We started our discussion of Fighting Game characters with an article titled “The Importance of Story & Character in Fighting Games”, and then continued the discussion in last year’s piece “Character in Fighting Games - Part II: More Than Functions“. Now we’ve arrived at Part III, because I really have to talk about guest characters in fighting games today. Honestly, it’s driving me crazy and I need to get this out.

As previously mentioned, video game crossovers can be truly magical, and fighting games are particularly fertile ground for characters to meet up and interact. A whole game where two different franchises crossover isn’t always necessary to capture this sort of magic, however. Sometimes you can get a lot of mileage out of just one character stepping into a different fictional world. This is the guest character, and it can really inflate a fighting game’s appeal to fans of multiple properties.

So what makes a good guest character? Well, as I’ve ranted about a bit too much, I believe consistency is the key to a quality video game experience. Artistic consistency in the sound and visuals, input/mechanical consistency in the gameplay, thematic consistency in story and presentation, etc. In a fighting game, you want all the characters to fit into the game’s world cohesively, both in terms of their visual presentation and also their gameplay mechanics.

Since guest characters are visiting from another fictional universe, they can get a little more latitude to stand out; to not quite fit in as perfectly as the normal cast. However, they shouldn’t stand out too much, as that could break the game’s sense of consistency. Even guest characters should largely fit into the game world—at least in terms of visual presentation and gameplay—and ideally the developers would find a way to cleanly integrate the guest’s recognizable moves into their game.

With that in mind, let’s discuss the range of fighting game guest characters we’ve seen over the years. The Good, the Bad, and absolutely Ridiculous.

The Good

There are actually several examples of great guest characters in fighting games. The first one that comes to mind—and might honestly still be the single best guest ever—is Link in Soul Calibur 2 for the GameCube.

The team at Namco did a truly excellent job of translating The Legend of Zelda’s Link into the Soul Calibur universe. Visually it is clearly adult Link from Ocarina of Time, last seen in Super Smash Bros. Melee, armed with the Master Sword and Hylian Shield. He’s a bit shorter than the normal human combatants, which makes sense given his Hylian origins and elfish appearance.

The Soul Calibur series has seen several interesting guest characters over the years, and while mostly positive, I’d say some have been a lot better than others. Including Kratos from God of War or Ezio from Assassin’s Creed was pretty darn cool, and they fit into the game world extremely well. On the other hand, putting Star Wars characters into SCIV (Darth Vader, Yoda, the Force Unleashed apprentice) was less satisfying, in my opinion, because they clashed badly with the Soul Calibur universe. By Soul Calibur VI though, Bandai Namco had recaptured magic with guests like Geralt of Rivia from The Witcher, and Haomaru from Samurai Shodown.

Last time I called Terry Bogard the king of guest character appearances, and I think that still remains true. There was his inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which was pretty epic, and then his guest spot in Fighting EX Layer, a game which still doesn’t get as much as love as it deserves. He even appeared in SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy, but gender-swapped as a girl, since the entire cast of that game is female. And then to clinch the Guest King crown, Terry (along with Mai Shiranui) is playable in Street Fighter 6. All along the way, Terry has fit into these other fighting games so seamlessly, it was as if he had been part of the roster the whole time.

As a big fan of Killer Instinct, and also a fan of Rare games more generally, I liked that Rash from Battletoads was included as a guest character in Killer Instinct (2013). It could certainly be argued that the Battletoads style of cartoon violence—performed by anthropomorphic amphibians no less—doesn’t actually mesh that well with KI’s brutal combos and visceral finishers. However, I think since the arcade Battletoads game was actually quite gory, the crossover works decently well. Also, it’s cool that the original KI games and Battletoads had characters designed by the same people, like Kevin Bayliss, so having Rash in KI feels like a full-circle moment.

The inclusion of the Arbiter from Halo in Killer Instinct (2013) is similarly cool. Actually, the Arbiter probably fits into KI’s universe even better, especially with the 2013 reboot’s visual aesthetic.

Speaking of fighting game guest characters from Halo, Spartan-458 in Dead Or Alive 4 was also pretty cool. Granted the time period aspect of the character is a little wonky, since DOA takes place in present day and Halo’s spartans are supposed to exist in the far future. However, I will happily forgive a little time travel shenanigans if everything else works alright. And in this case, I feel like the resulting guest spot is fairly cohesive and appealing.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I talked about good guest characters in fighting games and failed to mention the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Injustice 2. A NetherRealm developed game, Injustice 2 is DC Comics fighting game which plays a lot like a Mortal Kombat and features a ton of characters from the DC pantheon. While TMNT had crossed over with Batman before, they are not actually a DC Comics property, making their inclusion a guest appearance. And honestly, they look so cool in Injustice 2, it actually made me want to learn to play the game just for them. Raphael all day, baby!

