Bikini armour could be justified in a world where armour is practically useless, Like a world where all the weapons just negate armour. Sadly Most bikini armour designs are bad, with a lot of them being uncomfortable or very detrimental to the user with a lot of bikini armour being crotch destroyers because at the end of the day there not designed with actual use in mind but for viewing pleasure if you get my drift. I think bikini armour would be less of a issue if we got more actually GOOD designs for them.
Another benefit for Cloud having a really wide blade is that he lives in a world where people frequently bring swords and fists to gun fights. Having a blade that wide helps with blocking direct bullets fired at him, which is shown in the remake a few times.
@@JechtNH Agreed. Not even heavily wounded, just knocked out. In story it is said that a heavily wounded character was barely kept stable until brought to a medic by CONSTANTLY casting on them a healing spell. I'm gonna guess you know who I meant, but for those that don't I left it like that.
The remake of FF7 has a short scene where Cloud tries to swing his sword indoors but his blade gets caught on a door frame because of how big it is, I think it was a nice recognition of how there are moments where the size of his sword can be a disadvantage
And... in other scene Tifa just knocks a bunch of gas cisterns off middle air. Seems Cloud's only advantage is he has a shield, everything else isn't impossible with enough of EXP.
It also implies that Cloud is mindful of this problem, the only reason the sword got stuck in that scene is because he was shaken and unfocus. Meaning that in battle where he’s focused he knows how to work around wielding giant swords.
I was so happy when that happened. I clapped and cheered. The game seems to strike a wonderful balance between being self-aware and taking itself seriously.
9:30 This is the exact philosophy behind the Dragonslayer from Berserk. He simply needs that much mass behind his blade to be able to cut through the enormous beasts that he fights.
But that philosophy doesn't make sense, seeing as the sword wasn't initially made for Guts and it was called the Dragonslayer, because it was literally meant for slaying dragons. Guts found the Dragonslayer and even Godot (the blacksmith that made the sword) was surprised that Guts could wield the sword at his size and age. The "enormous beasts" theory is okay to explain why it was a practical weapon to use for the purpose Guts used it for, but it doesn't explain how he wielded it or the convenience of why he found it in the first place.
@@vandalgod1134 Well clearly you haven't read or watched Berserk but the gist of it is that Guts is just obscenely strong and is of large stature so that's really how he's able to use it, as far as finding it, plot convenience. Doesn't need to be an explanation for everything that exists in universe, when you start looking for things to make sense you've lost the point of fiction.
@@vandalgod1134 he trains at a very early age with swords way bigger than his size In the Golden Age Arc he already had a really big sword, in fact he gains a even bigger sword than that one later. The Dragonslayer is just a step up on what he previously used
@@vandalgod1134 have you read berserk? Guts was literally born out of a corpse and survived that's already proof he's superhuman not to mention he trained with a sword as huge as his won body at the age of 6 he also went to war at 8 years old basically his body with already super toughness and strength got accustomed to throwing his body around with such huge weapon in fact when his sword broke during the battle for doldrey he got a new one which is even bigger then his previous swords later taking the biggest one of them all which is the dragonslayer a sword no man can handle its literally a sharpened steel slab
It's common from fiction of all kinds many weapons we now use like our battleship railgun the navy keeps playing with were ideas in fiction. They are trying to come up with interesting ideas, so well most ideas are not practical now and then someone makes a good idea.
There's a short scene in the original Ghost in the Shell manga where they explain the benefits of a fully cyborg body over a single prosthesis. Basically the prosthesis is only as strong as the joint it's attached to so it has limiters placed in order not to tear itself off the body whereas what they call a "total replacement" can be much faster and stronger without damaging itself. Later in the Innocence movie, Batou tears a cyborg's arm off at the weak point near the joint attachment. ua-cam.com/video/cNuL8cVxXMA/v-deo.html
In Shadowrun, there's even a convoluted system with cybernetics, meaning you can't just increase strength by getting a single cyborg hand. It's convoluted and I don't know it of the top of my head, but it adds realism to the game.
Would love to have seen this discussion with Guts as a reference instead of Cloud, since Berserk portrays the giant sword as having a lot of weight and there being a big difference between Guts fighting human opponents - who must utilize tactics and the environment to contend with his superhuman strength and sword - and fighting hellish demons, and makes the sword relevant thematically to the fiction, rather than just being aesthetic.
Not just that, I love how through Gut's history, he's only ever trained with weapons that are out of his size proportions. He grew up training with an adult sized sword and was comfortable with it.
More sensible in general. Cloud fights robots and monsters with magical orbs socketed into gear, Guts also got a repeating wrist crossbow. I've only seen the series, rarely read manga.
It's funny to me when people are discussing about guy with big sword characters that they always reference Cloud as an example even though Guts popularized the trope first.
@@Raspredval1337 Depends on what you are fighting, if I'm fighting a ninja then speed is everything, if I'm fighting Goliath then I might need more cutting power.
@@Raspredval1337 But try cutting armor with a rapier by whacking it... sword needs some blunt inertial force as well, at least in certain applications.
@@VioletDeathRei except cutting power is momentum, a combination of both speed and weight. So a bigger / heavier sword will eventually be to big to swing fast enough to be better than a lighter sword.
Cloud literally fell from an extremely high point through the top of a church roof and onto a garden of flowers and got up from it like he just slipped and fell normally in the original game so yeah I'd say Cloud easily has the super toughness to back his super strength. 😂
According to a CSI tv series, this would shatter all your bones rendering you a blobby mass that retains your shape but can be moved in ways that shouldn't be possible and make spectators uncomfortable.
@@someonerandom130 Mako is concentrated and refined life energy from the planet, every living being in FF7 already has life energy, it's just that SOLDIERs are infused with a higher concentration (plus some alien genes, we don't need to go into depth on those..) which gives them their superhuman capabilities.
Having just started reading Berserk, I really think that manga does this trope better than any other version I've ever seen. Instead of pretending someone could ever wield a giant sword elegantly and normally, the explanation is that Guts has been fighting since he was too small to lift a normal sword, so he's just grown accustomed to throwing his weight around with an oversized sword.
And then he gets to the point where he swings the Dragonslayer like it's a regular longsword. But for that I blame the fact that Dragonslayer turned into a magic weapon from killing a thousand demons.
@@andreiiiksavvv6054 Dunno about the popularization. Maybe for modern audience, kinda.. but even then.. 1989... its relatively new-er. Artemis at one point returned with a huge sword (5 feet long) in 1987 on Wonder Woman comics. And then there is He-Man from 1982. And then there are myths and legends like on some versions Thors wife Sif has a huge ass sword - and that religion has some of its roots possibly 3500 BC and if you wanna call it for sure, 1st literal findings are based around 1200 BC. Thats stories from over 3000 years ago with some badass sword in it.
@@NieroshaiTheSable I don't really see him do that. The most "grace" we've seen him use with it is very early on (blocking Zondark, aka the tentacle armed halberd guy), and fighting Zodd on the hill of swords. Other than that, he basically just blocks with the huge size of the thing and waits until he can land one good swing, which almost assuredly kills anything it touches.
The fighting style of guts actually represents how a large sword could be used, mainly strong stances, and moving with the motion and momentum of the blade (or in the case of Guts his iron slab), and he is able to use giant swords because from a very young age he wielded normally sized swords made for adults, and as he grew he had the swords got larger and larger because that was his fighting style. You see how he uses the weight of the sword to almost propel both himself and the sword through enemies, where one giant swing mostly uses the weight of the sword in combination with guts moving with the entire thing, throughout the entire swing, unless it’s vertical. Sometimes he even uses his entire body and not just his upper torso, including his legs to propel himself with the sword while swinging. Plus the scabbard for his massive sword being viable is a nice touch on Miuras part. Also note that with Guts’ vertical swings his stance is VERY VERY wide. Just look at the first time he cut a guy in half, that stance is super wide.
I get what you're saying, but Dragonslayer is still WAY too big for a real human. The force exerted in one swing would easily be in the thousands of pounds if not tons range. But TBH Guts probably has some supernatural strength too him, especially when in the berserker armor so he gets a pass.
My favourite part about that is when he's wielding it with one hand he's actually using the power of gravity more, when he strikes from below he drags the blade along the ground
No matter how much you train you won't be able to swing it more than 10 times not even 5 in a consecutive way. Just saying for us literal humans. But Guts can really do that.
@@clothar23 Zack actually did share the sentiment if you think about it in the actual story of the game he only used it against angeal like he asked, and to protect his friends (which is the only time angeal used the sword)
He has an entire scene in the new game where he kneels behind it and places it at an angle to deflect gunfire. Extended media has also had it used that way repeatedly.
@@oktaymeyt Can't seem to find a link that isn't an hour long but he does it several times, when he encounters the first walker in the game he blocks with the flat. The one mentioned is likely during the mission for Jessie where he gets caught with fire from 3 sides and hunkers down. In the animation "Last order" to keep cloud safe Zack puts him against a wall and sticks the sword in the ground in front of him. Likely others as well.
@@oktaymeyt ua-cam.com/video/G0WrcIRCChM/v-deo.html At 19:40 he blocks with the flat well entering the area before running, then at 40:54 he get's pinned down blocking for several seconds likely trying not to expose the people behind him. At 41:10 he blocks a close range shotgun blast before trying to block at 41:25 but it ends up being a chain meant to subdue him. Might have missed a few he seems to block more and dodge less when he's protecting people.
Tbf the default buster is close to Final Fantasy (Or Kubikiribocho from Naruto actually, which gets the handle down better than Clouds) And the bone GS's you'd think are lighter.
@@YukitoOnline great sword max charge go brrrr Jokes aside, with how some of those impacts go, I feel like my legs would be jello if I was 3 feet from the impact zone.
11:58 Yeah, Cloud does use his sword as a shield in the game. It's basically how he blocks attacks, he just holds the sword infront of him and the wide blade pretty much covers his entire body.
Cloud does indeed use his sword in the Advent Children movie to deflect shots while on his motorbike. I think he does that in the Remake as well, in the Midgar Express parts when you block.
I haven't played the Remake in a while but doesn't Cloud's Operator Mode have higher mobility and his secondary mode give him Auto Parry against any melee enemies? I'm just not sure about Parrying ranged enemies I can't exactly remember that but I know melee enemies were definitely a thing.
In the remake, Cloud does use the sword flat as a shield. Also, another benefit of the giant sword is punching through armour. He is fighting a lot of machinery.
This maybe isn’t the point but I think “super strength” is a misleading name. Because Skal is right if your muscles had the ability to exert superhuman force but the rest of you wasn’t able to endure that stress you would rip yourself apart. I think something like “enhanced physicality” is maybe more accurate and wholistic. Especially for someone like cloud who is also clearly more dexterous and mobile that a normal person as well.
Yes. There have been instances in where some individuals have been granted temporary giant boosts to strength in dire situations thanks to adrenaline. This allowed them to pull off some crazy feats in that moment but their body payed for it afterwards. The anime character named Shizuo from Durarara!! Is kind of based on this.
Cloud is literally bathed in mako look at death battles analysis of cloud the dude would have to be able to bench 15 tons to move that sword and move like he does
@@fabiovarra3698 I think Deku's self destruction is actually understated. If you were able to harness enough strength to literally change the weather with a punch in real life, I think it's safe to say you wouldn't have an arm afterwards. His arms only half explode, because you can't just make your protagonist a double-amputee after the first fight. All of the humans in MHA have some sort of super-durability though, Bakugo doesn't do nearly as much damage as he should when he punches people. Even a small explosion can do serious damage when detonated close to a human face, and his explosions aren't exactly 'small'.
