On the Building of a Roster

Some analysis.

The following characters have been in every KOF:

Kim, Chang

The following characters have been in every KOF since they were introduced:

Ash, Duo Lon, Shen Woo

Tizoc
Gato
Malin
Maki
Adelheid
Mukai

Characters in parentheses qualify with some
qualifications. Characters in italics are new as of KOF2003, so their
appearance in the list is in many cases incidental though acurate.

This list is descriptive, not prescriptive. Nevertheless, on a
statistical basis, it is instructive to see how many characters, and
which characters, the main series has as-yet been unable to do without.
Note that several of these same characters have been absent in spinoff
games, like the EX series, and several have yet to appear in crossover
games like the CvS series or BattleColiseum. Or even in Max Impact —
although I’ll get to that. This is, however, a study of the main series
and its common fabric to this point. So at the moment we can overlook
those cases.

There are fourteen key characters (including Kyo and King) who have
always been present, and an additional eight (counting Shingo yet
ignoring Kusanagi and the 2003 cast) who joined late yet have remained
in the series ever since. This makes a total of twenty-two central
characters (by virtue of persistance more than focus).

Let’s take a look at these twenty-two.

Shingo

Some observations. This includes every major team
leader: Kyo, Terry, Ryo, Athena, Leona/Ralf/Clark (hard to separate
them), Kim, King/Mai, Iori, K’. These are the teams which have
persisted, and made up the series so far.

The other characters, who are not leaders in their own right —
Benimaru, Joe, Mary, Robert, Yuri, Chang, Maxima, Whip, Shingo — fall
into a couple of groups. Benimaru, Joe, Robert, and Maxima fall into
the sidekick category. In most cases they exist to support the hero
characters. You notice in each of those four cases, the sidekick is a
companion or counterpart to a KOF protagonist, of some era or another:
Kyo, Terry, Ryo, and K’. I don’t imagine Joe or Robert bothering with
the competition if Terry or Ryo didn’t go, and likewise if Maxima
weren’t around to give him some grounding, K’ would never show. The
sidekicks also help to flesh out the main characters, by giving them
someone to bounce off of.

Mary, Yuri, and Whip serve a similar function; Yuri and Whip are
sisters of protagonists, while Mary is Terry’s girl. In the first two
cases, the roles and psychology of Ryo and K’ are further augmented by
the presence of family. Whip gives K’ that last reason to bother, while
Yuri helps to cement Ryo’s identity as more than just a hotheaded bozo
in an orange gi. He someone to take care of and bicker with. Ryo would
be less full of a character without his sister. Mary strikes me as less
important, though I like her well enough. I even have a two-inch
plastic figure of her. As Andy does, she makes Terry somewhat less of a
“lone wolf”. It’s not as bad as Andy, though, as she isn’t distracting
in the same way. Terry doesn’t need someone riding his ass to keep
competetive, as Kyo does; likewise, Andy strikes me as someone who
would really prefer to do his own thing rather than sit in Terry’s
shadow. I’m surprised he stuck around as long as he did. Mary — she’s
harmless, even if SNK doesn’t really know what to do with her (as
evidenced by how she bounces from team to team). She’s really just
there because she’s an interesting and iconic character.

While we’re here, I suggest that Robert is even less important. He’s
basically a clone of Ryo, for one. For another, Ryo doesn’t need him as
much as he needs Yuri. Yuri is family, and as such has an inner route
to Ryo’s personality; Robert is just a fellow student of Takuma. Ryo
never relies on him; neither does Yuri. He’s there to fill space.

Chang and Shingo. Well. Each of them is a special case. Shingo, in his
weird way, has become the main character of KOF since he showed up. Or
maybe the player’s avatar. The everyman, against whom to contrast all
of the other characters. He helps to give perspective to the whole
experience. In contrast, Chang is there because he’s always been there
and because the game needs a “big” character. And because SNK hasn’t
figured out anything better to do with Kim’s team. That said, I find
the new dynamic in 2003 kind of interesting; with Choi gone, Chang
becomes something of a sidekick to Kim and Jhun. Almost a Joe-like
role. He’s got more of an identity now. This could go somewhere.

