Jab's He-Builds: Man-at-Arms, Mantenna, Leech, Beast Man

[Murkglow]

Sigh, now I'm going to have to go watch that movie again to compare. I hope you're both happy. *Crosses arms*

[FuzzyBoots]

If you're interested in trivia, Ken's last name of Masters was only added when they started putting out action figures (which, like the GI Joe dolls they were based off of, came with vehicles bizarrely enough) because there was some noise that if they just called him "Ken", he'd get confused with a certain blonde ditzy metrosexual doll.

Nice builds.

[Darzoni]

That is so #$*%ing true it's not even funny. Watterson's cast such a huge shadow over the entire industry that everything else just feels weak- even the GOOD strips! But he did manage to inspire an entire generation of strip artists & writers- pretty much every single person born in the '70s or '80s appears to worship him as a God.

Being a kid who lived in a rural area with few friends and a massive imagination, I grew up identifying with Calvin. So did my brothers. Heck my youngest brother has a tattoo of Calvin and Hobbes fishing together on his chest. Mebbe I'll get T-Rexes in F16s tattooed across my back.

[Jabroniville]

i also disagree with your assessment regarding the movie. ryu vs fei long was good, but it pales before the chun-li/vega throwdown

I often switch between the two, actually. Even earlier, I said "Chun-Li/Vega and Ryu/Fei Long were EPIC fights, too"- I liked the use of their special moves in the Fei Long battle, and how "impactful" all the hits were (everything was positively bone-crunching- ESPECIALLY the final Hurricane Kick). If you add music into it, Vega/Chun-Li is dramatically better, of course. Though yeah, that one has a better ending and is much more brutal. It's probably better, now that I think about it .

[BlindPugh]

The SF builds are off to a great start. I can't believe you'll be doing 64 guys but I'm happy it means characters like Hakan & Dudley get included. Looking forward to the rest of them.

[danelsan]

I must say that I'm much, much more of a SNK fan, but I played a lot of SF as well (although I think SF III cast largely sucked and find SF IV and the EX ones to be nerd-rage-inducing levels of awful). Anyway, you can take this with a grain of salt, but I think you are stretching shotoclones by including Terry. Might as well include Chun-Li and Guile as clones

While the SF II animated movie is excellent, I confess I loved Street Fighter Victory. It has it's awkward moments, but the Brazilian version of the voice-acting was deliciously hammy, Ryu's trajectory to learn the Hadouken is nice and many of the fights are very good

I agree with you on the SF RPG. Like all systems it had it's flaws and abuses, but it was really good at what it wanted to do. I've used it extensively to play adaptations of various fighting games, cartoons/animes or just generic martial arts adventures.

Great SF builds so far. I'm getting some original builds done to start my own thread here, I think I'll add some fighting game builds to it (I can already tell ya, Wolfgang Krauser is gonna be a monster )

[Jabroniville]

Here's a funny Something Awful review of one of those RPG add-on books (Great line about Bluegrass, a Kentuckian who is a sumo wrestler: "You've got to give him credit for finishing high school. A lot of guys in his position would see the opportunity and drop out for Sumo."). Yeah, the art in them SUCKED, and every character in them was awful, but it's still a fun read. Especially when you get to the guys who's sole purpose is to be Bison-level threats (the Dragon-trapped-in-a-man's-body and the Super Alien).

I consider Terry a light Shotoclone, but I think he still has the classic "Blast/Rising Move/Across-Screen Move" combo that makes a Shotoclone to me. Just because the Uppercut is a kick and the dashing move is a punch doesn't make him super-different .

Also, I'd consider Ryu to be the second-biggest icon around because of longevity and influence. Mega Man is great, but mostly exists in his own little segment of gaming, and I'm not really sure if he had that many copy-cats in his day- plus, his games are mostly well-known for having an INSANE amount of sequels, and for having people stop paying attention to them after the third or fourth . Sonic, as said, was ONCE the #2 icon in gaming, but fell off the radar in a BIG way during the Saturn era, when Sega foolishly failed to come out with a Franchise Game for him on the Saturn- the fact that his DreamCast game sucked didn't help at all, and now he's barely on the level of a Crash Bandicoot. Lara Croft in the early 2000s was bigger than Ryu, but she also fell away and is "just another character" these days. I think Ryu wins by virtue of his copycats, his style, and the fact that it's been twenty-five years and he's still the biggest name in fighters.

