Cloud Yelling Part 2: Early 2000s internet was peak

In keeping with my theme, the last blog I ranted somewhat about how I dislike a lot of social media and how it makes things so impersonal(while letting everyone just share a ton of aspects of their life to thousands of strangers.) 

But with this one, I'd like to actually discuss aspects of the Old Internet for some of the younger readers, and why, for me, it was kind of the peak. It really comes down to a couple of things; it was a good balance of on and offline, and actually had some community to it. 

I have noticed nowadays more and more people sort of getting sick of the current 'ways.' I'm not sure when the turn happened, but it feels very recent. I'm not sad for it at all, but I'm noticing that I guess the "social media bubble" started to burst a little bit. People are talking about taking apps off of their phones(some folks go as far as the dumb phone; personally I am of the "Take a bunch of apps off, leave a few on that come in handy like Messenger/FB for international family contact, necessary ones like the public transit ticket buying apps we all need now, etc" camp. I think having a good camera/camcorder on my phone is cool; after all, I did say I enjoy taking *some* concert footage and the like when I go. 

The whole "Good Balance between On and Offline" is, for me, the biggest thing that I enjoyed about those years, pre-iPhone(though to be fair, not everyone had one of those at launch at their price.) Online was a place you went, and you had to actively look for things. You looked for communities that you were interested in, via, say, webrings or just surfing. Despite keeping in contact online via message boards, forums, and AOL/AIM chat(or other chatrooms), you still sent each other things. We still traded hard-copy demos and CDs over the mail and so on, and even sent each other stuff. And yeah, we met in person, too!

While there was definitely an air of that "online stranger danger", a bunch of us were 18 to 25 and were generally able to tell. I had online meet-ups with a lot of cool people from the message boards I was from, and saw many others-some of these people I'm still friends with! Hell, one could connect with the scene in one's own town from the message boards, chatrooms, and forums. Some folks we'd meet at gigs and local record stores, others we'd meet online, and then proceed to meet AT gigs and record stores in person. I met a LOT of cool folks from online in those days! And we got the webzine together by a lot of like-minded folks meeting on a message board for another band(Danzig 7th House Crew, Unite!)

As time went on, online and offline started to blend more and more. I'd say this absolutely had to do with the smartphone-even moreso than social media itself. I have been on record saying that if I couldn't get back Internet, 2005-2006, I'd go for Internet, 2009-2011. Social media existed, but it was sort of in its larval stages, and when you look at worldwide smartphone usage, in 2007, it was around 122 million units sold. This went up over time, but unless you were a very high-tech and kind of on the rich side business person, you probably still had a flip phone or maybe a Blackberry at the time. 2012 is when I kinda remember smartphones becoming more of A Thing, and even then the worldwide smartphone sales were around 1 billion, according to charts-still less than it is now. 

After that, though...when the apps rolled in and more and more phones became good at stuff, everything started to blend together a hell of a lot more. And that's when the internet lost its feel and became homogenized. 

I never really fell down the social media rabbit hole TOO hard. I used it, and I have spent some time doing the dumb doomscrolling(especially over the pandemic), but I am pretty happy that I never really tumbled fully down the hole like many. I did quit certain ones because I just thought they were stupid(I will never in a million years understand why people just wanna upload videos and pictures of themselves and/or their friends, and/or SOs, and or other family members Doing Random Shit for thousands of people, I said it before and I'll say it again), and I've since kinda cut down screen time on others. I've gotten to the point where my phone is just another tool. I make a point of not using social media when I first wake up in the morning until I've had some coffee, and I try to leave off it before bedtime(though I'll play games or something on PC or my retro handhelds.) Mostly, if I'm chatting, it's on Discord with friends of mine, sort of like in the old IRC-days or AIM days. 

I'm pretty serious when I say that if I could snap my fingers and return the net to the way it was in 2005(limited social media, Youtube, message boards, webrings, etc), I would do it without a second thought. Myspace was a thing, but it was pretty...alright. It was less invasive than a lot of stuff. Smartphones? You know what, they can stay-without social media, they're just cool pieces of tech that you can surf the actual internet on, which is fine. I loved having to actually seek stuff out. I will say cutting out a lion's share of social media kinda brings that back again, but it IS still sorta crappy since websites just aren't what they used to be. A lot of places just use social media AS their sites now. Not just musicians-for example, the old comic store I used to frequent in the US uses a Facebook page and has an Instagram. It's...pretty normal for a business. (If I got back into regular DJing, I might end up grudgingly using an IG just to announce gigs, but I'd rather first just unlock my FB to more public and use that, instead. Which I'd try first.) Websites for artists, businesses, and everything do still often exist, but as I said, they're kinda more bare bones. I missed when they had the message boards to meet people. 

Artists and businesses do have those official FB groups...but they always end up feeling so much more impersonal, somehow. I'm not sure what exactly it is, but whenever someone posts to one, it just doesn't have the same community-building effect as it did when folks would post on a message board. It just feels so...empty.

In a pinch, though? I'd take that '09-'11 internet again. Yeah, there was a little more social media around, but it *still* wasn't as bad as it was now. Forums and message boards were still used, websites still existed, and while things were getting a little too cross-pollenated, it was still an alright place to be. Twitter was used to mostly talk about other media and odds and ends, Tumblr was a pretty cool place for talking about other media(though things could get a little weird there, you could keep your circles small), IG was still pretty dumb but way, way more tolerable and less used than now. 

And let's face it, nowadays, jeeze. There's so much of your info out there. I'm not one of those tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists(though if you live in the US right now I'd be, uhh, protecting your data for reasons), but I really dislike oversharing online, and feel like there was a form of...I dunno, anonymity in the older net. It's weird, since forums were there and it was easy to get access to them, and they could get hacked and everything, but generally all you had to do to sign up was use an email(which could've been some burner hotmail account) and a screen name, which could generally be changed whenever you wanted. You didn't really have to give out any info you didn't want. Sites got more and more pervasive until they ALL want you to sign up and half of them want you to pay.

I also think the more 'connections' we got, the less connected we got. I can think of very few people I met through twitter or whatnot alone. Most of my modern, post social media online friends were met via Tumblr and the Final Fantasy XIV circles-we kept in *touch* on Tumblr, Twitter, and Discord, but we met originally other places. There is one friend that comes to mind I me through a mix of Twitter and Tumblr, but I saw their Tumblr first, and then added them on Twitter. One other set of friends I DID meet thanks to Twitter, but we mostly got to know each other on Discord. But before that, I certainly grew closer to people I met via message boards. (And even then-the folks I met on twitter were met somewhere between 2015-2020...which was, believe it or not, quite a different time. Even social media, at one point, was a little better in those days before algorithms and all the other bullshit blasted it into what it became post 2020.) I find it's just not very good since 2020 for actually *meeting* people online. 