This is how the great Bo Jackson ended his sports career. Used his incredible strength to try to pull his leg free from a tackler who was holding onto his foot/ankle and ended up pulling his hip out of socket, then relocating it himself on the field. Doing so severed the blood vessels that supply the joint causing a rapid and complete necrosis of his hip joint cartilage.
small funfact : "Grutte Pier" who's sword you show at the beginning was a Historical figure in Dutch ( or better Frisian) late-medieval history. His full name was Pier Gerlofs Donia , and Grutte Pier was his nickname translated as "Huge Pier". He was supposed to be 2m 8 cm tall and able to lift a 500Kg horse. His sword is 2m 13cm, 6.6 kg heavy and hangs in the Frisian Museum in Leeuwarden. His helmet is kept in the townhall of Sneek and pretty big too. He was a Warlord and pirate, but the Frisians see him as a freedomfighter in the Frisian-/ Hollandse struggles. He came from a family famous for their big postures, and even for Dutchmen they were considered "gigantic"in their time. I've handled the exact replica of the sword, and being just over 1.90m myself i was surprised about the good balance and handling.
The Buster Sword, according to official sources, is made from unrefined steel. In the Final Fantasy series there is also a very valuable metal with extreme properties called Mythril, from which Mythril Saber is made from, a recurring weapon in the series. But yeah, the Buster Sword would technicaly have a very weak spot at the handle.
Could be reinforced with other metals, the buster sword cut through pieces of a falling sky scraper like it was nothing, in fact it cut with enough force to set things like concrete and metal on fire.
In the remake, Cloud actually doesn’t get shot a lot due to a combination of poor aim, fast movements and the Buster Sword being wide enough to block the gunfire.
@@Tacticaviator7 There is a video about weird weebo communities,and altright attraction from cabernacle, yeah its political, but probably good going about anime weebs and military overall.
@@BigDaddyWes Anime became a lot more mainstreamy not that mainstream but extremely common. Add anime can be really mature relecant content to whatever else, why wouldnt anyone use anime avatars. That tiger, is inspited by media to, so anime, can be as influencal.
I love how you include the dragonslayer and then point out that those swords can be used as a shield. At least Guts had some sense to use his sword as a shield, unlike Cloud :p Although that being said, whilst Guts was ridiculously tough, he did push his body far enough that he could potentially kill himself from the force he was exerting, if he wasn't careful. The series at least acknowledged that, and acknowledged the fact that his sword was ridiculously oversized.
Cloud uses his sword as a shield constantly. In the original game when he uses the Cover materia (or the enemy misses, represented as Cloud covering himself with his sword). In Advent Children by basically using it as a shield against shots. And in the remake exactly the same as in Advent Children. Skal missed that fact.
@@akin_90 "This person" can't really work comments into a video after already recording, editing and publishing it, can he now? Edit: Unless you mean OP, in which case, there are people who write comments without really reqding the previous ones. Otherwise we wouldn't have all those people makinf the exact same commenr about Cloud using his sword as a shield over and pver.
Well the remake did actually acknowledge the issue of the space needed to swing the buster sword. Cloud tried to draw it and it clanged on a doorframe. It was quite amusing.
"Super strength just comes with super toughness. It's a prerequisite, otherwise you'd be breaking yourself. You'd be pulling your joints out of their sockets, ripping tendons, breaking bones. Etc. You need the toughness to deal with it." Izuku Midoriya with his crippled super strength arms: .........
There's actually a good reason for this. If you pay attention, the damage done to midoriya is based in the bones, joints, and skin. His muscles are perfectly fine with the power used. Now our brains naturally restrict our strength to prevent us from hurting ourselves unless it's an emergency. Now if you went through a drastic change in strength, your mind will miscalculate this value causing a minor version of what midoriya did to himself. It wasn't a matter of durability but muscle control that was the problem. If he continued his workout routine and steadily worked up to the new strength, he wouldn't have had that problem.
@@bookworm3696 Well yeah, the whole issue was he didn't really have the time, but he definitely made an effort and it made it somewhat bearable. He still deals with the issue but he's also still shown doing workouts. Just not as often 'cause it's not as relevant and supposed to be implied.
I mean cloud is good and all, nut a more realistic giant sword weilder would probably be the greatsword hunters from monster hunter. They too have super strength (you have to do some digging but lore said the hunters were basically descended from super soldiers from some long past war) buy they are by no means animesqe in how they weild them. They have the same type of deep stance to swing it and the few combos you can chain into usually are momentum fueled or heavy smashes. I'd highly recommend watching a few vids on their moveset to give you a better idea
Also something a bunch of people miss with Monster Hunter is that the weapons used by hunters are not meant for human vs human combat, but are mentioned to be specificly for hunting monsters, which lets you get away with more silly designs in terms of both weapon and armor (still dun excuse some of the more insane designs but still...), as the monsters wont be as tacticaly inclined as another human would be.
Just to add on to this, the hunters also seem to be pretty heavy themselves considering how they move. This would mean they could do so much easier than average folk. Even with the super strength, you can tell the weapons are pretty heavy. For example, its a known fact by greatsword players that you need to incorporate rolls into your playstyle because swings that stop have your hunter having to lift the weapon again, so you roll to get into your stance a tad quicker, and of course move out of the way of death.
I see another possibility : being this big, as you said, it can be used as a shield, but that doesn't mean it's got to weigh as much as we think. Two possibilities : first, the majority of the sword is made of an other material that could also absorb shocks, like titanium, while the edge is still steel. Second possibility : the sword is partially hollow, greatly reducing the weight, while maintening the "shield" aspect. Anyway, being lighter would also reduce the stress on the weak point. Btw, the guard and the handle seem to be made appart from the blade, maybe that helps too.
I always figured the second possibility. FF7 has fantasy AND sci fi elements, so it wouldn't be ridiculous to think the sword is actually a hollow latticework of some ultra resilient fantasy metal to allow for its size
When Man At Arms made the Buster Sword, the main body was made of aluminium and the edge was steel. It was still too heavy, but maybe if it'd been hollow, it would've worked
In a aov based when cloud was still in soldier he uses the buster sword as a shield to safe guard and soldier member from the team he was sent there to extract
From what I've seen, it's pretty common in japanese works featuring giant swords to guard by placing the flat forward and placing the other hand at the back.
The thing about "small framed guys" is that if you do proper stretches in addition to muscle building exercises, your muscles are going to look smaller than they are. This will also make your limbs longer, which.... *gestures at Cloud's legs*
Yeah. His feet scrape against the ground and he's dragged and pulled on by the mass of the weapon, and on one occasion he literally threw himself off of his feet with a reckless swing.
Another one is Monster Hunter greatsword usage. The things are huge, heavy, and slow, with appropriate usage of them often literally resulting in the hunter being dragged along with it.
Skal literally showed a pic of guts and dragonslayer from the berserk manga when he was talking about sword handles. He at least knows of our favorite black swordsman
Yeah Berserk does a fantastic job at mixing reality and fantasy. Guts is certainly Superhuman, especially with his sword soaking up demon blood and becoming magical, existing in two realms at once. However overall the universe really shows very real elements when it doesn't involve magic or the main characters.
the thing about giant swords is how the world reacts to it, in both berserk and ff7, they are looked as something completely impratical. they are also seem as something that shouldnt exist/work. in ff7(og and re),MOST of the other weapons cloud uses look far less unrealistic. as a side note, we cant also ignore how the main reason why they are so big, is due to the cg of the time, so bigger means easier to see.
Guts is 2m tall and he is ripped and bulky as fuck, he weighs at the very least 250 pounds that dragonslayer is bigger than he is and it’s made fully out of iron, that shit is at least 400 pounds. Guts is a fucking menace.
I believe your problem here is the usage of the term "sword". "That thing was too big to be called a sword. Too big, too thick, too heavy, and too rough, it was more like a large hunk of iron."
@Mitchell I like that one, "Battle Guillotine". Especially after I googled the shape of guillotine blades, the Buster Sword is definitely at least inspired from them. ....huh they deleted their comment
In the animated short, Last Order, Zack puts an unconscious Cloud into a little alcove and plants the buster sword in front of him to protect him from incoming gunfire while Zack himself stealthily takes out a number of soldiers with just his hands.
I liked the nod they added to the end of that scene regarding the weapon's weight, the few survivors were trying to get Cloud but couldn't budge the sword, then Zack comes up and effortlessly pulls it out with one hand.
@@Solais1019 too bad in remake the sword's weight feels a bit more inconsistent. As Leslie (a dude who got knocked out by one punch from Corneo) could easily pick it up
@@jlit5215 Leslie is actually pretty strong my friend. He was a bodyguard for very notorious criminals and likely has been training his body to take the Don out for a while.
Guts from Berserk does the same fighting way before the FF7 remake. The big difference is that he continues to preserve the momentum of his attacks till there's no enemy. (Even using his arm cannon for additional spinning) Heck, Guts also uses the ground to do the "finger flick"-like attack with his sword.
"I forgot if he ever does... (use the flat of the sword as a shield)" yeah, well, in the original game, when your characters guard, most of them hold their weapons in front of their body. even Aerith does, and she only has a staff, so... think Square at the time was just going for a general braced appearance rather than showing that Cloud was making use of the blade width. on the other hand, in later media, he has done a stance where he holds the blade downward in front of him and angles his body behind it, and that pose is definitely intentionally using blade as a shield.
There's another merit of these oversized swords. When you're not fighting humans, but big monsters. Where agility is not that important but you can really use that extra cutting power.
@@paoloscavalcacinghie428 an axe has a smaller blade area so it's harder to defend with, even with a large polearm. Lances that large are single use weapons only. It does make sense to use a very large sword in tht circumstance.
I feel Dark Souls 2 really takes the cake for absurdly large fantasy swords in a pseudo-realistic setting (I see you over there monster hunter)...They have a whole class called ultra greatswords where 50% of them get stuck in the ground after every swing...The Kings Ultra Greatsword is basically an ornate pillar on a stick and the Crypt Blacksword is basically one of those mausoleum obelisks with a handle...
That feature present for all soulslike games that fromsoft made lol, not exclusively just dark souls 2, its funny too that ds2 is the worst when balancing ultra greatswords.
@@ju8_hiugo Yeah, I just thought it was particularly bad in 2...and not only are large weapons hamdicapped with buffs as you hit less times, but even if you do It's probably either that overhead hit where putting it back on your shoulder is the 2nd hit, or the left-right swing that hits every wall..terribly balanced indeed...jumping attacks are about all I ever do if using UGS...to the point that it becomes kinda broken with the bonus damage and quicker recovery...and I love those one-shot speedruns of all the games...
Previously: "That sword is a totally ridiculous idea and he could never use it. He should just use a normal Zweihander." Now, though: "That sword is a totally ridiculous idea. He should just use a normal Zweihander."
@@Effect-Without-Cause tbh the buster sword wouldn't either, cutting weapons are not designed to fight against solid metal. If this spider robot can withstand bullets, it is basically impossible that any sword of any human size could do anything to it, or you'd just be better off with a giant hammer.
@@rmg480 meh, depends on the bullets used. a giant sword hitting edge on wielded by a super soldier may be able to deliver more force per square inch, or just enough force overall to crush and crumple things. And withstanding doesnt mean its immune, merely that it resists it and needs to be worn down if you really want to get through... kind of like a boss fight, hint hint
About super strength and super toughness, this is something I liked about My Hero Academia. The protagonist gains super strength, but his body was not prepared for it, so he breaks bones when he uses his power. It was necessary for the character's body to adapt to the power little by little, limiting how much force he could use at once, until he could release all the power without breaking it all in the process ...
I feel like the one thing people never really consider in this argument is that it's possible or probable that the Buster sword just isn't as heavy as reproduction swords made with real world materials. The way Cloud handles it doesn't make it seem like a very heavy weapon that he's just strong enough to wield; he handles it as though it's not particularly heavy for him at all. He can twirl it around in one hand. It could just be that Cloud's Buster sword isn't anywhere near as heavy as it looks.
