I wanted to discuss how they work out, the ups and downs of them, as well as how they can benefit all of fighting games as a whole. Now, this isn't going to be speculating about any; when it comes to these things, I generally assume no, unless I see a real big sign toward 'Yes'. But it's more a discussion about how they can help the genre in general.
So to start, guest characters are nothing new. Note: I'm not going to consider characters in crossovers guests unless they particularly break a sort of 'multiverse rule'(and even then it's depending on your rubber ruler-for example, even SNK themselves explain Nakoruru/the Pachislot characters being in KoF through multi-dimensional means, so I'll consider them 'guests.' Or at least psuedo-guests.)
An early pseudo-guest character was actually a character in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter; and this was a character by the name of 'Norimaro'. He was created by a Japanese comedian named Noritake Kinashi. You can see some brief bits of him here; he's basically made as a goofy character, and I call him 'psuedo' since he's not really in other games, but nor was he affiliated with Street Fighter, Marvel, or anything. He was only in the Japanese versions of the game.
Even before him, though, Tekken 3's console version featured Gon, the little dinosaur from a manga series. (Much to many people's chagrin, little ankle-biter.)
Later on we started to get more 'known' guests. Soul Calibur of course is rich in these. Barring SC1's Yoshimitsu(who some don't consider a full bore guest since he's technically a different Yoshi), SC2 was the first to truly feature them, depending on what system you had. There was Link(Gamecube), Heihachi(PS2), and Spawn(Xbox.) Soul Calibur 3 almost had Dante(DMC), though for unknown reasons this didn't happen. In Legends, Lloyd Irving(Tales of Symphonia) appeared. SC4 featured the Star Wars crew: Yoda, Darth Vader, and the Apprentice(from the Force Unleashed.) Kratos ended up in Broken Destiny, and Ezio in SCV. (Devil Jin can be created as a CAS, though 'Devil Jin', the actual character, isn't in the game.)
As we see, guest characters started to take more of a turn for the 'serious'; in the way that they actually started trying to make guest characters to fit into the games.
Smash eventually got a hold of Solid Snake in SSBB. Later on it would go on to feature Cloud(FFVII), Bayonetta, Megaman(remember the massive hype when they announced him?), Pac-Man, Sonic the Hedgehog and Ryu as well in its latest installment.
Killer Instinct is more tame with guests at the moment, featuring only three; Rash(Battletoads), Arbiter(Halo), and General RAAM(Gears of War.) Given that KI had already loaded up on it's original cast, I forsee a mix of new original characters(Kilgore is on his way), as well as more potential guest characters.
Tekken recently gained it's second guest in the form of Akuma, in T7FR.
Mortal Kombat features several. Rather than visit other game franchises, they went for horror icons as well as other movie icons; Jason, Leatherface, Alien, and the Predator. I can easily see more appearing in this. Before this, in MK2011, Freddy Kreuger and Kratos(God of War once again) made appearances. (Kratos was their first guest.)
I had mentioned King of Fighters above, and I'm sure I'm leaving some out, but I'm trying to think of the more well-known or recent 'guests'. (The Pachislot characters, again, are a bit of a gray area.)
Hell, many times you get fighting game characters as guests in OTHER games but those would be far too numerous to name.
Moving on, right now, Street Fighter V and the anime fighters like Guilty Gear and Blazblue are about all that don't have guests at the moment. I'm not sure why, but I see the anime fighters crossing over before going guest; it sort of feels like they're a little harder to finagle guests in. Maybe not? I'm not sure.
Street Fighter-surprisingly-the only guest it's really ever had was indeed Norimaro in that one crossover, and in SF x Tekken there were a few(Cole, Bad Megaman, Pac-Man, and a couple of cat characters I am unfamiliar with.) No actual numbered game had guests...yet.
Strengths of guest characters:
I feel that they can often get fans to cross over to other fighting games they may be otherwise either uninterested in-or maybe hesitant about, or for whatever reason.
For an example of my own, I got some interest in MKX with the announcement of the horror icons. I grew up with those old horror movies, and while I have nothing against MK as a franchise, it's not really my bag. If I had more time, I might have been willing to look more at it, but with limited time I try to devote it to games I really like.
But the guest characters actually legit piqued my interest enough to at least look at it on a casual level. Guest characters=got my interest, so success!
Akuma certainly piqued some people's interest in trying out Tekken, Rash I know put KI on the radar for a few people, and there were some happy damn people to play Cloud in another fighting game that wasn't Ehrgeiz. (Yeah, that one was something...) Dissidia is a fighting game, though it's less traditional than even Smash is.
