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Post by sackeshi on May 25, 2022 11:54:42 GMT -5
They should have replaced the spider climb with a salmon ladder and kept the 30 second time limit, it would have taken longer for the course to be beaten.
Stage 1 fell appart after they replaced the the Pole Maze with the circle slider, cirtian slider and x bridge which got progressively worse. The second stage got better the refusal to change the 3rd state up was meh and then an arguably easier final stage than in Sasuke 5-17.
It's like they ran out of ideas and it was sad. Only thing they did was make the final jump larger.
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Post by subtleagent on May 25, 2022 12:34:52 GMT -5
Tbf, four tournaments with no final is going to cause viewers to leave and 19 - 21's Stage 1 was far from easy. Even with nerfs, it only got 14 clears in 3 tournaments with Nagano and Levi being the only ones to beat it twice.
And the Final Ring would have been impossible given trying to build momentum with a ring at a dead stop would have taken another minute and Nagano barely got to the end anyway. I personally would have flipped the ring another way and kept the Flying Chute and made the Slider Jump the final obstacle instead of the penultimate one, but all in all 22 - 24's Stage 1 wasn't THAT much easier given it still wiped the floor with some top competitors.
If any I think Stage 3 was the weakest stage for Shin-SASUKE. The first half was laughably easy and resultantly anyone who figured out the second half was a guaranteed clear. And Jumping Bars + Hang Climbing + Spider Flip was nothing to scoff at even if the Gliding Ring was terrible and only took people out through freak circumstances bar Kongu and even he only failed cause he rushed it.
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Post by dakohosu on May 25, 2022 13:19:02 GMT -5
Not sure I'd say it fell apart after 21, given that 22 had fewer clears than 21 due to the Slider Jump; I agree the Circle Hammer replacing the Pole Maze was pretty dumb though.
I do think after 22 though they felt like they'd made their point with Shin-Sasuke's difficulty spike and wanted to change things up. All of the prior Shin-Sasuke tournaments had had very low numbers of Stage 1 clears, which as aforementioned provided that 'shock value' especially compared to the late Golden Era tournaments but would have become really monotonous after a while (although 22's field was pretty interesting as all 5 clears were breakout runs despite there being so few).
Either way, for 23, they made Stage 1 a bit easier to get a larger number of new faces' foots in the door (which worked as loads of STQ-ers cleared), but then buffed Stage 2 which had had a near-100% clear rate in the tournament prior, to still maintain the illusion that the course hadn't 'gone soft', and further buffed it for 24 by connecting the Salmon Ladder and Unstable Bridge.
I do agree that Stage 3 was a bit of a perplexing choice in many ways, though I don't think this was exclusive to after 21 specifically, rather the entire era. Firstly they keep the Arm Rings despite it only being introduced specifically as an obstacle easier than one introduced in the last, supposedly way easier era. Then the Kudari Lamp Grasper and Devil Steps were arguably easier than the Body Prop and standard Lamp Grasper, again a combo that was in the 'easier' era. My hunch is that they intentionally did this just to guarantee someone would reach and fail the Shin-Cliffhanger (similar to how they made 28's first half unfailable to guarantee a CCH attempt), but I feel like once you've made your point, you can make the first half harder, but they just didn't whatsoever.
24 I think was the most egregious example of this; we'd just had a tournament where 5 had passed the previously demonised SCH, 2 competitors had cleared the stage, and Nagano had narrowly missed a Kanzen despite the time limit being impromptu reduced by 5 seconds, yet they still did nothing except introduce the Rope Junction which did f*** all damage lol. My only hunch was that they wanted a Kanzen, otherwise, they would've spruced Stage 3 up a fair bit. Hell, even Inui has been better at modifying Stage 3 than Shin-Sasuke, though I'm fully aware most of these have been Cliffhanger-focussed lol.
Don't get me wrong, I am an advocate of progression, otherwise, Sasuke would've died years ago if the course fought back everytime someone did well, resulting in stagnating results. But I've always felt that more than 1 Stage 3 clear is a hint for some kind of change-up, like how they did with Sasuke 14, or Sasuke 9, for example. The producers know what they're doing though, so clearly they wanted a win....
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Post by subtleagent on May 25, 2022 14:20:49 GMT -5
Wouldn't surprise me if they did. 24 was a New Year's Tournament with a new car as their prize. They must have really wanted to sell that car.
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Post by sackeshi on May 25, 2022 14:50:06 GMT -5
I keep hearing this about viewership declining with lack of success but is there any evidence? Do people only watch to see a winner? Just seems weird.
I agree that the slider just should have gone onto the final net.
