{"id":1452,"date":"2005-03-06T21:35:00","date_gmt":"2005-03-06T21:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/2005\/03\/on-the-building-of-a-roster\/"},"modified":"2021-03-27T15:43:17","modified_gmt":"2021-03-27T19:43:17","slug":"on-the-building-of-a-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/2005\/03\/on-the-building-of-a-roster\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Building of a Roster"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"initial-letter\"><p>Some analysis.<\/p>\n<p>The following characters have been in every KOF:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>(Kyo), Benimaru<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Terry, Joe<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Ryo, Robert<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Ralf, Clark<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Athena<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Yuri, Mai, (King)<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<p>Kim, Chang<\/ul>\n<p>The following characters have been in every KOF since they were introduced:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Iori<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Leona<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Mary<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>(Shingo)<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>K&#8217;, Maxima, Whip<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Kusanagi<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><i>Ash, Duo Lon, Shen Woo<\/p>\n<p>Tizoc<br \/>\nGato<br \/>\nMalin<br \/>\nMaki<br \/>\nAdelheid<br \/>\nMukai<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Characters in parentheses qualify with some<br \/>\nqualifications. Characters in italics are new as of KOF2003, so their<br \/>\nappearance in the list is in many cases incidental though acurate.<\/p>\n<p>This list is descriptive, not prescriptive. Nevertheless, on a<br \/>\nstatistical basis, it is instructive to see how many characters, and<br \/>\nwhich characters, the main series has as-yet been unable to do without.<br \/>\nNote that several of these same characters have been absent in spinoff<br \/>\ngames, like the EX series, and several have yet to appear in crossover<br \/>\ngames like the CvS series or BattleColiseum. Or even in Max Impact &#8212;<br \/>\nalthough I&#8217;ll get to that. This is, however, a study of the main series<br \/>\nand its common fabric to this point. So at the moment we can overlook<br \/>\nthose cases.<\/p>\n<p>There are fourteen key characters (including Kyo and King) who have<br \/>\nalways been present, and an additional eight (counting Shingo yet<br \/>\nignoring Kusanagi and the 2003 cast) who joined late yet have remained<br \/>\nin the series ever since. This makes a total of twenty-two central<br \/>\ncharacters (by virtue of persistance more than focus).<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s take a look at these twenty-two.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Kyo, Benimaru<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Terry, Joe, Mary<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Ryo, Robert, Yuri<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Leona, Ralf, Clark<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>King, Mai, Athena<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Kim, Chang<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>K&#8217;, Maxima, Whip<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Iori<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>Shingo<\/ul>\n<p>Some observations. This includes every major team<br \/>\nleader: Kyo, Terry, Ryo, Athena, Leona\/Ralf\/Clark (hard to separate<br \/>\nthem), Kim, King\/Mai, Iori, K&#8217;. These are the teams which have<br \/>\npersisted, and made up the series so far.<\/p>\n<p>The other characters, who are not leaders in their own right &#8212;<br \/>\nBenimaru, Joe, Mary, Robert, Yuri, Chang, Maxima, Whip, Shingo &#8212; fall<br \/>\ninto a couple of groups. Benimaru, Joe, Robert, and Maxima fall into<br \/>\nthe sidekick category. In most cases they exist to support the hero<br \/>\ncharacters. You notice in each of those four cases, the sidekick is a<br \/>\ncompanion or counterpart to a KOF protagonist, of some era or another:<br \/>\nKyo, Terry, Ryo, and K&#8217;. I don&#8217;t imagine Joe or Robert bothering with<br \/>\nthe competition if Terry or Ryo didn&#8217;t go, and likewise if Maxima<br \/>\nweren&#8217;t around to give him some grounding, K&#8217; would never show. The<br \/>\nsidekicks also help to flesh out the main characters, by giving them<br \/>\nsomeone to bounce off of.