QUICK DISCLAIMER: So, this is going to be an unusual Death Battle review, since I'm going to cover Fan Battle's most recent episode. It's a more low-budget series than the real deal, and I do appreciate the effort put into it. It's great people in the community are stepping up like this regardless, so please understand that factors such as the audiobook fight style and/or iffy animation after Origin's part will not play any part in the verdict of this review unless otherwise justified. That being said...
Two droids against the world. Two copycats seeking perfection. After a wait that felt like forever, Cell VS Metal Sonic is finally here! Going into this, especially after seeing the fire preview, I was really hyped for a fight filled with nothing but raw aura. And as the clock ticked high one in the afternoon (for me, since I'M EST), it was time to see if this series could truly hold the test of this with this fantastic matchup.
To make a long story short, it's been a long while since I was this pissed off at an episode.
Analyses:
I'm going to be so honest when I say I did not care much for the analysis, but don't really have anything bad to say about it... aside from the downright atrocious Wiz and Boomstick impression. The writing of the analyses mainly focused on the backstories of both characters and didn't necessarily delve into the scaling and abilities of both as much as I wanted to. But at the same time, they also kept it short and sweet of what each could do (something they probably should have kept doing). At the same time, the writing of it is cringy and failed to make me engaged with learning about either, even as a fan of Sonic. And yeah, they essentially use previous Death Battle scaling all around, including lightspeed base Sonic for some reason... yeah I really don't have much to say here, I'm just neutral on this. Not happy, not sad. But now, things get interesting...
FIGHT!:
Aside from a slightly underwhelming analysis, I was truly excited for the fight to begin. However, it was made clear by Fan Battle that, despite everyone hoping and begging, the full fight would not be animated. I was disappointed, yes, but I understood, and trusted Origin would still do phenomenal. And yeah, this introduction was just that. The first minute of the fight is a fantastic setup with good dialogue, pacing and blocking. Basically, Metal Sonic, disguised as Eggman, wants to neutralize Cell as he is actively threatening his work, and Cell accepts the challenge to fight. As NEO Metal Sonic (ooooooh) formed from his liquid puddle, and on the line "I CAN!", I held my breath for things to get wild!
...it somehow completely and utterly fell apart. Badly. Let's move away from segmental analysis of the fight to something more general. The fight itself is somehow six minutes long, and most of it is audiobook. Only certain snippets are even remotely animated, which I will get to in a second. The fight itself... is very messy, to say the least. Ultimately, the fight dynamic boiled down to this: Metal Sonic attack, Cell get hurt and regrow, Cell inflict pain on Metal Sonic. The writing was overall lazy and threw away a large amount of potential, since it had no idea how to use it. It doesn't help that the fight just drags on and on and on. Just like it seems it may just end, it keeps going, and it got to the point where I was simply bored. There was absolutely no banter between the combatants for some reason, and instead, Cell simply quipped or said serious shit at random points, almost entirely randomly if not out of place. Metal Sonic, on the other hand, almost said nothing that made him seem serious, mainly just saying famous quotes from his games without actually meaning much. Only in the animated segments did this slightly improve, and even then I did not feel like he was being respected. However, the voice acting itself was absolutely phenomenal, and both actors really immersed on the fight and convinced me on whatever feeling it fight had left. Still, the fight was more like Cell ft. Metal Sonic.
In addition, there was a noticeable amount of mischaracterization and inaccurate portrayal. For some reason Metal Sonic has portrayed as with over-the-top violent yet brash rage machine (except when Cell threathens him, to which he hesitates for some reason), constantly throwing out power that would then be countered. Cell is definitely the better one here, and even then there were parts where he somewhat felt like TFS or DA Cell. The biggest issue is that it did not do any good old aura farming. It was imperative that Fan Battle did its best to make both appear intimidating, yet there was simply too much bite and not enough bark. Sadly, Origin does not animate anything else, and for the rest of the fight, we either get a manga style comic (which would have been far better to see), or an extremely poorly animated 3D section that made both look like lifeless animatronics. For the latter, I know I specifically stated I would not be using the animation against it, no matter how bad. However, the person who animated said segments (which were not big), took a whole month to animate it. That is no longer an excuse for low-budget, that is a flaw. The former has issues as well, as it failed to properly telegraph itself at certain points, such as the Super Neo transformation and when Cell threatens to blow up the Earth. Overall, not too impressed with this fight animation, as it was both lackluster and lacked any charm to make it stand out. It is admittedly hard to explain in an audiobook style, so feel free to watch the fight yourself.
Wait, I forgot the inaccuracy of the moves. So, Metal Sonic uses telepathy at one point for some reason, alongside making wind gusts from his wings. Aside from that, the worst occasion is the ending where, Metal uses Cell's regen to revert back to base... causing him to suffer a critical error, and then Cell uses Big Bang Attack, which is only an energy ball that... rams through Metal Sonic and... blows up, destroying him. I think we can move on now, because WHAT THE FU-
The Result:
I'm not going to waste your time sugarcoating this. The result of the episode is undeniably wrong and straight-up poorly explained. And yes, this has a huge impact on my enjoyment of the episode. You know it is bad when the majority of your comments section is universally saying your research is not good, and before I begin, I should point out that Fan Battle has a history of incorrect verdicts, such as making sans win against The Judge and Steve winning against The Terrarian... we're in for some shit now, bitches.
