Assemble! - Fighting Game Archetype Roster - Guest Fighters

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 GUEST FIGHTERS

In a lot of fighting games, especially ones with DLC or unlockable characters, guest fighters are a big talking point as they can add in new elements from unlikely sources, as seen in recent games like Mortal Kombat X and 11, Tekken 7, Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.So, after selecting all the characters for the main Assemble the Fighters roster, a good way to close it out might be to select some guest fighters for this hypothetical fighting game lineup. 

For these characters, we’ll be looking at Eventhubs to look at currently active fighting games that are based on non-fighting game properties or crossovers between multiple series. One character each will be taken from each series to add to our roster and we’ll be looking at Eventhubs’ lists for tier rankings and popularity to see which characters have a good mix of competitive viability and fan appeal.

The guest fighters are:

For Dissidia Final Fantasy NT: Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII)

For Dragon Ball FighterZ: Cell (Dragon Ball Z)

For Persona 4 Arena Ultimax: Yu Narukami (Persona 4)

For Pokken Tournament DX: Sceptile (Pokemon)

For Injustice 2: Red Hood (Batman)

For Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite: Dante (Devil May Cry)

For PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale: Kat (Gravity Rush)

For Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Marth (Fire Emblem)

Each of these characters were in the top five of both their games’ tier lists and popularity lists. As for the characters themselves, each of them are popular characters from well-regarded series, including a couple of non-video game characters with Cell and Red Hood. While some might expect more mainstay characters from these series to enter into a giant fighting roster, like Goku or Vegeta from Dragon Ball, Superman or Batman from DC Comics, or Mewtwo or Lucario from Pokemon, the characters determined here seem to serve the players of these fighting games the best, while some popular characters aren't as good within said games as outside fans might think they should be.

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What did you think of these character choices? What guest characters would you want to see in an all-star roster of fighting game characters? Make your voice heard in the comments below.

Thanks for coming!