I know nothing I am saying here is new and I am once again probably preaching to the proverbial choir, but I do feel like we're coming to a sort of boiling point where I think more and more people are jumping out. In the communities I AM in, I've seen more and more discussion about it. Perhaps it's due to how the world has been going, or perhaps it's something else, or a mix of things. Maybe the lockdown still has some of the remnants of its tendrils stuck in us. It could be any number of reasons. But perhaps it's just a lot of us having just mentally gotten tired of being constantly connected, and it's all hitting a bunch of us at once. I think since it's been probably a bit over a decade now that social media and smartphones have gotten their full grasp in us(I feel 2012 was the biggest major turning point, and it just sped up from there), maybe a whole lot of people decided collectively that it was enough. Smartphones are still selling(there are more now than ever), but with SO many things online turning into such shit-well, one can hope that perhaps we can start blasting the more OG internet out of it. 

I'd love to be a part of a couple more message board communities again. 

Old Metalhead Yells At Cloud, Part 1: Random Reels Suck

I want to preface this by saying that I have, as of the past half year or so, basically ditched most social media. To be honest, I wasn't particularly attached to a lot of it; but I had accounts, used them from time to time(albeit casually), and eventually just got tired of them. 

I was never into Tiktok, I felt that Snapchat and especially Instagram were pretty stupid and vanity-chasing nowadays, though I think IG was alright at the start when I used it to follow artist friends of mine, and actually managed to FIND stuff like cool artists and cool photography, but it turned into a reel-soaked vanity mine that made me feel like a disconnected alien, so I ditched it. (I could never fathom why people would need to show so much of their lives, doing whatever, with whoever, or whatnot, but millions of people like to do it so I guess I'll never get it.) Twitter I ditched for obvious reasons(I didn't delete, but I locked and basically let it gather dust), and anything else is just...whatever, I never really needed it. 

Basically I have a F&F Facebook since a bunch of my US family uses it(and I basically have to know you to add you), Bluesky, and I do use Reddit, but I consider that almost *close* to a message board, since one can at least sorta just post to communities that one cares about. 

FB features those reels, too; luckily a lot of my friends that use them don't really use them like the majority on the other sites do.

So what is tonight's cloud-yelling about? How I notice reels just made so many things, especially concert stuff, so freaking boring and samey now. This was mostly brought on looking at some cool old pictures(like, actual photographs) of some 1990s gigs online, as well as watching some old video(as in, camcorder footage) of some old gigs. 

All of those were so exciting to watch! I thought getting to see the time Megadeth played Lepakko here in 1988(a small club that used to be popular, the building was torn down in...'99 or so?) was really cool. And the quality was pretty damn good for a camcorder; I imagine the person recording it was *probably* with a magazine or publication at the time. I also saw footage of a 1996 Satyricon gig from Belgium, likewise taken from the side of the stage. Again, really nice quality for what it was! 

Then I started to get nostalgic for Tuska 2006(yeah, almost 20 years ago now), when Celtic Frost played; the gig was fantastic, and I managed to find a few videos of it-not too many, though, as iPhones weren't actually out yet at the time, so this was likely taken with a digital camera or mini-DV. Not the best quality, but nonetheless, cool to look at.

While I did all of this, I started asking myself  "Damn, if these were on now, I could have my absolute pick of footage. Like, I could have footage out the ass. I can call up concert footage even on Youtube, let alone the other sites, from the past few years and get my pick of a hundred different smartphones." 

And then I realized like-this may well be why so many of them are boring now. I love having a nice professionally shot concert to watch, but the glut of everything else just...oversaturated things. 

At any given gig, 99% of the crowd has a smartphone, and of those people, at least half are filming a whole bunch of footage from the gig. Mostly from the start and end, sometimes from the middle, etc, etc. The day after a recent concert, I had my pick of a few songs that were uploaded overnight. 

And I was...barely interested in it. 

So...what happened?

I feel like footage back then was taken with more consideration? More care? Like, usually when I'd take gig pictures with press, I'd take a few of the first 2 or 3 songs, and *maybe* a video. I was lucky, I got to use a proper digicam. Others only got to use a disposable camera, which for a lot of places was the only allowed format if you weren't press. (Some places allowed digital cameras, so long as you didn't have a zoom lens.)

Thinking more about it, I'm going to set up a scenario of BobTheMetalGuy, both a 2002 member of a message board, and a 2023 member of whatever social media, to try to explain why I feel like reels and such got mega boring. 

In 2002, BobTheMetalGuy is going to a gig in Philadelphia(we'll use Philly since I used to live there.) So, in those days, again, there were a couple of choices. Digital cameras or disposable cameras. The former were definitely more convenient-but still limited. They didn't take *the worlds best* pictures, they had limited space(a large card in 2002 was sixty-four of god's own megabytes, 32s or even 16s were more common), and you had to transfer them, pick out the best ones and so on. Video? Only if you had 32 or 64. 

Disposable cameras net you roughly 24 pictures, and you had to get them developed the next day(luckily most drugstores had one-hour service.) You didn't even KNOW how well they turned out until after the fact. 

Your whole night-including any pregame with the crew, post-game with the crew, band pictures, AND concert photos-were basically at the whim of this space. So BobTheMetalhead is gonna make damn sure that the ones he takes counts. Thought and care are put into them. 

Now keep in mind, at a typical gig, not everyone is gonna have these. Maybe a handful of people. And out of this handful of people-not everyone necessarily ran in the same circles! Maybe one of Bob's RL friends belongs to this message board, but that's it. And they might not even be taking pictures. It could be the other 30 people at the gig with cameras don't belong to this particular community, so will be posting their pictures elsewhere-or not at all, maybe keeping them.

So Bob gets done the gig, gets some good photos, and decides to post them to the message board. There's some really cool ones, and everyone gets to see pictures of a gig they weren't at. Maybe he has a digital camera, and the band played a song they usually don't, so people get a 30 second clip of it! It's pretty freaking cool. Later on, some professional video of the gig comes out, and that's cool too-but Bob's pictures are still, in a sense, one of a kind. 

And this happens for other cities; but even then, it's something different. One of Bob's message board friends, Abyss Fracture(we'll go with that name) posted some really neat front-row pics from the LA gig, and another person neither of them know managed to get a rather excellent top-down view of the drummer from the Chicago gig. 