No thats not said in the story. And yes I always say the same, you can't compare the materials those swords are made of to real life ones. It's why it's called fantasy world
When the ancients wrote fantasy, they also gave the hero, Goliath, an ennormously heavy sword, and they describe its weight as about 5 kg. So, for the people who knew what swords are, 5kg weight is an extreme.
I may be wrong here (former theology scholar turned agnostic but it's been a while since college) but I don't think the weight of Goliath's sword was ever given. The word in the hebrew text for the weapon he wore slung between his shoulders isn't well defined and isn't used much elsewhere in the text. When David draws fallen Goliath's sword later to chop off his head a different word is used meaning either he carried two swords along with the very impressive spear and shield mentioned as part of his kit, or more likely, he had the spear as his primary weapon, a sword as a side arm, and the weapon slung between his shoulders was a javelin or atlatl or something the hebrew writer wasn't equipped with the words to describe. Another thing to consider is that it's mentioned that the sword is made of bronze which would limit the size due to the limitations of the metal. At any rate, years later when David was a fugitive on the run he picks up Goliath's sword from the temple at Nob and makes the comment "there is none like it" so he must have thought it was pretty cool. The more impressive part of Goliath's kit that is described is his spear of which it is said the iron head alone weighed roughly 6.5kg. Significantly, Iron weapons at the time would be much more rare and expensive than bronze which is why it is described in such detail and also why it's likely that it was his main squeeze on the field. Given the weight of the head perhaps some kind of sword staff or pole arm weapon that would have been very exotic at the time and absolutely terrifying for the opposing army.
@@o0shivashakti0o yes, your are quite correct. I've remembered the weight, but somehow I confused the spear with the sword. The sword weight is not mentioned, it is just mentioned that Goliath carried it, along with a spear, a javelin and some 50kg armor.
I think that the sword was a normally sized one for Goliath, wich was a giant. It became a buster sword in the hand of David or Galahad((wich i think owned David's sword in at least a version).
Would 500 1 pound coins even be that much? Maybe if it was 500 in small change, even then, probably less than 500 pounds of lead/steel in a weight set.
@@kauske They only said that so the punchline came out smoother. Because saying, "i use coins instead", wouldn't be as funny. It's funnier if you see he meant pounds as in money the whole time.
Yeah he does use the flat side as a shield, look at him guarding attacks in the game, and certain action cutscenes. He also sometimes slams the sword into the ground, while gripping the handle spinning his body around the blade. Using the moment to rip the sword back out of the ground and into a attack.
I genuinely like watching these because you always give so much room for the games fantasy setting. Or reasons for why it may make sense in the universe in which it exists, and then why it probably wouldn't work in the real world, or why it WOULD work and so on. Instead of just 'heh.. anime'. Thanks
Great point on "lifting" versus controlling. Years ago a friend took me to the local Renaissance Fair, it was fun, even better were all the "sword guys" showing off their replicas. For a couple of years I had been working as a tree trimmer, hand climbing trees and holding a 15 pound Stihl 032 chain saw all day, every day, usually at full extension, working biceps, triceps and wrist. Sword Guy- "Here's how you use a sword..." (waves a 4 lbs wall hanger over an arc of about 90 degrees with a slow and lazy "whoosh" Me- "Wow, that seems heavy. Can I try? (I wrist-flick the 4 lbs wall hanger over an arc of 270 degrees, get around 8' reach and get a great whip-crack "sst thp" sound. Me- "Big sword, not everyone can swing them." The girl working the cash register laughed so hard she snorted her latte out her nose.
The thing with oversized swords is that almost every downside can be countered by some sort of internal fantasy element. This doesn't make up for stupid design choices like every single daedric weapon from Skyrim, but it does make up for things like the buster sword. If it's made of fantasy metal it can be both incredibly heavy and literally unbreakable, and Cloud is canonically superhuman. As previously discussed he is definitely limited in how he can use it, but all of the things that make it impossible to wield have been circumvented by the medium. A better question is what's the best buster sword design? Many different depictions of it, which one is the best?
Gravity may also follow different rules. Look at Dungeons and Dragons 5e RAW for example, you can be a ant falling from the skies or a sumo wrestler skydiving with no parachute and both will only take 20d6 damage tops, the damage is going to be the same if falling from the same distance and both will fall at the exact same speed.
I believe the original buster sword design would be the best for cutting due to not having grooves to get caught on bone and jagged pieces of metal and seeming slightly thinner however putting materia in its slots would probably require a press and might damage the sword. The crisis core design is probably not as good of a cutter due to the fancy grooves however its redesigned materia slots seems to include a latch which would make materia installation a breeze. Even if the crisis core design does not have a latch the extra material would make press fitting materia less likely to damage the sword. The remake design is a combination of the original and crisis core designs having a similar profile, guard, and handle to the original with the fancy grooved blade of crisis core minus the thicker materia slots. The design while looking great and feeling like a HD buster sword loses the cutting benefits of the original's simplicity and the improved materia slots of the crisis core design.
Well yeah. The guy could find a way to make pretty much anything connect to male genitalia one way or another, so he had something to say about basically everything...
@@wallopstop3873 yeah, if he had completely regular human durability, even something like 10% would leave him permanently crippled. The all out punch he did against the giant robot in the entrance exams would turn him into a particularly fine mist
It was made in the Playstation Era, wanted to depict a huge sword so you easier to follow movement and makes with crude 3D graphics and because of said limitations... they had to make a massive wedge and they never changed because it became iconic.
@@VVabsa Also this: You know Sephiroth's Masamune? Someone in Japan also wielded a sword of that same length, during the Sengoku period. Sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback. Look up Makara Naotaka, and his sword, the Taroutachi.
Something I like is that this is not the first time you've gone back and thought about your points and changed your mind. I appreciate people who can do this
The "can be used as a shield" argument is very valid. The buster sword is used like that sometimes FF. I remember a scene in the anime FF7 Last Order, there is a scene where Zack and passed out Cloud are surrender by guys with guns. Zack then puts Cloud in a corner, plants the Buster sword in front of him. Zack goes on to punch the guys with his faster-than-bullets-mako-insfused body while you see the buster sword protecting Cloud from bullets.
@@insertname3977 I remember watching some youtuber testing out a real life sized buster sword by shooting it with different weapons. He first used hand gun and all it did was left small little dents in the sword then he used shotguns and pretty much the same thing. Then he used a 50.cal sniper rifle at a pretty close range and the bullet still could not pass through the metal but it left a large dent in the sword.
ok, rq, regarding the Buster sword, since Final Fantasy is an RPG series, there is a command in the game called "Defend", which has the character skip their turn in exchange for a guaranteed increase in defence once the enemy's turn rolls around. This is also accompanied by a short animation where the character goes into a defensive stance to contextualize the action. Wanna guess what cloud does? He places the sword, blade down at an angle on the floor, grips the handle with his right hand, and places his left hand against the flat part of the blade, using it as, essentially, a large two-handed shield. Another thing is that, in later appearances (chronologically speaking), he does swap out the buster for something called the "Fusion Sword". Basically, a set of 6 separate swords, of varying shapes and sizes, that can be slotted together to form the same general shape as the Buster Sword, primarily to get around the fact that there are certain situations, such as fighting in close quarters, where, even with super strength, endurance, lower gravity than on earth, and high flexibility, a giant sword does become a disadvantage, as it can very easily get lodged into things. If he's ever in such a situation, he can, instead of grabbing the whole thing, simply take whichever sword best suits his current objective and environment.
"Giant Man with World’s Biggest Sword vs Car" on DemolitionRanch u can see how much pure strength will help u with fantasy giant sword. Robert Oberst vs 120 pounds sword
@@hebleh5771 It definitely did not have any issues with the handle attachment. In fact, Matt drove a Humvee up on the sword to straighten the handle out after it was dropped from a 100ft boomlift.Worked great!
"He does a lot of spinning, too" Yeah, and it usually would follow the Rule of Cool, but these aren't 1v1 sword fights. He's usually mid-combo for those and either he's fighting a hulking monstrosity or some poor shlub who is already on the business end of his sword. Wtf is this rando soldier gonna do? Get a hit in while Clouds back is turned? No he's already had the living shit killed out of him by a massive piece of metal. The man is done for, let alone Cloud's damn hyper speed with that thing. Probably falls under that same thing with Geralt where he's supposed to be faster than the average human so he can get away with the spinning since, I guess, he moves before his opponent can react. Non-serious discussion, obviously. Just wanted to put my thoughts into words. (Also I haven't finished the Remake so fuck if I know if he fights some expert fighters other than, say, Sephiroth, who to my understanding is the superior combatant.
even in fights with other soldier level characters, if I recall he doesn't do spinning stuff, in cutscene fights. except when it is a player controlled fight.
You make a very good point: I don't like when hema guys are bothered by spinning with a sword. Most fantasy swordfights are not "a noble 1v1 sparring with no armor", so they have to contextualize every fight
Damn. Thanks for bringing this up. I've had this exact opinion on huge weapons. But i'm not an expert. Just an rpg/weponry lover. I've HUGE issues with the handle of the buster sword, as much as i have with de Dragons Slayer from guts. But there's also a difference in the purpose for the existence of a weapon. You don't need something huge to kill a human. BUT monsters that appear in berserk and stuff like that do require some different weight behind. More than muscle. Thanks for the content. Love your work.
The thing that also really makes specifically cloud more doable is to look at what he is fighting. Gigantic robots, super enhanced humans that could survive bomb shell droppings and force fields. You need a heavy impact to do any dmg on many of the enemy's. A normal weapon would be useless (at least without the super strength) to do anything more then scratch these targets.
One fair criticism Skal said in his first video is that speed adds more force than weight, so, hypothetically, Cloud with a lighter, more maneurable, blade, could dish more damage... if the sword can survive the impact. The buster sword has the mass to survive a lot of impacts (except for the handle), but a lighter, magically enhanced sword made of a super alloy would be just better at dishing damage. Ultima Weapon is probably just that, a very very light weapon with the size of the Buster Sword (besides all the magical enhancements of a legendary sword, of course). That said, with Cloud's fighting style, and the fact that he faces guns, yeah, the Buster Sword makes sense.
I used to think the design would be impractical in a fantasy setting as well. Then I saw Black Clover, where Asta has a giant and wide sword, and one of the things it can do is deflect magic attacks back at the opponent like a baseball bat if it hits the spell with the flat; then I realized, "A narrower sword wouldn't be able to do _that."_
@@erinfinn2273 To be fair, they have foresight and the blaster shots they have to deflect are usually smaller than the surface area of their lightsabers.
Black clover aldo has him freakishly strong and use it as blunt weapon mostly, black clover really makes him use that size well. In a lot of settings is less thought into it. Inuyasha is nice there, with demons, and nice swords and sangos boomerang. The bat function is nice too. And aster earned hiscfreakish build.
@@marocat4749 True, but his extreme strength is something a lot of stories do. I was just pointing that the huge sword can do something that it wouldn't be able to do if it had been more practically-sized. It being blunt is usually presented more as a weakness; it can cut clean through (and nullify thanks to anti-magic) all magical attacks, but if someone uses magic to hurl a real object at him, he's in trouble, as happened in his fight with Vetto.
Actually Cloud does indeed uses the buster sword as a shield, with the "Cover" Materia there's a set chance that the wielder of it takes the hit for anyone else... I like to pair the materia to "Counter" to create a scenario where I can attack twice basically, overall a good Materia though how he holds it is more horizontal than vertical like how he would in Smash Bros charging his Limit
5:28 I'm gonna have to need the sauce for the upper right pic please? (edit) never mind its art by Daeho Cha over on Artstation website took a screenshot, cropped, saved, dragged the image to chrome tab, right click and search. Took less than 10 mins Thought it was from an anime Carry on lads
Excellent video. What is even more impressive, however, is your willingness to rethink your position and admit to others that your initial assessment may have been "off." Hats off to you, my man.
I always looked at it from the Berserk point of view. If you're fighting giant monsters and you insist on fighting them up close like a lunatic, you'll need pretty big weapons.
