Follow TV Tropes

Following

YMMV / Team Four Star

Go To


  • Awesome Music: Not only are they great voice actors, they're also really great singers.
    • Lani's cover of We Are. Sure, it was mostly a Red Herring but it's enjoyable nonetheless.
    • MasakoX is no slouch in We Are either.
    • Speaking of MasakoX he does a lot of English covers for songs. All of them are so good that they should have their own page.
    • His cover of CHOZETSU☆DYNAMIC! is just that Dynamic.
    • His cover of An Evil Angel is nice.
  • Award Snub: The #TIBA competition specifically avoided this with the "F**k the Judges" award, where the highest audience-voted entry that didn't make it into the top thirty receives its own award, which as hbi2k points out is more of an honor than simply getting Team Four Star's approval. The creators of the winner, Log Horizon Abridged, even thanked them for their kind words and took the award with pride. It helps that Takahata101 said it was his favorite entry regardless.
  • Base-Breaking Character: Captain Richard Ravager III of the Fallout 4 playthrough started out just as popular as any other of their Let's Play characters but his eventual transformation into an Ax-Crazy cannibal divided the fanbase between those who find him too dark and those who find him hilarious.
  • Broken Base: Go to the team's Discord server, official Subreddit, YouTube comments, Twitter replies, Facebook page, or anywhere else that fans congregate, and you'll notice a sharp divide between folks who only care about the team's abridged series, and those who also enjoy their other content. The abridged-only fans tend to consider the team's other output a distraction from their main appeal and would prefer they focus only on anime parodies. The "other-content" fans tend to like the abridged stuff fine; their beef is with how angry and demanding the abridged-only fans can sometimes be. Flame wars between the two sides are distressingly common, especially when abridged content is delayed or cancelled. It got worse after DBZA was officially cancelled, with part of the fanbase being accepting TFS' stated reasoning for doing so and the other part feeling betrayed because TFS had announced a fourth season at the end of Episode 60 and spent the next eighteen months making promises they ultimately were unable or unwilling to fulfill.
    • The team gets occasional heat from Dragon Ball fans over how DBZA has affected the perception of things in the original series and the discussions around them. Common things cited are things like: Goku being a bad dad, Piccolo being a better father figure than him, and other things. On the other side of the spectrum, there are also fans who overly praise the team and consider most of the series, specials, and movies as the definitive version of the series and quote them endlessly. Both sides will bring about heated discussions online. For what it's worth, even TFS admits that the way they did some things weren't great in hindsight and regret them, even taking some responsibility for how parts of the fandom see Goku as a bad father. They also repeatedly state that DBZA is intended as a parody of Z, isn't intended to replace it, and recommend fans of the Abridged version to check out the original version of the show, which is stated in the disclaimers at the beginnings of every episode, special, and movie.
  • Continuity Lock-Out: The two Abridgimon April Fool's videos are filled with meta humor on creators in the Abridging Scene, and in the case with the latter, ongoing commentary with youtube.
  • Crossover Ship:
    • Some fans of Team Four Star's play through of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 have shipped Puddin with MasakoX's own OC for Xenoverse 2, Patta. However, the Couch (Lani in particular) were rather vehemently opposed to the ship.
    • Less common but some fans have shipped Puddin with Mr. Stake. Grant at the very least has noted that he believes the two of them would be best friends.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Puddin, in spades, likely because of her moe look and adorkable nature. TFS made her during their stream of Xenoverse 2's closed beta and was intended to be replaced (presumably by Dumplin) in their playthrough of the full game, but before the livestream even ended she quickly became a fan-favorite, garnering plenty of fanart and motivating fans to request that TFS keep her for the full game. TFS is aware of Puddin's sudden popularity and indirectly confirmed at the very end of the livestream that she will be kept for their full Xenoverse 2 playthrough.
    • Despite pouring all of their hatred unto him, both the trio and fans came to love their adorably idiotic mascot Mr. Stake. It got even better due to Meganium as a species' surprising Stone Wall tendencies, allowing Mr. Stake to survive otherwise lethal hits with just enough HP left.
