Now for the part everyone actually cares about. I have a lot to say. It is almost all good, I am vibrating in my seat faster than Wally West could ever hope to.
I believe I've already talked about the fight opening plenty since I watched the preview like 20 something odd times. But it's a very good fight setup, the general best they could have given. Trunks getting on Silver's case for Time Travelling and trying to alter his future is the most sensical way for a fight between the two to start out.
The fight start is very solid as well, good character expression work, the backgrounds look nice, and so do the visual effects. While Trunks has some very minor jank, its pretty dismissible and not that big a deal. Both characters make good usage of their base abilities, Trunks' sword and ki blasts, Silver's TK, warp ring, and attack redirection, the fight flows very well, if being a little low on impact up until Silver reflects Trunks' Masenko (?), which is the point I think the fight's impact kicks up a lot more.
From here on out things start to get really crazy. Trunks immediately goes Super Saiyan to counter Silver's giant boulder, and its pretty impactful. What I didn't expect was for SILVER to IMMEDIATELY activate his Super Form in retaliation, though. While watching the fight everyone thought that it felt just a little too early for Silver to pull it out, but frankly in hindsight, it allowed for them to start going buckwild with the scale from here on out. I will admit, Silver's super transformation did feel a little less visually interesting / impactful than I would've liked, but Silver immediately no-selling the reflected attack with the loud ass SFX saves it. The dialogue here was pretty fun, Silver's dorky ass trying to seem cool just for Trunks to call him out for his copying.
This is where the fight just starts to get really good. The ******* moon exploding this early into the fight was not expected (they've really been having fun fuckign the moon up lately, huh?) and feels appropriately impactful, and the scale of Silver immediately hucking all the rocks at Trunks is palpable. All my DB friends absolutely loved the little joke with him hoping for a good pull to help him deal with it, so I'm assuming that's just a nice injoke about Xenoverse/Heroes gacha mechanics, I chuckled in the moment myself though. I liked the difference in power between some of Trunks' lower level summons being shown through the fight, where they immediately fail to counter Silver's reflected blast while Trunks is the only one who can handle it. The ******* pig immediately dying in the background was a pretty good in joke too, I wouldn't have noticed that if someone here didn't point that out, btw.
Next up might just be my favorite scene in the fight though. Silver using his TK to ******* redirect his ALREADY redirected ki blasts from Trunks' summon, JUST to pull them into his redirection of Trunks' galick gun to increase it's power even further to shatter Trunks' sword and force him to go all out before completely overpowering the attack and knocking Silver back was ******* incredible. Absolutely insane scale, impact, and it looks visually ******* awesome, and is a perfect showcase of Silver's craftiness with his TK and Attack Reflection in battle, and a good showcase of Trunks' power. People generally thought that Silver's reliance on AR & TK could spell for boring choreo, but creativity like this refutes that idea quite well. This one ******* scene is better than anything in the entirety of Archie vs Wally, and we're only halfway through the fight.
Trunks then gets to wail on Silver a bit to show how he generally dominates the fight in hand to hand combat, before he gets off an absolutely insane beam attack, visually this was on the tier of Vegeta's ******* Final Flash. My one complaint is that Silver kind of pathetically falls out of the attack with little impact. It looks like he just flopped over and fell out instead of being launched away with incredible force. This lack of impact is IMMEDIATELY made up for afterwards, with Trunks slashing Silver with the Keysword and just, all of reality and time beginning to bug the **** out. It feels like Silver's super form working against the affects of the Keysword as they both try to overpower one another, with time jittering and stopping and rewinding and continuing like wild as the visual effects and sound go ******* crazy. All while this happens Silver goes to cast Chronos Control, and gives my favorite vocal delivery in the ep, and Trunks goes to entrap him in the Eternal Time Labyrinth. I think Trunks' VA could've given this line a bit more gusto like Silver's did, but then again, Silver is the one being slashed here, not Trunks LOL. THIS could also be my favorite shot in the episode too, it's just so ******* good.
Now we get to the fight finale, which is incredible too. The backdrop of the ETL is striking, the music building up to a crazy finale, Trunks rushing forward and turning into a blue line due to the Keysword's glow, as Silver delivers a reprisal of his it's no use line in a much more triumphant, powerful way, only for Silver to utilize his Chronos & Chaos powers to override Trunks, snatching the Keysword from him and launching it right back at him, but Trunks CATCHES the sword and holds it back even as Silver's TK pushes it towards him, which forces Silver to use his TK and to grab Trunks and the sword at the same time, holding Trunks still as he forces the blade through his chest, killing Trunks as he's completely oblitherated from reality & the timeline, his death scream glitching and bugging out as he goes. I'm not sure if his death is due to Silver wiping him from existence as he's stabbed, or the effects of the Keysword ******* Trunks over, but it's still an incredibly impactful and well built up kill.
Overall, this fight was ******* incredible, everything I could have asked for. When I bitch about and complain about Archie v Wally, this is generally more of what I had in mind for what I wanted out of the fight. Fast pace, utilizing much more of the character's arsenal, more crazy scale, interesting, inventive choreography, more notable setpieces, some more character interactions, a kill that is generally a lot more comprehensible than whatever the hell happened at the end of ASonic v Wally.
My complaints with this fight are just, so minimal, they're all nitpicks, but I'll just name them off/restate them. The fight's opening, as well paced and fun as it is, is a little lacking in impact up until the first attack reflection. Silver's super transformation could've looked a bit more impactful/visually impressive, Silver being launched out of Trunks' massive **** off laser beam needed more impact/velocity, and Silver DOES kind of start to do a bit less in the fight after Trunks activates his God Ki and starts beating on him, outside of his major moments with the Keysword clash and final kill.
Also, Hedge of Tomorrow is ******* incredible, I've had it on loop the past two days, and its fighting for my favorite track this season alongside Metal Lotus honestly. I also appreciated them seemingly getting Silver's official VA on the show, it feels pretty wild to look back on the Shadow vs Mewtwo days where they intentionally had the VA sound as shitty as possible for Shadow, to going out of their way to hire the official voice actor for the character. Doubly so considering Silver was ragged on so heavily back then.
All in all, I finally have it. I finally ******* got what I've wanted for so long. I have a single, genuinely fantastic Sonic episode. An episode with a good analysis, with a ******* phenomenal fight that realizes its potential and is visually good, has no major flaws, treats its characters well, has a great battle track, it was everything I could've asked for. Easy ******* 10/10 for me, the best episode this season easily and it's probably gonna rank among my favorite episodes on the show ever. You have no ******* idea how good that feels to say, as someone who's always felt Sonic has had a bad history on the show, and as someone who probably went into this episode more critical than most others here did. I am esctatic.
Dream face reveal
