r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Calvinball08 • 12h ago
Hated Tropes [Hated Trope] Crossovers that fundamentally don’t understand the source material
When a crossover basically does the exact opposite of what the source material clearly lays out because the creators clearly just don’t care about the source material at all.
Emil - Dead by Daylight
The one that inspired this post. Emil as a character is the most hopeful, optimistic, and kind character in the entire NieR series, maybe in all of Yoko Taro’s games (maybe aside from Yonah). His goal is to help as many people as he possibly can and even when he goes through immense suffering he always comes out the other side ready to keep on helping people.
Then Dead by Daylight adds him as a killer skin, because “he looks creepy.” You know, the aspect of the character that’s his biggest struggle, that causes him to be scared of how people will judge him, and that makes him hate himself. That’s what we’ll base our entire concept on. Genius idea.
Iron Giant - Ready Player One
Technically you could argue that it’s not an example because it’s just a part of the game and Wade is the one misunderstanding the source material. To that I raise you that this is actually an in universe example of the trope, with the game including the Iron Giant as a crossover where you can use him as a weapon, thereby misunderstanding the source material.
Also it’s probably the filmmakers completely misunderstanding the source material/not caring as well.
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u/DucktorQuack 12h ago
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u/AbyssWankerArtorias 12h ago
They could have done this with a hybrid or EV and it would have worked. Truly poor marketing
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u/A-V-A-Weyland 10h ago
Apart from the Tribute hybrid in 2008 that created like 300 models for California, Mazda didn't have a hybrid or EV in 2012 (release of the Lorax movie). Wouldn't be until 10 years later before they'd release a full hybrid vehicle outside of Japan, let alone an EV.
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u/Marketableralsei 10h ago
They literally made a joke about using the lorax to advertise cars without his permission IN THE MOVIE lol
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u/HiPPiTY__HoPPiTY__ 11h ago
This one is honestly so baffling that I believe the people behind it knew dann well what they we're doing. I'd bet many people, me included, have never seen a second of this movie (except for the epic "thats a woman?"-joke) but know about this carcrash of an ad.
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u/Jake_Davies1969 10h ago
Reminds me of how Studio Ghibli/Hayao Miyazaki artwork got churned up by AI and used to make slop
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u/QuincyAzrael 12h ago

Here's an example of a time they perfectly AVOIDED this trope.
The third entry in Nintendo's fighting game crossover, Smash Bros Brawl, was the first to feature content from Animal Crossing. But notably, there was no AC playable fighter. This made sense at the time- AC is a cozy game about managing a village, there's no combat at all so it wouldn't really make sense to have an AC fighter.
When 4 came out, though, they announced Villager was coming to Smash. They could have easily done the character a disservice, but all his moves are things you can do in the game- use a net to catch bugs, dig holes, plant and grow trees, etc. When you look closely at his eyes, he's never really focused on his foes, he's always focused on his activity or just kind of looking around at nothing.
The implication is that (in character, anyway) he's not trying to fight anyone, he's doing his normal daily chores and just keeps accidentally hurting the people around him in a 3-stooges style farce. It's a great solution to the problem and adds a level of comedy to the character. Hell, even his victory poses are just him showing off a cool fossil or bug he's found, like he has no idea he's even supposed to be in a fighting competition.
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u/darthphallic 12h ago
The smash team has always been absolutely amazing at translating characters from other genres into fighting games for the most part. Street fighter characters reward combo memorization even though no other smash fighters do that, Hero from DQ gets a RPG menu with various skills, Steve can Minecraft build, etc etc.
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u/DoctorWaluigiTime 9h ago
And the quick rise (and fall) of so many smash clones immediately (and I mean fucking immediately) after Smash Ultimate announced their final character shows that it takes a ton of effort and heart to build a proper "everyone is here."
And it's not as easy as "well we own this bucket of IP so yep, slosh it into the tub with the rest of the bath toys."
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u/darthphallic 8h ago
That is the magic ingredient of smash. As someone who grew up during the late 80’s and 90’s I can’t tell you how many playground arguments there were along the lines of “who would win in a fight, Link or Cloud?” And smash lets us live out those elementary school match ups
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u/JWARRIOR1 11h ago
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u/Starchaser53 10h ago
You make it sound like Sonic can do ANYTHING ELSE
How would they incorporate Boosting, Drifting, Tricks, Powerups, and whatnot into his kit
when all he does in the game is the Spindash, Homing Attack... and that's it
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u/shadowknuxem 9h ago
Before Brawl came out Sonic had two fighting games, multiple examples of creating small tornados or wind attacks, a ground pound/bounce attack, the super peel out, rocket accel, light speed dash/attack. Literally none of these were used for his moveset.
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u/chaarziz 10h ago
Oh it's possible. If he wasn't rushed. Got added last minute into Brawl and while it is very hype it does leave him with a funny part in story mode where he shows up out of the blue and defeats the main villain at the last possible moment
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u/V0ltage0O7 11h ago
Which honestly makes it feel like more of a massive disservice when you end up with characters like Ganondorf who feel like they don’t reflect their base game very well at all.