Cloud's buster sword is based on an existing sword type called Zanbato. It was apparently used by foot soldiers against cavalry to cut off horses legs(!). They weren't as big as Cloud's, but some of them still seem pretty huge and probably used by strong tall men only.
Zanbato are nowhere as thicc and fat as Cloud's Buster sword. If anything, they're closer in size to Sephiroth's sword, which is hell of a lot easier to wield than the Buster sword.
The comment about the using it as a shield reminded me of a weapon I loved from DS3 the fume ultra great sword, an even bigger example of giant sword syndrome which you can actually use as an effective shield. The fact that it looked like a chuck of asphalt someone stuck a handle to just made it better
Genuine question : Is Cloud's spinning really that off? In the clip you showed, it seems like his spins happen when he's swinging with one hand, if he's trying to preserve his momentum, would he really be able to do that with a one-handed swing just by staying in that stance?
If you can bench 500 lb your muscles will be to big to wield a sword properly Arnold had to cut down his training to make Conan because he couldn’t use the sword as his muscles were to big
man, seeing you talking about oversized weaponry in this light is really interesting. it reminds of a pattern you constantly see in writing, where an idea or element of a story becomes popular and used more and more often, until eventually those elements get deconstructed by later stories, saying how they're impractical or somewhat silly compared what would happen in the real world, leading into more and more works deconstructing the original idea. until eventually some writers come along, and create versions of the idea or element in story, but this version looks over all the deconstructions of the idea but still plays it out more along the lines of the original idea, though taking into account the aspects that were deconstructed previously. this is a reconstruction. this reconstruction may becomes the new normal version of the original idea, or maybe it becomes its own alternate version separate from the original idea. this version may go on to inspire new ideas or new deconstructions and the cycle continues. because the reason you take something apart, the reason to deconstruct something and point out its flaws or problems, is so it can be put back together better than before. over the years, i've seen more and more people being interested in more realistic versions of medieval weaponry and armor, and people attempting to lean towards more realistic uses of these weapons with HEMA being a more well known thing to look to for how these weapons were used. and i feel live ive seen in increase in more practical real world inspired designs appearing in media, though of course the original over the top version still exist, and maybe its just me being drawn into more things that use real world reference rather than it being more common. so its really interesting to see people step back, look over the original criticisms of over the top sword designs in fantasy settings, and be like "well actually, this could still work, just not in the way we originally saw it, and with some differences or better justifications." and now using that line of thinking to be able to create somewhat practical versions of the over the top idea that's still true to the original. that's reconstruction! its like this: Original: protagonist wields massive over-the-top sword and uses it no different from a normal sword. Deconstruction: Protagonist attempts to wield a massive over-the-top sword but can barely lift it let alone swing it and if its used at all its not used with finesse its just a big weight, and our protagonist either dies or just loses and tries something more practical next time. Reconstruction: Protagonist gains some kind of advantage, like an Exosuit that takes the brunt of the strain from lifting it, or the magical ability to carry something as if it weighs a quarter of its actual weight, and now can wield the massive over-the-top sword in battle like a normal sword. you could go even further and say its still not like a normal sword, its only swung with the speed and/or finesse kinda similar to how you'd use a normal one, but it might be kinda cumbersome, and is more like a metal bludgeon that's edge maybe can cut things but that's not where the damage comes from, cause even if it weighs less to him it doesn't weigh less to what he's hitting. this is just overall really interesting to see and think about all this stuff. great video! TLDR: Over the top massive fantasy swords have officially been deconstructed and criticized so much, we're now responding to that and reconstructing them. which is just all sorts of fun.
It would be cool for a story to acknowledge the narrow handle problem. You could compensate with technique that loosens the rear grip just before impact. That way, the piddly thin handle just goes with the flow rather than suffering a nasty bending force.
Glad to see you take another look at this one. Its one thing to point out the unrealistic flaws in a design like this (like the handle/grip, absolutely), but discounting it entirely does you no service. Side note: Cloud DOES deflect blows with the flat of the blade, just like you surmised. Its basically a pavise and a stupidly big sword in one.
Im pretty sure when a character has super strength, super toughness is included aswell. It’s part of having super strength. They’re not 2 separate features
Kudos for going back to this. Nightmare from soul calibur would be a good example of a heavy sword user I think, he has many different styles and imit feels like it has weight to it
At the end of the ff7 remake they showed avg citizens caruing steel beams on their own no issue, and a small group could pick up and carry a large billboard, it really illustrates that the in game strength levels even among normal people are a universe apart from ours.
i love how you changed your opinion glad to hear that. i could explain all the Enhancement details of Cloud as its better explained in the Prequel Crisis Core that would be a long comment
Shad: Bikini armour could be justified
Skal: Giant swords could make sense
Me, a barbarian main: Oh yeah, it's all coming together
It´s becoming full circle...
barbarian main in what game
@@ardagne3204 yes
@@ardagne3204 all.
Bikini armour could be justified in a world where armour is practically useless, Like a world where all the weapons just negate armour.
Sadly Most bikini armour designs are bad, with a lot of them being uncomfortable or very detrimental to the user with a lot of bikini armour being crotch destroyers because at the end of the day there not designed with actual use in mind but for viewing pleasure if you get my drift.
I think bikini armour would be less of a issue if we got more actually GOOD designs for them.
You either die a hero, or you live long enough for skal to rethink his position on giant fantasy swords
Damn. I'm getting old...
Half-Life or Berserk: Are you challenging me?
Club old men(women and anyonevelse can join), repeat after skall, "Off my lawn" 😀
I literally watched Batman Begins and Dark Knight yesterday... xD
the world should´ve ended in 2020. We´re just in the epiloge now. The script is over and now all there is is chaos
Another benefit for Cloud having a really wide blade is that he lives in a world where people frequently bring swords and fists to gun fights. Having a blade that wide helps with blocking direct bullets fired at him, which is shown in the remake a few times.
Being able to easily heal using magic helps a lot too lol
@@Gamerdude535 and revive with phoenix down unless you get stabbed in a really specific way
@@danksley lol real specific
@@danksley I always took 0 hp as a knocked out not dead
@@JechtNH Agreed. Not even heavily wounded, just knocked out. In story it is said that a heavily wounded character was barely kept stable until brought to a medic by CONSTANTLY casting on them a healing spell. I'm gonna guess you know who I meant, but for those that don't I left it like that.
The remake of FF7 has a short scene where Cloud tries to swing his sword indoors but his blade gets caught on a door frame because of how big it is, I think it was a nice recognition of how there are moments where the size of his sword can be a disadvantage
And... in other scene Tifa just knocks a bunch of gas cisterns off middle air. Seems Cloud's only advantage is he has a shield, everything else isn't impossible with enough of EXP.
@@meyearsago-lc8bq He's only using the sword for a spolier reason he doesn't know yet. Pre-avalanche he used guns.
It also implies that Cloud is mindful of this problem, the only reason the sword got stuck in that scene is because he was shaken and unfocus. Meaning that in battle where he’s focused he knows how to work around wielding giant swords.
maybe that why he consider to using fusion sword in the future lol
I was so happy when that happened. I clapped and cheered. The game seems to strike a wonderful balance between being self-aware and taking itself seriously.
“If he had two hands.”
Guts: “Nah, its fine.”
Gotz Von Berlichingen!
Just a magnet hand cannon arm instead 😎
@@JacobSolomonKasitati Literally the most chad character to exist.
@@Watcher-in-the-Dark all thanks to his teacher Donovan
Guts still technically has two hands Garret has a machine gun
9:30 This is the exact philosophy behind the Dragonslayer from Berserk. He simply needs that much mass behind his blade to be able to cut through the enormous beasts that he fights.
But that philosophy doesn't make sense, seeing as the sword wasn't initially made for Guts and it was called the Dragonslayer, because it was literally meant for slaying dragons. Guts found the Dragonslayer and even Godot (the blacksmith that made the sword) was surprised that Guts could wield the sword at his size and age. The "enormous beasts" theory is okay to explain why it was a practical weapon to use for the purpose Guts used it for, but it doesn't explain how he wielded it or the convenience of why he found it in the first place.
@@vandalgod1134 Well clearly you haven't read or watched Berserk but the gist of it is that Guts is just obscenely strong and is of large stature so that's really how he's able to use it, as far as finding it, plot convenience. Doesn't need to be an explanation for everything that exists in universe, when you start looking for things to make sense you've lost the point of fiction.
@@vandalgod1134 he trains at a very early age with swords way bigger than his size
In the Golden Age Arc he already had a really big sword, in fact he gains a even bigger sword than that one later. The Dragonslayer is just a step up on what he previously used
@@vandalgod1134 have you read berserk? Guts was literally born out of a corpse and survived that's already proof he's superhuman not to mention he trained with a sword as huge as his won body at the age of 6 he also went to war at 8 years old basically his body with already super toughness and strength got accustomed to throwing his body around with such huge weapon in fact when his sword broke during the battle for doldrey he got a new one which is even bigger then his previous swords later taking the biggest one of them all which is the dragonslayer a sword no man can handle its literally a sharpened steel slab
Guts is definately superhuman in terms of strenght and toughness
I love how in recent weeks the sword community has just gone full circle and is now justifying all the fantsy tropes xD
2021 is a year of reverse cards, apparently
It's common from fiction of all kinds many weapons we now use like our battleship railgun the navy keeps playing with were ideas in fiction.
They are trying to come up with interesting ideas, so well most ideas are not practical now and then someone makes a good idea.
If characters can use it with superhuman strengh, its justified.
Well, technology is very useful, just saying!
@@VioletDeathRei The first rail gun was patented in 1919. It's never just been fiction, it was just impractical.
There's a short scene in the original Ghost in the Shell manga where they explain the benefits of a fully cyborg body over a single prosthesis. Basically the prosthesis is only as strong as the joint it's attached to so it has limiters placed in order not to tear itself off the body whereas what they call a "total replacement" can be much faster and stronger without damaging itself. Later in the Innocence movie, Batou tears a cyborg's arm off at the weak point near the joint attachment. ua-cam.com/video/cNuL8cVxXMA/v-deo.html
Full prosthetic body also means that you can risk it and repair or replace it later, Motoko uses that sometimes.
@@cjnf11 yeah she looses a good few arms and at least one body I'm sure I'm forgetting others
I recall this moment in the manga. Great reference and excellent explanation from Shirow!
In Shadowrun, there's even a convoluted system with cybernetics, meaning you can't just increase strength by getting a single cyborg hand. It's convoluted and I don't know it of the top of my head, but it adds realism to the game.
Would love to have seen this discussion with Guts as a reference instead of Cloud, since Berserk portrays the giant sword as having a lot of weight and there being a big difference between Guts fighting human opponents - who must utilize tactics and the environment to contend with his superhuman strength and sword - and fighting hellish demons, and makes the sword relevant thematically to the fiction, rather than just being aesthetic.
Too bad, he doesn't read Berserk
Not just that, I love how through Gut's history, he's only ever trained with weapons that are out of his size proportions. He grew up training with an adult sized sword and was comfortable with it.
@@hafizo_kurosaki you dont have to read it to study the dragonslayer, but he probably does not know about it anyways
Edit: He did know about it :(
More sensible in general. Cloud fights robots and monsters with magical orbs socketed into gear, Guts also got a repeating wrist crossbow.
I've only seen the series, rarely read manga.
It's funny to me when people are discussing about guy with big sword characters that they always reference Cloud as an example even though Guts popularized the trope first.
If sword = good, then bigger sword = bigger good. It's simple.
Straight up mathematician with those quality equations.
actually no, sword = swiftness && cutting -> good
bigger sword = less swiftness && less cutting -> lesser good
@@Raspredval1337 Depends on what you are fighting, if I'm fighting a ninja then speed is everything, if I'm fighting Goliath then I might need more cutting power.