[Jabroniville]

MIKE
Created By: Manabu Takemura
First Appearance: Street Fighter (1987)
Home Country: The United States
Role: Scary Black Man, The Big Guy, Forgotten Character
Vague Martial Art Basis: Boxing
PL 7 (75)
STRENGTH 4 STAMINA 4 AGILITY 2
FIGHTING 6 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE 0

Skills:
Acrobatics 3 (+5)
Athletics 4 (+8)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 4 (+10)
Deception 2 (+2)
Expertise (Martial Arts) 4 (+4)
Intimidation 7 (+7)

Advantages:
Great Endurance

"World Warrior" Fighting Style: Accurate Attack (Jab), All-Out Attack, Defensive Roll, Fast Grab (Grab), Improved Critical (Unarmed), Improved Defense, Improved Hold, Improved Trip (Throw), Power Attack (Roundhouse), Takedown, Withstand Damage (Block)

Powers:
"Special Moves"
None

Offense:
Unarmed +10 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +2

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +9 (DC 19), Toughness +4 (+5 D.Roll), Fortitude +7, Will +3

Complications:
Weakness (Predictability)- Mike, like all Street Fighters, cannot simply "spam" out the same attack over and over again, as the opponent will expect the attacks, and be ready for them (and a counterattack). The third time he tries the same technique (or same combo of techniques) in a short span, he will be at -2 to Accuracy, AND to his Active Defenses in that round. All will decrease by 2 every successive round the same move is done.

Total: Abilities: 36 / Skills: 24--12 / Advantages: 1 + 11 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 15 (75)

-Mike was terrible... which is why we never saw him again. Actually, I've heard tell that those two dudes squaring off in the "SF II" opening screen were actually Mike & Joe from "SF I", and that Mike is the black dude getting KO'd in one hit. Another rumor states that "Mike Bison" (aka Balrog) is in fact the same guy. But yeah, no more game appearances for this guy, really. And this is a game series that brought back Birdie & Gen in the "Alpha" games, and threw in EAGLE for "Capcom vs. SNK", so you know Mike sucks. Really, everything about him was done better in Balrog anyways, so there's no reason to worry.

-Mike is remarkably large as an in-game sprite, but quite weak as a fighter, just being a big Boxer dude who does short-hops and punches you. As such, he has no special moves, and is just a PL 7 (75) Mook type of guy. PL 7 is nothing to sneeze at, of course, but I doubt he could defeat any PL 10 World Warrior on his own.




JOE
Created By: Manabu Takemura
First Appearance: Street Fighter (1987)
Home Country: The United States
Role: Generic Guy, Forgotten Character
Vague Martial Art Basis: Underground Martial Arts
PL 7 (79)
STRENGTH 3 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 7 DEXTERITY 3
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 1 PRESENCE 1

Skills:
Acrobatics 4 (+7)
Athletics 4 (+7)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 4 (+11)
Deception 2 (+3)
Expertise (Martial Arts) 5 (+5)
Intimidation 5 (+6)

Advantages:
None

"World Warrior" Fighting Style: Accurate Attack (Jab), All-Out Attack, Defensive Roll, Fast Grab (Grab), Improved Critical (Unarmed), Improved Defense, Improved Hold, Improved Trip (Throw), Power Attack (Roundhouse), Takedown, Withstand Damage (Block)

Powers:
"Special Moves"
None

Offense:
Unarmed +10 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +2

Defenses:
Dodge +9 (DC 19), Parry +10 (DC 20), Toughness +3 (+4 D.Roll), Fortitude +6, Will +3

Complications:
Weakness (Predictability)- Joe, like all Street Fighters, cannot simply "spam" out the same attack over and over again, as the opponent will expect the attacks, and be ready for them (and a counterattack). The third time he tries the same technique (or same combo of techniques) in a short span, he will be at -2 to Accuracy, AND to his Active Defenses in that round. All will decrease by 2 every successive round the same move is done.

Total: Abilities: 42 / Skills: 24--12 / Advantages: 0 + 11 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 14 (79)

-Joe is probably the single most generic character design in the history of video games... a white dude in red pants. That's his entire design. Unsurprisingly, we never saw him reappear, though Abel in "SF IV" looks kinda like him, and is stated to have amnesia. Hmmmm....

-Joe is basically a weaker, more accurate version of Mike, shifting the caps around. A one-shot character will only ever get PL 7 from me (presumably he sucks so badly that he wasn't allowed at any other tournament).

[Jabroniville]

Have fun getting his Stage Theme out of your head.