There's pictures, the pictures were shared, and they're online; they aren't locked to the forums itself or anything. These pictures are freely available for anyone to look at, as are the videos. And they're probably still around even later. The video might get uploaded to Youtube 3 years later, even, as a short video! The pictures were discussed and shared in a community. 

Now, we'll go into 2023 Bob, and we'll compare the two. 

Bob, like everyone, has a smartphone. About 99% of the people at the gig he's going to has a smartphone, too. He really doesn't have to be careful what he films; he films a ton of the pregame(and uploads it instantly to his reels), and at the gig, he, along with 1/3 of the audience, watches a good portion of the gig through their phones-not all, no, but a lot-and uploads it pretty much instantly to whatever sites he's uploading too. As does everyone else. And then he films a bunch of the post-game(uploading it), so a bunch of strangers who might be looking for a little gig footage-perhaps they couldn't make it-ends up getting a bunch of reels and clips of people they don't know going to a bar because of the algorithms. 

Maybe I'm sounding a little scathing and biased here; I can't lie, I AM biased. This is what it feels like.

Instead of some nicely thought-out pictures and maybe a video, we get a ton of the same gig, in the same city, of some of the same songs(maybe some mixing up there, sure, but definitely the intro and the encores), at maybe slightly different angles depending on where whatever uploader was standing. These videos are all shown to a bunch of strangers, rather than a community, and the posts on said reels and whatnot are all impersonal emojis. 

I'll try to be fair here. I try, when possible, to look at the good in things. So I try to look for advantages where I can, and that goes for things that I'm not particularly a big fan of. 

Nowadays, getting a lot of high quality video of a gig CAN be cool! Maybe if you can't make it, it's nice to be able to see. Granted, a lot of the coolest videos still end up coming from the professionals who can get the stage shots and everything, but yeah, it's pretty cool to be able to see gigs you missed. Also, having better quality of things is nice, too, and sometimes, having more of it is beneficial. When your only footage of a gig is a grainy video, or a video from someone who, say, never films the drummer or keyboardist or something, then it can make you kinda yearn to be able to see them, and being able to maybe call up another video or set of reels that DOES do this is kind of nice. I can even use the example above of that awesome 1996 Satyricon gig; that band is known for having one of the most proficient, fastest drummers in black metal, and the camera person didn't film him nearly enough, if I had to nitpick. I'm still grateful I got to see that gig, but yeah, if I had to pick an advantage of the 'Modern Times', the fact that you get more footage means you might, possibly, end up with some better footage. 

And hell, not ALL reels are just mindless oversaturated drivel. I mean, if, say, Metallica(just to throw a band out there) posts a few behind the scenes reels for their fans of them heading to the studio, or heading to a city, that's pretty cool? It reminds me of footage you'd find on an old tour video, the only difference being you'd have to wait for the tour video or DVD to come out.(Back then, that was how we got the behind the scenes tour and studio stuff.) In this case, I'm not bothered by it and even think it's cool. Fans like getting inside peeks and the studio and tours-it's just they can get them a little sooner now. These reels and such have a purpose. Same thing for when a friend of mine takes a trip overseas to see a festival, and makes an album out of it to share on their F&F Facebook or something. That's got some purpose, I think, when you at least share to your circles. And sure, some of these include those pre and postgame, some overseas food and the like. 

Essentially, I think the format can be used "for good". Like many, many things in the world, the actual tech itself is just...neutral. It's there. It's not good or bad. It's how it's used, as always. I've seen Youtube Shorts used for good(I love ones that deal with cute animals and follow a few), and for the boring(a million and one reels of the same thing.) 

But I think, here, the cons outweigh the pros at the end. I can almost feel that the reels are 'soulless' in a sense; they're just done to post material online. While Bob may not care about getting a ton of followers or anything like that, these hundreds of reels just feel...posted. Very little discussion(if any, since often reels don't allow them, at least some pictures that get posted to, say, FB or something allows for some discussion about them), just...content. 

Content. There's that word. 

That cursed(in a bad way, not in a cool hellfire kinda way) word.

"Information made available by a website or other electronic medium." Even the definition of the word has a new addendum, now, to discuss online content. 

People LOVE uploading content. 

Uploads nowadays just feel like...content. That's the best possible way I can think to explain it. When I watched those videos I mentioned above, they didn't feel like "content." They felt like neat views into the time period, concerts that I didn't get a chance to see, and the photos felt like cool things posted to a community to share them with others and spark discussion about stuff. And sure, we all liked to show off JUST a little if we met the band! (After awhile working press, and moving overseas, it became pretty common for me to do that, so it was like, Just Another Night, but I know people liked to see the pictures, so I posted them.) And I'll post a picture of the gang together at a bar or something(to my F&F FB, which...just basically involves the people I was with.) 

I think we're ALL, in modern days, guilty of uploading 'content' now and again. You could argue this rambling blog of mine is content under a modern definition. I don't like using the word for thought-out things, though. 

And this rambling brings me back to why those reels always feel so soulless; they're just recorded, uploaded, rinse and repeat. Why? I guess millions of people just really like uploading stuff. There's endless reasons why. Maybe it's because it's "the thing to do" now. It's just...*normal* to do so. 

This is maybe why it lost me and why I started feeling so disconnected to a lot of modern social media. The "this is just how it is" aspect. I already will never understand why people want to show off so much of their lives online(look, if it makes you happy, you do you, find happy where you can get it in this world, but I will never understand why), and now I just don't understand why, for example, you'd wait so long for a gig just to watch it through your phone. Again, by all means snap a few good pics and a video for memories! We've been doing that for decades.  But does it ALL need uploading instantly? Do you need to watch the entire gig through your phone? 

And hell, imagine being the band. Imagine being onstage and just looking at a sea of phones instead of feeding off the crowd energy. I really don't blame Ghost for banning phones from their gigs(though I do think medical use should be allowed, of course-smartphones do have necessary medical uses, so they should be allowed to *exist* at gigs.) 

I kinda miss having a little bit of friction or inconvenience is all. I really didn't mind waiting until the next day to do my uploads(and who knows, maybe even nowadays with a smartphone I'll practice patience myself before uploading a few pics to my friends, just because I can.) I know I missed not knowing everything that everyone was doing-that's why I ditched a lot of social media. I was able to get rid of that. 

