Sub-Zero VS Glacius

Oh boy. I've been waiting for this battle for a long time and is one of the few episodes that I didn't need anything prior to hype me up. While I actually haven't played either Mortal Kombat or Killer Instinct, I knew enough about the characters that I was actually not a complete moron going into this so I was pretty excited for this matchup. Let me just say that it was... a huge disappointment. Let's get into the review, shall we?

Analysis

OK the analysis does its job in informing the audience about the characters' backgrounds, arsenals and feats. However, it falls into the same traps before hand that its blatantly obvious who's going to win. I hadn't even started Glacius' rundown when I figured out that Sub-Zero would win because of its blatant usage of the "weakness trap". The Glasius rundown did leave me slightly skeptical when they didn't even calculate his feats while they did calculate Sub-Zero's as I suspected this was them using what I call the "calc omission" trap which is another trap used to make one combatant more powerful then the other via omitting certain information on the latter combatant. But SA usually doesn't use these traps in conjunction so I was still adamant that Sub-Zero would win. And while it also did explain one of Glacius' weaknesses, they went out of their way to put Sub-Zero's in. I mean I wouldn't exactly call being a "mortal man" or having "emotional baggage" as being factors that could work against him in a fight especially one such as Death Battle. The analysis uses up most of its good jokes in the first couple minutes of each rundown and as such they are already used up if you watch the previews. There's only one other joke that's particularly memorable and that's Wiz trying to be funny again which might've worked had Natsu VS Ace not brought it up and used it as a moment of heartwarming between Wiz and Boomstick. I give the analysis a 5/10

Animation

Here is where the bulk of my criticisms lie. The animation is only one minute 44 seconds long and unlike Power Rangers VS Voltron, it doesn't make that time count. I'd like to point out that the last episode that had a less than 2 minute animation was 30 episodes ago with Beast VS Goliath and that animation still has a longer time than this episode. The last episode that had a shorter animation than this was 41 episodes ago with Batman VS Captain America and that was a filler episode to compensate for the huge delay with Godzilla VS Gamera!!

It also suffers some pacing problems which made the animation drag on. The choreography is also a bit off with Glacius standing in one place for the majority of the fight and all of his attacks being animated rather slowly. While I get that this may have been intentional so as to emphasize Glasius' preference to long range attacks, they are just animated too slowly to make it enjoyable. Now I get that this was Kiid's first animation for Death Battle but he also animated Iron Man VS Mega Man X for DBX which was commonly regarded as one of the best animations for DBX at that time. While Iron Man VS Mega Man X had its flaws, one of them wasn't pacing. It was more that Iron Man couldn't get a single solid attack in. 

However he does do some things that are well done. For example the fake out was actually really well done and one of the few things that doesn't suffer from pacing. Its timed perfectly for you to make you think Glacius has won but does not give you enough time to realize that "Oh shit the K.O hasn't appeared!". Surprisingly I think this is the first time that a fake out has been executed perfectly because both Ryu VS Scorpion and Godzilla VS Gamera drags them out long enough for you to realize the fight isn't over. 

Now its by no means a bad animation but it isn't good either. Its just "meh" for me. However, I do think that Kiid has some potential and will look forward to the next time he animates for DB. I mean I was thinking similar things with Jetz when he did Cammy VS Sonya. All the closeups were just too awkwardly placed and timed for it to be enjoyable (in my opinion). Yet skip to Ken VS Terry and there is a drastic improvement. A few animations later and Jetz has become one of SA's best animators if not the best and I think a similar thing could happen with Kiid. But for now I have to give his first DB animation a 5/10.

Conclusion

OK now I know Glacius was the popular vote to win but I don't really have a problem with my preferred character losing provided there is reasonable justification. This episode kinda met me half way. Bringing up all the kinds of opponents that Sub-Zero has fought against doesn't do much when you look at the kinds of opponents that Glacius has faced off against and this bit could've just been a part of the analysis. I will concede that Sub-Zero's reflexes would allow him to easily dodge Glacius' attacks and his teleportation would've made it much easier. I will also concede that Glacius' telepathy would not be able to be utilized in the manner of mind reading as well as Glacius having better defenses. 

However, my main problem with this conclusion is that it yet again uses the 'Test Your Might' mini game fallacy. Test Your Might is a mini game and success is completely dependent on the player's own ability making it a Player Influenced Feat. These feats are typically non-canon and are the reason why Shovel Knight dodging meteors wasn't taken seriously. Its the same as saying 'Mario can die to spikes'. Of course its ridiculous because well 1) its gameplay and 2) Mario didn't hit those spike, YOU did. The same logic has to be used for character feats. Sub-Zero didn't break the titanium statue, YOU did and as such it shouldn't be counted as a feat. 

I can tolerate it being used in MK VS SF fights because SF also has the destroy the car mini game. However, KI doesn't have any such mini games and as such its essentially giving Sub-Zero more feats than he needs. Like I said I'm OK with Sub-Zero winning but the fact that he mainly won because of a mini game is what I'm not OK with. I give the conclusion a 5/10 making this episode barely scrape by with 50%. However, there is a silver lining here and that is that these lower quality episodes help make the higher quality episodes stand out a bit better which I can only hope will be the case with Android 18 VS Captain Marvel.