Post by Dale on Jan 29, 2007 20:01:56 GMT -8
Hey, all! I thought I'd offer a reader's perspective on the race and everyone's finishing positions! This is for episode eight!
This episode of The Amazing Final Fantasy Race saw the five teams left in the race briefly continuing their jaunt through the worlds of Kingdom Hearts by racing to Halloween Town before just dancing along the borders of the Square-Enix Universe and the Nintendo Universe by traveling to the Mushroom Kingdom. Alliances, rivalries, and loyalties shifted and heated up continuously as the teams tried to eliminate one another on this very exciting leg.
The Roadblock saw one team member bringing two remaining ingredients to the lab doctor of Halloween Town — Memory and Surprise. For Memory, the team members were shown a blurry picture of The Nightmare Before Christmas’s Sally and faced with the task of searching the town and correctly identifying her simply by asking her for the Forget-Me-Not. For the Surprise, they were tasked with going to the graveyard and finding the mayor, who gave them a short memorization task before giving them the Surprise. This was a very luck-based task in that teams had to hope to get lucky enough to find the two people essential to completing their tasks. One team member got very lucky by spotting two other team members leaving one task and was able to complete that same task quickly enough to grab the lead.
En route to the Detour, teams had to pass through three different regions to get there. Or did they? Well, three of the teams sure did. But two other teams took a very dangerous risk, assuming the identities of royalty to take a shortcut that involved traveling by air to bypass the long path on foot. In the end, it paid off, and they found themselves being the first two teams to reach the Detour.
The Detour had teams choosing between Crash, which had them simply going on a mining cart ride, or Splash, which had them going to a river course to fall down a waterfall and travel down the river on spinning barrels, all the while collecting forty coins, and having to start all over again if forty coins weren’t collected by the time both courses were completed. With so few teams left, the smarter choice was obviously choosing the safe bet, Crash, although risk takers, much like three of the teams, would more than likely have chosen Splash.
The second and last Yield came into play on this leg, and with so few teams left, this was the right time to use it to try and knock a stronger team out of the race. The team who used it knew this, and thus used it correctly. Unfortunately, that team’s time penalty, coupled with terrible circumstances beyond another team’s control, kept the Yielded team in the race and eliminated a different team.
With yet another team eliminated, we’re now down to the final four. Things are getting harder and harder than ever before, and the teams are growing more and more competitive. So in order of arrival at the Pit Stop, which teams were thinking smart in episode eight?
Yuna and Rikku: First place, and well earned! The cousins did very well on this leg. Yuna enlisted the help of a local (and some help from Rufus, as well) to complete the Roadblock. Then, upon reaching the Mushroom Kingdom, the team worked with Shinra and Rufus to take a huge risk traveling to the Detour by air rather than on foot. They took a risk with the Splash Detour that paid off (although it would’ve ended in disaster had Yuna not collected the “extra” coins before realizing her miscounting error), and barely edged out the dating knights in a footrace (capped off with a quick swim) to the Pit Stop for first place. Well done.
Steiner and Beatrix: The dating knights ran a pretty good leg, with Beatrix teaming up with Rufus to complete the Roadblock. Their plan to throw Lani off the trail didn’t work, as she finished the Roadblock before them, but since a bunch-up point came along, that didn’t matter. Of the three teams traveling to the Detour by foot, they were the first team to get there and wisely played it safe by choosing Crash. Really, their one bit of trouble occurred when their cameraman was injured during the Detour and they had to take him to a nearby inn on the way to the Pit Stop. Had they not had to make that stop, this team just might’ve won this leg.
Amarant and Lani: The coworkers ran a pretty good leg, with Lani completing the Surprise half of the Roadblock (which was all too easy, really) very quickly, and getting lucky enough to see Beatrix and Rufus leaving the location of the Memory half. This got her and Amarant out of the Roadblock first. They were one of the three teams who traveled by foot to the Detour, which they did in a decent amount of time, but they ended up being held up by Shinra and Rufus’s Yield. They took a risk that paid off by completing the Splash Detour in one try and got to the Pit Stop in third place. Not bad at all.
Shinra and Rufus: Despite making fairly quick work of the Roadblock, the father and son made a big mistake on this leg. They got themselves penalized for taking the map left for another team while changing cabs at the beginning of the leg. Additionally, they were penalized when Shinra left the Roadblock area to return the map to that team. However, they took a smart risk by trying to minimize the damage of their penalty by assuming the identities of royalty with Yuna and Rikku and using their guise to take the secret shortcut by air to the Detour. They Yielded Amarant and Lani (Steiner and Beatrix and Auron and Jecht would’ve been good choices, too), took another smart risk with the Splash Detour, and made it to the Pit Stop in a good enough amount of time to take their penalty with nearly no fear of losing any time. Although it was pretty close (thirty-six seconds!).
Auron and Jecht: What went wrong? A bad leg. Nothing more, nothing less. (Although I really hate to admit it.) They did all their tasks and all their traveling correctly and would have done everything faster — and thus been fast enough to beat Shinra and Rufus’s time penalty — had it not been for Jecht’s bad leg. That said, I am not at all sorry to see them go. They made a good villain team, and they certainly kept some things interesting, but when compared to the other teams left, they were the weakest team and, quite frankly, two mean, cocky, arrogant, nasty, horrible, malicious, insufferable, truly odious men. I’m so glad they’re gone.
