Assemble! - Fighting Game Archetype Roster - The Hard Hitter

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 HARD HITTER

The opposite of the Swift Striker, the Hard Hitter is slow but strong, having a fighting style that focuses on delivering powerful strikes, whether in short combos or in one powerful hit. Often, these characters are boxers, which helps sell the image, but a character can fill this role if they are simply a big, muscular character that can deliver the strong hits their image implies.

Our choice for the Hard Hitter is…

T.J. Combo from Killer Instinct.

As a boxer with very pronounced muscles, T.J. fits the role of the Hard Hitter already with his appearance, but both his lore and his moves help to back that up. Starting with his moves, he has a lot of strong punches that can be strung into devastating combos, including the series’ signature Ultra Combos. In lore, he was a former heavyweight champion before getting cocky, neglecting his training, and losing the title. But after the world-dominating corporation Ultratech gave him titanium implants for his arms, his striking power was drastically increased. Even without the implants, he is canonically able to defeat several powerful foes with just his fists.

For being a fierce fighting force both in lore and gameplay that doesn’t let faster characters keep him from dealing out the hits, he now add T.J. Combo 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.