So. Now, for the hell of it, let’s take a look at the Max Impact roster (minus the new characters):

Seth

That’s interesting. It hits every team leader in the
above list, except Kim and King. Kim is, of course, replaced in this
game with a bisexual female doppelganger named Chae Lim. So he’s here
in spirit, if replaced with a much more inviting body. That just leaves
out King, who, you note, was absent in the arcade version of 2002
anyway (even if she was replaced as soon as it hit the consoles). So
although in some senses she should be an A-list, it’s not without
precedent that she’d be out.

Outside of the primary characters, however, note that only Yuri and
Maxima make the cut, leaving out Benimaru, Joe, Mary, Robert, Chang,
Whip, and Shingo. Note however that Yuri and Maxima are the only two
supporting characters who serve an important role in defining their
respective primary counterparts. I’ve already talked about Mary and
Robert. Joe is welcome and helpful, though if you need to lose him, it
won’t hurt Terry. If you’re paring things down, K’ probably doesn’t
need two emotional crutches; Maxima will do. Benimaru, he serving as a
replacement for Kyo on several occasions, is the only one who really
feels weird to omit. Kyo’s been alone too much lately to really need
him, though; without Shingo to guide (and Shingo is an easy loss, love
him though I do), Benimaru is left to float. He’s not immediately
important in the way that Yuri or Maxima are — so he goes.

In their place, we get Rock and Seth. Rock is there for mass
appeal, because SNK wants Max Impact to sell and everyone loves Rock.
Seth is there so the game has a black character (for similar reasons),
and to include one random bit of “color” from the more recent games.
Just so the roster doesn’t feel entirely obvious or, well, old.

In other words, Rock and Seth aside, the Max Impact roster pretty much
pares down KOF to the bare minimum before you start making unacceptable
compomise (like having one Ikari Warrior, say). At least, again, from a descriptive standpoint.

Assuming SNK intends to add a bunch of characters back into the
follow-up to Max Impact, who didn’t make the cut, who will they be?
Statistics say (and this in no way accounts for random deviation) they
wll largely be samples from the following list:

Shingo

Most of these characters, I note, actually should work
better in 3D than the primary ones. Just think about a 3D Whip, for
instance. Or Benimaru’s whirly-kick. Or heck, just Chang in general.
Joe and Mary are from a sort-of 3D background anyway. Most of these
characters are close-range, which suits the format just fine.

Although Robert feels in some respects superfluous, think about the
costume possibilities. He already has three outfits. And control-wise,
he’s gone through so many changes that another alteration for a unique
close-range style won’t seem all that weird.

The only ones who seem like maybe-stretches are King and Shingo.
And recall they’re the ones in parentheses; they both got ditched once,
when Eolith couldn’t find a way to make them fit.

Shingo, I can almost see making it just because he’s Shingo. Just to throw the fans a bone.

King feels, to me, the hardest to adapt to a 3D fighting style. She
just relies so much on her distance game. Still, I’d love to see SNK
try with her; she would add variety to the roster. And again, there’s
the costume thing.

Note now that the above list of additions comes to 6-8 characters:
roughly half of Max Impact’s roster of returning characters. Let’s say
the next game raises the roster size by one-half, for a total of 30
characters. That’s a nice average size for even a main-series KOF.
Assuming SNK implements teams (which it feels like they wanted to in
Max Impact; they just didn’t have enough characters to warrant it),
that makes ten teams. Hey, that’s healthy as hell. It should satisfy
anyone, and make the game feel a lot more legitimate.

Assuming that — and it is an arbitrary assumption on my part,
based mostly on past experience, what it looks like they wanted to do
with the first game, and what seems reasonable to me — the proportion
of old characters in the above list of possible additions is just about
exactly the same as the number of old characters in the original game:
7:10. So — and again, I’m just saying this wildly — should SNK add
all of the above characters, and then get Falcoon to design two new
characters for the game, it will be entirely consistent with the design choices they made in the original Max Impact.

What does that mean? Nothing, really. I just find it really interesting, on a theoretical level.