Fighting Games Friday: New Fighters for Three Fighters

Several fighting games have released recently, while others are in the pipeline. This means fighting game news has been coming at a steady clip for a while, and I’ve had no shortage of topics for “Fighting Games Friday” posts.

This week, however, was a little overboard, to the point that you’d think a fighting game-centric event just occurred. The original plan today was for a normal-sized post about the newest characters revealed for Dragon Ball FighterZ, first shown in the newest Japanese edition of V-Jump when it leaked on Saturday. Following the trend of other FighterZ character reveals, minor details about them were shared online this week. But who could have expected characters to be revealed for two other fighting games just yesterday? One character was the newest in a series of four being revealed for an existing game, while two more were shown for an upcoming game from the same company that published FighterZ.

It took a while for the first DLC characters for Dragon Ball FighterZ to be revealed. We’ve known about how the game will have eight of them since well before its release, and the Season Pass has been available for months; but it took a month until the first were unveiled. It’s a stark contrast to a game like Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle, a title also from developer Arc System Works, though they didn’t publish FighterZ.

The first two DLC characters are Bardock and Broly, both of which come from Dragon Ball Z, though not from the main TV series. Bardock is Goku’s father, who originates from the Bardock: The Father of Goku TV special, and was one of the main warriors who fell to Frieza as he destroyed the Saiyans’ home of Planet Vegeta. Not much of either character was shown, but the screenshots show how he’ll be able to go Super Saiyan during one of his techniques, similar to the Episode of Bardock supposedly-non-canonical special from 2011. Bardock himself was given another story through Dragon Ball Minus, which might be more canonical given how it was done by creator Akira Toriyama himself. This is a mess!

Meanwhile, Broly is the Legendary Super Saiyan who originates from the eighth DBZ movie of nearly the same name. He’s one of the most popular non-canonical characters around, though recent signs in Dragon Ball Super suggest that he may not be non-canonical for long, as shown through more than Kale’s presence. The screens and video don’t show much of anything, but he comes halfway close to rivaling Street Fighter V’s Abigail in having a small head attached to an overly muscular body due to being in his berserk mode.

Bandai Namco didn’t say when the characters will release, but they can’t be too far off. They’ll show them soon enough.

New characters were announced for another Bandai Namco game: The upcoming SoulCalibur VI. This title was revealed in December, and will be a reimaging of the original SoulCalibur’s events, with returning and new characters. This is essentially an excuse to bring back the older cast after SoulCalibur V’s attempt to reboot the lineup didn’t go over well.

Ivy has been part of every franchise title since she was introduced in the first SoulCalibur game, so it would have been alarming if she didn’t return here, especially given her popularity. Her move set looks similar to how it did in previous games, as she’s an effective character when players take the time to learn unique moves and stances, though with the addition of the new “Critical Edge” and “Reversal Edge” techniques. She also returns in her very revealing outfit, a reversal from the slightly (note the emphasis) covered one from SCV.

A more surprising inclusion here is Zasalamel. He’s returning to the game after skipping the last one for mysterious reasons, likely due to the development team running out of time. But he also first arrived to the series well after the first SC game, originating from SoulCalibur III. This means characters from later games aren’t off limits, which could be disappointing given how the character select screen only contains 20 panels, and some faces will be left out — at least initially. On the other hand, fans who want characters like Talim and Setsuka back could get their wish.

SoulCalibur VI is due for a release sometime later this year, and there will be several more reveals after these two. Also look forward to some venomous fan reactions, since the potentially lower character count compared to previous installments means someone’s favorites will be left out.

SNK’s The King of Fighters XIV is receiving four new DLC characters, just when most fans thought they were done supporting the game with more content. The first character revealed was Oswald from The King of Fighters XI, who fans have wanted to see in another installment for years.

The second character is Heidern, who’s been part of the franchise since its inception, though he’s been missing from the playable cast since The King of Fighters 2001 (though he also appeared in enhanced release The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match). Outside his modified outfit, he looks similar to older versions, from what can be seen in the quick shots in the trailer. Two more characters remain to be revealed as part of the new DLC set, and while one is the character designed by a Saudi Arabian woman who won a recent contest, the other is a mystery. The characters will arrive in April, though a price hasn’t been confirmed.

The number of character reveals this week for multiple games were unprecedented, but given the number of games coming and others with DLC coming, this won’t be the last week like this. I’ll be getting some serious use out of this ongoing feature from here on.