      "MR. STAKE IS UNKILLABLE! HE CAN'T DIE!"
    • The Vinnie in their Legacy of Goku 2 playthrough. A minor character that was a sidequest in the game, the guys and the fans alike took a real shine to him, and even named a pokémon in his honor in their Pokémon Moon nuzlocke.
  • Fan Nickname: When Yes Yes Love Adventure Go! first started a lot of people have called it "Creepy Anime Bullshit: TFS Edition".
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • In Bloodborne Part 8, the guys are playing Fuck-Marry-Kill with the WWE and Lani says he'd kill Chyna because "She'd probably welcome it at this point." And then a few months later Chyna died of a drug overdose.
    • During DBcember 2016, the team jokes about how they neglected to mention an important member of the Freeza force. At first we're led to believe that it's going to be Cui but it turns out to be Appule. Then you remember how Cui was voiced by Vegeta3986 one of the founding members of Team Four Star who now remains in obscurity due to the fact he left the team.
    • In Bloodborne Part 19, Lani says that Kaiser told him not to say anything negative about Dragon Ball Super since he wanted to audition for the eventual English dub and didn't want to jeopardize their chances by pissing off Funimation. About a year later, Lani revealed that Toei Animation had effectively blacklisted him and Kaiser (as well as Taka and Masako) from working with Funimation for the foreseeable future. In the end, the only members of TFS to actually appear in Super were GeneralIvan and TehExorcist, who respectively played Universe 9's Lavender and Mohito in the Universe Survival Saga.
    • During the Xenoverse playthrough, they joked that due to the crowd in the World Martial Arts stage being 2d assets, the people running it were filling the stands with cardboard cutouts so that Mr. Satan wouldn't notice. Then, during the Coronavirus pandemic, stadiums started doing that exact thing since fans weren't allowed in.
    • For 2021's DBCember, Dragon Ball Youtuber Totally Not Mark was chosen as a special guest star for the final countdown, with script writing well underway before December... said month being when MANY of Mark's videos were taken down for copyright, much to both his and the fandom's dismay, outcry, and disappointment. The countdown videos would have disclaimers noting they were written before the copyright incident. Thankfully though, Mark would manage to get his videos back up eventually.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • During their Xenoverse Let's Play, the guys make frequent jokes over Goku Kill Stealing, calling it "securing the kill". In Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F', Goku does exactly that, using Time Travel to kill steal Freeza because Vegeta took too long the first time around, giving Freeza the opportunity to destroy Earth.
    • In Episode 28 of the Xenoverse LP, the guys joke about Broly getting brought back in Resurrection 'B' ("B" for "Broly", of course). Dragon Ball Heroes would use that exact title for a sub-arc where Broly comes back as an even more powerful Super Saiyan 4. Furthermore, this gag got even funnier when few years later, Dragon Ball Super: Broly happened, with the character being "resurrected" in the sense that he would become a Canon Immigrant with a rewritten backstory (the very thing that caused them to hate Broly in the first place).
    • Early on in the Fallout 4 LP, the guys remark on how many commenters begged to see a Renegade for Life playthrough of the game, and Lani says that he tends not to do RFL for longer games. They basically end up doing it anyway, since after killing Father (AKA Shaun) they start playing their character as much more hot-headed and much, much more violent, to the point where he slaughters all the non-essential characters in Vault 81 over a kickball.
      • What makes the entire thing tragicomic? The quest is bugged and you can't receive the kickball anyway.
      • Fallout 4 gives us another example, as Lani decided that the Captain snapped and went full psycho after killing Paladin Danse out of his hatred of Synths, only to realize that he'd killed an innocent human after hacking up the corpse and finding blood and bones. The problem is that the character in question really is a Synth; a major plot point throughout Fallout 4 is that Generation 3 Synths are virtually indistinguishable from human beings down to the cellular level, even possessing artificial bones, muscles, and organsnote . In other words, the Captain's Start of Darkness was predicated on a complete misunderstanding.
