What are the main things people disagree with Bowser vs Eggman the most?
Here's my list off the top of my head. I have a few more issues with the episodes conclusion but these are the major ones. Or at least the ones I can explain as it also felt like Death Battle acted like team Eggman were just NPCs that would just let things happen in the analysis but I would have trouble explaining that one. Also I might want to fact check their black hole calc for Bowser at some point as I found it strange they assumed that random planetoid near the black hole was 12,000km in diameter but maybe that one is correct I'm not really sure.
Sage's simulations: This one was weird. First they tried to discredit the accuracy of Sage's simulations in a black box by claiming she's been wrong in the past in regards to Sonic defying her predictions however the problems with that are two fold. First even if taken at face value we know Sage came up with two hyper specific ways to defeat The End in the two possible endings for Sonic Frontiers both of which succeeded in spite of how powerful The End was so even if she does have the potential to be slightly wrong on things it is still a bit absurd to dismiss her outright when her accuracy in finding win conditions has been far greater than her supposed failures. Second Sonic is strongly implied to be a special case by the narrative of Sonic Frontiers so much so that there are arguments for him resisting actual fate manipulation from that game so just because Sonic alone can defy Sage's predictions it doesn't mean that anyone else can by default. That aside though the real reason they dismissed Sage's simulations being a major factor in this fight was outright laughable.
- Across Bowsers 98,000,000+ troops there were too many combinations of power ups for Sage to predict.
Okay no, just no. This is a fight where team Eggman alone has a monster that can delete an entire timeline, the Death Egg with it's constellation annihalating Final Egg Blaster and more sources of planet scale AOE than they would know what to do with. So already the suggestion that either sides fodder would do anything is "one billion lions vs the sun" levels of insane but to also say that Sage would have no awnser for a bunch of Goombas, Koopas and so on using basic power ups is a lazy dismissal of her simulations with no logical standing that I could think of.
Chaos Emeralds vs Grand Stars: They were weirdly dismissive of multiversal Chaos Emeralds even though a Pure Hearts comparison was right there. Basically they claimed that the Chaos Emeralds were universal off their feat in Sonic Rush and therefore comparable to universal Grand Stars. But then they said the Chaos Emeralds were only
maybe multiversal for empowering the multiversal Solaris only to then say that doesn't matter anyways because Bowser has hundreds of Grand Stars even if the Emeralds are multivesal. Okay first there is no
maybe with powering up Solaris, if Solaris is multiversal so are the Chaos Emeralds and with how Death Battle put no effort into debunking Solaris being multiversal them saying the Chaos Emeralds are only
maybe multivesal is a verbal sleight of hand, straight up. Second why did they provide absolutely zero explanation for why quantity beats or equals quality in their comparison if the Chaos Emeralds are superior to Grand Stars, that's just odd to gloss over and it seemed like they just didn't want Eggman to have any solid advantage besides intelligence even when the Wonder Flower supposedly being better than the Phantom Ruby gave them enough reason to call the Trump Cards catagory a tie if they did give the Chaos Emeralds that scaling win against Grand Stars anyways (assuming in that alternate scenario they still don't mention the Pure Hearts). Third a Pure Hearts comparison was right there why didn't they use it, I mean Solaris and Super Dimentio are practically 1-1 in the feats they'd preform so it isn't like they even had to make the clunky comparison that they did to argue for Bowser but they did it anyways for some strange reason (also the Pure Hearts were crucial for resisting Eggman's win conditions according to them so they had no reason to not verbally bring them up).
Phantom Ruby downplay: This one isn't too hard to articulate thankfully. Saying the Phantom Ruby isn't "real" reality warping and is therefore inferior to the Wonder Flower by default is paper thin reasoning at best (even if we ignore Sonic Mania where the Phantom Ruby doesn't seem to be solely illusion based). The reasons why are as follows and some of these are questions for the comparison itself.
- Does it even matter if the Phantom Ruby has powers that are less "real" to begin with if said powers have real effects on it's targets regardless?
- Does the Phantom Ruby being selectively "real" actually come with benefits that make the debate more nuanced like how a Phantom Ruby user can eliminate friendly fire by just willing their illusions to not hurt their own side even with massive AOE while the Wonder Flower is more...wild to say the least.
- Does it matter that Eggman has three Phantom Rubies, the original and the two prototype Rubies while Bowser only has a single Wonder Flower meaning the Phantom Rubies are more replaceable if Eggman loses one during the battle.
No. None of that just the Phantom Ruby is less real and that's all. No nuance whatsoever oh and they also made a point of the Egg Field requiring prep time in this fight for some reason, as if nothing else in this fight is non-standard.
Team loyalty somehow being a deciding factor: This will be my last criticism just so I don't end up writing a book. On a surface level the point itself is ridiculous to entertain, almost everyone who has ever betrayed Eggman wasn't in this battle (unless Team Eggman gets people like the real Shadow or Dr. Starline helping him) and the ones that were only betrayed Eggman under special circumstances that would not be in play here. The only exception to that is the Heavy King and by extension the Hard Boiled Heavies however none of them are top tiers that would impact the fight much and being blunt are we really going to act like King Boo is the epitome of loyalty on Bowser's side. 99.999% of Eggman's side being loyal or at least willing to fight alongside him aside that was once again such a non nuanced point that felt as though it was solely there for a narrative about how Bowser is so much of a better leader than Eggman which is true but it isn't something that matters much in a vs discussion and it did little to help with the sense that they didn't care much about Eggman at all while they glorified Bowser.
TLDR:
This post was a mistake. I found lots of Death Battles reasoning shaky at best and to me the worst part about the research was that most of that surface level reasoning was preventable. They could have argued Sage's simulations require data and that perhaps it would be unlikely she could aquire enough data on team Bowser to make a winning plan before team Eggman loses too many assets to the hax of Bowser, King Boo and Kamek, they could have compared the Chaos Emeralds to the Pure Hearts among other things but instead they seemingly made a conclusion you aren't really supposed to think too hard about where they wanted Bowser to stomp while still acting like the fight is close without portraying it that way in the vs battle equivalent to having your cake and eating it too.