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u/Budget_Newspaper_489 11h ago
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u/Vergil9931 11h ago
The way Multiversus was handled always saddens me. What a shame that was the ultimate fate of the game
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u/Groovy_Bruce_Lemon 6h ago
that relaunched was so ass, the fucking game ran better on ps4 than ps5. Remaking the game in a new engine fucked everything up in the long run
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u/PowerPad 10h ago
Honestly, T&J were brillantly designed. Tom & Jerry were never fighting the foe, Tom was trying to attack Jerry with the foe being collateral in all his attacks. (Like his up attack, where he'd try to hit Jerry between two trash can lids).
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u/DoctorWaluigiTime 9h ago
A needle of gold in a haystack of being part of the lazy bum-rush to be the next big smash clone / "IP mashes are so popular right now."
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u/Horrorfan55555 12h ago
Multiversus does something similar with Tom and Jerry
All their attacks are Tom missing against Jerry, or using him as a weapon to hurt him
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u/Mr_Ruu 10h ago
god i fucking miss beta multiversus, once they updated it to feel slow as shit, it wasn't fun anymore
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u/V1carium 11h ago
Counterpoint: In the first animal crossing villagers would get upset you hit them, so people beat the hell out of any they didn't like to make room for new ones.
It is incredibly in character for the villager to be an absolute psychopath.
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u/noodleben123 11h ago
and then in the same game they did mega man incredibly dirty by just making him emotionless and robotic
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u/WrongCockroach 10h ago
And also fully mute, even though I believe he never was. Weirdly, this unfitting muteness is shared with Olimar, Isabelle, and Villager himself as well. Smash Bros generally does a fantastic job with the characters, but the misses are very strange.
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u/Ornery_Perspective54 12h ago
Fortnite has Batman and Spider-Man using guns
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u/JoyousLilBoy 12h ago
The funny thing is that the Sonic devs specified it was an android that resembled Sonic, so it’s not like DC had their hands ties
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u/ViralGameover 12h ago
I’m not well versed in Fortnite lore (lol) but isn’t the whole thing that you’re not actually killing anyone, and no one has their memories while on the island? Zero point something something.
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u/MaeBeaInTheWoods 11h ago
According to the official Fortnite lore, entering the Loop (the in-universe gameplay loop of spawning on the island, trying to kill everyone else and not be killed yourself, repeat when you die or win) wipes your memories and knowledge of anything prior to your entry, hinders your ability to speak or commit any new memories or skills to long-term memory, and drains any magic and superpowers you have so you end up on par with the random civilians. Even characters as powerful as Thor could only endure it for a few minutes longer than a normal person.
If you ever escape the Loop (which is much easier said than done), a clone of you called a snapshot is created to fill in that has the same weak cognition as you did when you arrived; snapshots are only ambiguously sapient and are incapable of escaping the Loop or permanently developing their mental abilities.
As the game is a 9-year-old "fuck it the story's always gotta continue no matter how much vamping is involved" title, this has all been broken or ignored at times, but it's never been 100% retconned and is the most complete semblance we have of how the gameplay works in the lore. So, yes, a character being a pacifist or opposed to guns wouldn't matter since they wouldn't (or psychologically couldn't) remember their aversions to said activities.
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u/RegularMovie0900 11h ago
Not super into the lore either, but the funny thing is I mentioned that they dont have memories/arent the real characters in one of their subreddits and apparently Batman is an exception lol. Apparently he's figured out the loop and was trying to figure a way out? Dunno, but that made me laugh.
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u/Calm-Ice-5315 12h ago
I think they have a lore that use as a justification why that happens and if I remember correctly is that the island makes anyone become violent or something, and after the game ends it will make a "copy" of the character that is not essentially them.
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u/Rygod_Gaming 12h ago
To be fair, Fortnite is just a silly game that's not bound by things like story or lore. It's just a bunch of silly skins shooting each other up
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u/bgaesop 12h ago
It's just a bunch of silly skins shooting each other up
I mean that is also what's happening in Ready Player One
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u/FlacidSalad 12h ago
-not bound by things like story or lore
Until Disney needs a promo for Star Wars
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u/RenTroutGaming 12h ago
I don't know the full specifics but Call of Duty allows the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to curb stomp Nicki Minaj while Captain Marvel stabs a streamer to death with Beavis and Seth Rogan looking on.
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u/lennykrevits 12h ago
To make a point about the Emil skin, in DBD purple rarity skins are explicitly cosplays. 2B and A2 were added as legendaries, meaning that is meant to be the character (included is voicelines and such). The Emil skin is just a gaggle of stabby teenagers wearing a costume
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u/DeepLock8808 12h ago
I suspected it was this. I don’t play anymore, but this justification was also good for why Eren Yeager doesn’t turn into a titan. It’s just Dwight wearing a costume.
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u/Horrorfan55555 12h ago
2B and A2 are spare bodies that The Entity took and reanimated if you want to be specific
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u/lennykrevits 12h ago
I actually didnt know that, but I suppose that is what the descriptions are alluding to
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u/Chaotic_Fantazy 8h ago
To add onto that, the entire description of Emil's skin is explicitly about Joey, and his struggles with his loyalty to his found family at The Legion. It honestly has little-to-no colleration with Emil as a character.