@@Raspredval1337 But try cutting armor with a rapier by whacking it... sword needs some blunt inertial force as well, at least in certain applications.
@@VioletDeathRei except cutting power is momentum, a combination of both speed and weight. So a bigger / heavier sword will eventually be to big to swing fast enough to be better than a lighter sword.
My Strength-Build Dark Souls Character: "Yes, YES! MY TIME HAS COME!"
99 Str build.
But dex...
@@eluherrahaz1165 never
Strength is life
The legend never dies
Cloud literally fell from an extremely high point through the top of a church roof and onto a garden of flowers and got up from it like he just slipped and fell normally in the original game so yeah I'd say Cloud easily has the super toughness to back his super strength. 😂
According to a CSI tv series, this would shatter all your bones rendering you a blobby mass that retains your shape but can be moved in ways that shouldn't be possible and make spectators uncomfortable.
@@xCorvus7x he has maco which is alien energy inside of him
@@xCorvus7x I mean its literally called fantasy so it does make sense
@@someonerandom130 Sure, not saying it doesn't.
I only meant what would probably happen in real life (if such a TV series is to be believed).
@@someonerandom130 Mako is concentrated and refined life energy from the planet, every living being in FF7 already has life energy, it's just that SOLDIERs are infused with a higher concentration (plus some alien genes, we don't need to go into depth on those..) which gives them their superhuman capabilities.
"Barret looks like he could handle it... if he had two hands"
Damn Skall, that's cold even by Canadian standards
I'd say "shots fired", but I have both hands.
Especially by Canadian standards
@@latt.qcd9221 shots fired are the reason barret doesn’t have both hands
@@logandunlap9156 Shots fired is now what he has instead of a hand.
@@Nezha_Main nice
You’re correct, Cloud often in the game uses his Bustersword as a shield.
does he ever deflect anything with it?
@@solidsnaker1992 yep, infact that's one of his best moves
@@lukes.854 that's pretty badass
Not just cloud either, the previous owners did as well. Well, one did, the other just blocked with the handle.
it takes a strong character to reassess their position and come back to a different conclusion, you just levelled up in my humble estimation
Having just started reading Berserk, I really think that manga does this trope better than any other version I've ever seen. Instead of pretending someone could ever wield a giant sword elegantly and normally, the explanation is that Guts has been fighting since he was too small to lift a normal sword, so he's just grown accustomed to throwing his weight around with an oversized sword.
Berserk is the one that popularised this trope after all
And then he gets to the point where he swings the Dragonslayer like it's a regular longsword. But for that I blame the fact that Dragonslayer turned into a magic weapon from killing a thousand demons.
@@andreiiiksavvv6054 Dunno about the popularization. Maybe for modern audience, kinda.. but even then.. 1989... its relatively new-er. Artemis at one point returned with a huge sword (5 feet long) in 1987 on Wonder Woman comics. And then there is He-Man from 1982. And then there are myths and legends like on some versions Thors wife Sif has a huge ass sword - and that religion has some of its roots possibly 3500 BC and if you wanna call it for sure, 1st literal findings are based around 1200 BC. Thats stories from over 3000 years ago with some badass sword in it.
@@NieroshaiTheSable
I don't really see him do that. The most "grace" we've seen him use with it is very early on (blocking Zondark, aka the tentacle armed halberd guy), and fighting Zodd on the hill of swords. Other than that, he basically just blocks with the huge size of the thing and waits until he can land one good swing, which almost assuredly kills anything it touches.
@@samamies88
5ft isn't that large for a fantasy sword... how wide was it?
The fighting style of guts actually represents how a large sword could be used, mainly strong stances, and moving with the motion and momentum of the blade (or in the case of Guts his iron slab), and he is able to use giant swords because from a very young age he wielded normally sized swords made for adults, and as he grew he had the swords got larger and larger because that was his fighting style. You see how he uses the weight of the sword to almost propel both himself and the sword through enemies, where one giant swing mostly uses the weight of the sword in combination with guts moving with the entire thing, throughout the entire swing, unless it’s vertical. Sometimes he even uses his entire body and not just his upper torso, including his legs to propel himself with the sword while swinging. Plus the scabbard for his massive sword being viable is a nice touch on Miuras part.
Also note that with Guts’ vertical swings his stance is VERY VERY wide. Just look at the first time he cut a guy in half, that stance is super wide.
So what you're saying is, Guts was the 2nd grader who read college level books but DIDN'T turn out to be a disappointment when he reached high school.
@@blarghinatelazer9394 next you'll tell me he's from an anime
I get what you're saying, but Dragonslayer is still WAY too big for a real human. The force exerted in one swing would easily be in the thousands of pounds if not tons range. But TBH Guts probably has some supernatural strength too him, especially when in the berserker armor so he gets a pass.
My favourite part about that is when he's wielding it with one hand he's actually using the power of gravity more, when he strikes from below he drags the blade along the ground
No matter how much you train you won't be able to swing it more than 10 times not even 5 in a consecutive way. Just saying for us literal humans. But Guts can really do that.
what cloud,zack and probably angeal have taught us is:" Never skip legday"
Angela never used the Buster Sword in combat. He didn't want to wreck daddy's work.
A sentiment neither Zack or Cloud shared.
Angeal taught us usage brings rust and wear. Never said shit about leg day, that man was just built different
@@clothar23 Zack actually did share the sentiment if you think about it in the actual story of the game he only used it against angeal like he asked, and to protect his friends (which is the only time angeal used the sword)
The squats are strong with this one.
@@xandt-doggaming3313 "You're a little more important than my sword, Zack... but just a little."
He has an entire scene in the new game where he kneels behind it and places it at an angle to deflect gunfire.
Extended media has also had it used that way repeatedly.
I mean if you are walking around with a metal wall you might as well use it right?
where can I watch that (deflect)
@@oktaymeyt Can't seem to find a link that isn't an hour long but he does it several times, when he encounters the first walker in the game he blocks with the flat. The one mentioned is likely during the mission for Jessie where he gets caught with fire from 3 sides and hunkers down. In the animation "Last order" to keep cloud safe Zack puts him against a wall and sticks the sword in the ground in front of him. Likely others as well.
@@bobdole3804 no need for a standalone video can you give me whatever hour long video and tell me the timestamp
@@oktaymeyt ua-cam.com/video/G0WrcIRCChM/v-deo.html
At 19:40 he blocks with the flat well entering the area before running, then at 40:54 he get's pinned down blocking for several seconds likely trying not to expose the people behind him.
At 41:10 he blocks a close range shotgun blast before trying to block at 41:25 but it ends up being a chain meant to subdue him.
Might have missed a few he seems to block more and dodge less when he's protecting people.
Monster Hunter: "Slap a dragon wing on a stick and call it a greatsword."
Tbf the default buster is close to Final Fantasy (Or Kubikiribocho from Naruto actually, which gets the handle down better than Clouds)
And the bone GS's you'd think are lighter.
If you looked how the Hunters fight, you'd see a lot of spinning momentum & using the weight of the weapon to deal damage.
@@YukitoOnline great sword max charge go brrrr
Jokes aside, with how some of those impacts go, I feel like my legs would be jello if I was 3 feet from the impact zone.
@@elivcdxv1852
You could see em Hunters up a little bit in mid-air for a sec whenever they slam those Huge weapons full force into the ground.
@@YukitoOnline forget jello, i would become dust
11:58 Yeah, Cloud does use his sword as a shield in the game. It's basically how he blocks attacks, he just holds the sword infront of him and the wide blade pretty much covers his entire body.
And Zach in the anime. At one point he just shoves it into the ground in front of Cloud to block bullets and hide him.
In almost every game he makes an appearance.
But if he uses the flat side then the blade is gonna hit his face
So, if you want to be some crazy massive sword wielding maniac... Don't skip leg day
Or any other day I think lol.
@@yewtewbstew547 You can skip. But only with 100 kg weights in your backpack...in the middle of a marsh.
Cloud does indeed use his sword in the Advent Children movie to deflect shots while on his motorbike. I think he does that in the Remake as well, in the Midgar Express parts when you block.
I haven't played the Remake in a while but doesn't Cloud's Operator Mode have higher mobility and his secondary mode give him Auto Parry against any melee enemies? I'm just not sure about Parrying ranged enemies I can't exactly remember that but I know melee enemies were definitely a thing.
In the remake, Cloud does use the sword flat as a shield. Also, another benefit of the giant sword is punching through armour. He is fighting a lot of machinery.
This maybe isn’t the point but I think “super strength” is a misleading name. Because Skal is right if your muscles had the ability to exert superhuman force but the rest of you wasn’t able to endure that stress you would rip yourself apart. I think something like “enhanced physicality” is maybe more accurate and wholistic. Especially for someone like cloud who is also clearly more dexterous and mobile that a normal person as well.
Yes. There have been instances in where some individuals have been granted temporary giant boosts to strength in dire situations thanks to adrenaline. This allowed them to pull off some crazy feats in that moment but their body payed for it afterwards. The anime character named Shizuo from Durarara!! Is kind of based on this.
Cloud is literally bathed in mako look at death battles analysis of cloud the dude would have to be able to bench 15 tons to move that sword and move like he does
Deku from My Hero Academia is a nice example of what appen with only super strenght
@@fabiovarra3698 I think Deku's self destruction is actually understated. If you were able to harness enough strength to literally change the weather with a punch in real life, I think it's safe to say you wouldn't have an arm afterwards. His arms only half explode, because you can't just make your protagonist a double-amputee after the first fight. All of the humans in MHA have some sort of super-durability though, Bakugo doesn't do nearly as much damage as he should when he punches people. Even a small explosion can do serious damage when detonated close to a human face, and his explosions aren't exactly 'small'.
This is how the great Bo Jackson ended his sports career. Used his incredible strength to try to pull his leg free from a tackler who was holding onto his foot/ankle and ended up pulling his hip out of socket, then relocating it himself on the field. Doing so severed the blood vessels that supply the joint causing a rapid and complete necrosis of his hip joint cartilage.
small funfact : "Grutte Pier" who's sword you show at the beginning was a Historical figure in Dutch ( or better Frisian) late-medieval history. His full name was Pier Gerlofs Donia , and Grutte Pier was his nickname translated as "Huge Pier". He was supposed to be 2m 8 cm tall and able to lift a 500Kg horse. His sword is 2m 13cm, 6.6 kg heavy and hangs in the Frisian Museum in Leeuwarden. His helmet is kept in the townhall of Sneek and pretty big too. He was a Warlord and pirate, but the Frisians see him as a freedomfighter in the Frisian-/ Hollandse struggles. He came from a family famous for their big postures, and even for Dutchmen they were considered "gigantic"in their time. I've handled the exact replica of the sword, and being just over 1.90m myself i was surprised about the good balance and handling.
He could also supposedly bend a gold coin between his thumb and index finger.
Didn’t he also supposedly decapitate 7 people at once.
@@Valiguss Wouldn't surpise me. The man had an almost 7ft long sword.
Just saying A Frisian would put you to the torch for calling him Dutch 🤣🤣🤣 but yea great/huge Pier was an interesting figure
That also wasn’t his sword. The sword in the picture was a bearing sword found in the attic of a town hall and apocryphally attributed to him.
The Buster Sword, according to official sources, is made from unrefined steel.
In the Final Fantasy series there is also a very valuable metal with extreme properties called Mythril, from which Mythril Saber is made from, a recurring weapon in the series.
But yeah, the Buster Sword would technicaly have a very weak spot at the handle.
i have a replica and yeah, that weak spot is true
Could be reinforced with other metals, the buster sword cut through pieces of a falling sky scraper like it was nothing, in fact it cut with enough force to set things like concrete and metal on fire.
Thing is, that could refer to just the blade, the handle is clearly a different metal.
