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Number C39: Utopia Ray Victory and new RUM


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I'm growing a bit tired of the "Rank-Up" gimmick. It was an interesting idea before, but the anime overused it in what I can only describe as gimmicky filler Duels early in Zexal II, to the point it got annoying. Then the OCG released RUM, which supported Number C and Chaos Xyz, which was horrifying because Chaos Xyz other than the Number Cs were blatantly gimmicky cards that had no reason to exist and were almost all burn effects. This defeated the point that Chaos Xyz in the anime could defeat Numbers, because there was no real reason to battle a Number most of the time.

 

Limited Force was cool, though, because it could rank up ANY Rank 4 into a Number C, and most of the recent Number C monsters are Rank 5, because they were designed as Rank-Up monsters. Number 105 and Number 106 were both Rank 4s, so the Number Cs will be Rank 5, working with Limited Force. And C39-V is epic, so that's fine.

 

But now...Numeron Force is the exact same thing as Varian Force, except it doesn't Summon Chaos Xyz (my hunch is Konami is scrapping the concept of Chaos Xyz in the TCG/OCG in favor of only releasing Ranked-Up Numbers), and it also does a Neo Galaxy negation, which I'll admit is cool...except guess what other concept Zexal has been abusing like hell?

 

That's right...Negating effects. Especially bad is if it's specifically negating Xyz effects, or monster effects. Hi Neo Galaxy, Sylphine, this card, Coat of Arms, Genom-Heriter, Giant Hand, etc, etc, etc.

 

Congratulations, you've just summed every complaint myself and the entirety of Neo Ark Cradle have against ZeXal. Gimmicky duels that stomp all over their own premises. The Chaos Xyz should have been great Anti-Number weapons in the same wat Galaxy-Eyes was: by exploiting their unique effect, instead of just wiping it out. At least negating effects with Genome Heritor and God Medallion made sense thematically: Tron takes everything away from people, thus so do his Numbers. And the Barian's Force negation effect itself becomes moot when you consider that if you summon a Chaos Number with it, it could destroy a Number by battle anyway. It may have better read:

 

"If the monster summoned with this effect battles a monster: Destroy that monster at the end of the Damage Step."

 

There, see? Gets around the battle protection (the ONLY thing that made Numbers special to begin with, btw, and the TCG took even that away) without spamming negation effects. It's like the writing staff have gotten tired of having to give outs to characters and just said "Screw it, let's just make cards that negate everything". Which isn't surprising after 4 shows, but come on...

 

I think it would've been fine if we didn't have the gimmick characters to begin with, aside from that one biker guy. 5Ds had Dark Synchro, and they did it well enough by using more familiar characters (Ushio) or villains (Kiryu, Rudger, Godwin) to showcase them for the majority. If Giant Hand Red and Caestus hadn't been Numbers, I would've liked the whole situation a lot more. We didn't even need Limited Barian's Force, and to be honest with the way Yuma was acting the last couple of episodes, I would've been ok with a Barian-possessed Yuma, to show that power should not be gained at all costs or some silly moral like that. It would've been development, something that ZeXal has been kinda lacking. If you want gimmick characters, just give them Numbers. It's the premise the show was built on anyway.

 

Dark Synchros were better for another few reasons. 1) They meshed better with the overall feel of character's decks (Underground Arachne, Zeman the Ape King), or allowed them to pull off valuable combos (One-Hundred Eye Dragon, Pitch-Black Zumwaldt). Not being the Boss Monsters for the actual Dark Signers' decks helped. 2) They were in a way their own mechanic, the Tuning scheme literally flipped on its head to produce an exact opposite effect. 3) They weren't meant as anti-Synchro Monsters or anti-Signer Dragons; they were the Dark Signers' own versions of Synchros, making them a counterpart instead.

 

Perhaps the lack of creativity is due to no one wanting to actually write this show anymore

 

It would explain the hair at least

 

That would explain why the manga-exclusive characters' hair styles are actually reasonable (if very Japanese media).

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Congratulations, you've just summed every complaint myself and the entirety of Neo Ark Cradle have against ZeXal. Gimmicky duels that stomp all over their own premises. The Chaos Xyz should have been great Anti-Number weapons in the same wat Galaxy-Eyes was: by exploiting their unique effect, instead of just wiping it out. At least negating effects with Genome Heritor and God Medallion made sense thematically: Tron takes everything away from people, thus so do his Numbers. And the Barian's Force negation effect itself becomes moot when you consider that if you summon a Chaos Number with it, it could destroy a Number by battle anyway. It may have better read:

 

"If the monster summoned with this effect battles a monster: Destroy that monster at the end of the Damage Step."

 

There, see? Gets around the battle protection (the ONLY thing that made Numbers special to begin with, btw, and the TCG took even that away) without spamming negation effects. It's like the writing staff have gotten tired of having to give outs to characters and just said "Screw it, let's just make cards that negate everything". Which isn't surprising after 4 shows, but come on...

 

 

Dark Synchros were better for another few reasons. 1) They meshed better with the overall feel of character's decks (Underground Arachne, Zeman the Ape King), or allowed them to pull off valuable combos (One-Hundred Eye Dragon, Pitch-Black Zumwaldt). Not being the Boss Monsters for the actual Dark Signers' decks helped. 2) They were in a way their own mechanic, the Tuning scheme literally flipped on its head to produce an exact opposite effect. 3) They weren't meant as anti-Synchro Monsters or anti-Signer Dragons; they were the Dark Signers' own versions of Synchros, making them a counterpart instead.

 

 

That would explain why the manga-exclusive characters' hair styles are actually reasonable (if very Japanese media).

Yeah, but the 4Kids dub of Zexal is fucking amazing.

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