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u/ofajhon 6h ago
damn they really do be sending her around like a birthday stripper
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u/lennykrevits 6h ago
R6, Blazblue, DBD, SC6, I'm sure that's not even the half of it. She has been getting pimped out for crossover bucks for ages
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u/DoubleClickMouse 9h ago
I wondered why a game with literal ghosts and monsters would have Emil just be a guy in skeletal body paint, instead of giving him an actual skeletal body. Maybe it's actually Yoko Taro.
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u/happy_grump 12h ago
Minor case for DBD: Hunk is a skin for Legion, a class that uses a knife as its primary weapon... when the entire point of Hunk in ResE is that he DIDN'T have the knife all the other characters do, and relied on neck snaps to take people out melee.
I can forgive this one more because there arent any SMG killers in DbD, but it still annoys me.
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u/The-Not-So-Great-One 12h ago
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u/Grand_Chadmiral 11h ago
Yeah it actually is. It's confusing at first glance when you try to differentiate what cosmetics count as separate characters and what aren't. It's usually the legendary ones but then you have like all the different xenomoprhs with Grid being totally separate, you also got regular Ripley and her clone Ripley 8... Then you got Chris Redfield but you also got Felix cosplaying Chris... it's a mess
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u/Spicy_Totopo3434 12h ago
RE4 and Revelations hunk had the hidden blade and Boot blade
He could have been using those instead of a normal knife
Hell, if custom moris were a thing, Neck Snap before doing the "Triple Tap" execution would have been better than just reusing the legion's mori
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u/AlterMyStateOfMind 12h ago
Guess it works now since RE9 had Leon and Hunk have a knife fight lol
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u/happy_grump 12h ago
Even then, those were hand axes!
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u/AlterMyStateOfMind 12h ago
Oh shit, you're right! I'm stoned af and got it mixed up with the Krauser fight lmao
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u/R0b0uteGuilliman 12h ago
All of Ready Player One is literally just 98% references and 2% story… The book is even worse.
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u/PeppercornWizard 12h ago edited 12h ago
“Wade moved North, just like in Zork. His friends were behind him, just like a Centipede. They moved quickly, like the sprites in Joust. He thought about playing Dungeons and Dragons, he had moved North sometimes in that too. He felt a Rush (like the band) as he moved 2112 steps forward… was this Pac-Man? Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Atari Pong Zeppelin. Godzilla Godzilla.”
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u/muscularrooster 11h ago
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u/Assortedwrenches89 9h ago
This is trustworthy since it references the color instead of the flavor.
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u/Known-Reserve-7513 3h ago
They have flavors? I just know light blue is the best
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u/Nerdwrapper 10h ago
“Godzilla Godzilla” is my new favorite sentence in the english language
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u/pupetmeatpudding 4h ago
my brain immediately heard "Godzilla Godzilla" to the tune of "Maria Maria" by Santana
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u/cheung_kody 12h ago
No way that's a real quote
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u/Mikaelious 11h ago
Fortunately nah, I don't think it is
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u/WJMazepas 11h ago
Maybe it is, maybe it isnt
We'll never know
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u/Kogah 9h ago
This reminds me of an old scene in one of the bad scary movies where she is speaking “Japanese.”
Cindy: "Hibachi, Benihana, Teriyaki” etc
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u/EpilepticMushrooms 1h ago
It's a scary movie parody of horros and slashers, called Scary Movie. I think the one you are referencing is the 4th in the franchise.
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u/JustMadeThisToWarn 10h ago
"The fact that he knew all these references made
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u/LazyEights 12h ago edited 12h ago
Somehow out of all the shallow references in the book the thing that bothered me most was the main character walking into an arcade and casually getting a perfect score in Pac-Man
For reference, a perfect score wasn't achieved in Pac-Man until almost 20 years after it came out, and requires a 6+ hour marathon of memorized lines and highly technical play. 11 people total have been confirmed to have done it. Hobbyists dedicate years to just attempting it, and with no prep the main character just casually walks into an arcade and does it as a distraction from what he's actually supposed to be doing.
And of course his random, unplanned, first try effort at one of the most difficult arcade game challenges ever gives him the Deus Ex Machina extra life item that saves him at the end of the book.
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u/jtaulbee 12h ago
I don't think that "no prep" is accurate. Wade had dedicated his life to mastering every video game that could potentially be part of the hunt. Is it unrealistic that someone spreading their time across so many games could get a perfect score on Pac Man? Sure, but I'd hardly call it a random, unplanned effort.
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u/LazyEights 11h ago
Sure, and I'm sure he would have had played Pac-man as part of that.
But it's roughly the equivalent of "I go to the rock climbing gym every day. So, feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything going on in my life, I decided to relax by solo climbing Everest without oxygen".
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u/MobofDucks 9h ago
And it is still more believable than being a perfect standin for a character in a Wargames.