<\/p>\n<p>Mary, Yuri, and Whip serve a similar function; Yuri and Whip are<br \/>\nsisters of protagonists, while Mary is Terry&#8217;s girl. In the first two<br \/>\ncases, the roles and psychology of Ryo and K&#8217; are further augmented by<br \/>\nthe presence of family. Whip gives K&#8217; that last reason to bother, while<br \/>\nYuri helps to cement Ryo&#8217;s identity as more than just a hotheaded bozo<br \/>\nin an orange gi. He someone to take care of and bicker with. Ryo would<br \/>\nbe less full of a character without his sister. Mary strikes me as less<br \/>\nimportant, though I like her well enough. I even have a two-inch<br \/>\nplastic figure of her. As Andy does, she makes Terry somewhat less of a<br \/>\n&#8220;lone wolf&#8221;. It&#8217;s not as bad as Andy, though, as she isn&#8217;t distracting<br \/>\nin the same way. Terry doesn&#8217;t need someone riding his ass to keep<br \/>\ncompetetive, as Kyo does; likewise, Andy strikes me as someone who<br \/>\nwould really prefer to do his own thing rather than sit in Terry&#8217;s<br \/>\nshadow. I&#8217;m surprised he stuck around as long as he did. Mary &#8212; she&#8217;s<br \/>\nharmless, even if SNK doesn&#8217;t really know what to do with her (as<br \/>\nevidenced by how she bounces from team to team). She&#8217;s really just<br \/>\nthere because she&#8217;s an interesting and iconic character.<\/p>\n<p>While we&#8217;re here, I suggest that Robert is even less important. He&#8217;s<br \/>\nbasically a clone of Ryo, for one. For another, Ryo doesn&#8217;t need him as<br \/>\nmuch as he needs Yuri. Yuri is family, and as such has an inner route<br \/>\nto Ryo&#8217;s personality; Robert is just a fellow student of Takuma. Ryo<br \/>\nnever relies on him; neither does Yuri. He&#8217;s there to fill space.<\/p>\n<p>Chang and Shingo. Well. Each of them is a special case. Shingo, in his<br \/>\nweird way, has become the main character of KOF since he showed up. Or<br \/>\nmaybe the player&#8217;s avatar. The everyman, against whom to contrast all<br \/>\nof the other characters. He helps to give perspective to the whole<br \/>\nexperience. In contrast, Chang is there because he&#8217;s always been there<br \/>\nand because the game needs a &#8220;big&#8221; character. And because SNK hasn&#8217;t<br \/>\nfigured out anything better to do with Kim&#8217;s team. That said, I find<br \/>\nthe new dynamic in 2003 kind of interesting; with Choi gone, Chang<br \/>\nbecomes something of a sidekick to Kim and Jhun. Almost a Joe-like<br \/>\nrole. He&#8217;s got more of an identity now. This could go somewhere.<\/p>\n<p>So. Now, for the hell of it, let&#8217;s take a look at the Max Impact roster (minus the new characters):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Terry, Rock<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Kyo, Iori<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Ryo, Yuri<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Ralf, Clark<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Leona,<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Athena<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Mai<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>K&#8217;, Maxima<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<p>Seth<\/ul>\n<p>That&#8217;s interesting. It hits every team leader in the<br \/>\nabove list, except Kim and King. Kim is, of course, replaced in this<br \/>\ngame with a bisexual female doppelganger named Chae Lim. So he&#8217;s here<br \/>\nin spirit, if replaced with a much more inviting body. That just leaves<br \/>\nout King, who, you note, was absent in the arcade version of 2002<br \/>\nanyway (even if she was replaced as soon as it hit the consoles). So<br \/>\nalthough in some senses she should be an A-list, it&#8217;s not without<br \/>\nprecedent that she&#8217;d be out.<\/p>\n<p>Outside of the primary characters, however, note that only Yuri and<br \/>\nMaxima make the cut, leaving out Benimaru, Joe, Mary, Robert, Chang,<br \/>\nWhip, and Shingo. Note however that Yuri and Maxima are the only two<br \/>\nsupporting characters who serve an important role in defining their<br \/>\nrespective primary counterparts. I&#8217;ve already talked about Mary and<br \/>\nRobert. Joe is welcome and helpful, though if you need to lose him, it<br \/>\nwon&#8217;t hurt Terry. If you&#8217;re paring things down, K&#8217; probably doesn&#8217;t<br \/>\nneed two emotional crutches; Maxima will do. Benimaru, he serving as a<br \/>\nreplacement for Kyo on several occasions, is the only one who really<br \/>\nfeels weird to omit. Kyo&#8217;s been alone too much lately to really need<br \/>\nhim, though; without Shingo to guide (and Shingo is an easy loss, love<br \/>\nhim though I do), Benimaru is left to float. He&#8217;s not immediately<br \/>\nimportant in the way that Yuri or Maxima are &#8212; so he goes.