If you're reading this you either read my article on GotGame, or you've stumbled onto my blog by complete accident. Either way, welcome. I thought it was important to provide more insight and give credit where credit is due for my most recent article on fighting game crossovers.
In the GotGame writers' forum I posted the question "What fighters do you want to download/fight with in
Soul Calibur IV?" There were two sections for voting, and in both multiple characters could be selected.
Since
Soulcalibur is now tight with George Lucas's gravy-train, the first pole asked what
Star Wars characters they wanted. Now some characters had been suggested in the original article idea, but with
Clone Wars on the horizon I thought I should include some characters from that. The choices ended up being: Darth Maul, Mace Windu, Asajj Ventress, Ahsoka Tano, Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus, Obiwan Kenobi, General Grievous, Kit Fisto, Luke Skywalker, and Other. By now you probably know the staff's top three choices, but it might interest you to know that Ventress, Dooku, Grievous, and Kit Fisto all got the same score. No love for Ahsoka though, with zero votes. I guess nobody saw
Clone Wars over the weekend before I turned this article in, then again maybe they did. I haven't yet so it's hard to tell.
Honestly I'm kind of surprised Ventress didn't score higher. I thought some wouldn't know who she was, so I later referred to her as, "the bald alien chick with the two red lightsabers." Didn't really change anything I'm afraid.
Some of you might be wondering why I put
Kit Fisto in the vote. Well he kind of stands out among the other Jedi, especially during the
Clone Wars,
Episode 2 and
Episode 3. He's also the only Jedi I know of to have fought underwater. Okay, I think he's cool; he was one of the most recognizable background Jedi for me, and the squid-head dreadlocks just won me over. Plus he roles/rolled with Mace Windu, so you know he is/was tough. I'll never forget you squid-head!
Dana, one of our team members, was surprised Grievous didn't receive more votes, but my buddy Graham made a good point in that Grievous, "fights like a lawnmower." I guess that would be unfair.
Andrea, another writer I've grown to know, loves furry things, especially when they're also vicious. So I guess when she suggested Ewoks and Chewbacca as possible characters I shouldn't have been surprised. She also first suggested Jar Jar as a character, and all for the sake of, "beating the crap out of him."
The second pole asked what video game characters they wanted. This was a tough one, since there are so many characters and sources to initially choose from. So I had to think of some characters , but I did say I was open for more suggestions. I tried to pick characters with consoles in mind, like in
Soulcalibur II, and ones that I knew were both generally and currently popular, so I decided to go with: Dante (
Devil May Cry), Kraytos (
God of War), Altair Ibn-La'Ahad (
Assasin's Creed), Travis Touchdown (
No More Heroes), Link (
Twilight Princess version), Master Chief (
Halo), Ryu Hayabusa (
DOA,
Ninja Gaiden), Snake (
Metal Gear Solid), Other and, since it was hard to pick just one from the franchise or one without the other, Sub Zero & Scorpion and (because it felt necessary) Cloud & Sephiroth as one choice.
The
Mortal Kombat rivals tying with the
FFVII rivals was a big surprise, mostly because I didn't think
Sub Zero and Scorpion would rate as high as
Cloud & Sephiroth. I guess people still love those two crazy ninjas. The same can't be said for Ryu though; he only got one vote. Altair and Snake only got one vote, too. Travis tied with Link, another surprise, and Master Chief didn't score nearly as high as I thought he would; two votes. I have to admit I was kind of hoping the votes would show others were eager to see Travis Touchdown in a lightsaber duel, but I was glad everyone else was also eager to see Dante and Kraytos in a fighting game.
Other game characters were also suggested by the voting staff. Adam suggested Prince of Persia, Christopher suggested Nemesis from Resident Evil 3, and Bryan had the idea of Mario with a lightsaber, which I have to admit I thought was hilarious and brilliant. Just imagine Mario in the classic Jedi hood with a plunger shaped lightsaber. Oh wait,
you don't have to. Finally, because he made an old school reference to Shenmue, I'm giving props to Danielle. I'll let his post speak for himself:
"Yo how about that dude from Shenmue. Ryo? I don't know. He could wield a cat as his weapon. But seriously, he knows martial arts. Dr. Robotnik could be neat. In a terrible fan service kind of way. Mystical Ninja Goemon would be hella awesome." Still not sure what he means by a "terrible fan service kind of way," but the cat as a weapon made me laugh. You rule Danielle!
Finally, I left other media open for discussion. You can thank Thomas for bringing up
Highlander, and my buddy Graham for adding Kurgon to the suggestion. Graham also suggested Mad Mardigan from
Willow, calling it "possibly the best roll of Val Kilmer's career." Graham also started the
Kill Bill suggestion, but it was Andrea who finally reminded us that the girl with bladed ball-and-chain was named Gogo. Andrea also suggested Skeletor, but you can't have Skeletor without He-Man. I suggested Hellboy since Spawn had his chance already, and after Adam suggested the Prince of Persia, I thought who better to stand opposite to him than
300's Leonidas.
It was a fun discussion, and I really appreciate everyone's input for this article. There are a lot of great people at GotGame, and that's why I wanted to share their insight and their humor with you. I hope you'll continue to check out their articles as well as my own.