The Bad

When Bandai Namco announced that Tekken 7’s third DLC character would be Noctis back in 2018, the main protagonist of Final Fantasy XV, the buzz was generally positive. Some folks were displeased with the inclusion, saying that a Final Fantasy character doesn’t fit within the martial arts fighting world of Tekken. But others approved, pointing out that Tekken’s sizable roster already contains plenty of weird and fantastical characters. Were Noctis objectors just being too serious, too protective of the integrity of a long silly franchise?

Well, while I completely understand the points people have made about Tekken’s roster, I admit I was a Noctis naysayer. Personally I didn’t think the character quite fit into Tekken. And sure, there certainly were other Tekken characters that might make even less sense than Noctis for the King of Iron Fist Tournament, but I just thought he wasn’t the best choice.

As it turns out, Noctis was only the first Final Fantasy character to cross over with Tekken. For Tekken 8, Clive Rosefield from Final Fantasy XVI also showed up as a guest character. Again, since Clive has a sword and uses magic, his inclusion seemed like an odd choice for Tekken in particular. Clive would make for a more natural fit in Soul Calibur, but they put him Tekken for some reason.

Interestingly, even though Final Fantasy VII has been more popular than ever with its Remake series ongoing, they didn’t put Tifa Lockhart in the game. Her hand-to-hand style of combat would be ideal for Tekken, and she’s been a fan favorite for decades. Heck, Tifa already appeared in a 3D fighter in the 90’s, she was playable in Square’s own Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring, so she’s got precedent. But alas no, logic be damned—Tekken gets FF’s sword boys. Ok, enough about Final Fantasy, back to guest character hijinks.

Back at EVO 2018, Bandai Namco announced that Tekken 7 would get a Season 2 set of DLC characters. Series mainstays Anna Williams and Lei Wulong were announced, and the galaxy was at peace. Then, in a shocking twist, they gave us a sneak peak of a brand new guest character. To everyone's surprise, it was Negan from the AMC television show The Walking Dead. That’s right, a character from a zombie-filled dystopian horror TV show would be fighting in Tekken 7.

And wow, what a terrible choice! Noctis may have been a bit of stretch for Tekken, but Negan is straight-up jumping the shark. I’d imagine that a Walking Dead character might work with a NetherRealm game like Mortal Kombat—though even that would likely not be great—but come on, he makes no sense in Tekken. At the time, Negan was the single most baffling character choice in fighting games ever.

It was especially weird considering how Tekken 7’s guest characters started out so strong, with two incredible choices right out of the gate. Both Akuma and Geese Howard fit right into the Tekken pantheon so seamlessly, they significantly raised bar for guest characters in fighting games. The way Bandai Namco integrated those two fighters from their disparate game series and deftly crafted their look and gameplay to feel consistent—both with their source games and with Tekken—made their inclusions look natural, almost predestined. It was a real victory for the series. Pretty much any characters to follow those two would need to be inspired choices in order to meet insanely hyped expectations, even if they came from other storied game franchises.

But it seems that Bandai Namco wasn’t only looking at video games for possible guests, TV Land was also up for grabs. So now Negan from The Walking Dead is in there fighting with the likes of Marshall Law and Jin Kazama? It’s such a tonal mismatch, such strange choice, it really seems like it can only worsen the Tekken experience. I mean, where do we go from here, Walter White in Soul Calibur?

And yeah, sure, Tekken has always had a subset of weird, wild, downright ridiculous characters. Kuma/Panda instantly spring to mind, as does Mokujin, the living wooden training dummy. There’s the absurd fembot Alisa, all the “Devil” transformation characters, and don’t forget the supernatural final bosses—like Azazel, who’s basically a massive dragon. Plus Tekken’s original guest character (appearing in Tekken 3) was Gon, a miniature fire-breathing/farting dinosaur from a manga that no one in the US has even heard of. I will certainly concede that extreme zaniness does have precedent in Tekken.

Still, I would argue that each off-the-wall, nutty, weirdo character added to a fighting game's roster deteriorates the overall consistency of a game. A couple oddballs are definitely fun, but include too many gags and the game world essentially becomes a parody of itself. With each out-of-place character developers add to their fighter, the overall package gets just a little bit dumber.

This isn’t just true of Tekken, of course. I could just as well complain about too many goofy characters in Street Fighter. In SFIV for example, you had Rufus, El Fuerte, and Hakan; in my opinion, three of the dumbest characters Capcom has ever ran with. SF already had Blanka and Dan, so I’d say the goofball quota had already been met. Plus, the visual designs of El Fuerte and Hakan were actually pretty cool, making it a shame to reduce them to clown status. (Rufus, on the other hand, is just completely irredeemable.)

The Ridiculous

Norimaro in *Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter*, yeesh.

