[MKDremare]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LevisNox

Ultimate Revice and Zero two took the base outfit and improved on its looks to create a sleek design that also kinda tells you

"This is the final"

Saber, saber not so much that outfit was a shitty god awful repaint that needed to be shot into the sun

Hell if anything the Reiwa era final forms are taking more after kuuga and agito in terms of design

Since ultimate kuga is a repaint might, with added parts to make him kingly

Hell saber dragon knight WAS MORE FINAL FORM

Geez, calm down. Xross Saber was a fine final form with a neat concept, being that it was a final form that could further change into different forms. It was just unfortunate that they didn't make more use of that and just stuck with the base Xross Saber for most of the screen time. That was a huge draw for me, and it's a shame that they didn't do more with it. And there could've been a better indicator that the sword horn had changed, since it isn't immediately obvious until you see them helmet from the side.

And honestly, I find Xross Saber to be a much more visually striking design because of the color palette. Like Zero-Two was kind of boring to me because it was too similar in color palette and design to Zero-One, while Xross Saber, despite having the same exact suit besides the sword horn, leaves a much bigger impact on me because of how very drastic the color palette change is. And Xross Saber also won me over the other Reiwa final forms because he gets a final form weapon (and I have no idea why people don't count the Haouken Xross Saber as a final form weapon), breaking the long streak of Riders who didn't get one since Wizard.

It would've been a whole different story if Xross Saber retained much more of the original color scheme (like limiting the galaxy paint to the Brave Dragon side while retaining the white middle section and black left side) and only the sword horn changed. Now THAT would be an issue, I think.

Well, with that tangent out of the way, I really enjoy the look of Geats IX. It's a good medium between the more detailed final forms of later Heisei seasons and the more streamlined final forms of the Reiwa seasons. That is sort of the problem I've always had with a lot of discussions about final forms, in that the Reiwa final forms tended to be too simple for me (not that they're bad, I think they look good still, and I like them), yet people praised them a lot while regarding (mostly later) Heisei final forms as being "overdesigned" (while typically using that as a negative).

I still personally prefer a lot of more heavily armored designs like Blade King, Kiva Emperor, Ex-Aid Muteki Gamer, Build Genius, and GrandZi-O over Zero-Two and Ultimate Revi/Vice (ironically with only Xross Saber being close to approaching that list of favorites in spite of the simplicity behind the design). But I think Geats IX is in the same ballpark of being one of my favorite main Rider final form designs. It's a great simple final form, while still being very visually distinct from the base form. And while the Geats Buster QB9 is just a Magnum Shooter 40X retool, it's nice to see that another weaponry-based Kamen Rider gets to have a final form weapon.

I wonder if that'll be the case from now on, that any season where a Kamen Rider is primarily associated with a weapon and uses it often will get a final form weapon, as opposed to Kamen Riders who get weapons but have a preference for fisticuffs and don't get one of their own (Zero-Two and Ultimate Revi/Vice being indicators of that).