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Post by dakohosu on May 25, 2022 14:56:53 GMT -5
I keep hearing this about viewership declining with lack of success but is there any evidence? Do people only watch to see a winner? Just seems weird. I agree that the slider just should have gone onto the final net. I mean yes. Sasuke 21’s ratings were the lowest ever historically; from 18 to 21 it had dropped from high teens to like 12%, then picked up again for 22 and 23, no doubt influenced by the fact that someone finally cleared Stage 3 and some tangible progress was being made. Obvs the ratings really tanked after that, but that was more due to there being 3 tournaments in the space of 6 months from 23-25, which fundamentally resulted in the show’s pending cancellation. In fact, ever since 24, the ratings have never truly recovered from that decline. The recent tournaments are getting high single digits at best. |
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Post by sackeshi on May 25, 2022 18:19:41 GMT -5
I keep hearing this about viewership declining with lack of success but is there any evidence? Do people only watch to see a winner? Just seems weird. I agree that the slider just should have gone onto the final net. I mean yes. Sasuke 21’s ratings were the lowest ever historically; from 18 to 21 it had dropped from high teens to like 12%, then picked up again for 22 and 23, no doubt influenced by the fact that someone finally cleared Stage 3 and some tangible progress was being made. Obvs the ratings really tanked after that, but that was more due to there being 3 tournaments in the space of 6 months from 23-25, which fundamentally resulted in the show’s pending cancellation. In fact, ever since 24, the ratings have never truly recovered from that decline. The recent tournaments are getting high single digits at best. Probably because they air it all at once, it they aired it in episodes more people would watch, having to take 3-6 hours to watch means people have too weigh its importance. |
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Post by dakohosu on May 26, 2022 6:41:46 GMT -5
That doesn’t make a difference given that all of the tournaments had aired at once, so that’s not really a reason for why 21 in particular had poor ratings. It was definitely due to the lacklustre results; people were getting sick and tired of basically no one clearing Stages 1 and 2. The results were a bit better in 21 sure but after 20’s underwhelming outcome despite the course being nerfed, people got bored.
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Post by sackeshi on May 26, 2022 11:10:56 GMT -5
That doesn’t make a difference given that all of the tournaments had aired at once, so that’s not really a reason for why 21 in particular had poor ratings. It was definitely due to the lacklustre results; people were getting sick and tired of basically no one clearing Stages 1 and 2. The results were a bit better in 21 sure but after 20’s underwhelming outcome despite the course being nerfed, people got bored. Well yes, but if the season was over 5 episodes vs 1 then people might be more willing to sit through an underwhelming season vs I'm going to do something else tonight. |
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Post by m4tt3r0x on May 26, 2022 12:06:31 GMT -5
Good thread in here with a lot of salient points.
Stage 1:
I personally liked the Pole Maze getting removed. I thought it was too hard and potentially time consuming early on in like 19-20. In 21 they nerfed it, so it wasn't nearly as bad. Even then I preferred the Curtain Slider and X-Bridge over it lol. The Circle Hammer was a pretty cumbersome obstacle though.
The Duodectuple Step or whatever it was called added in 23 felt like a great change to me. Harder than the Sextuple Step, but not too hard.
Then of course you have the Flying Chute getting removed in 22, and again I have to say it was another preferable change to me. The Flying Chute looked gnarly and painful and just was such an iffy obstacle to clear at times technique wise. I thought the Slider Jump was a fine replacement.
Overall I really thought 24's Stage 1 was pretty ideal for Shin Sasuke. Yeah, the X-Bridge was lame I guess, but I still preferred it over the Pole Maze, and having the second obstacle spot seemingly being a non-fixed obstacle each tournament seemed cool.
Stage 2:
Like OP said, I think it's safe to say Stage 2 only got better as Shin Sasuke went on. The Unstable Bridge was an excellent addition and really meshed well with the Salmon Ladder in 24.
Stage 3:
Here I'll agree the producers partially stopped caring after a certain point like sackeshi and tns said lol. In 22 we can probably all agree the stage was fine difficulty wise up to that point. In 23 and 24 they seemed to be intent on having more clears as oppose to earlier Shin Sasuke tournaments, but even then, I still would give 23 and even 24's Stage 3 a pass. Only Kanno and Nagano cleared in 23, and Yuuji in 22. Compare that to 1-17's changes to Stage 3 in comparison to Stage 3 clears before each previous Kanzen. Specifically from 7-12 we saw a much larger number of Stage 4 attempts with little changes made to Stage 3 until Sasuke 14. In fact in Sasuke 12 there were three Stage 4 attempts and one of them was Nagano missing it by a hair. Sasuke 13 we saw no significant changes made to Stage 3, and the gap between 4 and 13, and 17 and 24 is only a few tournaments.
If we carry this precedent over to Shin Sasuke, I think it'd be more fair to have criticism if 25 was not a renewal tournament and Stage 3 was left pretty much untouched like in 24. Mostly because 5/7 people cleared the stage in the tournament prior.
Stage 4:
To be fair the stage was no gimme, as only Yuuji cleared it out of five competitors in 24. Were they expecting this to be a Kanzen tournament? I don't think it's obvious either way, BUT what I think the producers did want, as mentioned in this thread, was for there to be more Stage 4 time in the show after the drought that was 18-22. To the producers' credit the stage's time limit was already cut after Yuuji's attempt in 22. Meaning Yuuji's win in 24 was far from a handout.
This brings us back to the main point presented ITT, was Shin Sasuke so significantly nerfed as to take away from the Kanzen in 24? I don't think so. I think Stage 1's nerfing balanced out Stage 2's buffing, and I don't think there were ever any inherent problems with Stages 3 and 4 in my opinion.
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