Godlike:
Ghaleon (Lunars) vs Lenneth Valkyrie (VPs) - Don't normally consider the ID blocker legal, but also an extremely strong preference against annoyingly high godlikes and returning champs. Not sure Ghaleon's damage is quite as good as advertised to take down much more than 80% of Lenneth's HP. Hmm.
Fujin (FF8) vs Valvalis (FF4) - FF8 scaling is a mess, but even if you give Fujin reasonable HP and damage, Val is still way faster. Though not really buying Weak working; I think that's FF8 Diablos and the like being awesome, not the bosses having a weakness.
Luther Lansfeld (SO3) vs Naesala (FE9)
Lulu (FFX) vs Van Grants (TotA)
Addressing these two together, as they both involve action-RPG characters. I prefer to try and evaluate action-RPGs as best as possible from the way they work in-game... Luther's stuff is dodgeable, but fairly tricky to dodge unless you run entirely behind him or the like. So I don't normally give tons of credit in the DL to people evading his attacks (I'd see them working maybe 75% of the time?). However Naesala is one of the most evasive characters in FE9, has insane speed, and flies. In SO3, that'd be a dynamite combination. I can certainly see him evading Luther's later attacks.
Lulu, however... I got nothin'. Dodging MAs in Tales of the Abyss is not like hitting the block button; generally you dodge by running away. But Lulu is very slow, so that should be nigh-impossible... yet her evasion stat in-game is hugely high, er, just because. I can see sticking with how Lulu functions in-game and giving the match to her, or arguing that evading a Tales MA is harder and requires a different skillset than normal evasion. Ugh. Will think on it.
Heavy:
Kornell (G3) vs Dehuai (SH1) - Yes Dehuai is tough, but Kornell is definitely the better slugfester here to me. First, as I think I mentioned before, I find it completely arbitrary to deny multi-part bosses their actions from the other parts but let, say, Ghaleon or Empyrea cheerfully double-act away. Why should flavoring the double-act as two "pieces" make it illegal? It seems that the Iron Fist is clearly part of Kornell, not a summoned ally. So he gets credit for that, at least from me, which nearly doubles his offense.
Second. Kornell's HP. I actually worked this out awhile back for the RPGMon tournament... Kornell has 9600 HP (and the Iron Fist 7200 HP), but you should knock about 3000 off right away for Drak's Orb (there are no bosses later to save it for, you just got it, the game seems to encourage you to try it out). So 6600 HP. According to the stat topic, average PC damage is around 700. 700*4 = 2800, and (6600/2800) / 2.5 = .94 PCHP for those who use 2.5 rounds of damage for average HP. Except... Kornell fights with extremely noteworthy support in Violetta. Since the Inverse Ninja Law actually applies in RPGs, I certainly give Kornell support credit, so that's more like 1.8 PCHP.
Kornell is, if you allow him double actions, going to go WOW / Buster for .7 PCHP damage or so, then starts going Megaton Punch / Buster for 1.1 PCHP damage a round (and cancels off the Buster, for those who let that do something, though the Buster is also lagging his turns a bit due to slow recharge time). Dehuai has, according to the stat topic... 4.63 PCHP taking literally (!!!). That sounds really high. Okay, so it'll take 5 rounds to kill Dehuai if you use that number, 4 rounds if you use 4 PCHP or lower. If you don't let Kornell double act, then it takes one WOW + 7 rounds of damage = 8 rounds total.
On Dehuai's side... he's got a choice of an MT magic attack that might kill the Fist a round early, or his physical which does erratic damage due to the fact that he apparently sucks at the Judgment Ring. Let's suppose he goes with the magic, since it his Kornell's eh resistance. That does... .326 PCHP damage, augmented to .36 PCHP against Kornell's resist. His initiative is only Jet-style as far as moving first, not Tidus style as an "extra round" according to the stat topic. So it takes Dehuai 3 rounds to kill Kornell if you don't give support credit, but 6 rounds to kill Kornell if you give him full credit. The Iron Fist might not be there for the last round, so it could knock down Kornell's damage a bit (but not hugely, the Busters are still the main damage source).
Anyway, I definitely give Kornell the interpretations that he wants, and generally respect him more from in-game memories than Dehuai (He's tough, but that tough?!), so Kornell cleans up in 4 rounds and dies only after 5-6 (5 for not quite full support credit). That's my math, at least.
Maria Traydor (SO3) vs Sabin Rene Figaro (FF6) - Bit of a coinflip. Not inclined to give FF6 speed that much credit, but I suppose it works for initiative somewhat, and Sabin seems like the type able to avoid the full brunt of Energy Burst, and Bum Rush sure looks like it can get inside on Triple Kick easily enough. Good match.
Middle and most of Light are eh, but one other match note:
Big Joe (XG) vs Hawkeye (FE7) - I'd just like to point out that Hawkeye doesn't want a Hand Axe here. Why? When the crowd throws stuff at Hawkeye, he'll have to counter them, and then he'll be disqualified. But as long as he's smart enough to use a Silver Axe, he's probably good.
Bonus - Items should be banned, of course. Clean living and all that, none of this artificial game-cheese type stuff. They were particularly unbalanced in Growlanser 3 - in a pretty tricky strategic game, where healing takes awhile to power up and things can get out of hand fast, items have practically no recharge time and no range limitations. Made a lot of the "save the villagers!" missions go from "very hard" to "cakewalk." And that kind of easiness invites dissolute living and moral degradation. Can't have that now.