BALROG (aka "Mike Bison")
Created By: Akira Yasuda
First Appearance: Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (1991)
Home Country: The United States (specifically- Las Vegas, Nevada)
Role: Dumb Mook, The Fallen Athlete, Over-Specialized Guy (only uses Punches)
Vague Martial Art Basis: Boxing
PL 9 (115)
STRENGTH 4 STAMINA 5 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 9 DEXTERITY 3
INTELLIGENCE -1 AWARENESS -1 PRESENCE -1

Skills:
Acrobatics 3 (+6)
Athletics 4 (+8)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 4 (+13)
Deception 5 (+4)
Expertise (Criminal) 8 (+7)
Expertise (Pop Culture) 3 (+2)
Intimidation 10 (+9)
Perception 2 (+1)

Advantages:
Benefit (Shadowloo Enforcer), Daze (Intimidation), Improved Critical (Dashing Punches) 3, Improved Grab, Improved Initiative 2, Move-By Action, Ranged Attack 3, Seize Initiative, Startle, Taunt

"World Warrior" Fighting Style: Accurate Attack (Jab), All-Out Attack, Defensive Roll, Extraordinary Effort, Fast Grab (Grab), Improved Critical (Unarmed) 2, Improved Defense, Improved Hold, Improved Trip (Throw), Power Attack (Roundhouse), Takedown, Withstand Damage (Block)

Powers:
"Boxing Punches" Strength-Damage +1 [1]

"Special Moves"
"Dashing Punches"
Strength-Damage +2 (Inccurate -1) [1]
Speed 1 (4 mph) (Flaws: Limited to Short Bursts) [0.5]

Offense:
Unarmed +13 (+5 Damage, DC 20)
Dashing Punches +11 (+7 Damage, DC 22)
Initiative +11

Defenses:
Dodge +12 (DC 22), Parry +12 (DC 22), Toughness +5 (+6 D.Roll), Fortitude +8, Will +6

Complications:
Motivation (Greed)- Balrog likes to have money, and he seeks more of it. This will be accomplished by beating the $#!& out of people.
Weakness (Over-Specialized)- Balrog, as a boxer, is not trained in kicks, and cannot throw them effectively. If his hands are bound, he will be highly limited in his attacks.
Weakness (Predictability)- Balrog, like all Street Fighters, cannot simply "spam" out the same attack over and over again, as the opponent will expect the attacks, and be ready for them (and a counterattack). The third time he tries the same technique (or same combo of techniques) in a short span, he will be at -2 to Accuracy, AND to his Active Defenses in that round. All will decrease by 2 every successive round the same move is done.

Total: Abilities: 42 / Skills: 41--20.5 / Advantages: 15 + 13 / Powers: 2.5 / Defenses: 22 (115)

-Balrog (an obvious parody of Mike Tyson right down to his name in Japan- which is what caused the big "Boss Name Switch"- this becomes more obvious in his early artwork) is sort of an unsung character in SF history. Kind of forgotten because he's not as cheesy as some others, he's actually quite lethal in the right hands. He's got insane reach, goes FLYING across the screen at high speeds, and he does a lot of damage. He gets portrayed as Bison's "Key Goon" in all SF media, since Sagat & Vega aren't exactly "yes men", and he's pretty famously ugly and stupid, as well as there being about zero character depth to him. He's still easily the most famous boxer character in fighting game history, especially because SNK seems to royally suck at inventing cool, iconic ones (Vanessa in the later "KoF" games is the closest)- early guys in "Art of Fighting" and "Fatal Fury" were embarassingly generic.

-Balrog comes up WAY under-priced compared to other SF characters, but he's just as devastating in combat as many of them, a solid PL 9. Unlike many SF characters, his special moves are all basically the same thing- a Punch that slides across the screen at high-speeds. He gets a short "Dash"-type Speed effect (equalling-out with uneven Skills to avoid decimal points in his final cost) to go along with higher Initiative than most World Warriors (he's fast for a big guy), but he's far more limited elsewhere, especially mentally.

-Balrog's role in the movie was pretty minimal; he hung out in Las Vegas as Bison's go-between to the lesser bosses, had an intimidate-off with Zangief before the Zangief/Blanka fight, and then fought E.Honda. He actually beat on him pretty good (with regular boxing-style punches), before the two tumbled off the cliff in one of the movie's funnier moments ("Ohhhhhh Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!") He took the worst of it, being carried up by Honda by the end of the fight.

-Fighting Style: Balrog is a dasher- he comes flying out of nowhere with a huge array of vicious punches, but most of his moves look the same. He stings like a bee, but hardly floats like a butterfly to do it. Balrog is all-or-nothing. Either his big punches hit and he KO's his opponent, or he misses and goes all the way across the screen, where he is vulnerable. He's weak against ranged attacks, even moreso than most melee fighters- he's too big and slow to avoid things easily, and his punches often send him right INTO Fireballs.