    • In Part 5 of Xenoverse, Lani remarks that he's amazed the Kais weren't one of the playable races in the game. A few months later, Kaioshin avatars were added to Dragon Ball Heroes.
    • Throughout the Adventures of Dumplin, Lanipator is usually the one saying lines in character for Dumplin, despite the fact that they chose Takahata101's Nappa voice for him in character creation. Then Team Four Star decides to make it canon that Dumplin is a younger Mr. Popo. In the abridged series, Mr. Popo is voiced by Lanipator.
    • The guys' jokes about not fusing with family became a lot funnier after the reveal of Dragon Ball: Fusions, which features several parent/child fusions. Even moreso when Dragon Ball Super revealed that family members fusing is actually a good idea since it would produce a more powerful fusion thanks to their compatibility.
    • During the SoulSilver Nuzlocke a fan created a comic where Sabrina begs Lakigr to run away with her to Alola only a few weeks later a Sun and Moon trailer revealed an older Red in the region.
    • Speaking of, the SoulSilver Nuzlocke's Gaiden also featured Cynthia and Tantor having Arceus create a new Giratina. Skip ahead to 2018, and Ryfuba, the protagonist of the Platinum Nuzlocke kills Giratina in one hit with his starter Pokemon, Raisin. Putting two and two together, one can assume that Arceus had to create a second Giratina because Raisin killed the original.
    • During their One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 playthrough, they jokingly question why Luffy has never used his powers to try to eat any of his opponents. While he had tried it before on Crocodile (he just broke loose and was equal parts flabbergasted and pissed), this strategy ultimately helped him defeat an enemy who had power over iron-hard biscuits, as eating his biscuits minions gave Luffy stamina until he worked out a way to beat him.
    • "I Hate Mountains" part 2 starts with them ragging on Lani for his Amnesia Let's Play being so long. Fast-forward several years and they have an entire YouTube channel full of Let's Plays that are longer than his Amnesia one.
    • In episode 10 of the Pokémon Moon Nuzlocke, Lani gets frustrated because of Charjabug using Mud Slap in the Electric Trial, and mis-speaks in proclaiming it "Worst Pokémon, Gen 8!" The Grubbin line ended up included in the Galar Pokédex in Pokémon Sword and Shield.
    • Remember the running joke in TFS's Abridgimon videos where Tai kept hitting on Kari and is later on hinted to have done "something" to warrant a restraining order? Well as it turns out, the head writer for episode 21 of Digimon Adventure had a similar idea (though it's since been confirmed to be a hoax).
    • In the final part of Transformers Devastation, Lani asks if there's ever been a Gundam that uses a hammer, and Kirran responds that the closest thing he can think of is the mace-wielding Barbatos from Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, which hadn't started airing at the time that episode was recorded. IBO would eventually give Lani exactly what he wanted by introducing the Gundam Gusion, which uses an honest-to-Thor hammer.
    • On their top 12 transformations list, their #5 pick, Super Saiyan 4, ends with Kirran begging for a Super Saiyan 4 character to become playable in FighterZ. On the same day of before the video's release, it just so happened that Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta was announced as the last DLC fighter of season 3. So naturally when the list got compiled to one video, they cut off Kirran's rant to showcase a part of the reveal at the end with shrieks of excitement in the background.
    • In the first part of their Raging Blast 2 playthrough, Taka in a drunken haze jokingly asks Screwattack to get on with making a Broly vs Hulk Death Battle. It took about 5 years but he got his wish.
    • In the same playthrough Kirran refers to Broly as like a gorilla, which isn't too far especially considering his Canon-ized DBS self.
  • Memetic Badass:
    • Dumplin, the character Team Four Star made for their Xenoverse Let's Play due to the guys deciding to make it Ascended Fanon that Dumplin becomes Abridged Mr. Popo, and that after killing Demigra, he became a Demon God. Further, Abridged Popo created the DBZ Abridged universe with his powers, which is why it's so different- he wasn't there for all the events and was working with imperfect memory.