<\/p>\n<p>In their place, we get Rock and Seth. Rock is there for mass<br \/>\nappeal, because SNK wants Max Impact to sell and everyone loves Rock.<br \/>\nSeth is there so the game has a black character (for similar reasons),<br \/>\nand to include one random bit of &#8220;color&#8221; from the more recent games.<br \/>\nJust so the roster doesn&#8217;t feel <i>entirely<\/i> obvious or, well, old.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, Rock and Seth aside, the Max Impact roster pretty much<br \/>\npares down KOF to the bare minimum before you start making unacceptable<br \/>\ncompomise (like having <i>one<\/i> Ikari Warrior, say). At least, again, from a descriptive standpoint.<\/p>\n<p>Assuming SNK intends to add a bunch of characters back into the<br \/>\nfollow-up to Max Impact, who didn&#8217;t make the cut, who will they be?<br \/>\nStatistics say (and this in no way accounts for random deviation) they<br \/>\nwll largely be samples from the following list:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>King<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Benimaru<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Joe<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Whip<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Mary<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Robert<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>Chang<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<p>Shingo<\/ul>\n<p>Most of these characters, I note, actually should work<br \/>\nbetter in 3D than the primary ones. Just think about a 3D Whip, for<br \/>\ninstance. Or Benimaru&#8217;s whirly-kick. Or heck, just Chang in general.<br \/>\nJoe and Mary are from a sort-of 3D background anyway. Most of these<br \/>\ncharacters are close-range, which suits the format just fine.<\/p>\n<p>Although Robert feels in some respects superfluous, think about the<br \/>\ncostume possibilities. He already has three outfits. And control-wise,<br \/>\nhe&#8217;s gone through so many changes that another alteration for a unique<br \/>\nclose-range style won&#8217;t seem all that weird.<\/p>\n<p>The only ones who seem like maybe-stretches are King and Shingo.<br \/>\nAnd recall they&#8217;re the ones in parentheses; they both got ditched once,<br \/>\nwhen Eolith couldn&#8217;t find a way to make them fit.<\/p>\n<p>Shingo, I can almost see making it just because he&#8217;s Shingo. Just to throw the fans a bone.<\/p>\n<p>King feels, to me, the hardest to adapt to a 3D fighting style. She<br \/>\njust relies so much on her distance game. Still, I&#8217;d love to see SNK<br \/>\ntry with her; she would add variety to the roster. And again, there&#8217;s<br \/>\nthe costume thing.<\/p>\n<p>Note now that the above list of additions comes to 6-8 characters:<br \/>\nroughly half of Max Impact&#8217;s roster of returning characters. Let&#8217;s say<br \/>\nthe next game raises the roster size by one-half, for a total of 30<br \/>\ncharacters. That&#8217;s a nice average size for even a main-series KOF.<br \/>\nAssuming SNK implements teams (which it feels like they wanted to in<br \/>\nMax Impact; they just didn&#8217;t have enough characters to warrant it),<br \/>\nthat makes ten teams. Hey, that&#8217;s healthy as hell. It should satisfy<br \/>\nanyone, and make the game feel a lot more legitimate.<\/p>\n<p>Assuming that &#8212; and it is an arbitrary assumption on my part,<br \/>\nbased mostly on past experience, what it looks like they wanted to do<br \/>\nwith the first game, and what seems reasonable to me &#8212; the proportion<br \/>\nof old characters in the above list of possible additions is just about<br \/>\nexactly the same as the number of old characters in the original game:<br \/>\n7:10. So &#8212; and again, I&#8217;m just saying this wildly &#8212; should SNK add<br \/>\nall of the above characters, and then get Falcoon to design two new<br \/>\ncharacters for the game, it will be <i>entirely consistent with<\/i> the design choices they made in the original Max Impact.<\/p>\n<p>What does that mean? Nothing, really. I just find it really interesting, on a theoretical level.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some analysis. The following characters have been in every KOF: (Kyo), Benimaru Terry, Joe Ryo, Robert Ralf, Clark Athena Yuri, Mai, (King) Kim, Chang The following characters have been in every KOF since they were introduced: Iori Leona Mary (Shingo) K&#8217;, Maxima, Whip Kusanagi Ash, Duo Lon, Shen Woo Tizoc Gato Malin Maki Adelheid Mukai [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[180,27],"class_list":["post-1452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-king-of-fighters","tag-videogames","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7803,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452\/revisions\/7803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}