PART 9: POWERUPS IN MEDIA (SPECIFICALLY THIS ONE) AND WHY THEY SUCK SHIT

This is a little more generalized of a complaint but something that applies to Symphogear GX as well, because of fuckin' course it does. So every action show eventually feels like it needs to make something fresh happen with the hero(es)'s power set, otherwise it'll get stale (no it won't). As a result, they grant the protagonist(s) with their Super Saiyan 2 form, or put fucking gun bullets on their magic sticks, or whatever. It generally saves the day in fiction, but as far as writing goes it doesn't actually accomplish anything other than create some artificial flashiness. Now that they have this new toy there's no reason for them not to use it constantly, and even if there is a drawback to it in the lore or something, it will never, ever come up.

Again, I like the designs. Just the mode in general is a problem.

In Symphogear GX, Ignite is presented as a high risk, high reward mechanism that can even make the user go berserk if they fail to grasp it. Of course, the first time it's used, Tsubasa and Chris fail to use it and almost fall into despair, but are just fucking dandy and pull it off fine not even 5 minutes later because quality writing. As noted before, after this Maria fully fails and actually goes berserk because she is the designated jobber character which is a real fucking pain in the ass and just makes her look bad because they never have anyone else actually fail it. It's dumb and doesn't work. The mode always comes through when they need it to and there's no tension about it, the viewer knows this.

Not pictured: Her pulling it off just fucking dandy moments later.

So what's even the point of introducing such a low-stakes powerup? Why, to overcome the new super duper omega powerful villains who have everything go right for them and can't possibly lose! Except, oh wait, as I noted in the past (again), the entire PLAN was for them to get the Ignite module and use it on the villains! Ha ha! The powerup was playing into their hands the whole time by making them lose. FUCKING STUPID. What's the point of that? They spend the ENTIRE SEASON on this shit. The pacing suffers SO MUCH because they have to break all the gears and then have every gear overcome the Ignite shit. And it's all revealed as pointless and what Carol actually wanted. Why even animate this? What audience WOULDN'T be incredibly frustrated over this shit? There's no excitement or tension or hype or anything, it's all going through the pointless motions.

WOOOOOOOW IT TOOK 3 OF YOU TO KILL ME. (Except I wanted that haha :^) )

So right after the Ignite module debuts, its power is showcased by them fucking murdering Carol. This is actually super awesome and I was overjoyed the first watch through. But then the real plot becomes mega obvious the following episode and then the one after that it's revealed Carol has another backup body and it was all according to plan hue hue hue. They even try to implement a consequence for the villain jobbing on purpose by having her replacement body "reject" that it's hers every so often because she has memories of dying, but it never means anything because even the one time it WOULD have mattered (getting fucking owned in the underwater relic storage place) is written so convolutedly that the villain is saved anyways. But I've already been over that. So, every single time Ignite is used, there is NO point to it and it's all in the villain's favor.

I threw it out all along it's your garbage to eat thanks for the cursed songs lol!!!

Now ANOTHER thing that bothers me about Ignite. APPARENTLY there's like a million submodes to it that provide even more power but are more dangerous! Except, this only comes up once, and it's near the end of the fucking show, so they just go through every single phase anyways and it results in a different powerup entirely (one familiar to the series' climaxes, X-Drive) showing up. Why write this in at all? Again, no tension to it -- they pace right on through the entire 1000% or whatever in a few moments of screentime. It feels like a concept they WANTED to use but couldn't find a purpose for but still kept it in anyways because some dipshit thought it was cool.

Oh man so climactic. It's like when they climbed through those other phases mere seconds ago.

This powerup was especially troublesome because future Symphogear seasons had to deal with it. After all, why not just use Ignite in every single battle? There's no reason not to. I'll get to that point and how Season 4 kicks GX's fucking ass later though.

Fuck Symphogear GX.

you shut your dumb face, cartridge system was a hundred million times better than ignite ever was

you shut your dumb face, cartridge system was a hundred million times better than ignite ever was

you and i both know it was pointless despite how cool it is

the way it was handled was a million times better in that it did absolutely nothing

is that last image from NGE

you shut your dumb face, cartridge system was a hundred million times better than ignite ever was

cartridge system owned, great power-up for great show
i completely forget what it did but oh well

the thing is though cartridges looked cool and made the action sequences cooler by adding some anticipation and the designs of the weapons actually changed. and the cartridges genuinely let the heroes be equal with the bad guys. none of these things happen with the ignite in symphogear and instead it just sucks

the thing is though cartridges looked cool and made the action sequences cooler by adding some anticipation and the designs of the weapons actually changed. and the cartridges genuinely let the heroes be equal with the bad guys. none of these things happen with the ignite in symphogear and instead it just sucks

Basically the point of my comparison is that no one in Nanoha ever ran out of cartridges and never will run out of cartridges so it's another one of those "this supposedly has a downside but never even once in practice" deals which was part of the complaint I was trying to make.

I thought Vita ran out of cartridges when she was fighting the sandworms, but I might be remembering wrong.

I thought Vita ran out of cartridges when she was fighting the sandworms, but I might be remembering wrong.

She doesn't. No one ever does. It is used as a point as to why some engagements are less than optimal (as they don't want to waste cartridges), but there's usually another plot reason for it too so the whole thing is kind of silly.