First_Tsurugi06
Video Game Engine of War
How did it take so long for me to notice this thread get revived?
Cuz ryu still supases Kratos in Speed, weapons skills, magic, And is on par or sub bar with him in strength in normal form. durability is about the same...They both came back from the dead.
A deeper combat system hardly counts for a higher skill in weapons (besause really, that's the only credible source there is that Ryu's in any way more skilled than Kratos. As I said before, elegance and finnesse =/= superior, if it ever did, then we may as well conclude that the Prince of Persia would curbstomp Kratos), at least in this situation, where we're comparing a Ninja to a guy who takes everything Ryu takes and thensome with that much less (numerically) in terms of weapons. Like Dark-Jaxx had said, Quality over Quantity.
I've still yet to be convinced that Ryu's ninpo comes even close to surpassing Kratos' spells, let alone contending with them par-for-par (the only one that's truly all that impressive is Art of the Hurricane). The Efreet alone is a more devastating fire spell than any of Ryu's fire based ninpo (Hell, on the subject of similar functions, Army of Hades is >>> Art of the Phoenix Flame in every way). Kratos has his own, practically portable answer to Art of the Hurricane in the form of a bow and arrow that can rapidly shoot razor wind blades (which can home in on the target), and can unleash tornadoes that will decimate anything in their way, (and on the subject of Kratos "Not surviving the Art of the Piercing Void", I could just as easily say: "Light of Dawn--Ryu's not gonna survive a rapid barrage of condensed spheres of light that harness the power of the mythical aspects of the sun).
I've also not been convinced by NG2 that Ryu's strength even begins to compare with the likes of Kratos, who can slam fifty-foot long serpents around like ragdolls, wrangle a twenty plus foot tall minotaur rodeo style, and toss 300 foot statues with his bare hands. Ryu's durability is not far beyond humanly possible. Once more, Ryu's only advantage is speed. Anything he has that's simlar to Kratos, it's inferior by clear visual and/or conceptual margin (ESPECIALLY magic).
Also, them coming back from the dead doesn't really speak for their durability, it speaks more for different things considering the means in which they came back to life. For Ryu, he was revived by his spiritual guardian (a falcon) so he couldhave a chance at avenging his village. It hardly spoke for his durability, and it didn't really speak for much at all aside from him having a little bit of back up in case of what I considered an unjust death. Kratos traversing through Hades out of the intention to prevent himself from staying dead speaks more for his tenacity.
Ohhh...I'm glad I revived this thread. But seriously Ryu can take down Kratos. Seriously if Ryu can take pretty much a nuke at point blank range (those giant armadillo turtle things that blow up) then Ryu is pretty durable.And Kratos only defeated Ares using Pandora's Box so plot device was the cause of that god's death.
That's an example of strict gameplay, a case where you don't think canonically, but rationally--as challenging as Ninja Gaiden II is, do you really think that they'd make it so you have to endure the possibility of getting you ass incinerated by an exploding firey armadillo-beast two times in one scene? Anything else is gameplay function alone (even then, you lose an ass-load of health whenever those Spider Clan Ninjas try to do a Kamikaze on you or something). Kratos flying across a city before crashing through a stone roof, and then with the force to crash through the second story of the building before getting back up without a scratch is canon. Admittedly, Ryu soaring through a giant window is a pretty good comparison, but personally, I think tanking a stone roof is more impressive. Not to mention the fact that Kratos didn't have Pandora's box when he fought, and nearly killed Zeus. As of now, the BoO >>> Pandora's Box which is >>> NG universe (the box imbued Kratos with the full power of a God, power enough to kill Ares, but the Blade of Olympus not only killed a Goddess with one stab, but holds Kratos' own God powers, and possibly a little bit of Zeus' power, judging from a scene in the fight). Still, Pandora's Box just makes killing Ryu that much easier for Kratos, who, since you're bringing up explosions, stood in front of 3 explosions before, and was unharmed, one of which was like the armadillo explosion x10.
And on the subject of channeling "chi" into weapons, it is almost irrelelvant to Kratos anyway. However, Kratos can charge-up energy in his Blades of Chaos/Athena's Blades (he's done so at least once or twice when not in-game), be it his own energy or some sort of function for the Blades. The concept itself is not so much an advantage/disadvantage as it is just an add-on. What takes Ryu years of training and mastery of weapons and inner energies takes Kratos his bare hands, chained blades, and a strong enough motive of any kind, reluctant or otherwise.
To quote a friend from Youtube (a few words were minced and added by me): take away Ryu's weapons and ninpo and what do you have? No one incredibly special, really. Courageous, maybe. But he's only on the game-plateu of combat as such goons as the drunkard Brad and clumsy fat-asses like Bass. He's nothing outstandingly powerful - only his sword is. He has the least strength, the least durability, the least impressive acheivements, and is the only real human of the three.
Take away Kratos' weapons and magic, and at least we have a Demigod with divine brute strength, overlooked agility, inhuman stamina, formiddable durability, and a killer instinct that gives him the philosophical views to allow himself to rip people in half with his bare hands, beat them to death with their own arms, or splatter their bodies into pieces by slamming them into the ground among other possibilities. Ryu is more experienced and disciplined with H2H abilities (from what we know), but that does not mean he's more powerful, it doesn't mean he's more skilled, it doesn't even mean he's superior. Ryu's overall lesser physical attributes won't attest well against Kratos, who is >>> DoA in its near-entirety.
Saying Kratos is the weakest of the three is an easy misconecption in a sense, but a misconception it still is. Ryu doesn't have the "most" of anything across the board in a three way (except for maybe weapons), and even between just he and Kratos, Ryu's only faster, which ain't gonna do much against a guy with more AoE versatility than an MMORPG Mage. As I stated earlier, Dante vs. Ryu is a comparison of two statistically similar characters (Kratos vs Ryu is really more of an apples-and-oranges approach), but they're not statistcally equal--Dante's just plain better than Ryu in every way imaginable--speed, strength, agility, versatility, etc. Dante is th apple at the level to contend with the orange that is Kratos, Ryu is the apple that Kratos will devour.
I can really only repeat myself from here on out. At least for now.