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u/extinct_cult 10h ago
Reminds me of that NCIS (or one of its spin offs) scene, where the cops find some super nerd, who reportedly has the high score in every online game, ever.
Lets leave out the fact that games don't really have high scores anymore, whatever. I remember some dude completed every achievement in WoW (in 2018) and had around 3 years /played between their characters.
But now do that in Everquest. And Guild Wars. And Elder Scrolls Online. And every korean grindfest game. And on and on...
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u/ServantOfTheSlaad 11h ago
The problem is, many games have specific things you need to learn. Having good aim will help in every shooter game, but being good at Call of Duty won't make someone good at Overwatch and visa versa. Just mastering video games means it will still take a lot of effort to get a perfect score on Pacman
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u/Durzaka 11h ago
First, Wade is a child. And the egg hunt isnt even that old at the start of the story.
There are hundreds if not thousands of games to play, on top of TV shows to consume, movies to watch.
Yes, I am sure he has played pac man as it is one of the more formative games in gaming history. But to play a perfect game is something that requires dedication. Practice. You literally cannot just sick down and do it, as evidence of how many people have accomplished it at this point.
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u/throwawaymycareer93 5h ago
Yeap. It is sort of similar to beating Tetris. You can be a seasoned pro player and still never achieve that particular milestone.
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u/Away_Foundation2281 12h ago edited 12h ago
I heard the book was better !!?
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u/SampledPlains72 12h ago
You'd read it thinking this is an amazing greatest piece of satire, until about half way through when you realize it's not. You think it's satire about the type of guy that talks himself up on forums, thinks memorizing movie quotes is important, hypocritical about others hiding their appearance while doing the same, etc. It's not. The author wrote this character to be the hero.
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u/RenTroutGaming 12h ago
Solid take.
The ending is the same. The author goes "We can just make everyone into white men, and then racism and sexism will be ended!" and as you keep reading you realize that the author isn't making a joke or setting up the real end, this is what he thinks is a win.
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u/Chasingtheimprobable 12h ago edited 9h ago
Dont forget fighting addiction to the digital world by instituting a "time out" of like one day a week
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u/SampledPlains72 11h ago
Have you read his slam poetry about women in porn? It's painful. So derogatory while he thinks it's empowering.
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u/nicnat 4h ago
Is that the same one where he goes off about his really weird pedestal he puts nerdy girls on?
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u/ERedfieldh 9h ago
But only after getting more money than god and a hot girlfriend.
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u/Chasingtheimprobable 9h ago
Obviously. Because hes so smart and original and has the best, coolest references.
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u/Pathetic_Cards 12h ago
Eh, I liked it. But my standards are kinda low. It was a fun read, it definitely wasn’t a literary masterpiece.
I like it better than the movie because it at least feels like it’s pulling from the author’s genuine affection for the things it’s referencing, the film feels a little more soulless. But the back half of the book is a little soulless too, so… yeah.
It’s not a long book, it’s fine. If it were any longer it probably wouldn’t be, which is why I imagine the sequel is not well-liked.
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u/HomerJunior 11h ago
The first book is a (somewhat clumsy) love letter to 80s pop culture and is one of the worst books I've ever loved. The second book exists because Cline got a contract to make one, and I gave up on it within 2 chapters - specifically due to a 867-5309 reference that was then called out in the narration just in case we missed it, instead of letting the obvious reference sit on its own.
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u/realkrestaII 11h ago
The book is still bad, but the design of the oasis as a video game and the Easter egg makes more sense than in the movie.
Additionally, the book feels like it is made with a sincere appreciation of nerd culture, kind of like if you stretched Daicon 4 out into a novel length work.
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u/Muad-_-Dib 10h ago
The book is still bad, but the design of the oasis as a video game and the Easter egg makes more sense than in the movie.
I'm still not over the idea that in multiple years, nobody at all, at any point, drove backwards on a race track that has a proven 100% fail rate when you drive forwards.
Put an easter egg like that into a modern game with less than 100,000 players never mind the billions that RP1 imagines, and they would solve that shit by accident within 10 minutes.
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u/JuanRunJunior 9h ago
I see people defend that idiocy by saying “dying costs money, you lose everything when you die!” saying no one would risk getting killed by doing random dumb things. It costs a quarter to start an account and IOI had thousands upon thousands upon thousands of accounts solely dedicated to finding it. Spending $500 and doing everything you could think of and IOI would have found that first clue in a matter of seconds. They had literal cannon fodder, no way it wouldn’t have been found immediately.
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u/MatTheScarecrow 11h ago
I thought the book was better.
Probably because I read it first before watching the movie.
But I'll readily admit it's a low-calorie book; fun stuff, I like Rush, oh nice; teenagers beating the system through nostalgia and the media they love. Great.
And then it leaves no lasting impression beyond having enjoyed it. Like watching a 6/10 PG-13 action movie.
