So does anyone know what the hell Raiden was going on about here? Cause it seemed to be completely forgotten by the end of fight. Lol.
Raiden vs Shiva is without a doubt my least favorite fight thus far. It honestly feels like the author did not know what theme they wanted to go with so they just went with several and hoped at least one of them stuck.
We have this "Will of humanity" deal that went absolutely nowhere, we have Raiden being introduced as "the incarnation of desire" which seemingly does not really suit his later character backstory and motivation, Shiva's previously established whimsical attitude again seemingly does not suit his recently established "my responsibility to my nakama" motivation and Raiden's eventual theme of "fighting for others" and "seeking a worthy foe" felt like reheated rehashes of Adam's and Lu Bu's themes respectively.
Overall, this fight felt thematically jumbled and was visually boring for the most part. Shiva and Raiden themselves also felt pretty generic. The fight did pick up at the end with some pretty intense close quarters scenes which was enough to redeem it a fair bit but it still falls short in comparison to previous fights, especially the two that came before it.
Also, not gonna lie but I was relieved that it was Shiva that won simply because it prevented Raiden from taking a survivor spot from a potentially more interesting human character. Lol.