Hardest Stage One in Inui Era

[darthvaderlim]

Which Stage One do you think is the hardest by difficulty in the Inui era from 28 to 40?

Mine would be 35 to 37, due to the Wing Slider, Fish Bone, and the Dragon Glider combined with the short time limit.

[xelA197]

35 by far, the Dragon Glider did absolute havoc in its debut, and just 11 competitors cleared it, and apart from the classics Jun and Drew, only Hioki cleared with more than 10 seconds.

[dakohosu]

I'm actually going to go out on a limb here and say 28 is up there. It had buffed versions of two of the hardest obstacles from the Shin era, the Rolling Escargot and Spin Bridge, resulting in early fails from several veterans like Lee, Hashimoto, Takeda, Shingo, Iketani, etc. and only 5 clears which is by far the lowest of any Inui era tournament. Yes the competitive field was rubbish, but still. The rest of the course was also fairly new, like the Jump Hang Kai and Ni Ren. Sure, they're pretty bad obstacles design-wise, but the lack of expectation did catch competitors off guard. 

I'm unsure if it's harder than 35 though, 35's time limit was lower, the second half was arguably harder than 28's, but the first half with the Quad Steps was considerably easier. I also think the damage the Dragon Glider did was a bit overstated; yes the fail rates were shcoking, but most of those fails were from randos and pretty much everyone you'd expect to get past it did; the only notable competitors who failed it were Kanno and Kong, and both were well past their prime and failed due to derails. 8 clears is fairly low especially given the more stacked competitive field but don't forget we got 15 in 36 which was on an identical course.

[xelA197]

37 is not bad as well, with the new buffed Fishbone and just 3 more seconds despite the latter having two more pedestals and 9 pillars, and also with the Wing Slider instead of the TIE Fighter and the rain who gave more unexpect difficulty. In fact, the only competitor who beat the klaxon was, obviously, Jun (I don't count Jessie). Apart from the Quad Steps, every obstacle had its trickiness, not like now where he have a 3rd obstacle that is more a children playground than a SASUKE obstacle.

[dakohosu]

May 20, 2024 13:09:50 GMT -5 xelA197 said:

37 is not bad as well, with the new buffed Fishbone and just 3 more seconds despite the latter having two more pedestals and 9 pillars, and also with the Wing Slider instead of the TIE Fighter and the rain who gave more unexpect difficulty. In fact, the only competitor who beat the klaxon was, obviously, Jun (I don't count Jessie). Apart from the Quad Steps, every obstacle had its trickiness, not like now where he have a 3rd obstacle that is more a children playground than a SASUKE obstacle.

I don't count the weather conditions personally, because otherwise 39 for the last few runners would be by far the hardest due to the wall being straight up impossible. I also don't think 37's Fish Bone was that difficult, mainly because you could stop between the red and yellow portions, the only person of note who failed it was Araki because he just rushed into it. Ali Hay would've also cleared with like 25 seconds left but was injured so couldn't scale the wall. 

I agree with your last point though, it's baffling how 15 years ago we had Shin-Sasuke with the Jumping Spider, Half-Pipe Attack, Flying Chute, Slider Jump etc. and it was both a fairly long and stamina based course with a fairly restrictive time limit. Now we have comedians and joke competitors reaching the third to last obstacle, and people comfortably clearing with over 30-40 seconds left. Just to satisfy Inui's desire for averaged-skilled celebrities to do well (I get it for ratings but still). Then we get all of the difficulty condensed into Stage 3 to uphold Sasuke's feared reputation, resulting in monotony of Cliffhanger fails.

[subtleagent]

I'd pick 32 on account of it took out a well stacked competitive field and is the only Stage 1 sans 28 and 35 (both of which had a relatively poor crop of competitor, especially 28) to have less than 10. It also had a stricter time limit than 33 and 34 and thus it really got to bear its fangs.