I know I'm preaching to the choir when I say I feel like people have been changed by this; I've seen it firsthand. I guess what I'm saying is maybe take a chance. Take a few good pictures of a gig(I think rarer gigs are pretty cool to take more of?). Take one video. Maybe even two, if you get a rare song or a killer encore. But wait a day to upload it. Find some of the best or coolest pictures like we used to. Maybe try uploading the video to a more personal friend and family circle instead of adding to the online reel glut of which there will be hundreds of. Maybe the whole world doesn't need to see the trip there. Maybe post a pic of the pre or post game to a tighter community like in the message board days to talk about it instead of blasting antics to thousands of people who don't even know you or you don't know. I mean I admit if I fly to a different country for something big, it's natural to have several pictures, and I also think there's intent behind it. Sometimes I get the impression people just post stuff to post, and one can tell the difference between a 50-picture album made with thoughtfulness(like a group going to Wacken and posting it to their friends) and a 50-picture album that's just thrown into public social media for the hell of it where thousands upon thousands of people end up tripping over a stranger's antics. 

But in any case, maybe enjoy the gig swinging your neck around in the front row instead of watching the entire thing through your phone and give back some of that energy that the band is feeding to you. 

So...it's...uhh...2025

 Yeaah...it's 2025. 

I haven't done anything here since...2022. Which was still pretty lockdown-like. 

I have no idea what I'm going to add to this; I kinda want to have an all-in-one blog for my retro games, fighting games, black metal and other odds and ends. 

I'll let you know when I think of something to write about. Maybe "old grump yells at cloud on how the early 2000s internet is better." 

Maybe I'll wax poetic about my hopes for the collapse of social media or something...

SNK Lore Misconceptions(and possibly where the came from)

 In the process of trying to clean up(to only somewhat successful ends) the SNK wiki(which is quite good, but still not 100% accurate, running more of a 75-80% accuracy or so I'd say), I decided, for fun, to put together a list of some very common misconceptions. 

Now, I don't unfortunately know every one of these-but if others know other misconceptions, please by all means let me know. 

Canon Side Material:

It should be said that the only known canon side material are:

A. The Team Stories(located online and sometimes, like in the case of Adel's story in 03, in the Gamest mooks, which carry the official team stories, 

B. Official books, which sometimes have lore bits you don't find elsewhere(Character Encylopedia, Perfect Reader, Gamest mooks as mentioned above which also have character concepts, things like that), or

C. The Ureshino novels, which basically just novelize the games themselves but add things-his work is all official. 

No Manhua, other mangas or anything are official canon. Now, I am not saying that you can't have fun with your own headcanons or whatnot, by all means do that, but for purposes of recording canonical lore, I try to keep things to the official material.  The manhua in particular are not canon-no, Mr. Karate did not ride a T-Rex to fight Geese riding a mammoth, and I don't think over in Street Fighter land that Ryu ever fought Gene Simmons, but I'm not as schooled on Capcom lore so someone might need to corroborate that one for me. ;p 

(FWIW, the manhua are great, entertaining reads-but treat them like some fun fanworks, and not canon material. But if you do fanwork and want to borrow from them, by all means go ahead, like, I'm not trying to police fanwork here. I'm just trying to keep the wiki-lore straight.) 

"What about ANB/The Shingo Manga?"

These aren't stated as to be actual canon yet. ANB was said to have been written to be able to line up as to not mess with the timeline too much, that they 'could' take from as canon if they wanted, but AFAIK they haven't used very much of it. The Shingo manga is a big unknown; I guess we wait to see if he has some blue flames in the game, eh? 

"Shipping?"

The only 100% bonafide confirmed ships in this game are Andy/Mai and that took forever, and stuff in the background like "Daimon and his wife," "Saisyu and Shizuka", "Seth and his wife," "Vanessa and her husband"(See below for this one.) The rest? Are all just up to the fans. Ryo/King were never confirmed in the game-they keep dancing around it. They keep going back and forth constantly on Robert/Yuri and seem to love to just stop at confirming the Terry/Mary ship(which I thought they had confirmed, but I seemed to have been mistaken.) The latter two of these are 'Almost There', but SNK seems to tease everyone, lol. I have a feeling if you asked the devs themselves they'd say they'd all say something different. Something could change here of course and they could decide to finally hammer home another canon one, but yeah. (I notice most of the '100% confirmed ships' are all in the background.) Mature and Vice are another fanon ship-in the source material, they are barely even friends; they are co-workers who happen to work together often. (Mature and Rugal were never really confirmed, either, just hinted that they had a fling from some flirting, but again, never written in stone.) 

So anyway, here's a few misconceptions for you:

-"Leopold Goenitz."- Goenitz' first name to any novels, as checked by someone I know has read them, was never stated in any source material. A side comic made up a name for him. Like, use it in any fanwork you want, but this sort of thing doesn't belong on the wiki. 

"Gaidel the Water User."-Gaidel's element, if he even had any, was never stated in past material, either. The only elements actively stated in lore were the Four Heavenly Kings(Wind, Earth, Fire, and Lightning.) This was once again due to a non-canon manhua. Also, Gaidel was reincarnated without his powers anyway in the official material. He didn't even remember who he was fully. He MAY have had some subconscious memories that got passed onto Leona, but the reasoning behind his reincarnation going wrong was never even stated in the original novels. It was probably just to facilitate Leona's plot, a means to an end, rather than a technical reason why it went wrong. 

"Goenitz had Mature and Vice killed by Iori": Unlike the other two things that were caused by weird manhua/comic stuff, this one was instead caused by the game itself being translated imperfectly back in the day. As we know, Dweebenheimers, SNK had some...interesting translations back in the day, wubba-wubba. This unfortunately carried over to some more important things. It was a minor mistake all told, but one that changed the full context of the ending(once again, needing to go to the novelization for this.) 

What actually happened here was that Goenitz warned Mature and Vice from messing with Iori, because he was extremely powerful. They were basically poking the bear, wanting to use Iori for their own purposes to mess with the Orochi stuff, and in the process-between that and everything else that happened during the end of the '96 tournament-set him off, so to speak, and he killed them on the spot. But there were no issues with Goenitz wanting the other two dead. They basically brought that on themselves. 

"The Hakkeshu Dislike Goenitz": They don't. Not even Mature, Vice, or whatever. Gaidel, should he return, probably has a bone or twelve to pick with him but he's technically no longer a Hakkeshu as he reincarnated wrong, and of course Leona hates him, but the rest? They don't really...care. They're indifferent. Like you can even see in a recent team story, CYS and Goenitz are more cordial, but they aren't a bunch of buddies who go out for bowling league every Saturday or something(though this would make for some good artwork.) Think of the Hakkeshu as 'business partners.' If you notice, Goenitz in the recent Awakened Orochi story is more disappointed in the others than mad, but he knows that when 'The Call' hits, they'll come. They're a bunch of reincarnating beings of a force of nature; they have all the time in the world. They don't always get along, they sometimes butt heads on methods, but they aren't really enemies or anything. Yamazaki doesn't give a rat's ass, M&V are just in their own little world(they're still ghosts, too). Btw-adding this on: CYS, as we see in the game, are close, so that's all correct. (I mean, if it's in the game, unless it was specifically retconned by SNK, it's fine.)