In the remake, Cloud actually doesn’t get shot a lot due to a combination of poor aim, fast movements and the Buster Sword being wide enough to block the gunfire.
too bad it didn't work like that for Zack
@@Iffem cloud learned from zacks mistakes and got himself some plot armour
@@Iffem Zack dies for mako degradation.Zack may dodge of the bullets
@@Iffem sorry my english
@@jorgemurilo7779 nah, the bullets killed him. the mako degradation just weakened him
"the video is from 2014"
It's... Been that long ? Damn , I'm getting old.
No you aren't. There's no way any person with an anime profile picture is older than 20s.
@@BigDaddyWes young people feeling old on the internet is really the thing you wanna take a hard stance on?
@@BigDaddyWes I dunno man, I know lots of weebs that are decently old, a lot of them were or still are in the military too which is interesting.
@@Tacticaviator7 There is a video about weird weebo communities,and altright attraction from cabernacle, yeah its political, but probably good going about anime weebs and military overall.
@@BigDaddyWes Anime became a lot more mainstreamy not that mainstream but extremely common. Add anime can be really mature relecant content to whatever else, why wouldnt anyone use anime avatars. That tiger, is inspited by media to, so anime, can be as influencal.
I love how you include the dragonslayer and then point out that those swords can be used as a shield.
At least Guts had some sense to use his sword as a shield, unlike Cloud :p
Although that being said, whilst Guts was ridiculously tough, he did push his body far enough that he could potentially kill himself from the force he was exerting, if he wasn't careful. The series at least acknowledged that, and acknowledged the fact that his sword was ridiculously oversized.
Cloud uses his sword as a shield constantly. In the original game when he uses the Cover materia (or the enemy misses, represented as Cloud covering himself with his sword). In Advent Children by basically using it as a shield against shots. And in the remake exactly the same as in Advent Children. Skal missed that fact.
How this person missed like dozens of comments mentioning that Cloud uses his buster sword as a practical shield baffles me.
@@akin_90 "This person" can't really work comments into a video after already recording, editing and publishing it, can he now?
Edit: Unless you mean OP, in which case, there are people who write comments without really reqding the previous ones. Otherwise we wouldn't have all those people makinf the exact same commenr about Cloud using his sword as a shield over and pver.
Well the remake did actually acknowledge the issue of the space needed to swing the buster sword. Cloud tried to draw it and it clanged on a doorframe. It was quite amusing.
"Super strength just comes with super toughness. It's a prerequisite, otherwise you'd be breaking yourself. You'd be pulling your joints out of their sockets, ripping tendons, breaking bones. Etc. You need the toughness to deal with it."
Izuku Midoriya with his crippled super strength arms: .........
Makes me so glad he figured out the kicking thing.
Fun fact, you can buy the super strength without the super toughness on the black market, it is called angel dust.
@@eloujtimereaver4504 OOoOoOooooff
There's actually a good reason for this. If you pay attention, the damage done to midoriya is based in the bones, joints, and skin. His muscles are perfectly fine with the power used. Now our brains naturally restrict our strength to prevent us from hurting ourselves unless it's an emergency. Now if you went through a drastic change in strength, your mind will miscalculate this value causing a minor version of what midoriya did to himself. It wasn't a matter of durability but muscle control that was the problem. If he continued his workout routine and steadily worked up to the new strength, he wouldn't have had that problem.
@@bookworm3696 Well yeah, the whole issue was he didn't really have the time, but he definitely made an effort and it made it somewhat bearable. He still deals with the issue but he's also still shown doing workouts. Just not as often 'cause it's not as relevant and supposed to be implied.
The character Siegfried in the soul calibur franchise of games wields a huge sword and actually does a lot of the things shad talked about
"He's 60 or 70 per cent legs"
Now I'm not only going to have nightmares about Danny Long Legs, but now he'll be armed as well.
*makin' my way downtown*
I mean cloud is good and all, nut a more realistic giant sword weilder would probably be the greatsword hunters from monster hunter. They too have super strength (you have to do some digging but lore said the hunters were basically descended from super soldiers from some long past war) buy they are by no means animesqe in how they weild them. They have the same type of deep stance to swing it and the few combos you can chain into usually are momentum fueled or heavy smashes. I'd highly recommend watching a few vids on their moveset to give you a better idea
Also uses it as a shield, as Skal mentioned!
Also something a bunch of people miss with Monster Hunter is that the weapons used by hunters are not meant for human vs human combat, but are mentioned to be specificly for hunting monsters, which lets you get away with more silly designs in terms of both weapon and armor (still dun excuse some of the more insane designs but still...), as the monsters wont be as tacticaly inclined as another human would be.
Just to add on to this, the hunters also seem to be pretty heavy themselves considering how they move. This would mean they could do so much easier than average folk. Even with the super strength, you can tell the weapons are pretty heavy. For example, its a known fact by greatsword players that you need to incorporate rolls into your playstyle because swings that stop have your hunter having to lift the weapon again, so you roll to get into your stance a tad quicker, and of course move out of the way of death.
This led me to imagine how a regular human might become mist if hit with a heavy bow gun
Are all Monster Hunter humans descended from these super soldiers, or is it just a specific lineage defending the rest of mankind?
5:30
Skallagrim tells the audience why 3D girls can never be better than his 2D anime waifu.
What game is that picture from?
Yep
@@rorrec6188 yes
I didn't even know he was that cultured
@@rorrec6188 by a guy named Daeho Cha over on artstation website
I see another possibility : being this big, as you said, it can be used as a shield, but that doesn't mean it's got to weigh as much as we think. Two possibilities : first, the majority of the sword is made of an other material that could also absorb shocks, like titanium, while the edge is still steel. Second possibility : the sword is partially hollow, greatly reducing the weight, while maintening the "shield" aspect. Anyway, being lighter would also reduce the stress on the weak point. Btw, the guard and the handle seem to be made appart from the blade, maybe that helps too.
I always figured the second possibility. FF7 has fantasy AND sci fi elements, so it wouldn't be ridiculous to think the sword is actually a hollow latticework of some ultra resilient fantasy metal to allow for its size
The guard and handle being a separate piece would make it weaker, and therefore, more prone to failure.
When Man At Arms made the Buster Sword, the main body was made of aluminium and the edge was steel. It was still too heavy, but maybe if it'd been hollow, it would've worked
In a aov based when cloud was still in soldier he uses the buster sword as a shield to safe guard and soldier member from the team he was sent there to extract
Guts uses his dragonslayer as a «shield» often as it’s basically a slab of steel
indeed he does quite often in the manga.
So does Cloud. His defense stance (at least in the original) is putting his sword flat in front and supporting it with second hand
*Monster hunter great sword noises*
From what I've seen, it's pretty common in japanese works featuring giant swords to guard by placing the flat forward and placing the other hand at the back.
The thing about "small framed guys" is that if you do proper stretches in addition to muscle building exercises, your muscles are going to look smaller than they are. This will also make your limbs longer, which.... *gestures at Cloud's legs*
You're so sussy
A better example of someone using a massive two-handed sword in a for lack of a better term realistic way is Guts and the Dragon Slayer from Berserk.
Yeah. His feet scrape against the ground and he's dragged and pulled on by the mass of the weapon, and on one occasion he literally threw himself off of his feet with a reckless swing.
Another one is Monster Hunter greatsword usage. The things are huge, heavy, and slow, with appropriate usage of them often literally resulting in the hunter being dragged along with it.
Skal literally showed a pic of guts and dragonslayer from the berserk manga when he was talking about sword handles. He at least knows of our favorite black swordsman
Yeah Berserk does a fantastic job at mixing reality and fantasy.
Guts is certainly Superhuman, especially with his sword soaking up demon blood and becoming magical, existing in two realms at once.
However overall the universe really shows very real elements when it doesn't involve magic or the main characters.
the thing about giant swords is how the world reacts to it, in both berserk and ff7, they are looked as something completely impratical. they are also seem as something that shouldnt exist/work. in ff7(og and re),MOST of the other weapons cloud uses look far less unrealistic. as a side note, we cant also ignore how the main reason why they are so big, is due to the cg of the time, so bigger means easier to see.
Guts with one prosthetic hand and his 220 pounds sword: hold my beer
Has to get you to hold it cuz his one hand is full
Guts is 2m tall and he is ripped and bulky as fuck, he weighs at the very least 250 pounds that dragonslayer is bigger than he is and it’s made fully out of iron, that shit is at least 400 pounds. Guts is a fucking menace.
@@Monyato ULTIMATE MAD CHAD!!!
@@Monyato And he was also wielding swords that were at least his height his whole life
@@Monyato considering him wearing armour...... Guts is the literal meaning of testosterone
11:48 Guts uses his sword as a shield a few times in Berserk. He hangs it over himself and braces it, providing himself decent cover.
Nani!?! Another Anime sword video it’s been ages since it re-emerged
You mean re_incarnated
@@unknownunanimous2160 ya that sounds way better
I believe your problem here is the usage of the term "sword".
"That thing was too big to be called a sword. Too big, too thick, too heavy, and too rough, it was more like a large hunk of iron."
A one side sharpened mace. Like calling a gun with a bayonett a spear lol
@Mitchell I like that one, "Battle Guillotine". Especially after I googled the shape of guillotine blades, the Buster Sword is definitely at least inspired from them.
....huh they deleted their comment
Berzerk is the fucking best.
I expected at least 1 "hunk of iron" reference in this video, kinda sad that it didn't happen but at least we have this comment.
My love for you is like a truck
Next, the “Ringed Knight Paired Greatswords” , from the dark souls 3 dlc.
When cloud goes into punisher mode he actually spins with the weight of the sword for momentum.
Yes, he said and showed it in video we all watched.
In the animated short, Last Order, Zack puts an unconscious Cloud into a little alcove and plants the buster sword in front of him to protect him from incoming gunfire while Zack himself stealthily takes out a number of soldiers with just his hands.
I liked the nod they added to the end of that scene regarding the weapon's weight, the few survivors were trying to get Cloud but couldn't budge the sword, then Zack comes up and effortlessly pulls it out with one hand.
i was just about to comment this
@@Solais1019 too bad in remake the sword's weight feels a bit more inconsistent. As Leslie (a dude who got knocked out by one punch from Corneo) could easily pick it up
@@jlit5215 Leslie is actually pretty strong my friend. He was a bodyguard for very notorious criminals and likely has been training his body to take the Don out for a while.
@@andrewrenshaw2741 yet when the time came he flonders, pretty hard at that
Guts from Berserk does the same fighting way before the FF7 remake.
The big difference is that he continues to preserve the momentum of his attacks till there's no enemy. (Even using his arm cannon for additional spinning)
Heck, Guts also uses the ground to do the "finger flick"-like attack with his sword.
rip mirua ;_;
"I forgot if he ever does... (use the flat of the sword as a shield)" yeah, well, in the original game, when your characters guard, most of them hold their weapons in front of their body. even Aerith does, and she only has a staff, so... think Square at the time was just going for a general braced appearance rather than showing that Cloud was making use of the blade width. on the other hand, in later media, he has done a stance where he holds the blade downward in front of him and angles his body behind it, and that pose is definitely intentionally using blade as a shield.
There's another merit of these oversized swords. When you're not fighting humans, but big monsters. Where agility is not that important but you can really use that extra cutting power.
At that point just use an axe, a mace or a pick.
@@paoloscavalcacinghie428 Monster Hunter: "Allow me to introduce myself."
@@paoloscavalcacinghie428 axes are for pussies. you gotta incorporate a giant folding sword to it or it's not manly...
Giant swords balanced towards the hilt would be far easier to wield than an axe or a mace with similar range
@@paoloscavalcacinghie428 an axe has a smaller blade area so it's harder to defend with, even with a large polearm. Lances that large are single use weapons only. It does make sense to use a very large sword in tht circumstance.
I feel Dark Souls 2 really takes the cake for absurdly large fantasy swords in a pseudo-realistic setting (I see you over there monster hunter)...They have a whole class called ultra greatswords where 50% of them get stuck in the ground after every swing...The Kings Ultra Greatsword is basically an ornate pillar on a stick and the Crypt Blacksword is basically one of those mausoleum obelisks with a handle...