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u/DepressedPluto 12h ago
Nah the book is trash. One of the worst reads ive ever done and I read through all of my Immortal
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u/FalconMangold 12h ago
It would be my least favorite book I've ever finished if Ready Player 2 didn't exist
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u/DepressedPluto 12h ago
You are way more adventurous then me. You could not pay me to read ready player 2
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u/Innate-E 12h ago
One of the rare instances where it isn't
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u/Away_Foundation2281 12h ago
But I saw people glazing book like how it does puzzles better. But yea the movie does look great
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u/Restivethought 12h ago
I liked a few things better in the book. Specifically I liked Wargames being used over The Shining as it made more sense to me for James Halliday's character.
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u/Ok-Outlandishness729 12h ago
The conversations in that book made me wonder if the author had ever actually talked to another human being in real life before
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u/no_name_thought_of 12h ago
It depends on what you like. The book certainly has more substance to it, but if you dislike what its going for that will make you like it less.
Personally I think it's got a lot of flaws but is definitely worth a read, even just as something throwaway.
Now ready player two on the other hand is just god awful.
The movie changed loads, so much that besides the base concept they're barely the same, which is ok because the book's storyline wouldn't work for a film at all.
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u/Current-Role-8434 10h ago
I was once stuck on an 8 hour train ride with a dead phone and I found a copy of that hook under the seat. Aside from the miserable train ride that book read like it was written by a now extinct form of redditor. Like a parody of every redditor stereotype coated with so many pop culture references it makes listening to online discourse over hazbin hotel preferable.
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u/Born_Procedure_529 12h ago
The Iron Giant wasnt even supposed to be in the movie, they just couldnt get the rights to Ultraman cause the Chaiyo lawsuit was still ongoing
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u/DecepticonChris 9h ago
He was never a villain. He was just a guy from Russia that loves to fight and that's it.
The writer admit he had a grudge against Zangielf because he always lose to him and to him, he's a bad guy.
Heck, the 90s movie somehow ended up more faithful because he was a "good" man who really thought M. Bison was a hero till they pointed out he's the villian. He quickly changed sides.
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u/teskar2 10h ago
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u/descendingangel87 8h ago
It’s funny because the entire premise of the ep is Family Guy is a derivative of The Simpsons but ends with pointing out the Simpsons is a derivative of The Flintstones.
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u/melodia_triste 7h ago
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u/Main_Brilliant7753 6h ago
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u/melodia_triste 6h ago
This is even worse, somehow
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u/Main_Brilliant7753 6h ago
The most soulless, cheap, mass produced products forced down the throats of consumers devouring the shelves of pop culture stores like mold, Johnny had his form boiled down into the very symbol of consumerism, all for like 30 bucks
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u/Resolution-Double 6h ago
Ngl I bought it because him as a skin is just so hilariously ironic and hilarious to think that this is the shit arasaka would do to AIs trapped in Mikoshi lmao
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u/SquareFickle9179 5h ago
Ironically in the lore of Fortnite, the island is basically Mikoshi with it's players being copies of their original selves, forced to endlessly fight in the Battle Royale.
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u/Resolution-Double 4h ago
Oh shit really? Lmao thats even funnier, i should probably watch a story recap for fortnite someday
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u/BornCoyote87 7h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/mBvUaCuDPEXNnIk2NK
"We got a city to burn" reduced to the biggest corpo slop microtransaction is...surprisingly ironic, considering the corporate dystopia of Cyberpunk and how close to that future we all are. But without the fun prosthetics bits.
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u/Hazzamo 2h ago
Friendly reminder that in Cyberpunk… if you have a trauma team membership, they’re garunteed to pay up to 90% of the costs… so… technically trauma team is less evil then some medical insurance companies
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u/Arbusc 6h ago
His options were either take V’s body, go to a Gatcha game, or Fortnite.
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u/mildly_anonymous 7h ago
I love how you just plopped him down without comment. None needed.
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u/No-Opinion273 11h ago
That's not Emil, that's Yoko Taro tired of being asked to make another Nier
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u/GuyYouMetOnline 12h ago
I dont know, is that actually supposed to be Emil? Because my first thought on seeing that image is that it was Yoko Taro himself.
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u/Magatsu-Onboro 12h ago
That's literally exactly what it is, it was based on a cosplay that Yoko Taro did. In game they still play the Legion voicelines that obviously don't match Emil at all, it's very clearly not supposed to actually be the same character
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u/Spiral_Pix 12h ago
I kinda think Emil works for Legion because they are the type of posers that wouldn't have actually played Nier and just think the outfit is cool. Unless the skin is implying it IS Emil? But someone like the Legion killers not understanding a complex character makes total sense.
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u/Due-Ingenuity9803 12h ago
Ready Player One is Vrchat the Movie
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u/L3XAN 11h ago
I think that's why I find the Iron Giant criticism kind of dumb. The characters don't make any claim to be faithful to the spirit of the original story, it's literally just a skin made by a modder.
Like if you needed to win a fight to stop your favorite game from being bought by Meta, then sure, mod in Superman and have him kill the bad guys.
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u/Calm-Ice-5315 12h ago
What's so funny about the Nier crossover is that they could make it into the Halua/Number 6 boss fight (aka the one responsible to make Emil who he is), and they wouldn't have to change much.
