New Grounds
Judging from what’s in the game now and from what Keiko Iju said in her intervew, it looks like Noise intends the roster in Maximum Impact 2 to look something like this:
- Kyo, Beni, Iori
- Terry, Joe, Rock
- Mai, King, Lien
- Ryo, Robert, Yuri
- Alba, NEW, Soiree
- Athena, Kensou, Mignon
- Leona, Ralf, Clark
- Chae, Chang, Jhun
- K’, Maxima, Whip
- Seth, Vanessa, Ramon
I’m not saying that’ll be the exact arrangement; it’s just an example. I can see a third Magical Girl taking Kensou’s place. Or a new woman, in King’s.
I’ve broken this into teams, because it seems from the current arrangement like Noise wanted a team-based structure; they just didn’t have enough characters to support it. If you notice, I’m mostly just adding one color character, as Noise puts it — meaning a supporting character or sidekick, such as Benimaru or Kensou — into each of the existing rough “teams” (going horizontally).
Color characters are the likes of Joe, King, Robert, Chang, Ramon, Whip, Vanessa. They serve no important role in the game balance. They don’t represent anything that isn’t already covered by someone more obvious. They exist mostly to provide different kinds of energy. To make the game feel more alive and varied. In my interpretation, it’s the kind of subtle variation just for the sake of humanity which makes The King of Fighters what it is.
Which might go a distance toward why MI doesn’t feel like a KOF game to me. You might notice that there are basically no supporting characters here. It’s all heroes; protagonists. Main characters. Icons. The only ones who you might count as supporting characters are Maxima and Seth — yet K’ and Maxima are close to a matched set, and Seth actually serves a bigger role in the plot than anyone outside the new characters.