Master Chief vs Doom Slayer Review

We’re back once again for another Death Battle review, and this time the show itself is going back to one of its older episodes. Yup, we got ourselves a rematch. This isn’t the first time Death Battle have done this. They will occasionally go back to their older episodes to give them an update.

I’m of two minds when it comes to them. On the one hand, I think they’re a good idea. Many of the older episodes especially from seasons 1 and 2 do not hold up due to having weak analyses and sub-par animation. The show was different back then in how it handled vs debating, and seeing an old matchup getting a more thorough look is something I want to see more of. And with how good some rematches like Goku vs Superman 2023 are it’s not hard to see why people want these updates.

On the other hand, I think a lot of people want these rematches simply to see a different result. Like they feel like Death Battle got it wrong the first time and they want the mistake corrected. This isn’t right to me. Death Battle have indeed had results that are questionable, Omni Man vs Bardock being the most recent example, but that doesn’t mean I think they should re-do every episode I think is wrong. That’s petty and pathetic.

The only time Death Battle should re-do an episode for that reason is if they no longer agree with the result they gave. Which has happened with Cloud vs Link, and there are plenty of episodes they have gone on record saying are straight up wrong now. In that instance they should re-do them. Not to please randoms online, but to make an episode they can stand behind.

All that said, where does Master Chief vs Doom Slayer fall into? Is it done to update the previous episode, or just to correct a result? Eh, little of column a little of column b. The original episode is very outdated. Both characters got way more material and scaling that does need to be covered, and it goes without saying that they could do with an animation that does justice to these characters.

But is the original episode wrong? I don’t think so. Given the information at the time, it does seem to make sense that Master Chief would win. I don’t think the old episode needs to be corrected, it’s just that there’s new stuff to analyse that could lead to a different result.

In that case, I’m perfectly fine with this from the outset. I’m not the biggest fan of either series, but I do like them fine enough. I’m interested in learning more about the lore of both and how insane they get. I already know Doom is nuttier that a fruit cake so that should be fun.

I’m going in with strong expectations. Will it live up to that? let’s find out shall we.

Analysis

Ok, I’m not going to lie, I was a little let down by this analysis. It’s not bad. It goes through the characters, their abilities and backstories well enough, but it didn’t go as heavy into the lore as I would have liked. Well, it did for Doom but only because there wasn’t much lore to begin with. It’s basically just demons kill guys rabbit and he proceeds to go on a murder spree. It’s the most basic, stupid story out there and it’s fucking glorious.

But for Halo we only got the clip notes version. We got Chiefs backstory on how he was a child abducted and trained to be a super soldier, how his humanity was whittled away but how he regained it thanks to his AI companion who, ironically, was based on the one who destroyed him to begin with, and his battles with the different alien species, but we only got the surface level stuff.

They don’t go into a lot of the deeper Halo related stuff. They don’t even mention the Halo itself, or the Flood for that matter. They bring up the forerunners, but they don’t explain who they are. As someone only tangentially aware of Halo that’s the kind of stuff I want to learn about. Instead I got nothing but the bare minimum.

I know this isn’t a lore analysis channel; it’s more about analysing abilities and power sets rather than the actual stories, but part of the appeal of Death Battle is learning more about characters and series you may not know much about, and I don’t feel like this episode does that.

I also find it funny that they seem to go deeper into Dooms lore despite it being far more simplistic. So, the series whose story is just guy too angry to die kills demons gets a bigger lore dump than the series with ancient aliens, AI wars, eldritch horrors and government corruption. Feels like the opposite should have happened.

Then again, Doom’s story is centred entirely around Doom Slayer so it could have just been easier to cover. Regardless, they didn’t go over the lore as well as they could. I only knew the basics of each character going in, and that didn’t change by the end.

But everything else is perfectly fine. The editing is solid, they used a ton of different sources so it was visually interesting, the pacing was tight minus one part I’ll get to in a second, and there’s some little touches they threw in that got a chuckle out of me like Doom Slayers lineage and Master Chief hating Paramount+. As a Star Trek fan I can agree with that.

For the debate they went over all of the most important factors. Their biggest weapons, their power ups, their stats and their AI. Even their battle styles to an extent. Master Chief is depicted as a tactical military man while Doom Slayer is just the big scary demon hunting guy. It sets up the fight dynamic well.

The characters are treated with respect. I did feel like they were glazing Slayer a little bit, but upon rewatching they did the same for Chief. They’re both depicted as the strong heroic icons that they are. So, while the lore analysis was weak for Halo, Master Chief’s character was portrayed well. Which is more important at the end of the day.

My only other complaint for the analysis was the YouTooz plug in the middle of Slayers segment. Listen, I get they have a product you need to sell and that requires advertisement; I know this game well, but you already have an ad at the beginning and the end for this, you didn’t need to stop an analysis halfway through for one. It just brings the episode to a screeching halt.

But aside from that and the lack of in-depth Halo lore, it was a decent analysis. At the very least it covers the vs debating part well, and it thankfully avoids some of the more outlandish parts of the scaling. Which I’m happy with, but more on that later. Because now we have a fight to talk about.

Fight Animation

This was a fun fight. It’s a DevilArtemis 3D fight so it has some of the stiffness problems they have, but because this is a ranged battle more focused on the abilities, it’s a matchup that leans more into DA’s strengths. So the stiffness isn’t nearly as bad as it is in other fights. It’s at least much better than Kratos vs Asura.

