Would I be correct in assuming Colette is one of your favorites now, after playing Symphonia?


First up of my next four:

Bruce (Tekken)

Bruce was a character I actually completely ignored when he was introduced in Tekken 2, mostly due to the game including a boxing raptor (the runner up for this series' slot), but while I felt Alex really fell off in later titles, the ones he was actually included in, Bruce just got better. As he currently stands, I love his pop-up potential and the flow of his attacks. There's this perfect delay between some of his attacks that makes it hard for people to guess if you stopped attacking or not that scores a lot of free hits, or safe block strings if you actually did stop. I also love, surprise surprise, his design, especially the black pants / white tank top combo he rocks as his alternate outfit in T5.

Sooooo good the popups.

Ryoko (Ring of Red)



It's always interesting to encounter a game where you and the game developers don't especially agree on who should be the main character. Ryoko and Masami (the main character) are both arrogant (and borderline offensive at times) test pilots that set off across an alternate history Japan teetering on open war to recover a stolen mech (AFW), but where Masami's main motivation is revenge because someone insulted him during close combat (Really, game? We're going with that?), Ryoko is hunting for her father after he abandoned her and her mother during the events prior to the game. She's got a lot of bitterness driving her, but even with that she also cares about her country and the state it is in, commenting at times about the destroyed homes left behind and growing defensive when comments turn to the sad state of the country. I haven't played the game in a long time, but replaying it now I realized fairly quickly that, while John and Kinasato may be units I prefer in combat, Ryoko is far and away the character I like the most.

Too bad she can't punch Masami in the teeth for me, though!

Death (Castlevania: Rondo of Blood)


Sometimes a character is the best because of their story or personality, or because they manage to entertain you or are hyper useful. For me, Death is my top Castlevania character because the boss fight with him is the ONE thing I look forward to EVERY Castlevania game (and I am seldom disappointed by it not appearing). For me, he's really the main boss of the series, since his fights are always more interesting and challenging than the Dracula fights, and I often prefer his visual design as well. The best fight with him, for me, was in Rondo of Blood atop that ghost ship where, half way through the fight, he gets sick of your crap and jumps down in front of you for an epic melee duel. >: D Long Scythe vs. Whip! Mano e mano. He's got damn surprising reach with that thing, too. X_X

I assure you it isn't as exciting to watch as it is to play, but, here it is all the same.
Love that second half.

Justice (Guilty Gear: The Missing Link)




So, this character sits in a bit of an interesting place for me. From a story point of view, and I LOVE Guilty Gear's story, Justice is my run away favorite -- no one else comes remotely close. AND MOST OF HER BACKSTORY IS STILL UNREVEALED. What is known is that, due to the treatment and use of 'Gears', she led a massive war to eradicate humanity and would have succeeded in her goal had she not been sealed prior to the first game. But, it's not really as simple as all of that, as is revealed in several endings throughout the series, and her name is a lot more fitting than it initially seems.

What places her in an odd situation for me, though, is that I don't LIKE playing her outside of the original Guilty Gear, and I have different favorite characters in other games in the series. And it's not like she's BAD in later games -- she remains tournament banned in every incarnation that I know of -- but she's nowhere near what she should be. She doesn't do the damage she used to, several of her specials became supers and require meter, and she lost access to dash-modification. She feels like a shadow of herself after the first game (which, all things considered, is amusing), and I've never really felt I was playing the engine of humanity's destruction that I should be. If you are gonna give me a monster, Arksys, give me a damn monster! >_< /


(SPOILER)

That's the stuff. >: D