This episode of The Amazing Final Fantasy Race saw the five teams left in the race briefly continuing their jaunt through the worlds of Kingdom Hearts by racing to Halloween Town before just dancing along the borders of the Square-Enix Universe and the Nintendo Universe by traveling to the Mushroom Kingdom. Alliances, rivalries, and loyalties shifted and heated up continuously as the teams tried to eliminate one another on this very exciting leg.
The Roadblock saw one team member bringing two remaining ingredients to the lab doctor of Halloween Town — Memory and Surprise. For Memory, the team members were shown a blurry picture of The Nightmare Before Christmas’s Sally and faced with the task of searching the town and correctly identifying her simply by asking her for the Forget-Me-Not. For the Surprise, they were tasked with going to the graveyard and finding the mayor, who gave them a short memorization task before giving them the Surprise. This was a very luck-based task in that teams had to hope to get lucky enough to find the two people essential to completing their tasks. One team member got very lucky by spotting two other team members leaving one task and was able to complete that same task quickly enough to grab the lead.
En route to the Detour, teams had to pass through three different regions to get there. Or did they? Well, three of the teams sure did. But two other teams took a very dangerous risk, assuming the identities of royalty to take a shortcut that involved traveling by air to bypass the long path on foot. In the end, it paid off, and they found themselves being the first two teams to reach the Detour.
The Detour had teams choosing between Crash, which had them simply going on a mining cart ride, or Splash, which had them going to a river course to fall down a waterfall and travel down the river on spinning barrels, all the while collecting forty coins, and having to start all over again if forty coins weren’t collected by the time both courses were completed. With so few teams left, the smarter choice was obviously choosing the safe bet, Crash, although risk takers, much like three of the teams, would more than likely have chosen Splash.
The second and last Yield came into play on this leg, and with so few teams left, this was the right time to use it to try and knock a stronger team out of the race. The team who used it knew this, and thus used it correctly. Unfortunately, that team’s time penalty, coupled with terrible circumstances beyond another team’s control, kept the Yielded team in the race and eliminated a different team.
With yet another team eliminated, we’re now down to the final four. Things are getting harder and harder than ever before, and the teams are growing more and more competitive. So in order of arrival at the Pit Stop, which teams were thinking smart in episode eight?
Yuna and Rikku: First place, and well earned! The cousins did very well on this leg. Yuna enlisted the help of a local (and some help from Rufus, as well) to complete the Roadblock. Then, upon reaching the Mushroom Kingdom, the team worked with Shinra and Rufus to take a huge risk traveling to the Detour by air rather than on foot. They took a risk with the Splash Detour that paid off (although it would’ve ended in disaster had Yuna not collected the “extra” coins before realizing her miscounting error), and barely edged out the dating knights in a footrace (capped off with a quick swim) to the Pit Stop for first place. Well done.
Steiner and Beatrix: The dating knights ran a pretty good leg, with Beatrix teaming up with Rufus to complete the Roadblock. Their plan to throw Lani off the trail didn’t work, as she finished the Roadblock before them, but since a bunch-up point came along, that didn’t matter. Of the three teams traveling to the Detour by foot, they were the first team to get there and wisely played it safe by choosing Crash. Really, their one bit of trouble occurred when their cameraman was injured during the Detour and they had to take him to a nearby inn on the way to the Pit Stop. Had they not had to make that stop, this team just might’ve won this leg.
Amarant and Lani: The coworkers ran a pretty good leg, with Lani completing the Surprise half of the Roadblock (which was all too easy, really) very quickly, and getting lucky enough to see Beatrix and Rufus leaving the location of the Memory half. This got her and Amarant out of the Roadblock first. They were one of the three teams who traveled by foot to the Detour, which they did in a decent amount of time, but they ended up being held up by Shinra and Rufus’s Yield. They took a risk that paid off by completing the Splash Detour in one try and got to the Pit Stop in third place. Not bad at all.
Shinra and Rufus: Despite making fairly quick work of the Roadblock, the father and son made a big mistake on this leg. They got themselves penalized for taking the map left for another team while changing cabs at the beginning of the leg. Additionally, they were penalized when Shinra left the Roadblock area to return the map to that team. However, they took a smart risk by trying to minimize the damage of their penalty by assuming the identities of royalty with Yuna and Rikku and using their guise to take the secret shortcut by air to the Detour. They Yielded Amarant and Lani (Steiner and Beatrix and Auron and Jecht would’ve been good choices, too), took another smart risk with the Splash Detour, and made it to the Pit Stop in a good enough amount of time to take their penalty with nearly no fear of losing any time. Although it was pretty close (thirty-six seconds!).
Auron and Jecht: What went wrong? A bad leg. Nothing more, nothing less. (Although I really hate to admit it.) They did all their tasks and all their traveling correctly and would have done everything faster — and thus been fast enough to beat Shinra and Rufus’s time penalty — had it not been for Jecht’s bad leg. That said, I am not at all sorry to see them go. They made a good villain team, and they certainly kept some things interesting, but when compared to the other teams left, they were the weakest team and, quite frankly, two mean, cocky, arrogant, nasty, horrible, malicious, insufferable, truly odious men. I’m so glad they’re gone.
