#ryu number

[kchasm]

Ryu Number: Keanu Reeves

[ryunumber]

Ramiel from Evangelion?

Ramiel has a Ryu Number of 2.

[crimsondestroyer]

Ryu Number: The M.C. from The Under Presents

Alright. I've done a few Ryu numbers in the past, but none as elaborate as this one, so for once, I figured I'd make my own post explaining the... elaborate, to say the least, path I took to get here. Several dead ends and a couple weeks of research later, here we are.

So. To those of you who don't know anything about the Under, hi. I'm crimsonDestroyer. One of my many hobbies is playing VR games, and one such game is The Under Presents, by Tender Claws, a game I play somewhat often and speedrun periodically. A while back, I wondered in passing if I could figure out a way to connect any of the Under's characters to Ryu, like, say, The M.C. This seemed like a simple question at the time, but, well, let's see.

To start off with, there's a fairly simple Limited route. One aspect of The Under Presents in the past was its live actors, in-game characters played by real people who would interact with mute player characters in the game's multiplayer areas. Unfortunately, the actor run has since ended, and though there's been brief returns of actors here and there, it seems to be mostly over. However, one such actor-played character was a skeleton going by the name of Amelia. As Amelia's lore would later highlight, she is, in fact, the one and only Amelia Earhart, prior to her death and entrance into the Under. There are many hints around the game's world that Amelia Earhart was in the Under in the past, but she herself is nowhere to be found - except for this live actor. Given this was, by its nature, a time-limited occurrence, this would give the M.C. a nice, clean Limited Ryu Number of 3.

However, Limited Ryu Numbers are lame. Can we do better?

One of the many locations you can visit in the Under is the Crob Pit. There, by solving a puzzle with some fellow players, you can summon a massive crab monster who will eat you, sending you to the Den, inside him. There, you can find an assortment of crab bones and other gruesome things, in addition to one peculiar fixture.

This is the only intact human skeleton in the entire game, within the stomach of an enormous crab. Now, given the fact that Amelia Earhart is mentioned excessively by props around the setting of the game, with items such as her plane and a banner for a show featuring her scattered all over the place, her physical absence within the Under is quite suspicious. Additionally, the actor-played character was created after the game released, and it's implied that the actor characters have some degree of the supernatural to them, meaning the existence of the actor in no way means that the character's physical body cannot remain elsewhere in the Under. Given the popular theory that Amelia Earhart's body was never found in real life because it was eaten by coconut crabs, this seems... intentional. If you consider this to be Amelia Earhart's body, the M.C. has a Ryu number of 3.

However, given the complete lack of any verbal confirmation or hints to this skeleton's identity, and this being solely based on context clues, I'm not confident calling it for certain, so let's keep digging.

One feature of the Under is the scripted stage shows, which play on loop on the main stage in the game's theater area. One such show features a man by the name of Sal Sisyphus. Sal's act consists of him rolling a boulder up a hill while giving a motivational speech that inevitably descends into nonsense after he slips and drops the boulder back down. That sounds quite a bit like traditional Sisyphus - endless torture, endless repetition, endless suffering, pushing a rock up and down a hill forever. Plus, as far as I can tell, the mythological Sisyphus has no second name given, so who's to say Sal isn't his first name? If you buy into that, the M.C. also has a Ryu number of 3.

But this one DEFINITELY felt pretty sketchy to me, so I went back to the drawing board once more.

Finding a way out of Tender Claws is... hard. See, Tender Claws has made three big commercially-released VR titles: The Under Presents, Virtual Virtual Reality, and Virtual Virtual Reality 2, all of which can be linked without much issue. A sentient skeleton named Tina works in both a stage act in the Under, and her namesake bar, Tinas', in VVR2's setting, Scottsdale. And, as a sequel, VVR2 features numerous returning characters from the original VVR. All you need is to find one character, just one, across those three games, and you have an out. There HAS to be something.

It was at this point that a friend mentioned that Elon Musk is in Virtual Virtual Reality 2, and I had to do a double-take.

Meet Elon. He's a talking onion. More accurately, he's an AI upload of a human consciousness who takes the form of a talking onion in the digital world. Between his name, his personality, his mannerisms, the fact that he was the second human to ever upload himself (after an extremely important character from the first game), and the fact that VVR2's virtual worlds are referred to as "metaverses", the implication as to who he is seems to be pretty obvious. I didn't know he existed, because I never finished VVR2 due to some technical issues. Regardless, here he is!

