PixlBit

Neither of y'all ever saw Misery or read the book?

In contrast to Fallout 3 and 4, New Vegas's endings took into account your faction standings, the story arc you chose, the choices you made throughout the game, and your interactions with the NPCs.  New Vegas was exactly the way a game like that should end. Of course, New Vegas had a different set of writers and developers (namely, the guys who actually created the franchise in the first place). One of the biggest WTF moments in gaming was how badly Obsidian got screwed over by Bethesda over a one-point Metacritic score, and it helped contribute to my complete distaste for Metacritic.

I saw the movie once over 10 years ago, and you know Justin doesn't read books or watch movies. 

As much as I bash on FF7, they did have some pretty cool summons.  I liked the moogle riding the chocobo, Shiva just sitting there, and Bahamut out in space.  

I got the Knights of the Round summon because my college roommate's girlfriend (now wife), loves horses but back then the Chocobo racing mini-game was the closest thing we had to a horse racing game at the time.  So after I was done adventuring in FF7, she'd take the controller and do the Chocobo thing and eventually got me that summon!

Fatal Fury wins because I've never heard of Evil Zone.

I had so much fun at SNK's booth at E3's past.  One year I got a Fatal Fury cap and poster of Mai Shiranui signed by one of SNK's character designers, and another year I played SNK vs.Capcom: Card Fighters Clash against other SNK employees.

I remember an old Pepsi commercial from the time that was doing a promotion for Sony and FF7. It had a couple seconds of footage from Titan's summon. That was before I'd actually gotten the game. I didn't even have a PlayStation at the time.

Stage Select:

3. The monster team from Dragon Quest VIII. There's something so amusing about summoning a team of cyclopes and trolls to whale on a bunch of slimes.

2. Shadow from Tales of Symphonia. He has a really creepy voice clip that plays when you summon him.  Plus, I like the battle music (Fighting of the Spirits) that plays when you're fighting Summon Spirits in that game.

1. Shiva and Siren from FF8. Their biggest power of all was how they managed to get those Demi Moore pelts they sport on the PS1 past both the ESRB and Sony Computer Entertainment America. There is no way you can even pretend those are costumes. The first time I saw them, I was like "What. The. Fuck."

Cage Match:

Terry Bogard was like "Evil What?" So someone handed him a copy of Evil Zone on PS1 to play. After playing it, he was like, "nah, this is too easy," and spent the rest of the evening looking at Mai's OnlyFans.

NOTE: I sent an email, check that first if it got through but it shouldn't be read out loud.

STAGE SELECT:
3. I'm going to go with Fat Chocobo in Final Fantasy V, or really any summon with a Fat Chocobo-like thing.  The gimmick in V is that 8% of the time when you use the Chocobo summon to kick and scratch at a single enemy instead what happens is that a Fat Chocobo drops from the sky doing over 2x the damage on all the enemies.  It's not really ever worth doing but it's just a fun little easter egg.  VII apparently also has a Fat Chocobo but it's only arguably stronger because it doesn't cause Stop.  But really any summon that has a little gambling involved is great in my book.  Also, speaking of Final Fantasy V and easter eggs, just a fun little fact to end this on, there is an easter egg in V where if you use the Magic Lamp item (that casts all the summons in order) enough times you get a reference to an obscure game by the lead developer of FFIV which is pretty neat.

2. Any of the summons in Bravely Default.  These things are batshit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpLTf_N14mU .  I'm going to spoil them here but please listeners do yourself a favor and look up a video first.  Every one of them is a mythical god or creature merged with technology.  Girtablulu, a giant earth scorpion with a city on its back.  Hresvelgr, a wind jet plane that turns into an eagle.  Ziusudra's Sin, a smokey flood god, the Sumerian precursor to Noah.  Deus Ex, a giant electric spider made of gears that attacks with TV beams.  Susano-o, a giant swordsman that slices with an oil derrick.  And, my favorite, Promethean Fire, which is a flaming fucking ghost train.

1. Okay, this is a bit of a stretch, but when else can I bring this up?  I wanted to talk about Slots commands, which are kinda just like Call or Conjure but instead of delay or huge MP cost it kinda adds a skill/luck component.  Both Final Fantasy VI and VII have a great unblockable-instadeath that just feels awesome when you can manipulate it to work.  VII's Game Over is just busted (usable on everything.  The exploit is to skip an animation so it won't skip over it, a glitch you might be doing accidentally anyway by hammering the buttons), but even VI's Death Joker fail (that kills your own party) can be used anywhere the normal version is barred, against enemies, by using a Jump/Mimic exploit or by timing a Setzer/Gogo confuse perfectly.  It's great.  Then there's the other effects Slot has, like VI's Bahamut Mega Flare (Pixel version lets you keep Mimicing it) and Summon (random summon, which Mimics the call in all version) or VII's Lucky Girl (every hit until death or the end of the battle is a critical), Moogle (full party heal), or this weird one called Transform where all your party turns into one giant character.  Which, side note, they kinda make a class out of in Bravely Default.  It turns out if you learn the tools they are very fun!

And really that's just Final Fantasy.  Also, wanted to end with a shout out to Blue Magic, which is kinda similar and I like *even better*, and could be a Stage Select in its own right.

VIDEO GAME CAGE MATCH:
I don't have to submit anything this week because I bribed the hosts.  Fatal Fury wins.  Actually, Fatal Fury wins because it lead to Garou: Mark of the Wolves, one of my sibling's favorite fighters.  But that's just extra.