Let's begin with the gap in power and Super Neo Metal. For some reason, it is stated that Metal Overlord is weaker than Super Neo Metal as he could not keep up with base Shadow in Shadow Gens, and that for some reason means that Super is stronger than Overlord, so Metal only had a few minutes to reliably kill Cell since that was the only form that scaled to Solaris. This is incorrect. Perfect Chaos in the exact same case since he battled base Sonic. Even then, I believe it's a standard in VS that gameplay restrictions are ignored. And yes, Super Neo can in fact use Chaos Control, and the assumption that he can't is wrong since he literally uses Shadow's data to be in the form. And for that, since when did Neo Metal ever need to recopy data? In the IDW Comics and Sonic Heroes, this is not the case, and they never explain the point beyond this. I believe they thought this because of Metal's ability in Sonic Rivals which does have a time limit, which again, gameplay restrictions be damned. The 380 kiloFOE is something I am not sure of, since I have seen base Sonic range from Solar System to Universal. Then again, Cell is Solar System as well if ignoring GT scaling (which is episode does not necessarily use), so Cell would not be able to easily defeat base form Metal regardless. In addition, giving him Galaxy/Uni scaling based off of statements claiming he could endanger such reaches is somewhat iffy, although this is just me.
Then there's the point behind speed. I thought I would never ever be traumatized by the "Sonic is only lightspeed" argument for base, but alas, here we are. Thankfully, Metal Sonic's higher forms are agreed to be faster than Cell's universe-crossing feats, as we are given speed scaling seen in Bowser VS Eggman, but it's still not "only" a small difference. Next up is Cell's regeneration, which is just... no. They make it appear as if Cell is straight-up unkillable for Metal Sonic, when they also say that Metal can copy other moves that killed him, therefore presenting contradiction. Apparently though, this isn't a wincon for Metal Sonic as he, and I quote, "has a tendency to heavily favor going for brute force". Yes, he does... which is exactly why he would go for heavy-hitting moves that Cell would not be able to fight against. The argument of "he rarely uses copied abilities" is simply proof there was little research done, as he frequently uses Chaos Control. Of course, they also use the moment Shadow knocked him out of Super by stabbing him in the IDW Comics as a means of "fumbling in the past", but even then Metal, like they said, is faster.
And now here is when I call bullshit: the Zenkai Boost. Essentially every poor argument made before culminates into this. Essentially, Cell nearly surviving death, stemmed from Fan's belief Metal could not reliably kill Cell, means that he could not only become faster, but also... stronger too. They deemed a single use of a genetic power boost granted by survivability stronger than scaling to a god that could erase timelines. I think the issue speaks for itself. Metal does not lack AoE attacks either (in his first appearance, he does with the V Maximum and Spark Field, and even then he copies things such as Chaos Spear), as Chaos Blast is legitimately mentioned in the same text box. But of course, "Cell is faster now cuz power boost", so it's deemed not reliable. All this culminates to now Super Neo inadvertently making Cell stronger by not being able to kill Cell in the first blow. And last minute, in a random text box, they pull a "one-two, fuck you" and for some reason disregard the Solar System calc altogether, calling it not conservative. (Oh, and please do not attempt to say Metal Sonic could just benefit off of copying Cell's own moves, because he just can't use them the same way Cell does because only Super Neo is invincible.)
TL;DR, and I don't blame you for that, the argument hinged on a theory only Super Neo Metal could match Cell, which is easily debunkable and contradictory, yet somehow allowed Cell to use his Zenkai Boost to outlast the Super form and grow stronger as the match progressed to kill Metal Sonic once he powered down from his few minutes of safety time, which is inaccurate as gameplay restrictions are often ignored. I am never writing a review again, because my god, writing counterarguments for that is a chore. And yeah, I probably fucked up a few things with this section, so don't hesitate to call me out on any mistakes.
Conclusion:
Even with my positive outlook on what Fan Battle could go, there is sadly no denying its fate. Cell VS Metal Sonic is really bad, and that really hurts to say. It's analysis was decent, but its fight was nonsensical and rushed, and its result was flat-out infuriating. The producers learned next to nothing from the acclaim of far better episodes like Bowser VS Eggman, instead giving us an experience that felt far too similar to Metal Sonic VS Zero Hulk VS Broly for it's own good. And I hate that I have to say this so bluntly. I really wanted to see this shine, and at the end of the day, Fan Battle still tried. However, the sheer amount of flaws make no excuses for how poorly it truly did it's episode, and that means that I cannot regard it to any high reception.This supersonic chance for perfection was penultimately Ger-iven down by an Eggs-treme amount of unforgiveable errors.
Pros:
(+) Great VAing of the combatants
(+) Some lines were pretty good
(+) The song they used fit the fight well
(+) Origin's animated part was great...
(+) Setup is fitting
Cons:
(-) Flat-out incorrect outcome
(-) Poor research on multiple factors
(-) Slight mischaracterization and noticable inaccuracy of abilities
(-) ...but everything after that was lazily written and dragged on...
(-) ...not to mention the lack of banter and meaningful lines...
(-) ...and yeah, this was Cell ft. Metal Sonic, the metal blur was disrespected here
(-) Analysis is cringy and doesn't do much to explain much
Overall: 4.5/10