    • Broly is often described as being absurdly powerful as a Running Gag in spite of being strongly disliked by the key members of the team.
    • During Xenoverse, they quickly latch onto the idea that Hercule is the most powerful fighter in the game and worship him as "Our Lord Satan".
    • Brian Williams, the greatest hunter they faced in Bloodborne. note 
    • Mr. Stake, the starter from the SoulSilver Nuzlocke due to his remarkable ability to survive even super effective attacks with just a few hp left earned the reputation for being unkillable.
    • Yamcha, amazingly enough, became this in their Attack of the Saiyans Let's Play, due to them power-leveling and optimizing him to the point that he was the single best attacker in the party.
  • Memetic Loser:
    • Dodoria became this thanks to their Xenoverse 2 play-through. First she gets her ass kicked by Puddin after challenging her to a fight to determine who's the prettiest girl in Conton City, then when they get together her insecurities and abusive behavior cause Puddin to dump her for Cooler, who then ignores her affections at first, continues to beat the crap out of her, then eventually strings her along because it makes her feel pretty. And then when she finds new love in Cooler, it doesn't last as Cooler and Puddin are back together by the next episode and Kirran opines it was doomed from the start as Dodoria could never reach the pinnacle that is Cooler. By the end of it all, Dodoria is full-on but ineffectual Yandere for Puddin that also sends postcards of herself and her cat to her ex-girlfriend every Christmas.
    • Time Patrol Trunks became this too, though not without reason considering his various screw-ups in the game. Nearly every time he's on screen, the guys deride, mock, or scream at him for butting in on a fight, failing to stop bad guys much weaker than him, or messing up during a mission even worse because of his presence, and they can't believe he's still kept his position as head of the Time Patrol considering how awful of a job he's doing.
      Grant: There's plenty of stuff I like about this game, but if there's one thing I'm thoroughly impressed by, it's making me think Trunks is not nearly as cool as the anime did.
  • Memetic Molester: Vegeta, of all people, has developed into this in their Xenoverse 2 playthroughs, since his throw animation involves him pressing both palms against the opponent's chest and blasting themnote . Against female characters like Puddin, Vegeta ends up touching some very unfortunate places.
  • Memetic Mutation: Quite a few have propped up in their Let's Plays, either through them or the live chats that occurs on their streams.
    • Use Tien's Z-Soul note 
    • Wen Broly? note 
      • Now that Broly's first movie has finally been abridged, the TFS fandom's decided to switch over to "Wen Bojack?"
    • "Kaiser stop playing League"
    • "YOU PIECE OF SHIT—WE'RE LIVE!" note 
    • "THAT'S COMEDY!" note 
    • "YOUR BIRTHDAY?!" note 
    • Where's Taka? note 
    • "HI TAKA!" note 
    • Make Puddin Canonnote 
    • "The Big Gete Star enabled me to cheat death! How could this be?!"note 
    • WHERE DID IT COME FROM, KAISER!?note 
    • HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!note 
  • Retroactive Recognition:
    • Justin Briner did several voices for TFS (like Cloud in Final Fantasy 7 Machinimabridged and Buu-era Gohan in Super Android 13 Abridged) before he started landing big roles with Funimation, most prominently My Hero Academia's protagonist Izuku "Deku" Midoriya.
    • Amber Lee Connors, who voices Android #18, would start doing roles for Funimation as well, most notably Keijo!!!!!!!!.
  • The Scrappy:
    • Melvintooz from the Emerald Nuzlocke. Due to the death of Ivan Ooze in their SoulSilver Nuzlocke, the couch became overprotective of him. They refuse to send him out against Pokémon he should be strong against, leaving him very little chance to contribute.
