Assemble! - Fighting Game Archetype Roster - The Puppeteer

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 PUPPETEER

One of the oddest entries in a fighting game roster, the Puppeteer is a character who directs a secondary character while they are on the field. They can be anything from a pet to a detachable body part to a literal puppet, just as long as the fighter has some level of control over them during a fight. They may even have their own special moves they can use apart from their master. Characters like this can be tough to fight against because they essentially provide an extra hazard during a battle for their opponent.

Our choice for the Puppeteer is…

Carl Clover from Blazblue.

Starting with his look, Carl’s outfit consists of purple, black, and white formal clothing and includes a top hat and cape, giving him the look of an old-time stage performer. Contributing to his Puppeteer status more than his look though, is his partner, the large doll-like Nirvana. 

While Carl can use some attacks on his own, most of his moveset revolves around directing Nirvana (or as he calls her, Ada) to attack. She uses slow but powerful attacks compared to Carl’s quick but weak ones and she runs on a gauge that, once depleted, renders her unusable until it fills back up again. Carl’s chances in a fight are more reliant on his partner than most Puppeteer characters.

Their relationship is the story is like that too, but just like lots of stuff with Blazblue, it would take a long time to explain.

For a moveset that heavily integrates the use of his “puppet”, we now add Carl Clover to the 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. Thanks for coming.

Book Review - Horrorstor

October may have ended almost a month ago, but the month brings with it a lot of love for spooky horror titles, whether its movies, comics, games, or even novels. It’s that last one we discuss today as this October, I came across what seemed to be an interesting read called Horrorstor, written by Grady Hendrix. The way the book presented itself made it seem like it was different than a standard horror novel and the approach lead to a good chunk of people picking it up. It marketed itself as a horror-comedy and with the book styled to look like an IKEA furniture catalog, it seemed quirky on the surface.

So, is the book’s story just as interesting as its packaging?

Let’s look at Horrorstor.

STORY

The story takes place in Cleveland, Ohio at ORSK, an IKEA-styled furniture superstore. Strange occurances have been happening there and management wants to know what’s going on. Store manager Basil decides to stay overnight with two other employees, devoted, dedicated Ruth Anne and disgruntled, young, and restless Amy, to see if they can find out what’s going on. As their patrol goes further into the night, they find out that the problem isn’t a vandal or thieves sneaking into the store; the store is haunted.

While the set-up looks mostly like a standard haunted location story, it does take some psychological angles, which we particularly see with Amy, our protagonist for the story. The villain (who will remain nameless due to spoilers) tries to get into the characters’ heads and really does so with some of them, so much so that it has some lasting effects on some of the characters. Apart from that though, this does seem to carry a lot in common with other haunting stories with not much to set it apart besides the setting. Also, for a “horror-comedy”, there weren’t that many funny moments in the story. Apart from some elements with the book’s presentation (more on that below) and a couple of characters (also below), the story mostly seems to take itself seriously, which is fine on its own, but the term “horror-comedy” comes with some expectations.

CHARACTERS

As mentioned before, Amy is our protagonist here. She thinks that her work as a Team Member at ORSK is a dead-end job, she has a lot of issues with money, and while she doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life, she knows she doesn’t want to spend it there. She seems like an okay character with room to grow over the course of the story, but she doesn’t seem that interesting until the very end of the story. Less could be said about Basil and Ruth Anne who mostly fill roles to contrast Amy, with Basil as the boss who takes his job way too seriously and Ruth Anne as the dedicated worker who can’t even think of working anywhere else. Again, there isn’t much variation from this until the very end.

A couple of side characters who appear throughout the story are two other ORSK employees, Matt and Trinity, who heard some local legends about ghosts that might be haunting the store’s location and sneak in, without Basil’s knowledge, to try to capture some camera footage in a bid to be reality TV ghost hunters. These two have the most character variation of anyone else in the book. Along with their reason for being there, Trinity’s quirky personality contrasting against Matt as the level-headed, rational person added some more color to the scenes they were in.

VISUALS

In most cases, a novel wouldn’t offer much in the way of visuals, but Horrorstor seems to be an exception. The book is designed to look like a spooky, twisted version of an IKEA catalog, glossy cover and all. The first few pages, before the story starts, try to sell the catalog theme with some customer service ads and a fake order form for ORSK furniture. The beginning of each chapter includes an ad for a different furniture item featured in the story. They start out normally, but as the story progresses, the furniture gets swapped out with more sinister looking items, though keeping the descriptions as if the store would have been selling these items. It gets a few laughs seeing an ad describing a torture device as coming in a small range of different colors. The end of the book includes a few more catalog-styled ads, but by the time readers reach the end of the story, they have a whole different vibe to them.

The catalog presentation is not only funny and quirky, it even aids the story presentation in some ways. It starts off by setting in your mind that this is just a normal furniture store, but then the presentation changes with the story to show that this store is far from normal.

FINAL VERDICT

Horrorstor is a good chiller of a story, but not a great one. Aside from the furniture store setting, it follows a lot of the tropes of haunted location stories. The presentation of the book itself though is interesting and worth a browse just to see how things warp and change. It’s not a bad story, but others have done better.

SCORE: 3/5

 REREAD VALUE: MODERATE

Assemble! - Fighting Game Archetype Roster - The Small Framed

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 SMALL FRAMED

Size isn’t always everything.

The Small Framed is a fighter who is noticeably smaller than the rest of the cast, whether they’re a kid, an animal, or just a height-challenged adult, but can still effectively fight unassisted. They’re not piloting a robot or having someone taller doing the fighting for them, they are the ones out there dealing the damage. While they are more often found in crossover games, like with Servbot or Viewtiful Joe in the Marvel vs. Capcom series, some of these characters can be found in original fighting games as well.

Our choice for the Small Framed is…

Choi Bounge from The King of Fighters.

Choi is not the most popular character from the King of Fighters series, but in terms of fitting the role of a small, original fighting series character, he fits very well. This criminal and prison escapee is notably smaller than the rest of the KOF cast, but he is still able to bring the power with his Tae Kwon Do fighting style and a pair of Freddy Krueger-style knife-fingered gloves. He even has a palette swap outfit that gives him a striped shirt, which, combined with his hat and gloves, makes him look more like the titan of terror.

Are you ready for Fre… Oh, wrong series.

For not letting his lack of verticality get in the way of his physicality, we now add Choi Bounge to the 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. Thanks for coming.