[Flying Cobra]

Fact dissemination- for those not in the know, Balrog was actually the name of the final boss in the Japanese version of SF2. The big scary Vegas boxer? M. Bison, a play on the name of the real-life person he resembled (he'd need a bit of heft and a few tattoos now).

Edit- which Jab beat me to, as he posted Balrog/M. Bison right as I was typing this.

[Jabroniville]

"Let's fight like gentlemen!"

DUDLEY (aka "Sir Dudlington")
Created By: Unknown
First Appearance: Street Fighter III (1997)
Home Country: England
Role: The Gentleman, Expy (of Balrog), Rich Boy, Over-Specialized Guy (only uses Punches)
Vague Martial Art Basis: Boxing
PL 9 (124)
STRENGTH 3 STAMINA 4 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 8 DEXTERITY 3
INTELLIGENCE 2 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 2

Skills:
Acrobatics 3 (+6)
Athletics 4 (+7)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 6 (+14)
Expertise (Business) 5 (+7)
Expertise (Gardening) 2 (+4)
Expertise (Boxing) 6 (+8)
Insight 4 (+6)
Perception 4 (+6)
Persuasion 4 (+6)
Vehicles 2 (+5)

Advantages:
Agile Feint, Benefit 2 (Wealth), Cunning Fighter (Feints with Close Combat Skill), Defensive Attack, Evasion, Improved Critical (Jet Uppercut) 2, Improved Initiative

"World Warrior" Fighting Style: Accurate Attack (Jab), All-Out Attack, Defensive Roll, Extraordinary Effort, Fast Grab (Grab), Improved Critical (Unarmed) 2, Improved Defense, Improved Hold, Improved Trip (Throw), Power Attack (Roundhouse), Takedown, Withstand Damage (Block)

Powers:
"Boxing Punches" Strength-Damage +1 [1]

"Special Moves"
"Jet Uppercut" Strength-Damage +2 (Inaccurate -1) [1]
"Machine Gun Blow" Strength-Damage +0 (Extras: Multiattack 4) (Flaws: Distracting) [2]

Offense:
Unarmed +14 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Jet Uppercut +12 (+6 Damage, DC 21)
Initiative +7

Defenses:
Dodge +13 (DC 23), Parry +13 (DC 23), Toughness +4 (+5 D.Roll), Fortitude +8, Will +7

Complications:
Motivation (Car, Flowers)- Dudley is searching for his father's specially-modified Jaguar in SF III, and new types of roses for his garden in SF IV. These will be accomplished by beating the $#!& out of people.
Weakness (Over-Specialized)- Dudley, as a boxer, is not trained in kicks, and cannot throw them effectively. If his hands are bound, he will be highly limited in his attacks.
Weakness (Predictability)- Dudley, like all Street Fighters, cannot simply "spam" out the same attack over and over again, as the opponent will expect the attacks, and be ready for them (and a counterattack). The third time he tries the same technique (or same combo of techniques) in a short span, he will be at -2 to Accuracy, AND to his Active Defenses in that round. All will decrease by 2 every successive round the same move is done.

Total: Abilities: 54 / Skills: 40--20 / Advantages: 9 + 13 / Powers: 4 / Defenses: 24 (124)

-Dudley is basically a new version of Balrog as the "Boxer" character archetype, but Capcom really worked hard to make him different. He's an English gentleman out for sissy pursuits like Gardening, fights fair, and works on speedy combos, feints and jabs rather than blazing uppercuts. Plus, he uses a DEMPSEY ROLL as a finisher in SF IV- for those unaware, it's a riff on the anime "Hajime no Ippo" ("Fighting Spirit" over here), a FANTASTIC Shonen anime involving a young boxing prodigy who makes his way through the Featherweight class. His "big finish" move eventually becomes the Dempsey Roll, a move created by Jack Dempsey, utilizing quick side-to-side movements for his punches. And man, I HATE Shonen anime with the passion of a thousand blazing suns, and I'm telling you this Shonen anime kicks ass.

-Fighting Style: Dudley fights much unlike Balrog, despite their similar styles and over-focusing on punches. He utilizes a great number of jabs as well as power punches, and does lightning-fast combos rather than Balrog's trademark "Flying out with a huge all-or-nothing punch". He uses his Acrobatics to Feint- which he does a LOT of (he's very specialized in that regard).

-Dudley's in fact a great test of the M&M character-creation system. Two guys, both human-level martial artists, using the exact same core fighting style, yet fight in very different manners. I think it shows the versatility of M&M- it's not as good as a Fighting-based Video Game or the SF RPG for that sort of thing, but it still does the job quite nicely, considering it needs a much wider scope.

