Persona 4
Ok, as you know, I've played and love the game. Whether to rank it...well, couple thoughts here. I can see both waiting a session to get them all at once, ranking them all now, and doing a partial now.
1) Waiting a session means we can still get them in and another 2 games (assuming quantity, here). We'd rank just the 7-8 party members. This is not really a huge issue - there's a minimum of 2, max of 4 bosses here (and the argument for, "if you can't say their name in a ranking topic, then don't rank them!" is...generally true, although see below). It's not a huge loss. The alternative here is to rank the the 2 that aren't significant spoilers, and hold on the other 2 that kind of are. Unfortunately, the 2 that are would be the most important bosses to rank! And the 2 remaining do have some semi-issues...although not too significant, really (and people consider them for ranking, so...).
2) All at once - for this, see MF's post in the ranking topic discussion. Just because a spoiler is ranked does not mean they need spoiled. It just means they fight (PC, boss, optional super-boss). Granted, part of the issue here is that it's hard to fit them in to this set - but just because they have a boss form doesn't mean it needs spoiled. I can come up with several spoiler-free write-ups, BtS set-ups, etc. that explain the person and spoil nothing. So, really, I don't think spoiler waiting is too much of a necessity - even with Masaji Kato, he falls in the same thing (would fit for a party member, almost, and has plot in both games...really doesn't mean anything, and him being the final boss spoils very little, to me - I mean, I could tell you, say, the final boss of FF1 is Garland, and it really doesn't spoil much - you just know he'll appear at the end).
3) All in all, partial is probably the safest bet. It's been gone over already, I just don't think it's as necessary as others indicate.
THAT HAVING BEEN SAID! As for whether to rank the game or not...it looks like it's getting in, so the "wait a session to rank the game" probably won't do much. I think the game's ready - I held out for some other SMT ranks, but it's built up a lot (and overcome WA5 which has had, what, over a year? - granted, interest). So rank it. And rank the PCs (Soji, Yosuke, Chie, Yukiko, Kanji, Rise, Teddie, Naoto) and the 4 significant bosses. As I said, I don't think you have to necessarily spoil them just because they're big, important players in the game (and 2 of them are spoilers to the extent that Zeromus is a spoiler as the final boss in FF4).
Wild ARMs 5
Damnit, I was hoping it would get snubbed another season! It's just so funny!
Anyway, played it, find it average-ish or so for the series, above-ish overall. Worthy of ranking, I'd say, for all that P4 owns it in like all categories (except for Elfiness).
But someone asked for a Volsung argument? Sure, I'll bite.
1) If you allow all forms for all characters, then Kartikeya's duel form still has the same issue. Granted, he also has another valid form without it, so...not as much of an issue, and an easy counter-example for this argument. But he'd like that duel form a lot.
2) There tends to be a consensus among a lot of people to ban "overpowered" stuff in general. People hold Ghaleon to his in-game combos (well, some...very few, actually), disallow the reflect aspect of FFT Reflect Mail (which is not something you can have in-game), disallow other boss special effects (Fallen One/Fou-Lu's skill that does the same thing to hit anything, period - most people call bosses immune to it), don't let certain boss skills work (Absorb from Yunalesca against bosses), disallow form-chains even with "agreed to" form-chain allowance rules (Jenna's form-chain, which keeps all effects in place through both battles), etc. I don't see why people wouldn't just do the same here - not allow the infinite chaining to work. It's not like people allow Tales characters to do infinite combos, right?
3) As a corollary to the above...how many people see it? I saw Kartikeya chain (just 2 of them together), but have never seen Volsung do it. Two ways to look at this:
A) If we have high vote draw from "external" sources, then it's not likely people saw the thing, and thus don't know about it. So probably won't vote like that, or alternatively vote in a different way than "normal".
B) If we have low vote draw from "external" sources, then, hey, the general "consensus" allowances noted in part 2 above hold true, and thus people won't give him that potential.
4) More a question - can someone clarify something for me? Meeple and I had this discussion, and I would also like to get other thoughts. Volsung had 2 fights before the frue final - one had the Double Attack, the other didn't. Aren't both legal, and doesn't it sound similar to the Kartikeya note above? Or am I mis-remembering the plot, and the one form was a hologram or something? If they're both deemed, "legal", then hey, just hold him to the other form, the same way other bosses have that done to them. If not? See the above stuff, with the thought that people on the "external" side won't see that "legal" difference, and possibly vote on one of the 2 out of 3 forms without it.
I really don't think this is as bad as people say it is, for the reasons above. He's plot important, and the "issue" noted I do not think is as bad as people are making it out to be.
HAVING SAID ALL THAT - rank Dean, Rebecca, Avril (no additional Ice Queen Avril - it's a force of will in her head, although I can see the point to rank them both, especially since I came up with it originally as an afterthought), Greg, Carol, Chuck, Nightburn, Persephone, Kartikeya, Elvis, Fereydoon, Volsung.