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u/RenTroutGaming 12h ago
If you want a solid counter-example, there is a Final Fantasy VII expansion pack for Power Wash Simulator. You can wash Cloud's bike from the chase, a model of Midgar, and a couple other FFVII items. There are some light dialog and descriptions included. Well, it turns out that the lead writer for the game reviewed and approved the final implementation, making sure it was all lore accurate. Crazy effort considering the game itself is highly satirical and there is almost no story.
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u/AltruisticWin6702 10h ago
Power Wash Simulator has such a weird amount of lore, but none of it really matters because all you do is wash. "Did you know that the mayor was-" "Don't care. Cleaning tree fort."
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u/RenTroutGaming 10h ago
Yeah, its also presented as text messages that are impossible to read while you are actually cleaning.
The lore is super fun but you need to go back after the mission and read to catch up since its impossible while actually doing the cleaning.
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u/_InNeedofAdvice 11h ago
I already know that a lot of people are going to point out that the Emil in Dbd is just Joey cosplaying. And you know what? They sorta have a point. Legion is a group of outcasts who feel out of place and I could see them playing Nier and sympathizing honestly with ALL of the protagonists, especially Emil and Kaine.
However.
The DBD crossover with Nier Automata was a crossover with AUTOMATA. Yes Emil is in Automata but the Emil we get is Replicant/Gestalt Emil. And the thing that frustrates me even further is that we got 3 skins in the crossover, and for some reason, they chose Emil instead of 9S, you know, the THIRD PROTAGONIST OF AUTOMATA. I would go even further to say that 9S makes even more sense as a skin for legion than Emil or an Emil cosplay does.
9S physically matches legion, looking like a teenage boy.
He uses a blade, which could easily be broken or something to be made into a knife.
He has a similar mentality to legion: feeling betrayed by a system that was supposed to support them and make things make sense, which leads them to feel like outcasts. They answer this feeling of loneliness, angst, and betrayal with violence and rebellion.
9S literally goes mad through the final act of Nier: Automata, meaning he would be easy fodder for the entity to trick into becoming a servant.
9S is literally the perfect candidate for a legion skin, but they went with Emil in an Automata crossover. It feels baffling.
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u/Inner-Common9073 10h ago
9S would probably make more revenue as a Survivor, it's hard to imagine his base form being a killer, since most people who know Nier Automata haven't actually played the games. He just isn't that scary or imposing, and he just isn't nearly as popular as 2B.
That being said, I do agree that it would make sense. He is arguably the most involved and overall protagonist of Automata as a whole.
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u/Pathetic_Cards 12h ago
I’d actually argue that the Iron Giant is understanding the source material 110% perfectly. Ditto for the Gundam.
The Iron Giant doesn’t want to be a weapon. Gundam has always been anti-war.
And yet, we have Mega-Fortnite selling them as weapons that the characters are using in this war over the future of the game.
Meanwhile, in real life, characters like Spider-man and Batman are added as skins in real Fortnite, where they kill people with guns. Despite the fact that these characters famously do not kill people or use guns. But you bought the skin so who cares?
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u/Pescarese90 12h ago
Furthermore, the Iron Giant IS a weapon. He was built and created as a walking mass-destruction weapon, but his amnesiac time spent with Hogarth made a miracle and changed his nature.
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u/The_1Oth_Doctor 10h ago
Same with the Gundam. It’s a weapon of mass destruction created to end the war with Zeon, but in the process it creates a bloody cycle of wars and destruction. In RP1 it’s just a big mech fighting Mechagodzilla.
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u/huckslash 11h ago
the Iron Giant example doesn't work anyway because the Oasis isn't offering him as an item, it's a custom build by a player in the Oasis using normal game features. you could argue the character doesn't understand him, but the Oasis/movie aren't really taking a stance at all.
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u/LagginJAC 10h ago
I'd even argue it's the most accurate thing in that movie. Someone who likes the iron giant movie made the build and then takes it as an item they're bringing to this event? Sounds 100% plausible for a real actual person to do that. Like at that point it's just an item and an avatar, the person using it doesn't care about his symbolism, they just want to block a missile and go "superman"
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u/Mae_Day_of_Sharkadia 12h ago
I don't get why everyone gets so up in arms about the Iron Giant. The OASIS is Fortnite meets Second Life. Batman doesn't use guns, yet he's in Fortnite. It's something that's meant to pander to players no matter how ridiculous. That's how I've always looked at it. Cuz that construct may look like the Iron Giant, but it's not actually him.
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u/Actual_Squid 12h ago
....ya know, when I think "what horror ip should be added to dbd" I can't say I would ever think Nier to be the answer
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u/JustAnotherTiandi 7h ago
Wasn't Emil originally made to be a killer, and actively chooses to be a good person despite that? I remember folks saying something like that, but I'm not experienced in Neir to commit to those words. If so, it would fall in line just like how the Entity got that anime guy to be a killer despite being a hero there. The skin was called Emil's purpose, not Emil.
