Summary
In the past, fighting games rarely had guest characters from their company’s other franchises, let alone from other companies. It’s why SNK’sKing of Fightersand Nintendo’sSuper Smash Brosdrove fans wild by pitting their best and brightest up against each other. It wasn’t every day that Mario could trade blows with Kirby, or that people could see the Psycho Soldiers and Ikari Warriors go toe-to-toe.
Nowadays, guest characters have become nearly as imperative to a roster as life bars and super meters. Practically every fighting game release, big or small, has a guest in it. But some guest characters stuck out like sore thumbs, as these uncanny fighters proved to be a step too far for some.
Link was considered a great guest character inSoulCalibur 2,as his sword-swinging medieval style fit the historical setting. So, Bandai-Namco decided to pivot in the opposite direction forSoulCalibur 4by throwing in a bundle ofStar Warscharacters:Darth Vader, Yoda, and the ApprenticefromStar Wars: The Force Unleashed. Their sci-fi appearance and weaponry stuck out next to the axes and katanas of the rest of the cast.
Vader and the Apprentice played fair enough, using many of their trademark moves from the games and movies. However, Yoda wasa particular pest for players. He was too short for most of the roster to hit properly, while he had no problem hacking at their knees with his lightsaber. The funniest part was that the game was considered canon toStar Warsat the time, though this has since been retconned thanks to Disney’s acquisition.
BeforeSoulCaliburand its progenitor,Soul Blade, there wasBattle Arena Toshinden. It did well as an early 3D fighting game, and had full 3D movement via sidesteps beforeVirtua FighterandTekken. Butit never improved enoughto meetVFandTekken’s quality. Still, if players got the game on PC, they would’ve gotten an extra playable character:Earthworm Jim.
Playmates, the company that owned the annelid at the time, helped portToshindento MS-DOS. The only downside is that he had the same move set as Rungo Iron, one of the regular roster characters. As a result, Jim feels rather pedestrian compared to his appearance inClayfighter 63 ⅓, where everyone on the roster is a caricature.
Double Helix and Iron Galaxy’s revival of Rare’sMortal Kombatclone eventually found its groove, capturing the combo-heavy gameplay of the original games with more solid fundamentals. It had a few guest characters that fit well among its roster of misfits and monsters, likeGears of War’s General Raam, and an Arbiter fromHalo.
But then it includedRash, one of the Battletoads, whose ram-horned headbutts, wrecking ball swings, and 90s attitude made him feel like he took a wrong turn on his way to theTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Upauditions. For some, that’s the big appeal of the Battletoad. Others might have wanted to see Joanna Dark trade strikes with Orchid instead.
As of this writing,Fatal Fury: City of the Wolvesisn’t out yet, so people don’t know howCristiano RonaldoorSalvatore Ganacciwill play. But they’ve already upset longtime SNK andFatal Furyfans, as it felt like the company was capitulating to their higher-ups' desire for real-life celebrity endorsements. At least Ronaldo’s teaser trailer let players know months in advance that the soccer star would have something to do with the game.
Still, SNK’s fighting games do tend to be pretty niche, so there may be a method to the madness of including one of the world’s most (in)famous soccer players and a popular EDM star in their game. Whether it’ll work out for the company has yet to be seen.
Street Fighter X Tekken’s guest characters left a sour taste in players’ mouths. For one, they were all PS3 exclusives, which is understandable for Sony-exclusive characters likeInFamous’ Cole McGrath, and mascots Toro and Kuro. But it also applied to Pac-Man andBad Box Art Mega Man, who weren’t. Cole and Pac-Man were familiar enough, but the others were more perplexing.
Toro and Kuro had the same moves as Ryu and Kazuya, only they were too small to hit their opponents, or for their opponents to hit them. Bad Box Art Mega Man came out in the wake ofMega Man Legends 3andMega Man Universe’s cancelations, andMega Manproducer Keiji Inafune’s departure from the company. This bad timing made the character feel less like a funny joke, and more like salt in Mega-fan’s open wound.
Another thing that feels off about Ronaldo and Ganacci inFF: COTWis that they felt too normal, like they should have been exaggerated to fit in with the scantily clad ninjas and fireball-throwers. In other words, they might have preferred something likeNorimaroinMarvel Super Heroes Vs Street Fighter.
The character was a nerd parody performed by Noritake Kinashi for a variety of shows. Marvel didn’t like the idea of this sketch comedy geek beating up their top superheroes, and wanted him out of the game. But after much pleading from Capcom, he was allowed in the Japanese versions ofMSH vs SF. People can find a partially localized version of the character if they hack the game, though it’s easier to just play the Japanese ROM.
Tekkenis no stranger to strange guest characters. But in terms of weirdness, the series peaked when they included Masashi Tanaka’sGoninTekken 3. His seinen comedy strip is underrated, but he’s arguably more famous worldwide for his fire, farts, and fists in this game.
He was the first character to be too short to hit, predating Yoda, Toro, and Kuro’s height-related issues by decades. He’s also likely the reasonT3hasn’t beenproperly re-released since its debuttoo, as Bandai-Namco doesn’t own the video game rights to the character anymore. It’s something for companies to keep in mind once their hot releases today become tomorrow’s retro classics.
Virtua Fighterwas bigger in the East than in the West. So, to court those Western interests, Sega madeFighting Vipers. It was more bombastic, with breakable walls, fanciful moves, and more American settings. Even so, it had a Japan-exclusive guest character inPepsiman, the carbonated crime fighter from the soft drink’s Japanese TV commercials. The crime? Not drinking Pepsi.
With his swift running speed, nifty strikes, and weird hand waving, he could beat his opponents as swiftly as he could quench thirst. It’s not unusual for a product mascot to go beyond their territories. But without Pepsi,this silver superherowould just be a regular guy, so he never made it to the US or PAL versions of the game.
2Hornet, Mr. Meat, & the AM2 Palm Tree (Fighters Megamix)
From Sega All-Stars to Sega’s All-Sorts
In the early days of the internet, when people heard Pepsiman was in a fighting game, they thought he was inFighters Megamix. The latter was half-full ofFighting Viperscharacters anyway, and it had a ton of odd guest characters.
If anything, it’s hard to narrow down the strangest one. There’sthe Hornet, theDaytona USAcar that fights by rearing up on its back wheels, andMr. Meat, an anthropomorphic hunk of ham based on a pickup fromGolden Axe.Then there’sthe Palm Treefrom the Sega AM-2 logo. Yet, there’s something endearing about them, as fighting games are unlikely to include characters this wacky again.
1Barack Obama (Street Fighter Online: Mouse Generation)
The Audacity of Mixups
Street Fighter Online: Mouse Generationwas a mouse-based fighter for PCs that pitted fiveSFcharacters against the cast ofCyborg 009, Batsu and Akira fromRival Schools, heroes from Jing Yong’s wuxia novels, andBarack Obama.
Made as part of the game’s Valentine’s Day DLC, the then-recently elected President of the USA was basically a model swap for Ryu. He had all the shoto’s moves, including his Hadouken, only he always had a speech bubble next to him saying “Yes We Can” on it. It wasn’t a great game to play, and has since become lost media as it wasn’t preserved. However, it’s since gained infamy thanks to this curious character inclusion.