There’s also not a lot of banter, so the character exchanges are kept mostly to Cortana and Chief, but that’s fine. Doom Slayer isn’t known for his verbiage after all. There were still some good lines, some even got a chuckle out of me, they just didn’t come from the main characters much. Phillip Sacramento did a great job as Chief and Slayer has one line, but Gianni Matragrano killed the one line he had. Even Kira Buckland as Cortana and Yong Yea as VEGA had a good showing here despite only being side characters.

But let’s get into why the fight is fun. First, it has a lot of energy. There’s no lull here, no moment where the action dies down. It’s a constant barrage of carnage that never lets up for a second. Considering the series involved this is perfect.

This is also a good example of a fight animation that showcases the differences in the characters personalities. Slayer is depicted as this unstoppable juggernaut that just ploughs through anything with raw force. Meanwhile Chief is shown as more tactical, using his environment and weapons in more creative ways.

Not only does this pay off from the analysis, but it’s also a fun dynamic. It’s like Bowser vs Eggman in that it’s a brute vs a tactical genius, only more metal and less cartoony. I realise I’m using that episode a lot in references, but that’s because it’s the gold standard for this shoe now and I can’t help that.

They showed off a lot of each character’s arsenal. Not everything is shown, obviously, but all the heavy hitters are here, and there’s enough variety to keep things interesting. My only disappointment with this is that we never got a Plasma Sword vs Chainsaw clash. Both were here, just not in the same encounter. Wasted opportunity but what can you do.

It does a good job of showing what each character is about. Scratch that, it isn’t just the characters it shows off, it perfectly reflects each series. The fight track “Halo to Hell” is a perfect melodic mix of each series unique sounds. Mixing the sweeping epic score of Halo, with the heavy metal/techno of Doom to great effect. It’s an awesome track.

The setting is also a great mix. It starts off on a ship or a base that looks like it was straight from Halo, before transitioning into the Hell seen in Doom. I find it funny we’ve had two fights this season that involve going to Hell, but I’m not complaining about that. It’s cool as fuck.

They even integrate a first-person viewpoint for both characters. That’s not only a nice reference to the games, but it also gives us some really nice camera angles. Especially the one near the end, but I’ll get to the death later.

My favourite part of the fight though, isn’t when they’re fighting each other, it’s when they’re fighting the demons. These two are one-man armies and this scene helps showcase that. Plus, it’s nice seeing some extra action and carnage in these fights. Death Battle don’t do this often, in fact the last time this happened was Leon Kennedy vs Frank West which was quite a while ago. I wish they would do more of these horde interruptions because I think they’re fun.

This whole fight is one giant love letter to both series. Even the little touches like the references to the game covers and the Isabelle cameo show that they wanted to give all aspects of the games and franchises a shout out. Even the memes, because we all love a good meme.

It’s not a perfect fight. Some of that 3D stiffness is still here, it’s a tad short, and there is some weird spacing issues that make it sometimes hard to tell where certain characters are in relation to each other. Slayer grabbing the rocket was cool and helped show his speed, but the anime action lines made it feel like he was miles away despite that not making much sense.

Still, I really enjoy this fight. It’s got a great energy, and it’s clear the animators really loved both series and that love shines through. Then, there’s the kill. This is one of the most brutal kills we’ve seen in a while. First it’s done in first person at first, which is cool. We even see Master Chief dual wield machine guns in his final stand. Then Chief gets his arms cut off, neck broken, is stabbed right through the chest, pumped full of energy, explodes, and his head lands on Slayers gauntlet blade while he poses for the game cover.

Fucking metal as fuck. It’s more brutal than a Mortal Kombat fatality. But speaking of the death, let’s get to that result.

Result

Slayer won to absolutely no one’s surprise. We all knew he would win because of how ridiculous the Doom lore got. But what surprised me was that wasn’t the reason they gave. Instead, he won simply because he had higher stats via feats, more experience and a better arsenal. It was a pretty straightforward reasoning.

They didn’t even bring up all the lore scaling Slayer got and thank God for that. I always found that argument to be dubious since Slayer only gets to those higher cosmic levels by killing Davoth, which he did with a knife, and guns. So, yeah, I always thought it was wonky. I’m iffy on lore scaling in general and this is one reason why.

But thankfully they didn’t need to cover that. They even mention how Dooms story is more open to interpretation which could be why they decided to ignore that part of this debate. The feats they showed were more than enough evidence to justify the result anyway, and this is where I like power scaling to be. More focused on the actual feats than anything that isn’t shown on screen.

I will say I do wish there was a fifth category covering intelligence/battle tactics just to give Chief an extra category. It wouldn’t change much, but it is a point in his favour and it’s more solid than the AI one which doesn’t help him at all. Even the black boxes show it’s a pointless victory.

But not much to complain about here. The result is believable, doesn’t leave much room for doubt and leaves out bullshit lore statements. I’m happy with this.

Overall

Master Chief vs Doom Slayer is a good episode. Its biggest flaw is the analysis which does skimp over a lot of the more interesting aspects of Halo, but it covers the actual debate well which is the most important part. The fight is a ton of fun, and the result is well constructed and believable.

So aside from the analysis, this isn’t a bad episode at all. Even the analysis isn’t awful, it’s just got problems holding it back. Overall, this is a great episode that does both characters justice and makes for a much-needed update to the original. It’s everything a rematch should be.

Next time, it’s a big one. Perhaps too big. I’m glad they skipped the cosmic stuff here, because next time it’s going to go off the rails.

Score: 8/10