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u/FaliureToCat 10h ago edited 9h ago
Wasnt the iron giant a commission not a crossover
Iirc it was a custom mech that a (unknown?) player wanted that wades team (one of wich created the mech) used and subsequently destroyed it before delivery
The game to our knowledge never actually included the iron giant as the oasis is more or less just a framework for players to create whatever they want Kinda like roblox I guess
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u/midnight_riddle 5h ago

Kingdom Hearts 3 seriously thinks that Hiro's combat chip (which got left behind in the other dimension along with Baymax's original body) is the Heart of Baymax and not Tadashi's healthcare chip.
Which misses the POINT so much it's not funny. Someone at Square-Enix was half-asleep watching the movie.
So you got KH3 with Hiro fretting and crying...over his own fuckass combat chip, sometimes while the REAL Baymax is right next to him. And no, Hiro is not crying over the damage his combat chip is doing as Evil Baymax: the narrative actually treats it as if the real Baymax got taken over by Darkness.
Then the game walks everything back anyways! When Evil Baymax dies, Hiro just clones Tadashi's healthcare chip and pops it in the second body and yaaaaaay we got two Baymaxes again. It's not like anyone DIED at all, right? It's not like the game spent two hours trying to convince you to give a fuck about this awful chip before it got destroyed. Nahhhh, that would be just plain STUPID. Yaaaaaaaaaay.
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u/TeddyBearToons 3h ago
Honestly when I watched the movie I totally could see Evil Baymax happening. The loneliness of being stuck in the portal dimension combined with whatever is in the combat chip would make a really creepy sequel villain. But that was it. The combat chip isn't Baymax, it's the healthcare chip. That's the entire point of the movie is that Baymax is fine. What happened to the other body, and what would happen if it somehow came back, is an interesting but different idea. If it did come back, it'd be something else.
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u/humantyisdead32 2h ago
The combat chip is part of Baymax's heart, the dark part. But hearts in Kingdom Hearts are both light and darkness. Dark Baymax is an intentional mirror to both Vanitas and Dark Riku. Like Vanitas to Ventus, he's the dark part of Baymax ripped away and given its own form. Like Dark Riku, Dark Baymax is like a snapshot of when Baymax was at his worst and most destructive.
Besides, I feel like the original movie kept it ambiguous whether Baymax 2 was a copy of Baymax 1 or Baymax reborn in a new body. I think it's the former. To me, the chips aren't the totality of Baymax's consciousness but a set of instructions that tells him how to act.
Again, in Kingdom Hearts terms, the two chips represent the light and dark halves of Baymax's heart. Dark Baymax being saved works as an intentional parallel toward Riku's journey away from the dark throughout the series. It's actually one of the most interesting ways KH has used a Disney world.
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u/Level_Counter_1672 12h ago
The Rick and morty crossover in space jam 2, it was so bad that the orginal Rick and morty killed this version of themselves
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u/Beaticalle 10h ago
this is actually an in universe example of the trope, with the game including the Iron Giant as a crossover where you can use him as a weapon, thereby misunderstanding the source material.
I thought Ready Player One was like Second Life and players could upload their own models and stuff. It's not the developers of the game who made an Iron Giant crossover, it's some player who decided to create his own in-game Iron Giant. Am I misunderstanding the premise of the movie?
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u/ComprehensiveBox6911 12h ago
Probably a hot take, but all of Fortnite. 90% of all the crossover characters in the game are not shooting people and doing Tiktok dances
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u/smorgasbard 12h ago
The Hunger Games Subway ad. Truly one of the funniest things
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u/Ok-Scientist-2111 12h ago
What’s odd about the Dead by Daylight one is that if you look at the cosmetic description, it only talks about The Legion’s backstory with barely any mention of Emil’s
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u/First-Shallot947 12h ago
Thats because its not actually emil, its a killer doing a crossplay, the legion is a group of edgy teenagers who committed a murder and wandered into the entity realm. They are the exact kind of people who would use emils face because its creepy
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u/bonelees_dip 12h ago
Dbd cosmetic crossovers can be divided into legendaries and cosplay.
A legendary is the character itself, as such the description is about the character (Geralt, James, Lilith, etc)
Cosplays are the original dbd cast using, for whatever reason, clothes of the licensed characters, as such the description will try to explain how they ended up with them (Emil Legion, Ciri Sable, 90% of Yui's cosmetics, etc)
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u/EcnavMC2 11h ago
Yeah, so the Emil thing isn’t a good example of this trope. It’s literally just a guy in a costume.
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u/the_direwolf_uwu 11h ago
The Emil in DbD is not the Emil from the games. It's one of the Legion members dressed as Emil.
And with both Emil and Iron Giant, it's a character using a skin of the character. In Ready Player One, the Iron Giant is just an in-game item a player is using.
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u/AustralianDeadMate 11h ago
emil in dbd isnt even an emil costume as others have said - it's actually a costume of fucking yoko taro lmao
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u/darthphallic 12h ago
I never understood the appeal of ready player one, it just felt like the most shameless nostalgia slop ever.
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u/WoodenFig7560 12h ago
For the second case, while true that it goes against what the movie was about... He's still an iconic character that lot's of people love who has shown to have immense potential for destruction..