Seeing VF characters in DoA made people happy, especially given that people have been pining for a new VF game for awhile. (Dear Sega, please put out a new VF. Q_Q) Mai being in gave people a giggle, given that she was one of the damn originators of jiggle physics, and without Mai, I'm not sure DoA would even be as much of a thing as it is!
When Oda had announced interest in Akuma in King of Fighters, I immediately started thinking that would be something that could help bridge some of that gap.
Likewise, one(of many) reasons why I got stupidly excited at Max's video at even the rumor of a possibility of Iori being in Street Fighter-besides the fact he's a favorite and I'd fling that season pass money at them faster than you could blink-was that it could mean so much for both franchises as Max said. I mean again, even seeing how a CvS3 could go over with this would be great, and this would be a great testing ground. Hell, I've gone on to hear of several instances of people saying they'd up and come back tomorrow if he were announced.
You might wonder why I don't suggest, say, Kazuya over; I sort of feel that an SNK character would fit a bit better in with the current SFV system is the big reason, with the other being T x SF is already sort of in the making, albeit slowly; CvS3 is more of a dream at the moment. Though if they put Dragunov, Kazuya or Lee or something in SFV you certainly wouldn't hear me complaining and the money would be thrown with a super-quickness while I do backflips. (especially since they left both Dragunov AND Lee out of SF x T for reasons I will never know. Grumble.)
Guest characters in these games would work out really well for both fanbases, bringing them more together than apart. Like I genuinely feel Akuma in Tekken is going to be well; and while both games have some folks who compete in several, I think a little mixing up helps. I know DoA dragged in a few Virtua Fighter players, for example.
On top of getting fans in that otherwise might not have tried out the game, or even bringing some old disillusioned fans back, they allow developers to try out new things. For example, when Ono and Ayano discussed the possibility of having a four-button character in SF(basically someone who focuses more heavily on 4. I doubt they'd have the other two locked out so to speak, but they might only be used for combo filler or something.) A guest character would be perfect for this, someone from King of Fighters or Tekken is already there, and they'd just have to adapt them over.
They also help feed both communities. More people trying out both games means more people may start playing both games. This only helps all communities.
Some people get worried that people will abandon one for the other; I don't think they will. Tekken players aren't going to leave Tekken to go play SF if they put in Kazuya, and I doubt SF players would leave SF to play Akuma only in Tekken. I don't think putting Akuma in KoF will get a mass amount of people to jump SF's ship, and I don't think Iori in SF would cause KoF people to leave either. They're different games, all of them.
So, are there any disadvantages?
Sure. Sometimes they can be tough to balance. Characters coming from one game may not fit in perfectly to another system; they may turn out underwhelming(which can disappoint fans), or too good(which can irritate some long time fans who feel like they HAVE to pick the guest up.) This is probably, for my money, the biggest issue they can potentially run into. It's not even a definite, but they can be challenging to fit in.
On a similar note, sometimes they actually fit well and are balanced, but may feel perhaps 'off', for lack of a better term, because sometimes what makes certain characters feel right is the system they're in, and maybe in the transfer they get a little dulled down for old fans. (New fans may enjoy them still, though.)
Story bits also pose a challenge; one has to decide if they're tied into the story or not, and if so, how? (A KoF or Tekken crossover into SF right now would actually be fairly easy to tie in using story bits, like KoF XIV's 'Big Multidimensional Crazy' happening and I'm sure they could work something in for the Tekken crossover, but not all games have this advantage.)
Of course you get the 'purists' who want no cross-pollenating, but unless I hear of a logical reasoning that goes beyond balance, I'm just going to assume salt.
On a final amusing note, sometimes people get 'Guest Character Fever', and for awhile you basically ONLY run into them. Now this is usually temporary, and can last a varying amount of time depending on how powerful they are, but it's a little bit.
Bring 'em on!
IMO? The benefits far outweigh the hindrances. These hindrances are all, for my money, minimal compared to the overall benefits guest characters can offer.
Really, I want to see more. I hope we see more. Fighting game fans should be mixing more, not keeping apart. I say while we don't need to like make half the cast of a game guests, peppering one to three in(hell, DoA gets away with more and people like it), I feel is a great idea that can really mean a lot for a lot of franchises.
Here's hoping to a new year of maybe some inter-mingling of some of our favorites.
No comments:
Post a Comment