That feature present for all soulslike games that fromsoft made lol, not exclusively just dark souls 2, its funny too that ds2 is the worst when balancing ultra greatswords.
@@ju8_hiugo Yeah, I just thought it was particularly bad in 2...and not only are large weapons hamdicapped with buffs as you hit less times, but even if you do It's probably either that overhead hit where putting it back on your shoulder is the 2nd hit, or the left-right swing that hits every wall..terribly balanced indeed...jumping attacks are about all I ever do if using UGS...to the point that it becomes kinda broken with the bonus damage and quicker recovery...and I love those one-shot speedruns of all the games...
Previously: "That sword is a totally ridiculous idea and he could never use it. He should just use a normal Zweihander."
Now, though: "That sword is a totally ridiculous idea. He should just use a normal Zweihander."
Character development at its finest.
To be fair; a real life Zweihander probably wouldn't do much against a giant spider robot, even if you swing it really fast.
@@Effect-Without-Cause tbh the buster sword wouldn't either, cutting weapons are not designed to fight against solid metal. If this spider robot can withstand bullets, it is basically impossible that any sword of any human size could do anything to it, or you'd just be better off with a giant hammer.
@@rmg480 meh, depends on the bullets used. a giant sword hitting edge on wielded by a super soldier may be able to deliver more force per square inch, or just enough force overall to crush and crumple things. And withstanding doesnt mean its immune, merely that it resists it and needs to be worn down if you really want to get through... kind of like a boss fight, hint hint
@@scout360pyroz ‘crush and crumple’ you mean like what a hammer would do?
About super strength and super toughness, this is something I liked about My Hero Academia. The protagonist gains super strength, but his body was not prepared for it, so he breaks bones when he uses his power. It was necessary for the character's body to adapt to the power little by little, limiting how much force he could use at once, until he could release all the power without breaking it all in the process ...
Yeah I was reminded of this as well
Agreed
Me seeing skal change his mind about anime sword:
"War has changed..."
I feel like the one thing people never really consider in this argument is that it's possible or probable that the Buster sword just isn't as heavy as reproduction swords made with real world materials. The way Cloud handles it doesn't make it seem like a very heavy weapon that he's just strong enough to wield; he handles it as though it's not particularly heavy for him at all. He can twirl it around in one hand.
It could just be that Cloud's Buster sword isn't anywhere near as heavy as it looks.
It is that heavy. It's said in the story that TEN men would have trouble lifting it. Cloud just has muscle and super strength.
@@liberatingzephyr7024 Who says that and in which part of the compilation?
No thats not said in the story.
And yes I always say the same, you can't compare the materials those swords are made of to real life ones.
It's why it's called fantasy world
The way it's swung for his regular square combos in FF7R makes it look and feel very weighty
yeah i think its like in eragon where the metal used to forge the weapon is tougher than titanium but lighter than like tin
When the ancients wrote fantasy, they also gave the hero, Goliath, an ennormously heavy sword, and they describe its weight as about 5 kg. So, for the people who knew what swords are, 5kg weight is an extreme.
I don't know which Goliath you mean but his sword weight is never mentioned in the bible.
I may be wrong here (former theology scholar turned agnostic but it's been a while since college) but I don't think the weight of Goliath's sword was ever given. The word in the hebrew text for the weapon he wore slung between his shoulders isn't well defined and isn't used much elsewhere in the text. When David draws fallen Goliath's sword later to chop off his head a different word is used meaning either he carried two swords along with the very impressive spear and shield mentioned as part of his kit, or more likely, he had the spear as his primary weapon, a sword as a side arm, and the weapon slung between his shoulders was a javelin or atlatl or something the hebrew writer wasn't equipped with the words to describe. Another thing to consider is that it's mentioned that the sword is made of bronze which would limit the size due to the limitations of the metal. At any rate, years later when David was a fugitive on the run he picks up Goliath's sword from the temple at Nob and makes the comment "there is none like it" so he must have thought it was pretty cool. The more impressive part of Goliath's kit that is described is his spear of which it is said the iron head alone weighed roughly 6.5kg. Significantly, Iron weapons at the time would be much more rare and expensive than bronze which is why it is described in such detail and also why it's likely that it was his main squeeze on the field. Given the weight of the head perhaps some kind of sword staff or pole arm weapon that would have been very exotic at the time and absolutely terrifying for the opposing army.
@@o0shivashakti0o yes, your are quite correct. I've remembered the weight, but somehow I confused the spear with the sword. The sword weight is not mentioned, it is just mentioned that Goliath carried it, along with a spear, a javelin and some 50kg armor.
I think that the sword was a normally sized one for Goliath, wich was a giant. It became a buster sword in the hand of David or Galahad((wich i think owned David's sword in at least a version).
14:06 skal proceeds to describe the drawbacks of One For All
"Random keyboard warriors aren't benching 500 pounds"
Well: I certainly can.
The trick is using bills instead of coins. =)
thank you
PFFT
Would 500 1 pound coins even be that much? Maybe if it was 500 in small change, even then, probably less than 500 pounds of lead/steel in a weight set.
@@kauske They only said that so the punchline came out smoother.
Because saying, "i use coins instead", wouldn't be as funny. It's funnier if you see he meant pounds as in money the whole time.
This fits so well with your pfp
Yeah he does use the flat side as a shield, look at him guarding attacks in the game, and certain action cutscenes. He also sometimes slams the sword into the ground, while gripping the handle spinning his body around the blade. Using the moment to rip the sword back out of the ground and into a attack.
I genuinely like watching these because you always give so much room for the games fantasy setting. Or reasons for why it may make sense in the universe in which it exists, and then why it probably wouldn't work in the real world, or why it WOULD work and so on.
Instead of just 'heh.. anime'. Thanks
Great point on "lifting" versus controlling. Years ago a friend took me to the local Renaissance Fair, it was fun, even better were all the "sword guys" showing off their replicas. For a couple of years I had been working as a tree trimmer, hand climbing trees and holding a 15 pound Stihl 032 chain saw all day, every day, usually at full extension, working biceps, triceps and wrist.
Sword Guy- "Here's how you use a sword..." (waves a 4 lbs wall hanger over an arc of about 90 degrees with a slow and lazy "whoosh"
Me- "Wow, that seems heavy. Can I try? (I wrist-flick the 4 lbs wall hanger over an arc of 270 degrees, get around 8' reach and get a great whip-crack "sst thp" sound.
Me- "Big sword, not everyone can swing them."
The girl working the cash register laughed so hard she snorted her latte out her nose.
mmmmmhmmm.
The thing with oversized swords is that almost every downside can be countered by some sort of internal fantasy element. This doesn't make up for stupid design choices like every single daedric weapon from Skyrim, but it does make up for things like the buster sword. If it's made of fantasy metal it can be both incredibly heavy and literally unbreakable, and Cloud is canonically superhuman. As previously discussed he is definitely limited in how he can use it, but all of the things that make it impossible to wield have been circumvented by the medium.
A better question is what's the best buster sword design? Many different depictions of it, which one is the best?
Gravity may also follow different rules. Look at Dungeons and Dragons 5e RAW for example, you can be a ant falling from the skies or a sumo wrestler skydiving with no parachute and both will only take 20d6 damage tops, the damage is going to be the same if falling from the same distance and both will fall at the exact same speed.
Eh the hard edge is better does more damage
The Nail Bat
I believe the original buster sword design would be the best for cutting due to not having grooves to get caught on bone and jagged pieces of metal and seeming slightly thinner however putting materia in its slots would probably require a press and might damage the sword.
The crisis core design is probably not as good of a cutter due to the fancy grooves however its redesigned materia slots seems to include a latch which would make materia installation a breeze. Even if the crisis core design does not have a latch the extra material would make press fitting materia less likely to damage the sword.
The remake design is a combination of the original and crisis core designs having a similar profile, guard, and handle to the original with the fancy grooved blade of crisis core minus the thicker materia slots. The design while looking great and feeling like a HD buster sword loses the cutting benefits of the original's simplicity and the improved materia slots of the crisis core design.
"What if you had superpowers, or some kind of exosuit that increases your strength?"
Adeptus Astartes: "Por que no los dos?"
Giant zap zap hammer
Séeeeeh.
I presume that the joke is that Space Marines get both?
@@오주환-b1n yes, and not only are they swinging 1 massive chainsword, they can (and do) swing two of the fuckers
@@Dragrun1 Don’t think it’s *that* big for their size actually?
Sigmund Freud would have something to say about it...
"Sometimes a giant sword is just a giant sword."
Isn't that the guy who did a bunch of coke and made a living projecting his incest fantasies onto the masses?
@@SavageFreddy33 Pretty much.
@@SavageFreddy33 Yes. Yes, he was.
Well yeah. The guy could find a way to make pretty much anything connect to male genitalia one way or another, so he had something to say about basically everything...
1:51 Woh, careful where you point that great sword.
lol
My Hero Academia: a good example of what happens when Super Strength doesn’t have Super Toughness
Tbf Deku does have super toughness, just not on the same level as the power he can output.
@@wallopstop3873 yeah, if he had completely regular human durability, even something like 10% would leave him permanently crippled. The all out punch he did against the giant robot in the entrance exams would turn him into a particularly fine mist
Newest episode, deku finally got the whip quirk
Oh No My ArMs BrOkE bEcAuSe I sTiLl OnLy HaVe A hUmAn BoDy!!?!?!
@@emmanuelpena2228 fair
You just know that the people who actually designed the Buster "Sword" never put this much thought into it. Not even _remotely_ as much.
It was made in the Playstation Era, wanted to depict a huge sword so you easier to follow movement and makes with crude 3D graphics and because of said limitations... they had to make a massive wedge and they never changed because it became iconic.
@@PJDAltamirus0425 And then there was the norimitsu sword. Some otaku swordsmith's wet dream.
In remake you FEEL the weight of Buster Sword in ypur attacks.
@@VVabsa Also this: You know Sephiroth's Masamune? Someone in Japan also wielded a sword of that same length, during the Sengoku period. Sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback. Look up Makara Naotaka, and his sword, the Taroutachi.
At least they got the low stand necessity aspect of it right. Give them at least 1 point
I got to hand it to the remake. They really thought about the animations.
Something I like is that this is not the first time you've gone back and thought about your points and changed your mind. I appreciate people who can do this
Last time I was this early, Skall is still intent in dissing giant ass swords
You're first
@@ArvelDreth Huh
@@boid9761 there were some people saying they were first and I wanted to set the record straight xD
You are first indeed
And fantasy designs in general.
And then he saw some ridiculous looking historical blades XD
The "can be used as a shield" argument is very valid. The buster sword is used like that sometimes FF. I remember a scene in the anime FF7 Last Order, there is a scene where Zack and passed out Cloud are surrender by guys with guns. Zack then puts Cloud in a corner, plants the Buster sword in front of him. Zack goes on to punch the guys with his faster-than-bullets-mako-insfused body while you see the buster sword protecting Cloud from bullets.
In the game Cloud also can block range attacks with his swords so there's something about them that is either wide/dense/magical enough to do so.
@@insertname3977 I remember watching some youtuber testing out a real life sized buster sword by shooting it with different weapons. He first used hand gun and all it did was left small little dents in the sword then he used shotguns and pretty much the same thing. Then he used a 50.cal sniper rifle at a pretty close range and the bullet still could not pass through the metal but it left a large dent in the sword.
ok, rq, regarding the Buster sword, since Final Fantasy is an RPG series, there is a command in the game called "Defend", which has the character skip their turn in exchange for a guaranteed increase in defence once the enemy's turn rolls around. This is also accompanied by a short animation where the character goes into a defensive stance to contextualize the action.
