I have . . . too many good things to say about Tech Romancer, and if you have any interest in fighting games and love mecha anime, you need to own this title if you have a Dreamcast. Absolute must buy.
Regarding the character itself, the Wiseduck is a walking arsenal, with land mines, electric net-missiles, dumb-fire missiles, plasma blasts, a grippy hand, and a pile bunker -- it's got everything. It pays for this payload with severely reduced mobility compared to the rest of the cast though, lacking the ability to jump and having generally poor approach options (though the machine is no slouch when near enemies).
And that's what I love about the thing -- its unique playstyle. You have all the tools you need to fight people, you just have to know how to use them. They all have options you lack, but you have ones they lack as well; you aren't weaker, you're just different. You have to adapt to them, they have to adapt to you, and it feels good to beat down Gundams, Evas, and Valkyries with this thing once you figure out how, always without feeling outclassed. And that machine gun!
papapap~ papapap~
(SPOILER)
A bit of the Wiseduck story and combat footage, for the interested.
Metal Sonic (Sonic series)
I'm shallow.
I know he's unoriginal. I know he's little more than a tweaked Sonic. I don't care, though, I love Metal Sonic.
Most of it comes from two places, the first one of which is his design. He's blue like Sonic -- but metal! He's fast like Sonic -- but because of rocket propulsion! He's got eyes like . . . uh, most people, really -- but they are beady, red LED eyes of cold hatred! At least, I like to assume there's hatred in them. With machines you really never can tell. There's also a simple sleekness to his design I love; no gears are jutting out, and the rivets are even smooth and rounded. Sega tried to recreate the wheel with Shadow later on, but I've never figured out why with a design like this.
And that leads me to the second thing I really like about the character, because I've always felt the best boss involving Shadow was his final showdown with Sonic on the collapsing raceway in SA2 -- a fight that was CLEARLY a Metal Sonic style of battle. In a game series supposedly all about speed, the majority of Robotnik/Eggman fights are fairly static, taking place in closed areas with fairly restricted speed and movement. Metal Sonic fights, on the otherhand, generally involve the speed he's supposed to be emulating from Sonic, taking places along raceways and various tracks more often than not. Even in the cases where Metal Sonic is fought in a static arena, Triple Trouble for instance, there's usually a lot of speed involved still, with him zipping in and out of the screen in said example. The fights are just sooooo good most of the time, and are always the fights I remember the most after I've finished the games.
Before we begin, let me take a moment here to explain to you how I play a Digimon game -- any Digimon game. I load up the game, I open a guide for it on GameFAQs, and I ctrl+F Machinedramon. I plot my course accordingly. Any game he is obtainable in, he will be obtained in. Any game he is not obtainable in, I will try to fight him. If I can't fight or obtain him, I will . . . wonder what I did wrong in my search, because really, this 'mon is just iconic. That's almost like not having a Pikachu in a Pokemon game somewhere.
SO, what is so special about this machine, then? Well, first off, if you are wondering that then you somehow missed that Machinedramon was a giant DINOSAUR, who was also a ROBOT, with DEATH CLAWS, and a giant DUAL-BARRELED LASER on its back. I know, its easy to miss.
It's more than just a design thing though, because Machinedramon is pretty well always a powerful Digimon with access to great attacks. He was also the final boss in the original Digimon World, which was a game I spent waaaaaaayyy too much time with as a kid, and when I got to him he tore me apart. D: It was one of those great defeats that made me love him, and beating him was that grand goal I needed as a I poured all my effort into making a better Digimon to take him down. Then, after beating him, I got to use him in multiplayer against everyone I could con into playing with me! The ultimate weapon was mine. >: D
-sigh-
Good memories.
(SPOILER)
Maybe this boss fight is a lot easier when you aren't 12.
This Machine (Power Rangers)
No, not the Megazord. My love for this thing also came from my childhood and getting my ass kicked. Power Rangers was a pretty big thing, and a friend of mine had the SNES game which we played all the time. At the end of the game, after five or so stages of foot missions, you get two boss stages in the Megazord, and while the first stage is a joke, the second one actually gave us a lot of trouble, being two matches in a row against this unnamed moon-bot and his powered up form. I remember being so happy when we finally beat this thing.
But then, after finishing the game and sitting through the credits, we saw . . . them. Three passwords. What could they unlock? The game's done, right? What mystery awaited us with the three unexplained codes?
Multiplayer.
Upon completing this great single player experience, you are rewarded with a great, albeit limited, multiplayer one, where player one gets the Megazord and player two gets either the snail . . . thing, or one of the last boss' two forms. We played the crap out these stages, making up our own stories for each fight in that way only kids can, but it became obvious after a while that . . . whoever had the Megazord was going to win. It had great specials, comboed fairly easily, and had the most ridicuously overpowered dash slash in the history of ever, ever. And this was against a snail thing that had pretty terrible offensive and defensive options, a weak mid form boss, and a just . . . outclassed final boss. Games weren't much fun if character selection alone determined the victor, regardless of skill.
Then I discovered this machine. I actually spent the time figuring out what it was good at, its general combo structure, and when to save and when to use my super meter.
The fight was back on.
My entire love of fighting games may be completely traceable to this one, unnamed machine, as well as my appreciation for losing in a game more than winning, and lover of overcoming that one crazy powerful move your opponent will happily spam if given the chance. Mysterious moon bot, I salute you.
o_o 7
(SPOILER)
That dash slash. We hates it. We hates it, forever!
Phobos (Dark Stalkers series)
Do people actually remember Darkstalkers has a cast outside of Morrigan and Lillith? Yes? Really, who else? Oh, Felicia, right right. Cat girl and fan service, the double legacy of a doomed Capcom franchise.
I'm not going to lie though, despite a lot of people knowing the series for those two (and a half) characters, there were a lot of great designs in the games. I had a pretty rough time picking Phobos actually, with Jedah and Pyron both high contenders for the spot, but Jedah has an annoying dash and Pyron takes a fair presence of mind to use properly, while Phobos is much more lenient with his constant projectile spam.
In fact, he reminds me a lot of Wise Duck in this regard, as you really are just a versatile walking arsenal, although Phobos did retain the ability to jump, and he's just as much fun to use. Transforming into large gun to just blow away the enemy is soooooo satisfying, and that mix of bombs, high and low lasers, and anti-air make him annoying to play against. And he also has cool glowing red LED eyes.
(SPOILER)
He's not such a popular character, but here's something at least.
In praise of our mechanical soon-to-be overlords!
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