"Goenitz gave Rugal his Power": What happened here was Rugal took the power, Goenitz(when he was only 18, Rugal was a young man himself in his early-ish 20s), whipped his ass, and took his eye. He let him *keep* the power, however, as a bit of a test on how it worked out. In addition to this one, Mature and Vice were not some long-time workers of Rugal, they were sent to spy on him like, around '94 and only lasted until after '95. They weren't with him very long. As mentioned above, it's unsure how close he and Mature were, but Vice didn't care one way or another about him. (This stuff's origins is I think simple mistranslations.) 

"Leona is somehow the leader of the Ikari team.": I have no idea where this one came from as this is just common sense with "How the Military Works, Rank-Wise," but here we go. This *may* have an origin in the '96 story where Heidern had her handing down his orders for one first mission, in a sense that he was still the Major Head behind the mission but he used her to pass down his orders for this one, and this somehow got taken as 'she is the leader in all games despite not outranking anyone.' It's the only thing I can think of how this one proliferated. I

But the rest all clearly state either Heidern as the main lead, or Ralf as the leader, with Leona not even having a proper rank(Heidern is a commander, Ralf is a Colonel-which is a rather high rank, mind you-and Clark a First Lieutenant.) He's even stated straight up as heading the team in a few stories('97, '03, XI and XIII come to mind), and in XIII Heidern goes as far as to ask Ralf and Clark their opinion on how the mission should be handled, despite his rank being above them in said team story. This stuff's even available in English, so I don't know how this gets mistaken. That said in the games themselves, it's pretty clear the three just...work smoothly together with no real 'power fights' or anything, some humor in the 03 story where he jokingly states "Is this how you treat your leader?" after some teasing. 

(On this note, it's ALSO an occasional misconception that Clark is higher ranked than Ralf, probably because he's more chill, but no, Ralf is clearly stated as a Colonel, which is a higher rank than a First Lieutenant.) 

Billy Kane Hates Smoking: The guy has a favorite cigarette brand. I think it was even stated that he just thought the jacket was cool. The origin of this was his jacket, I guess? Where they saw his fav cigg brand and then that he hated smoking is beyond me but I guess the jacket was that convincing, lol. 

Vanessa's Dead Husband: This one originated from a website of a guy who was writing his own what-if stories(he even said as much, mind you, but the site is not in English so it got mis-translated as canon, I guess.) But yeah, there's a strange bit of fanon that Vanessa's husband is dead. He is not; in the lore her husband, and kid, are alive and well as of now. Unless this changes in the future, this was basically someone's bit of fanfiction that grew out of control that started getting believed as canon. 

Whip Dislikes Krizalid: Whoo boy, this was a doozy of a mistranslation in KOF '99. Much in the realm of 'You Jerks', during these days SNK's EN department loved to add insults when there wasn't any. The original translation had Whip extremely sympathetic toward Krizalid when she went to go see him at the end; there was not one insult, or even harsh word, to my knowledge, said. I can even link, thanks to a Discord member who I know, what the ending REALLY said right here: 

Needless to say, '99 butchered it and yeah. I would go as far as to say that at least half the time you see weird insults back in the day there was likely something much different written here. I remember people being so confused at this ending because Whip was throwing around words like 'Simp' and 'Puke' while crying after the fact and the Westerners, who I am now convinced were robbed in this, were had no fucking idea on why that was. Whip was incredibly sad about what happened to him. 

There are some other things that are not misconceptions, per se, but things that have never actively been clarified, like Ron killing some of his sons(it's *hinted*, but never confirmed, yet, if he did so, we just know the other sons besides Duo Lon are missing.)  Iori had a girlfriend that was mentioned in the past on and off, but nothing ever came of her; this is one of those 'Unknowns' in the background. The last time anything like this was mentioned was early NESTS saga, however, so as of now there is nothing in official material about her. Also, Rugal has an estranged younger brother-he was only mentioned once in a Falcoon interview from 2005, and was never named. He was never mentioned since that, either, so no idea what's up with this. 

Then there's other weird bits like "Why Not Team Bernstein?" I have NO GODDAMN CLUE on this one but the games spell out in black and white in big, block letters that Adel is nothing like his father and literally show the man working with Heidern, with him on speed dial like they're friends. Why they keep trying to shove him and his dad on a team together is beyond me. This is just pure fanwank. (And Rose isn't a fighter anyway, so it's not like this team would even work from that angle. Sport Fencing doesn't equal fighting and the stories make it pretty clear she hates even lifting a finger in the first place.) Since nothing like this happened in the games or anything I didn't put it above, but it's a really damn strange suggestion I keep seeing that basically flies in the face of the established lore, so I just stuck it at the end. (It's a damn shame the 2003 story was never officially translated since that explained a lot of their dynamic.) Btw, for those interested, here is the link to the 2003 translated story, with credits to the translator, Miau: https://twitter.com/AzzyFGC/status/1516428477918023707

Anyway, if I think of more of these(more like, WHEN I do, since there is quite a few, lol), I'll just keep adding to this, but after trying to fix the wiki today I was sort of inspired to put this together. 

Uhh...hi again!

 

Well hello again. It's been awhile, heh. 

Long story short: I've been busy, which is why this hasn't seen an update in about four months. On the bright side, I'm going to be working on a blog where I go over some of my fav KOFs, just for fun. More like a few blogs. 

I'll probably go over six of them, two per blog. 

For some Spoilers:

6. 2k2UM(The Dream Match with Everything)

5. KOF 97(The One with the Badass Story, even if it's busted)

4. KOF 2003(My Nostalgic Baby, it might be broken but I love it anyway)

3. KOF XV(It does everything really well, but nothing the best, but enough it places highly because it's super fun to play. It may tie for most balanced, though.) 

2. KOF XI(The Best Roster, and a really freakin' fun game)

1. KOF '98UMFE(The Best Gameplay, and some of the best balance.) 

Anyway, see you all soon!

Well we got the surprise DLC announcement!

 And boy, is it a doozy. 

