Assemble! - Fighting Game Archetype Roster - The Grappler

This is Assemble, where we look at several different characters across multiple series to form a perfect team-up. Whatever the case may be, whether it’s a fighting game roster or an RPG adventuring party, we’ll find the best team for the job. In a change of style from the more long-form articles featured here, these articles will be shorter entries, focusing on one or two characters each, and spread out over time until the complete roster is formed.

What would a fighting game be without a roster of several different, powerful, and engaging characters? In this batch of articles for Assemble, we will be assembling a fighting game roster using characters from several different fighting games based on different character archetypes. 

The picks will be based on where the characters fit in terms of game mechanics and their place in the story and world of the game. Only characters that originated in fighting games will be observed here. That means no guest characters, no licensed fighting games (unless their roster includes original characters), and no crossover titles. Finally, I’ll only be discussing games or characters that I am at least somewhat familiar with. While this means I won’t discuss all the fighting games out there, there should be at least some variety from just the major titles.

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THE GRAPPLER

Similar to the Hard Hitter in terms of appearance, the Grappler looks like another large, slow character, but while this character may still use big, powerful strikes, their moves focus more on grabbing opponents for special holds and throws. Often this character is portrayed as some kind of wrestler, where those kinds of moves are commonplace, but this slot goes to a large character who effectively uses different types of grabs, slams, holds, and throws in their fighting style.

Our choice for the Grappler is…

Iron Tager from BlazBlue.

With the appearance of a large oni or demon, this character nicknamed “The Red Demon” definitely covers the large character part of the description and his moves definitely cover the other part. He is the slowest character in the game and can’t even dash, but he has several powerful attacks and grab moves including grabbing opponents up off the ground or out of the air, tossing them around like a playground ball. With his Drive, Voltic Battler, he can hit with electrically-charged strikes that can magnetize opponents, so he can pull them in and make it easier to use his grab moves on them. He doesn’t even need to move fast to get a hold of them.

For being a large, strong character who can not only slam more agile characters around like Hulk did Loki in Avengers, but can pull them back in so they can’t escape his grasp, we now add Iron Tager to our roster.

ADDED!

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What did you think about this article? Want to see what other characters get picked for our roster? Do you think someone would fit this role better besides whoever got picked? Make your voice heard in the comments below. Thank you for coming.