[Jabroniville]

Fact dissemination- for those not in the know, Balrog was actually the name of the final boss in the Japanese version of SF2. The big scary Vegas boxer? M. Bison, a play on the name of the real-life person he resembled (he'd need a bit of heft and a few tattoos now).

Edit- which Jab beat me to, as he posted Balrog/M. Bison right as I was typing this.

*puts on nerd glasses*

Actually, Vega is the name of the guy we call "M. Bison". "Balrog" is the guy we call "Vega".

*doffs nerd glasses*

[Flying Cobra]

*puts on nerd glasses*

Actually, Vega is the name of the guy we call "M. Bison"

*doffs nerd glasses*

D'oh! Right- and Balrog is the guy we call Vega. Forgot it was a three-way...

...switch.

[Murkglow]

Mega Man is great, but mostly exists in his own little segment of gaming,

Aren't Fighting games their own little segment of gaming (specifically fighting games like SF2 which isn't the entire fighting game genre)?

his games are mostly well-known for having an INSANE amount of sequels, and for having people stop paying attention to them after the third or fourth .

Street Fighter anyone?

Sonic, as said, was ONCE the #2 icon in gaming, but fell off the radar in a BIG way during the Saturn era, when Sega foolishly failed to come out with a Franchise Game for him on the Saturn- the fact that his DreamCast game sucked didn't help at all, and now he's barely on the level of a Crash Bandicoot.

Can't say I agree at all. Sonic has fallen but not that far, he'll always be remembered as an icon.

I think Ryu wins by virtue of his copycats, his style, and the fact that it's been twenty-five years and he's still the biggest name in fighters.

He wasn't the biggest name in fighters that whole time (if you can even call him that. He is the "offical hero" character of SF but I'm not sure how much weight that really carries. I expect Ken, Chun-Li, Guile, Blanka, and the rest of the old guard are remember just as readily as Ryu is).

SF2 wasn't the king forever (other fighters have taken that title from time to time, like Mortal Combat, MvC, ect...), as your own history mentions SF had its big hit in SF2 then coasted on that pretty much (and the "special editions" they did of it). SF3 I like but you don't and he wasn't important at all in that game (so much so that if you were not looking for him you'd miss him), SF Alpha Series can hardly be considered an iconic series (unless you're big into fighters you'll not even know it existed), and SF4 is... "Shug" Not changing the world.

IMO a large part of why SF4 is as big as it is (if it's even all that big I don't know) is because it's the first "redo" of SF2 in a while (that I'm aware of, maybe capcom did a recent special edition of SF2 that I never heard of). Oh and it's pretty. I wonder if they actually did a true remake of Sonic (instead of all this 3d non-sense) if it wouldn't do as well?

If Ryu gets to coast on one game (SF2 and all the countless remakes of it, of which I consider SF4 one) why can't Sonic (on his original games, depends on when you think they started to suck)? As for imitations, Sonic had a few, it's just none of them were good enough to take his spot (or even be noticed), unlike Ryu whose imitations are sometimes liked better then he is (I don't know if anyone actually likes Ryu himself. Do they? It seems more to me that he's just there because he has always been there and it's a tradition).

Also can you think of a top X list that has Ryu anywhere near the top? I've been looking on google and I can't find one. Here is a link to Guinesse's list of the top 50 (i'm just linking this one because it actually has Ryu on it, alot of them don't, and because it's a long list so it lists alot of characters to consider). Ryu is in the top 50 but barely (49). I personally don't think Ryu should be that low (I think alot of the characters don't deserve to be on there at all... I mean "Soap" is 12 wtf?) but at the same time I don't think he is beating Link, Sonic, Mario, or a number of other characters on that list either.

Anyway, sorry I'm hounding this. I'll stop badgering the thread about it. I guess this just struck a nerve in me.

[Jabroniville]

That list reminds me that I am old and don't recognize the names of half of those guys . Yeah, Link is a bigger icon than Ryu- I totally forgot him. Cloud would be unquestionably larger if he was in more games (even Square wasn't shameless enough to put him in everything). Maybe even Master Chief (for sheer popularity). Ryu's got some years on those guys, and history will tell. I'm truthfully not even that big of a Ryu fan either (Sagat, Vega & Dee Jay were my favourites back in "the day")- I just respect what he kinda means to gaming. He was the main character of a game that set off an entire genre.

How is SF 4 a remake of SF II? It seems to be a weird mishmash of SF II characters with SF III stuff, and it has a new-ish "plot" (as far as SF games have one). I mean, that's like calling Alpha a remake of SF II, or King of Fighters games remakes of each other. I'd just call 'em sequels.