With a proper pop-culture figure in our hands, we can finally find our way out of Tender Claws. Elon Musk is still a relatively modern person, so there aren't many games with him in them yet, but with some clever googling and the help of TV Tropes, I tracked down an obscure little game called Good Pizza, Great Pizza, released for mobile and later ported to PC and Switch. In this game, you make pizza for an assortment of customers, real and fictional, which just so happens to include one Mr. Musk. From there, it was just a matter of tracing the rest of the way to Ryu from one of the other noteworthy characters who appear in the game. There was a tempting Dracula connection, but unfortunately, he's exclusive to a time-limited Halloween event. How ironic, that the first and last dead ends would both be time-limited characters. In any case, Albert Einstein will do the job of giving us our final two jumps nicely, passing through Mario's Time Machine, and finally bringing us home.

The M.C. has a Ryu number of 3/5, and a Limited Ryu Number of 3.

[lesbianzorak]

the band the killers has a ryu number of 3

Read My Mind (2007)

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (2024)

@ryunumber

[throw-your-boat]

So, I was going to throw this at @ryunumber, but I couldn't figure out how to make a submission with multiple images in it, so here I go putting it to my own blog I guess

Beatrice the Tailor from V Rising has a Ryu number of 4-5 4, unless she doesn't

As far as I can tell, V Rising has no links save for a single, rather obvious, one: it shares Jade with Battlerite (and Battlerite Royale, but we can pretend they're the same game). I can find no other way to start, and it isn't a start that's full of promise.

Because as far as I can tell, not one of the champions from there appears anywhere else. Unless you want to argue that Thorn is also in Bloodline Champions, but that game contains exactly zero unique and identifiable characters, so going there isn't useful

But looking beyond the champions themselves, we can find a possible route, even if it's a bit of a stretch. There's an unlockable mount called "the mighty white tiger". One could, if one is so inclined, argue that this is supposed to be the white tiger, the mythological one, Baihu/Baekho/Byakko. Seeing as the mount was designed as a promotional thing originally only available in South Korea, it doesn't seem to be an entirely unreasonable claim that it's at least somewhat inspired by that particular tiger - and I think that might be enough to say they're the same, if we can establish that the mount counts as unique

So, does it? Not all mounts are unique and identifiable characters, certainly. But at least a few of them have individual names, like "Barky the delighted doggo", suggesting that at least they can be unique. And seeing as this mount is called "the mighty white tiger", I'm inclined to lump it in with that lot, rather than the clearly generic ones like "agile furrycorn" or "emerald moon raptor" which don't get to have a "the"

If we do allow that, we just have to make our way to Ryu from there. Thanks to @demifiendcruithne, I've learned that Baihu/Byakko (the name varies between installments) makes repeated apperances throughout the Megami Tensei franchise, including in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, which would seem to give us a grand total of 4 thanks to Dante of Devil May Cry fame

[ryunumber]

kurapika kurta from hunter x hunter

Kurapika has a Ryu Number of 3.

[ryunumber]

Skid and Pump from Spooky Month?

Skid and Pump have a Ryu Number of 3.

[ryunumber]

does phil collins have a ryu number?

Phil Collins has a Ryu Number of 4.

[ryunumber]

The player character / protagonist from THE DOG Island for Wii?

The player in The Dog Island does not have a Ryu Number.

[ryunumber]

mumble from happy feet

Mumble does not have a Ryu Number.

[ryunumber]

russian writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky?

Fyodor Dostoevsky has a Ryu Number of 2.

[ryunumber]

Does Jeanne D'arc have a Ryu Number?

Joan of Arc has a Ryu Number of 2.

[ryunumber]

do the floigan bros have a ryu number

Moigle and Hoigle Floigan do not have a Ryu Number.

[ryunumber]

does laios from dungeon meshi (or any dungeon meshi character) have a ryu number?

Laios Touden has a Limited Ryu Number of 2.

[ryunumber]

would be doing something like Youngster Joey's Rattata be too silly for this project

Joey's Rattata has a Ryu Number of 2.

[ryunumber]

Jar jar binks

Jar Jar Binks has a Ryu Number of 1.