(Disclaimer: Yes, I've seen the datamines and such-it's hard to miss them nowadays-this blog stays spoiler-free. And even then, gotta somewhat be careful with those, since stuff can get swapped around, etc.)

Welcome, Team Garou and Team South Town!

Now I'll come right out and say it; this pass is probably one of the most attractive DLC passes I've seen in a fighting game in the past years. They really weren't messing around with this one. I also kinda feel like its makeup is about perfect for XV right now in several ways:

-It brings back several favorites, for one. Geese is Mr. SNK Baddie(and Tekken 7 made him even more well known, let's face it), Rock is widely popular among the NA/EU audience(I can't really say whose popular overseas, but he seems well liked, going by fanart?) Garou characters are always welcome in, and so on. 

-XV's roster has three criticisms surrounding it that I notice. Lack of characters from certain sagas, (particularly Ash) a lack of baddies, and a lack of OGs/characters from other franchises(there's only 13 characters out of the 39 from other SNK franchises, and the rest are all KOF originals, even if many of them, like Kyo, Iori, etc, are at this point icons themselves.) 

This pass takes care of two of these, and at least touches on a third. Bringing in South Town brings in a 'baddie team'(even if Billy seems to be more of a 'Neutral, but feels indebted to Geese' guy, going by his interactions with other characters). The entire pass are either OGs(Geese, Billy, Yamazaki, all from the 90s), or characters from other SNK franchises(Garou, Fatal Fury). And, while it's minor since they aren't *originals*, and they are Garou characters first and foremost, Gato and Jenet at least showed UP in the Ash Saga the first time(though it still needs Ash Saga originals, not letting SNK off on this until I get some of those. ;p But it's a start!)

-It's just an excellent 'out of the gate' combo. Just straight up handing the fanservice over. If anything, this is going to make *follow up* passes a little hard to follow, maybe, depending. 

Now I get while it comes to Garou characters, everyone has their own ideas who should get in. It's a beloved game, with a lot of fan favorites, and I understand people who would rather have characters who hadn't been in yet(Kain, Freeman, Marco, Kim's sons, etc) over ones who have, but IMHO, they did really good with this, and this is the exact pass I would have chosen. Rock is extremely popular, though he has a few vocal detractors(which, well, any popular character is going to have-FWIW, I think he's cool, I'm more of a Gato person when it comes to Garou, and when it comes to the Conflicted, Anti-Hero Son of a Previous Baddie character you all KNOW whose side I'm on), B. Jenet has been requested to come back for a long time, and Gato has always been popular in whatever game he's in(though his fans are more quiet-I guarantee you Gato will probably see some of the most active play of these three, though.) 

I personally love Kain and Freeman, and would love to see them on sometime, but again, I kinda feel like this pass is like, THE Garou pass to have on there. (Also, see below, re: Story.) I feel like playstyle wise, it's got nice variety-Rock's classic Geese/Terry mix-which it looks like they brought in his Garou TOP attack and his Rising Tackle might be a direction now, which would be a small buff which he generally needs, Gato's brutal and powerful feeling Kung Fu style, and Jenet's more stylish stuff, complete with the Team Rocket Shoe Attack. 

And again, people just like these three characters. And I stand by my assessment this was three of the best to pick for a first DLC pass. 

And on a personal note...let's face it. I'm biased here. Gato was one of my top 5 requests to come back to this game. I mentioned in my last blog that I only got one of my top 5(Ash), but I got half my top 10(CYS, Chizuru included), so I was REALLY happy with the base. But even then, I felt like I was missing a little something; and that something was 'One of my top 5 I DIDN'T think would make it.'(yes, again, datamines-but before I knew about everything confirmed, Gato was still a rumor.) While my Adel and Duo Lon are still waiting on the sidelines, getting Gato in made me over the moon, because I had a feeling Ash was inevitable. So getting that character locked in and confirmed that I REALLY WANTED to come back was a really good feeling that I think I needed. As highly as I ranked XV's base(hey, tied for 3rd place for a canon roster is pretty huge), there was that little "Man, I wanna get to flip out over someone getting in that wasn't a lock that some others got." I got that finally. 

Also good goddamn look at how GOOD he looks in this. Like, he looks SO good. One of my favorite models in XV so far. The embroidered dragon on his shirt was a great touch, his new Climax looks awesome, he still has his iconic neck snap and kick super, they gave his dp+K back, and now he gets to use EX moves. Gato with EX moves just makes me giddy, bwahaha. Going to maybe do a little breakdown of him at some point and see what he's got and what he might keep. 

                                            How do you glow UP Gato? Apparently like this. 

As for South Town team, holy shit. The suits, the style, the pimp coat, the swag. This glow up was extreme, and for me, this is *probably* the best combination I've ever seen for a proper South Town team. Hein was actually one of my fav of the XIV newcomers, but he didn't really give me a huge South Town vibe. '96 Boss Team, while it's awesome and I love it, has Krauser, who, while being related to Geese, is more 'German Noble' than 'South Town Guy.' So when it comes to a trio of South Town Antagonists(or two antagonists and one neutral dude who's lightened up over the years), this one just feels *right.* And the aesthetic is perfect. The fact it calls out the Real Bout cover with Geese and Billy was fantastic. 

                                                                  Just LOOK at them. 

Now, I do get that some feel that having a full team of XIV assets feels a bit off on a DLC pass, but eh, I'm willing to give a pass. That visual glow-up is perfect, they have this matching aesthetic while not having the same exact costumes(Billy's more laid-back nature with the open suit fits him, with his trademark bandana, and Yamazaki with the pimp coat again brings me BACK), and this is, again, basically everything I wanted out of the South Town team. 

DLC has story?

Jenet getting her crew together again(well, at least with Gato) makes sense, given she's the most personable one of the bunch. I wonder how that chat went...

But, yeah, it seems like we got DLC stories? At least small ones. Hence my comment about Kain and Freeman-those characters, I'd have trouble placing on a team together. But at the very least, the Garou team has some story. Now whether or not that keeps with every team on every pass is anyone's guess, but I actually hope we get some more story-tied DLC this time. This doesn't seem like it's like Strive(that continues after the game's story), the way this is worded, this team is supposedly in the tournament itself, which is interesting. I wonder how they'll handle cutscenes and such? (And damn, we need some Geese/Rock interactions. And...good lord in the future, please give us some Bernstein interactions, too, especially with Adel on the good guy's side, now. You know, future passes. ;)) 

On the slight downside to this-it DOES kind of put characters who were hard-deconfirmed from the main story on much thinner ice. Kim, Mature, Vice, Daimon, Gang-Il(for his three players), all of these were hard-deconfirmed in interviews or stories. (Kim was the only No-Miss here, to be fair. Daimon's a regular, but he sits enough that him sitting a game isn't surprising, and M&V aren't even regulars-they've been in all of 5/15 mainline games, and two of those are DMs. Mature was in XII, as well, but...uhh. Basically if this crew does end up sitting, I can't say it surprises me, beyond Kim a little?)

