Gaming
Games
10 cheapest fighting game characters of all time
We’ve seen some seriously OP characters over the years, but these lot take the biscuit.
10 of the cheapest fighting game characters, ever
© Capcom
Like any competitive multiplayer game of any genre – as much is true of Dota 2, League of Legends or even Overwatch – fighting games rely heavily on balance to be successful and enjoyable. In fact, you could argue when the competition is one-on-one, the question of balance is an even more important one. Let’s face it: no one likes playing against a character that clearly has an unfair advantage over you from the beginning.
With the likes of Smash Bros. and Street Fighter IV helping to bring a new generation of players to the fighting game scene, and Street Fighter V due out out next month, fighters are back in a big way. As we wait with anticipation for that February 16 date to drop, we’ve been recounting some of our more painful fighting-game moments, courtesy of broken bosses and cheap characters. Here are our 10 ‘favourites’, in no particular order…
Akuma (Super Street Fighter II Turbo)
Akuma has become a fan favourite since he first appeared in Super Turbo as a secret character, but he’s been universally banned from pro tournament play for a number of reasons. Effectively, he was given Ryu’s moveset, but with air fireballs, charged-up red fireballs and insane manoeuvrability. As it turned out, his air fireballs were almost impossible to get past if he was playing keep away, and once he had you stuck in the corner, the timing on his red fireball meant that he could keep you there permanently. In the years since, Akuma has retained his ludicrous moveset, but been punished with a relatively low health gauge. And for the record, he’s still banned from most Super Turbo and HD Remix tournaments around the world. So there.
Gill (Street Fighter 3)
Oh, Gill. Everything about this guy was just rage-inducing. His ridiculous normal attacks could hit you from a half-screen away, and would still damage you on block. His lightning-fast move speed made him incredibly hard to hit and even harder to parry. The fact that he tells you to “kneel before your master,” after he’s left you lying on your face. His absolutely beyond stupid Seraphic Wing special (seen at 29 seconds in the video) that removed over half your health bar. But more than any of these things, what makes Gill absolutely one of the cheapest characters ever? When you finally manage to beat him for two rounds out of three, if he has a full super bar, he’ll only go and resurrect in front of you, and then you have to beat him again! The nerve.
Azazel (Tekken 6)
The problem with Azazel is that he’s a wildcard who completely ignores all the usual mechanics of Tekken. Although he’s absolutely massive – which makes a lot of his attacks really, really hard to sidestep – he’s also really hard to hit, not because he moves a lot, but because he blocks everything. Literally everything. That includes some counter-hits, which is ridiculous in itself. Not only that, he has projectiles that are very tough to avoid and juggle you into really nasty combos, and lots of his far-reaching normals stun you as well, giving him even more free damage. Perhaps more than any other, Azazel is the epitome of the unfair final boss. Thank the fighting game gods he wasn’t playable.
Eddy Gordo (Tekken 3)
Much like Astaroth in Soul Calibur, Eddy isn’t so much of a problem for experienced Tekken players – some of his moves have significant punish windows if you know what you’re looking for – but if you’re a casual Tekken player and your friend picks Eddy, well, we hope you have some spare controllers knocking around. Seriously. Just start mashing those kick buttons until his legs start capoeira-ing all over the place and rake in the glory. The problem was that because of his style and his multiple stances, if you didn’t recognise his moves and what they did, there was absolutely no way to know what was going on, and every time you thought you could get in a punch, you’d get a swift kick in the face.
Geese Howard (Fatal Fury / KOF)
Fatal Fury final boss Geese Howard pretty much sums up the phrase ‘cheap character’. Powerful in his own right in his first appearance, and in subsequent appearances in King of Fighters games, he’s a menace that’s hard to put down as he can simply dip into his bag of tricks and throw anything at you, in no time at all. As the final boss of Fatal Fury, likely his most infuriating appearance, he can launch projectiles quickly and as many times as he wants, and he has a counter for practically anything you try. If you try and jump at all, he’ll counter with a jump kick as if he knew exactly what buttons you were pressing, and if you try to jump over one of his projectiles, his animation will finish quick enough for him to smack you right down straight away. Go away, please.
Astaroth (Soul Calibur)
In a game packed full of cheap characters that could spam you to death (Siegfried and Kilik also very nearly made this list), Astaroth probably wasn’t the absolute worst of the lot. But, what he did have was a humongous axe, and couple of the cheapest special moves in the history of fighting games, especially when used against novices. Thanks to his running headbutt, you could ring out anyone unfamiliar with the block button in a matter of seconds, and once they caught onto that, he had multiple specials, all of which involved swinging his axe around in circular motions so you couldn’t get anywhere near him. Oh, and they all did spectacular amounts of damage.
Yoda (Soul Calibur 4)
Soul Calibur 4 was, by and large, a solid outing for Namco-Bandai’s swashbuckling 3D fighter and it featured some very welcome special guests from a galaxy far, far away. PS3 owners got to play out their dark side fantasies (not like that) with the big man himself, Darth Vader, whilst players on Xbox 360 got Yoda. That’s right, two feet and two inches (not like that) of Jedi master, in a game built around vertical and horizontal attacks. Not only was he ridiculously fast, but the majority of horizontal attacks and grabs in the game automatically whiffed over his head, leaving him to chip away at your shins. Extremely frustrating.
Sentinel (Marvel vs. Capcom 3)
Sentinel was absolute god tier in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, but his vanilla MvC3 version wasn’t a barrel of laughs to play against either. He wasn’t completely broken – he was still pretty slow and good players could still manage to open him up thanks to his big hitbox – but cheap? Definitely. His damage was extremely high, and he had tonnes of ways to hit you for at least 50 percent damage from anywhere on the screen, including a stupid off-the-ground rocket punch that could hit you from mid-screen. Combine that with three excellent supers and Sentinel was a serious problem. Especially if you paired him with…
Dark Phoenix (Marvel vs. Capcom 3)
Truth be told, everyone agreed that the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix mechanic in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was pretty awesome. It wasn’t until people started to realise the game-breaking power of Dark Phoenix combined with a level 3 X-Factor that she became universally hated by… well, anyone who didn’t main her. Which ended up being not many people, funnily enough. Dark Phoenix is incredibly fast, and powerful, with normal attacks that send out projectiles, with her major weakness being that she constantly loses health and will die to a single combo. But when she’s X-Factored up, she does ludicrous amounts of damage, doesn’t take chip damage and can build a bar of super in a few hits. And that bar of super can be used to heal her back up again. Very silly indeed.
Magneto (Marvel vs. Capcom 2)
To call him cheap does a slight bit of disservice to how much work it took to be a great Magneto in Marvel 2, but he was still massively overpowered nonetheless. Magneto was arguably the most important member of the Marvel 2’s dominant MSS (Magneto, Storm, Sentinel) team thanks to his jaw-dropping move speed and unstoppable rushdown. Oh, and of course, the fact that he had at least six infinite combos that could inflict a heap of damage and more importantly, build loads and loads of meter. Sure, they all took some practice to be able to pull off consistently, but the notion of infinite combos alone is really, really cheap. With Storm also capable of building plenty of meter and playing a solid keep-away or rushdown game, and Sentinel doing ludicrous Sentinel things, it’s no wonder that MSS was such a dominant force in the MvC2 scene for so long.
For more gaming coverage, be sure to follow @RedBullGames on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