Also he's a giant robot, so ofcourse people are going to want to play him. Even if it is no way supported by the source material
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u/New_Cockroach_505 12h ago
Emil feels like a bad take. His clones are enemies in the game. His outfit is also a cosplay on a killer, not the actual character. It’s also not a narrative thing, it’s purely a crossover for fun.
So the argument would be Legion is cosplaying a character that doesn’t fit his personality which…. Doesn’t really mean much?
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u/notTheRealSU 12h ago
Not to mention that BHVR works with the companies they license from, they don't just license and then do whatever. This was just as much as choice by Square Enix as it was BHVR
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u/elchuni 10h ago
Man, too many people are arguing here instead of sharing examples.
My controversial pick is Sanji from One Piece whenever he is used on videogame crossovers with no input from Oda, this requieres a hell of context so bear with me.
Sanji is pretty known for being a womanizer and even a pervert in some cases, hence his infamous gag. However, he respects women at heart and that's due to his mother's love and the care from Zeff, his adoptive (and real) father. Due to the latter, he made a promise to never kick a woman in his life, not because of misoginistic reason like seeing them as weak but because he respects Zeff to the point of willing to give his own life for him, a core character detail about how little he values his own life.
Because of this weakness, he made a statement to Usopp that perfectly encapsules how the strawhats collaborate each other: "Everyone has things they can and cannot do. I'll do what you can't do, and you do what I can't do".
This phrase is more important that people gives credit for because it also tells you that every strawhat has an important role in the crew. Nami and Robin, the only female strawhats, are the perfects examples of this because without them the plot freezes on the spot, Nami as the navigator is the reason why the crew managed to reach so far into the Grand Line, a sea that not even the Marine was able to conquer, Robin as the archeologist is the key to find the One Piece, do you get what I mean with this?
I can keep talking about how much this detail matters for hours but at this point you understand why this weakness matters for Sanji's character, it makes you understand better how he sees women.
Sadly, crossovers do not make justice to this, instead when he gets forced into a fight against a female character he acts like a creep with heart eyes, even worse if the oponent is a minor (ugh). Yes, Sanji in One Piece does act with heart eyes too but if you compare the manga with the crossovers, the difference is day and night.

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u/Different_Ad4306 7h ago
IIRC, Jump Force had a mechanic where Sanji couldnt attack any of the like 2 female characters
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u/4QUA_BS 12h ago
The Dbd one is pretty funny as an avid Nier enjoyer. It's comical how much that ignores the ENTIRE personality and character of Emil
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u/AshamedIncrease6942 11h ago
It’s because that’s not actually Emil. Cosmetic collabs fall into one of two categories with DbD. Either Legendary, where it’s actually the character themselves, see Geralt, Hinako, etc. and cosplays, which are just the original DbD characters dressing up. 2B and A2 are legendary, Emil is just a member of the Legion, a group of edgy teenagers, in cosplay.
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u/Vounrtsch 12h ago
In Ready player one, the iron giant isn’t an item in the game, it’s modded content that Ash made as a commission
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u/zebus_0 10h ago
In any of those forums I'd get annihilated for it mostly but Universes Beyond coming to magic. I.E. all of the non-magic IPs from Walking Dead, to My Little Pony, to Spongebob, to Fallout, and on and on are now magic sets and products. Mostly, from an on-the-ground actually playing the game level not much has changed. Especially if you play EDH its really the same as it has always been plus some themed IP decks and a couple standout cards. Symbolically I think it's the worst decision that they have ever made for the game. It completely diluted any attempt they would have at showcasing their own stories (which frankly, were never good, but that is a different conversation) and it is just such a shameless, absolutely soulless cash grab that has completely killed any brand integrity that they had before. The game is more expensive than ever, the Pokemon and card "investor" crowd has taken interest since the LOTR and Final Fantasy sets and it's not died down since. Every set sells out and sells like hotcakese and is the "best set ever!" from WotC's point of view but anyone that is an oldhead that hobby you used to love has left you far, far behind.
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u/True-Obligation-9471 11h ago
10000 million years of Kratos vs Asura discourse-
Or wait wrong sub Reddit
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u/Sweet_Xocoatl 12h ago
Considering The Entity from Dead By Daylight is known to corrupt and trick people into doing its bidding it’s not far fetched for Emil to be a Killer. Like, Ken Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul isn’t an evil person but The Entity puts him in a constant state of hunger so he’d attack Survivors.
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u/darkcomet222 10h ago
What if that isn’t Emil, but is just Yoko Taro himself, and he thinks the survivors are hiding lewd 2B art from him.
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u/noah_the_boi29 11h ago
They took the map from Silent hill 1, the killer from 2, and the survivor for 3. Even if it's not thematically perfect I prefer multiple things in the franchise getting rep.
Also James got in during a later crossover too.















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u/THE_LEGO_FURRY 12h ago
The Walmart grinch ads "Christmas doesn't come from a store, perhaps Christmas means a little bit more".... Nah it's all here at Walmart "Who knew"
https://giphy.com/gifs/ahZZZZFGLGhvq