Now, not everyone MENTIONED is deconfirmed, but you can tell-like Joe mentioned Billy in a neutral way, and Billy's fine. Shingo was mentioned in a neutral way, so he can still steal onto a pass sometime down the line, Duo Lon was mentioned in a positive way in Betty's interview-she wanted to team with her old Rival team again with him and Beni. Kensou might not be in, but he was never really mentioned either. So I think these types are safe for now, but I do feel like story-based DLC does, again, put the hard-deconfirms further into the 'doubt' pile. 

They could decide to run Year 2's passes not connected, however, which would render this moot and put even the hard-deconfirms back on the table. Time will tell. 

All in all I was hoping for more story-based DLC, at least having a few teams there, since in XIV, I kinda missed that. I'm curious to know what's up with the South Town team after XIV. Is Hein still working with them in the background, or did he break loose? 

All in all this pass 1 alone I think brings the roster, for me personally, from 'Tied with '97s in 3rd place' to 'Tied with 2003 in Second Place.' It's still not tied with XI yet(that's gonna take a particular bunch of characters, and beating it is going to take a very specific combination), but jesus they are doing really damn well for themselves. 

And with that, I think I'm about done? I fucking love this pass and I can't wait to play it. Looking forward to what the last few trailers are before release!

'Til next time...

We have our Initial 39! So I'll go over my thoughts on it.

Yeah, I know I said I was going to update this thing more often, but the holidays coupled with a nice battle with Omicron(and not like, the cool robots from FFXIV, but the fucking virus which grounded me for the month of January), basically put paid to THAT idea. Well, here's an update, in any case!

With the launch of Elisabeth's trailer today(to no one's surprise, even without the incident, it was pretty obvious I think who was going to be on his team), we've now reached the full 39. Let's take a look at it! I'm going to give it a little mini-review here. Mostly just breaking down its upsides, and the couple downsides I do think it has. I gotta say it's been a pretty long and wild ride, and it's hard to believe it's been a year already. That said, I think time either stopped or started moving in a strange bubble at the end of 2019. 

                                                             Singles and teams.  

Just to note: Characters are subjective, who I love isn't going to be what someone else does, and vice versa. Everyone's entitled to like who they want, and pleasing absolutely everyone is going to be impossible. Like, some people aren't as into the Ash Saga originals, so they may be fine with limited rep, but miss the XIV newcomers. I didn't care for a lot of the XIV newcomers; I was indifferent to a lot of them, but loved the Ash Saga newcomers. And so on. So this is just my POV on it. 

Without further ado: 

Positives:

While I can't say the roster shattered too many expectations with the exception of Krohnen, I definitely rank it very highly. Like, tied with '97 highly, which I consider the 3rd best canon, non Dream Match roster in the series(XI is first, of course, and 03 I'd put as 2nd. Both of which I think were probably the absolute most solid for the times they came out in terms of how they were assembled.) 

For one, this is a hell of a who's who in terms of characters throughout the years. If I had to pick a roster of 39(keeping a couple spots for newcomers, so 37 plus the 2 newcomers), while it wouldn't be 1 for 1 with this, it would be damn close, to be honest. My wishlist, if you break it down, wasn't that incredibly far off(I even got half of my top 10 requests in, though only 1 was in the top 5.) 

We have classics(Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting characters), favorites from the sagas(CYS, Iori, Kyo, Ash, etc), all five Ikaris in a game again for once, and a rounding out of newcomers(even if they weren't my personal fav XIV newcomers-I was more of a Hein person over Luong or Kukri, but I did actually like Shun'ei and Meitenkun enough and Antonov's glow-up was great). Bringing back Krohnen was a massive treat and he got such a damn glow-up that I couldn't believe it; they took a copycat character(Nines went beyond 'tribute') and made him his own. 

They also maintain its habit of having a great variety of playstyles for people(Rushdown, zoner, grappler, whatever, there's bound to be something there-this IS, to be fair, usually the case in KOF though, I don't think I ever saw a KOF roster that lacked this. Even XII's notoriously cut roster managed to do this.)

Finally, it IS pretty big in terms of canon rosters, too. Folks gotta remember: XIV was an outlier in terms of roster counts. 50(16 teams plus 2 bosses) was not the norm. When you stack up base, playable rosters of non Dream Match games going down the line, we have:

94-95: 24

96: 27

97: 29 via teams, 30 including Kyo. (35 if you're counting the Orochi forms of CYS, O. Iori and Leona.) 

99: 32(including unlockables. They were available in the arcade as base, so I'll count them.) 30 if you're being extremely by the book and not counting unlockables as base. 

00: 35, counting sub-bosses but not end boss. 

01: 40

03: 33

XI: 33 BASE, 5 Time Release characters in arcade(Adel, Gai, Silber, Hayate, Jyazu), who often get counted as the base as well, for 38. (It's up to your rubber ruler on this one.) 

XIII: 31

XIV: 50. (48, 2 unlockable, legal bosses.) 

As you can see, it ranks 3rd in biggest canon, non Dream Match rosters. I'm not sure if it's because it dialed back from XIV or what(yes, even I said in the past that traditionally, rosters go up within an arc, and not down), but I definitely don't get the 'small' argument. (Especially given the fact we've been in a pandemic for two years now.) It could, I imagine, also be the fact that the longer the series goes, we get more and more characters; thus the base rosters need to grow, lest we have to keep leaving more and more out. So 40 back during 2001, and 39 now, two sagas later, are a big difference. 

Still, it's large, especially given what they were making this game under(remote work, etc.) And let's face it-the chance of their being an unlockable but playable boss like Verse? Probably quite high, which would put this base on par with 2001's base roster. 

In short, it's got tons of favorites, brings back some amazing teams(CYS) as well as has like, the Sacred Treasures as an official team for the first time(03 they had a team story, but weren't official, they were all solo in the roster), and I've noticed in general, going around social media and such, that people are even hard pressed to pick one team. I have an entire row of mains and I'm going to be already 'maining' two teams. And somehow besides having a lot of favorites and such, it feels a lot less boring, to me, than what XIII's felt like. (It's weird, I consider XIII having more characters that I like than, say, 94 or something...but it just felt like SUCH a step backward from XI's absolute amazing roster it's hard for me to rate it more than a bit above average.) 