Wanna guess what cloud does? He places the sword, blade down at an angle on the floor, grips the handle with his right hand, and places his left hand against the flat part of the blade, using it as, essentially, a large two-handed shield.
Another thing is that, in later appearances (chronologically speaking), he does swap out the buster for something called the "Fusion Sword". Basically, a set of 6 separate swords, of varying shapes and sizes, that can be slotted together to form the same general shape as the Buster Sword, primarily to get around the fact that there are certain situations, such as fighting in close quarters, where, even with super strength, endurance, lower gravity than on earth, and high flexibility, a giant sword does become a disadvantage, as it can very easily get lodged into things.
If he's ever in such a situation, he can, instead of grabbing the whole thing, simply take whichever sword best suits his current objective and environment.
"Giant Man with World’s Biggest Sword vs Car" on DemolitionRanch u can see how much pure strength will help u with fantasy giant sword. Robert Oberst vs 120 pounds sword
How fast is the car? Cars at speed are dangerous weapons or they woudnt cause so many deaths .
The sword also eventually had issues in the handle where its attached to the blade, like skall mentioned
Watching Robert Oberst, a competitive strongman, struggle to lift that thing was a bit surprising.
or alen from sufficiently advanced using a camera steadying rig so he can swing it easily
@@hebleh5771 It definitely did not have any issues with the handle attachment. In fact, Matt drove a Humvee up on the sword to straighten the handle out after it was dropped from a 100ft boomlift.Worked great!
He does indeed block projectiles/attacks with the flat of his blade Ingame.
5:00
"We drop it. Gravity does the rest."
- Cobra Commander
"He does a lot of spinning, too"
Yeah, and it usually would follow the Rule of Cool, but these aren't 1v1 sword fights. He's usually mid-combo for those and either he's fighting a hulking monstrosity or some poor shlub who is already on the business end of his sword. Wtf is this rando soldier gonna do? Get a hit in while Clouds back is turned? No he's already had the living shit killed out of him by a massive piece of metal. The man is done for, let alone Cloud's damn hyper speed with that thing. Probably falls under that same thing with Geralt where he's supposed to be faster than the average human so he can get away with the spinning since, I guess, he moves before his opponent can react.
Non-serious discussion, obviously. Just wanted to put my thoughts into words. (Also I haven't finished the Remake so fuck if I know if he fights some expert fighters other than, say, Sephiroth, who to my understanding is the superior combatant.
even in fights with other soldier level characters, if I recall he doesn't do spinning stuff, in cutscene fights. except when it is a player controlled fight.
You make a very good point: I don't like when hema guys are bothered by spinning with a sword. Most fantasy swordfights are not "a noble 1v1 sparring with no armor", so they have to contextualize every fight
I actually modded TW3 with a mod that makes the enemy attack faster cuz they attacked too slowly haha
Final fantasy 7 remake offers other swords you can use that, while being just as big, actually have big ol pommels and look better balanced
Damn. Thanks for bringing this up. I've had this exact opinion on huge weapons. But i'm not an expert. Just an rpg/weponry lover. I've HUGE issues with the handle of the buster sword, as much as i have with de Dragons Slayer from guts. But there's also a difference in the purpose for the existence of a weapon. You don't need something huge to kill a human. BUT monsters that appear in berserk and stuff like that do require some different weight behind. More than muscle. Thanks for the content. Love your work.
The thing that also really makes specifically cloud more doable is to look at what he is fighting. Gigantic robots, super enhanced humans that could survive bomb shell droppings and force fields. You need a heavy impact to do any dmg on many of the enemy's. A normal weapon would be useless (at least without the super strength) to do anything more then scratch these targets.
One fair criticism Skal said in his first video is that speed adds more force than weight, so, hypothetically, Cloud with a lighter, more maneurable, blade, could dish more damage... if the sword can survive the impact. The buster sword has the mass to survive a lot of impacts (except for the handle), but a lighter, magically enhanced sword made of a super alloy would be just better at dishing damage. Ultima Weapon is probably just that, a very very light weapon with the size of the Buster Sword (besides all the magical enhancements of a legendary sword, of course).
That said, with Cloud's fighting style, and the fact that he faces guns, yeah, the Buster Sword makes sense.
I used to think the design would be impractical in a fantasy setting as well. Then I saw Black Clover, where Asta has a giant and wide sword, and one of the things it can do is deflect magic attacks back at the opponent like a baseball bat if it hits the spell with the flat; then I realized, "A narrower sword wouldn't be able to do _that."_
Now if only the Jedi took that into account when making lightsabers.
@@erinfinn2273 To be fair, they have foresight and the blaster shots they have to deflect are usually smaller than the surface area of their lightsabers.
Black clover aldo has him freakishly strong and use it as blunt weapon mostly, black clover really makes him use that size well. In a lot of settings is less thought into it. Inuyasha is nice there, with demons, and nice swords and sangos boomerang.
The bat function is nice too. And aster earned hiscfreakish build.
@@marocat4749 True, but his extreme strength is something a lot of stories do. I was just pointing that the huge sword can do something that it wouldn't be able to do if it had been more practically-sized.
It being blunt is usually presented more as a weakness; it can cut clean through (and nullify thanks to anti-magic) all magical attacks, but if someone uses magic to hurl a real object at him, he's in trouble, as happened in his fight with Vetto.
Have you checked out Berk?
Actually Cloud does indeed uses the buster sword as a shield, with the "Cover" Materia there's a set chance that the wielder of it takes the hit for anyone else... I like to pair the materia to "Counter" to create a scenario where I can attack twice basically, overall a good Materia though how he holds it is more horizontal than vertical like how he would in Smash Bros charging his Limit
5:28 I'm gonna have to need the sauce for the upper right pic please?
(edit)
never mind
its art by Daeho Cha over on Artstation website
took a screenshot, cropped, saved, dragged the image to chrome tab, right click and search.
Took less than 10 mins
Thought it was from an anime
Carry on lads
There was also a retcon in the remake where the they say their weapons have growth materia(magic) in them that enhances the users physical abilities.
Excellent video. What is even more impressive, however, is your willingness to rethink your position and admit to others that your initial assessment may have been "off." Hats off to you, my man.
I always looked at it from the Berserk point of view. If you're fighting giant monsters and you insist on fighting them up close like a lunatic, you'll need pretty big weapons.
Cloud's buster sword is based on an existing sword type called Zanbato. It was apparently used by foot soldiers against cavalry to cut off horses legs(!). They weren't as big as Cloud's, but some of them still seem pretty huge and probably used by strong tall men only.
Also the hilt was longer
Zanbato are nowhere as thicc and fat as Cloud's Buster sword. If anything, they're closer in size to Sephiroth's sword, which is hell of a lot easier to wield than the Buster sword.
The comment about the using it as a shield reminded me of a weapon I loved from DS3 the fume ultra great sword, an even bigger example of giant sword syndrome which you can actually use as an effective shield. The fact that it looked like a chuck of asphalt someone stuck a handle to just made it better
Genuine question : Is Cloud's spinning really that off? In the clip you showed, it seems like his spins happen when he's swinging with one hand, if he's trying to preserve his momentum, would he really be able to do that with a one-handed swing just by staying in that stance?
If you can bench 500 lb your muscles will be to big to wield a sword properly
Arnold had to cut down his training to make Conan because he couldn’t use the sword as his muscles were to big
Really? That's interesting
man, seeing you talking about oversized weaponry in this light is really interesting.
it reminds of a pattern you constantly see in writing, where an idea or element of a story becomes popular and used more and more often, until eventually those elements get deconstructed by later stories, saying how they're impractical or somewhat silly compared what would happen in the real world, leading into more and more works deconstructing the original idea. until eventually some writers come along, and create versions of the idea or element in story, but this version looks over all the deconstructions of the idea but still plays it out more along the lines of the original idea, though taking into account the aspects that were deconstructed previously. this is a reconstruction. this reconstruction may becomes the new normal version of the original idea, or maybe it becomes its own alternate version separate from the original idea. this version may go on to inspire new ideas or new deconstructions and the cycle continues. because the reason you take something apart, the reason to deconstruct something and point out its flaws or problems, is so it can be put back together better than before.
over the years, i've seen more and more people being interested in more realistic versions of medieval weaponry and armor, and people attempting to lean towards more realistic uses of these weapons with HEMA being a more well known thing to look to for how these weapons were used. and i feel live ive seen in increase in more practical real world inspired designs appearing in media, though of course the original over the top version still exist, and maybe its just me being drawn into more things that use real world reference rather than it being more common.
so its really interesting to see people step back, look over the original criticisms of over the top sword designs in fantasy settings, and be like "well actually, this could still work, just not in the way we originally saw it, and with some differences or better justifications." and now using that line of thinking to be able to create somewhat practical versions of the over the top idea that's still true to the original. that's reconstruction! its like this:
Original: protagonist wields massive over-the-top sword and uses it no different from a normal sword.
Deconstruction: Protagonist attempts to wield a massive over-the-top sword but can barely lift it let alone swing it and if its used at all its not used with finesse its just a big weight, and our protagonist either dies or just loses and tries something more practical next time.
Reconstruction: Protagonist gains some kind of advantage, like an Exosuit that takes the brunt of the strain from lifting it, or the magical ability to carry something as if it weighs a quarter of its actual weight, and now can wield the massive over-the-top sword in battle like a normal sword. you could go even further and say its still not like a normal sword, its only swung with the speed and/or finesse kinda similar to how you'd use a normal one, but it might be kinda cumbersome, and is more like a metal bludgeon that's edge maybe can cut things but that's not where the damage comes from, cause even if it weighs less to him it doesn't weigh less to what he's hitting.
this is just overall really interesting to see and think about all this stuff. great video!
TLDR: Over the top massive fantasy swords have officially been deconstructed and criticized so much, we're now responding to that and reconstructing them. which is just all sorts of fun.
It would be cool for a story to acknowledge the narrow handle problem. You could compensate with technique that loosens the rear grip just before impact. That way, the piddly thin handle just goes with the flow rather than suffering a nasty bending force.
You would run the risk of the blade twisting that way. Then again, with just thick object, the blade would to twist a ton to throw off your cut.
Me, 8yo: YAYY GIANT SWORDS
Me, young adult: You see, there's no way this could work in the real world...
Me, older, wiser(?): YAYY GIANT SWORDS
You forgot to add 2 pages of footnotes in smaller print :)
Glad to see you take another look at this one. Its one thing to point out the unrealistic flaws in a design like this (like the handle/grip, absolutely), but discounting it entirely does you no service. Side note: Cloud DOES deflect blows with the flat of the blade, just like you surmised. Its basically a pavise and a stupidly big sword in one.
Im pretty sure when a character has super strength, super toughness is included aswell. It’s part of having super strength. They’re not 2 separate features
Deku from MHA says otherwise
Some characters have super toughness without super strength, but I don't think I've ever seen the opposite
@@taylor_green_9 Deku from MHA is close but even at the start he's a durability freak, you right
@@SoulThornReaper I thought he kept breaking all his bones
Cloud - Bangs ineffectually on vault door with Sword
2 hrs later - Effortlessly sheers a Train in half.
lol
the vault is magik
Then suplex the train to finish it off.
@@tianamaycry That would be the rain transformed.
I love when they're banging on the vault door.
Kudos for going back to this. Nightmare from soul calibur would be a good example of a heavy sword user I think, he has many different styles and imit feels like it has weight to it
The most accurate large weapon handles are in monster hunter tbr
At the end of the ff7 remake they showed avg citizens caruing steel beams on their own no issue, and a small group could pick up and carry a large billboard, it really illustrates that the in game strength levels even among normal people are a universe apart from ours.
i love how you changed your opinion glad to hear that. i could explain all the Enhancement details of Cloud as its better explained in the Prequel Crisis Core that would be a long comment
Zach uses it to block bullets like a shield in the anime quite a bit.
Giant Sword 🛡 for motorcycle 🏍 cuts giant monsters!