    • On the other side of the spectrum, Raisin eventually becomes this. While initially viewed favourably by fans for his Royal Brat status and Character Development after the near Total Party Kill by Jupiter's Skunktank, fans gradually became weary of the couch repeatedly putting Raisin at the forefront at the expense of the other party members. The fact that he becomes an Empoleon extremely early in the game does not help matters, and still the couch has him fight majority of their battles which reduces the stakes of the Nuzlocke. This came to the point that there are a lot of fan demands for Raisin to be boxed.
  • Sequelitis:
    • Of the group's Nuzlockes, Platinum is generally agreed to be the worst, with common negatives including a lack of tension from the team being overly cautious (powerlevelling Raisin into a Steel-type by Gym #3, looking up Gym Leader movesets before fights, and bringing along low-level Pokémon as meat shields), a rather boring party consisting mostly of Gen I Pokémon (including another Graveler/Golem), and many questionable decisions (not evolving Scyther, not evolving Sneasel, not getting the Earthquake TM etc). Add in the team's admission in Part 76 that they don't like Gen IV, and many believe they stopped caring for the series.
    • The TFS Plays Budokai Tenkaichi 3 series is seen as one of the weakest playthroughs the group did for a Dragon Ball game. Lani and Grant aren't exactly big fans of the game, and spend most of it just spamming characters' charge attacks, while complaining about how unfair the game is despite it being their fault most of the time anyway. They also flat out decided not to do the tutorial, which is especially notable given they played the Wii port, which is gimmicky. While some argue this is because they used the Wii port, which many acknowledge as the worst version of the game, many have pointed out that they could easily just use a Classic Controller instead and avoid the issue, but the players just don't, while still spamming the same attacks over and over again. Lani and Grant's tones during most of it is seen as boring as well, lacking any excitement except for when either they make jokes up, or when they do something in game that's funny to them. Lastly, the lack of a final episode where they did a tournament against each other, despite doing it for almost every other DBZ game with multiplayer, left many feeling as though the playthrough just wasn't good.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A lot of the youtube comments on the final videos of their Dragon Ball Fighterz play through express this attitude because the guys discover a Good Bad Bug where they can play as two versions of Android 18, so they refuse to remove her from the party, meaning all the cutscenes and dialogue options exclusive to that storyline with the other playable characters never happen, turning the videos into an endless stream of fight scenes with no interesting character interaction.
  • Too Bleak, Stopped Caring:
    • The Fallout 4 LP struck a sour note with more than a few viewers when the guys abruptly decided to go full Renegade in Episode 34, playing Cpt. Ravager as a psychopathic mass-murdering cannibal, which becomes ironic when one remembers that a lot of people wanted Lani to play it as a Renagade 4 Life.
    • Really, their gaming content in general can be this for some: as the crew often create violent or unhinged interpretations to bounce off of for Black Comedy, and tend to be jokingly mean-spirited to certain parts of their fanbase/comment section. Granted, it's still hilarious and it's clear they're nowhere near this in Real Life, but no one would blame you if you winced laughing more than once.
  • The Woobie:
    • Mr. Stake from the SoulSilver Nuzlocke literally only knows how to love, but is constantly abused and insulted by his master. Made worse by the fact that the guys seemingly just keep him around so they can scream at him. However, over time the vitriol died down, with the guys eventually warming up to Mr. Stake.
    • Veler from the Moon Nuzlocke. Poor guy loses both his partner in crimefighting (Pojo) and his lover (Sgt. Pepper) in quick succession, understandably leading to him having to sit out when the team goes to the League.
    • Puddin from Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 who just wanted a family get-together. Having to fight her entire family on a regular basis, Puddin has a Cain and Abel relationship with Mira, who is angry at her for not coming to Towa's family brunches and had ruined their Thanksgiving. She then has to fight her father Dumplin, and Towa resorts into retgonning him from existence, fight her mother again, and fight Mira, who has gone One-Winged Angel by forcing Towa to merge with him. As a result, she ends up killing both of them at the same time. Dumplin can only laugh (and cry internally) for their deaths.

Top