For me, KOF XV is a really good way to do a who's who of popular faces(even if it's not perfect.) 

It's a very 'attractive' roster, and is bound to I think bring in new players who see it. When you take a look at that big crowd, for me, it's hard to see a new player-unless they basically *only* play 'weirdo' types(I'll get to that), saying "Damn, I can't find anyone I'm interested in."

Downsides:

As good as this base roster is looking, it's not perfect(okay, no KOF roster is perfect, not even like, the S-tier XI's roster.) But it does have a couple of more standout downsides, at least to me.

The first, and biggest, definitely being the lack of Ash saga originals. This saga was important, well-received(XIII was the introduction a lot of players had to the series proper-XIII isn't even one of my favorites by a longshot, but I know the impact the game had on Western audiences), 2003 was a big comeback after a hard time, and the game gave people a lot of very well-liked originals; besides Ash and Betty, Adelheid, Shen, and Duo Lon were all very well received(yeah, again, they don't always pick on popularity, I know-just like I said above. But these guys rate rather highly in several polls I've seen going around, and SNK DID say they might look at what folks want for future DLC.) 

But the general impact that saga possibly had on everything(We're still learning about Verse), coupled with the fact they seemed to be trying to fly the flag for all of the sagas, it feels weird to not have one *full* Ash Saga team. Ash, Betty, and Adel would have been an excellent addition(Protag, Rival and Co-Protag), or even Duo Lon or Shen as the third, due to their ties to Ash and Betty. (And I think a fourth could have joined somewhere, too, I mean look at how many NESTS characters we had.) I still stand by what I said about highly ranking this roster, but this is probably its most glaring downside. All other rosters over the years-until the Verse Saga-managed to balance its saga representation well, so I'm hoping DLC can fix this by introducing some more Ash Saga originals. At least getting Adel, Duo Lon, and Shen floating around(the other three major story characters-Oz was a story character, but he had a a lighter impact than the other three, one of which was on two major boss-fighting teams, one of which helped with the boss fighting team in XIII, and one of which is friends with Heidern and worked with him to solve the entire plot of XIII) would be a great idea. 

The second, and lesser downside I think, is sort of the lack of a real good 'Weirdo' character. I feel like, while I personally don't go out of my way to use them(if I like one, I like one), not having a weird or quirkier character at ALL on a roster makes it feel like it's missing just a little something. I know that I have more than one friend who enjoys characters like this, despite them not really being all that popular. I think it'd be a good idea to at least try to slide one in over the DLC months. I guess the 'closest' we have for this is...Kukri maybe? And he's the like, barest minimum of 'weirdo' I feel. Dolores? Same, I'm not sure I'd classify them here, though I'd maybe say they're sort of the extent of 'Quirkier Characters.' (I don't think I can even consider KOD that weird-animal-themed wrestlers, after all, aren't particularly too weird of a trope/archetype.) 

Neutral 3rd Discussion Point:

There IS a third thing that I'm not sure I can call it a downside...or an upside...it's a very subjective thing that gets discussed; Use of Original KOF Characters vs. Use of characters from other SNK franchises.

KOF XV has only 13 characters who are from other SNK games directly. The rest were all created for KOF. 

People can like either/or. Sometimes both(like myself.) I sort of feel like a lot of KOF's OGs ARE like, classic SNK characters now-it's hard to describe Iori and Kyo as anything but, despite the fact they were made for KOF. And to be honest, even Ash Saga's newcomers are old now; there's 19 years between 2003 and 2022. There's 18 years between when Ralf(one of their earliest protagonists next to Sasuke in Sasuke vs. Commander) was created, and 2003. It puts into perspective that a lot of these characters are just as deserving of the 'title' of 'SNK Character.' It's REALLY hard for me to especially see anyone created during the Orochi Saga as anything but a classic KOF character. 

All THAT said, I know people would like more Garou characters(Kain gets suggested a lot, as does Marco, Freeman, etc), a Metal Slug team, a Last Blade team, other Fatal Fury characters, and so on. So I really don't think this is like, wrong or right-this one's very subjective(well, all of these ups and downs are), but I can sort of understand people who like the idea of the roster being split between 'Originals' and 'From other SNK games' being a little short-changed with this one, even if I don't necessarily agree it's necessary. mers and think they put in a few too many at the cost of other older classics, and so on. These are

I feel like, sometimes, this roster really would have been ideal to try to squeeze out 45-48 at launch, assuming a best-case perfect scenario(which they certainly didn't have during development this time, so I'm not being too hard on that.) I mean I can easily get 2-3 more teams on this that are all either OG or story-appropriate characters and STILL not be bloated at all. It would have given Ash Saga better rep, probably not left out Kim(tho many Kim fans I know would have rather him be late, but reworked from XIII/XIV, not that I blame them at all), and filled in I think those couple holes that I feel it has. 

The Short Version: 

So yeah, in short, great roster, great for OGs(tho I think, mayhap a few OGs might like a few more classics sprinkled about-I'm cool, others may feel differently) and great for new players, could really use some more Ash saga originals and maybe a weirdo, but still great. Hopefully they'll name-drop the DLC soon(Not discussing any rumors or anything here for now) so we can see how it all looks after Pass 1. (And then in years to come! I look forward to seeing how it all looks in the end.) 

Oh yeah, if you're curious: this is how I'm looking right now for it! No order on the rows themselves, I'm currently hammering out how I want my two primary teams to look. Likely Ash will be anchoring on one and Iori or Krohnen anchoring the other, with the Ikaris sprinkled about, depending. (Heidern may need his own setup since I usually prefer playing him 3rd...)

                                                           DLC is going to shift things.

Also ya all caught how Elisabeth mentioned Duo Lon in her story, right? Like, actually mentioned that she wanted to team with him again(and Beni!). Even Elisabeth knows XI's roster is amazeballs, lol. Gotta wonder how batty Kukri's driving Betty if she wants her old team back, despite getting her best friend of forever back from another timeline/dimension that he snapped himself out of. 

Look, getting a namedrop of Duo Lon three days before my birthday may not sound like much but the fact is it didn't deconfirm him for later, I'll take it, lol. 

(And yeah, if they could get on with giving me my two boys with Adel and Duo Lon in a later pass, that'd be greeeaaat. Not trying to be TOO greedy here, as I'm not asking for much.) 

                                 I can now officially say this roster tier list is Elisabeth Approved.

Anyway, 'til next time!