn’t even counter with abilities and just sort of hand-waved many of Fear’s attacks away with pretty flimsy justification at times. I will deviate from my co-reviewers and not cut any “well that canon that can do that in the movies/game" slack, as unsporting is unsporting regardless. What saved C and M is Cloud overall being somewhat fairer and taking appreciable damage several times.

No idea if I need to expand on this further. As indicated by the others, very defensive match, but on the matter of dishing out damage and taking damage. Fear obviously stood out there and wins in this category. This match could go on for a long while if anything, some interesting moves are thrown out and some offence for defense here and there. Honestly wonder how the ending would’ve worked out, but I feel some of the abilities should’ve gone very different in some scenario’s. Though, Cloud does throw out a lot of heavy hitting abilities throughout the thread. Heh...

All three have been doing their best throughout the thread. With Fear lacking a partner, he used his arsenal as best as he could against the bigger arsenal Cloud had. Then there was Marlene in there, who was being really creative with whatever she could do and provide support through whichever tactics she could think up. Honestly it was rather difficult for Fear to deal with both of them despite my initial feeling that Fear had a good chance to cause a lot of trouble for the two. He did do as such in many area’s, but I... really anticipated this playing out differently. xD;;; Fear’s tactics were many times straight-forward and he kept his opponents very defensive while Cloud was kept almost exclusively in that position.

As said, the spam of blocks and evades went... perhaps a little too far. A lot of this could’ve been done better. Both teams are a bit lacking in this department and really worked their bums off against one another without really appealing towards this section at all. Honestly, many of these should’ve never been dodges. Certainly, Cloud has shown to be capable of blocking and avoiding gunfire, which was most of the attacks. But honestly it’s still a bit much throughout the thread. I feel some things were missing here and there in roleplay as well, plus kind of sad how Fear’s partner disappeared from the get-go. Regardless, sure a lot of Cloud’s actions could be justified, I feel both parties could’ve done some things differently and I find it a bit difficult to judge based on just some small notes. All three were descriptive, but I feel there’s just a lot of trouble for me to decide a clear winner for this section. There could’ve been some more sportsmanship from both sides. Sorry. -bows-