There’s been a few truly bizarre guest characters in fighting games, and usually they’re mostly notable for sheer outlandishness. Norimaro in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter is an obvious example of this. He’s a Japanese comedian’s wacky persona rendered as a cartoon character and inexplicably fighting alongside Spider-Man and Ken Masters. It’s extremely strange for Norimaro to be in there and his visual style doesn’t mesh that well with the rest of the cast, presumably on purpose. But Capcom had the good sense to not include Norimaro in international releases of the game; he was a joke for the Japanese arcade audience only. (And to be honest, I still don’t get it.)

Then of course you have Hornet in Fighters Megamix. Hornet is a race car from Sega’s own Daytona USA, but here he (she? it?) is a playable fighter, going up against characters from the likes of Virtua Fighter and Fighting Vipers. Can you get any weirder than playing as a literal car in a fighting game? Should this be seen as the revenge of that poor Bonus Stage car in Street Fighter 2?

Well, there was plenty of weirdness in Fighters Megamix already, because the game was a lighthearted mashup of multiple Sega properties. Basically, being extra weird was par for the course in this title. Other secret characters apparently included the Palm Tree from the AM2 logo (AM2 being the developers) and Niku, just a big hunk of meat on a bone. So yeah, a fighting race car, while extremely out there, actually fit the oddball tone of this goofy game fairly well.

Alright, we’ve covered fighting game characters of the past, now to discuss the present. Specifically, we need to talk about Christiano Ronaldo in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. Because this situation is bizarre.

When I first heard something online about Cristiano Rodaldo being added as a fighter in the new Garou game, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, I thought it was a joke. Then I saw the first teaser trailer and, well…I guess it’s not an intentional joke. But wow man, this is just awful.

It’s hard to say which part is more weird; that the voice that sounds like a generic anime overdub from the 90s, or the fact that the character physically doesn't look quite a close to real Ronaldo as it should. It looks more like an intentional knock-off, like how the boxer Balrog was for Mike Tyson in Street Fighter, that is off more than enough for the developers to deny that the character was based on a real person. I mean, maybe it's the red color throwing me off—which is reminiscent of Manchester United, and not of any clubs he has played for since (or Portugal)—but when he first appeared in the video, I was expecting the voice of some Soviet KGB agent with a thick Russian accent straight out of Archer or something.

But wait, there’s more! After SNK stunned the world with their Rodaldo inclusion, they revealed another dubious guest character: Salvatore Ganacci. Who’s Salvatore Ganacci? Uh, yeah…I don’t know; we’ve never heard of him either. But he’s another real-life person, this time a DJ, seemingly added just for shock value?

Two things make the inclusion of Salvatore Ganacci especially unusual. For one, he’s not a big enough celebrity. Ronaldo is obviously one of the most popular athletes in the world, but this guy’s a DJ who most of us have never heard of. Two, the Fatal Fury series already has a breakdancing fighter named Duck King. I suspect that SNK took their designs for a revamped Duck King and just pasted them onto Ganacci instead. Maybe because he asked them to do it and/or paid them for the privilege? Don’t know, seems like anything goes with SNK now.

It just makes no sense to me that you would add an actual living person into your fictional fighting game universe. Fatal Fury characters crossing over to Street Fighter, and vice versa; that’s very cool. Street Fighter (and Fatal Fury) characters appearing in Tekken; rad. Samurai Shodown characters coming over to Soul Calibur; hell yes! That all makes sense and definitely works within the fiction of their respective games. But that’s the thing, these games are fictional. Celebrity personas might be somewhat contrived, but the people are real.

And even if you were to put a real person into your fighting game, wouldn’t you add—oh, I don’t know—like an actual martial artist?? At least Ronaldo is a professional athlete, but come on, he’s not a fighter. I mean seriously, is this game supposed to be Fatal Fury or Shaq Fu?

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is a direct sequel to Garou: Mark of the Wolves, a classic SNK fighting game from 1999; and this is basically a revival of the Garou/Fatal Fury series. The visuals have changed from high-frame-rate pixel art to 3D models, but its art style still manages look extremely cool. I have been super hyped for this game since it was first announced, highly anticipating its release later this month. And yet, in the 11th hour, the developers have rolled out two of the dumbest guest characters I have ever seen.

What we’re seeing with City of the Wolves is really a new type of stunt casting in video games. Normal stunt casting would involve casting a famous celebrity as a guest star in a your production simply to garner publicity. We’ve seen some video game stunt casting in the recent past, such as Kevin Spacey in Call Of Duty, Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077, or even Bruce Willis starring in the 1998 game Apocalypse. However, even in those examples, you still had actors being cast in the role of fictional characters; they were playing a part. In this new type of stunt casting, the celebrities are not actors and they aren’t playing characters. In fact, voice actors are actually playing the roles of these guys in the game!

So Ronaldo is supposed to be playing himself in COTW, right? Except that the part of Ronaldo is actually being played by Juan Filipe Sierra. So does that make this Cristiano Ronaldo a video game character then, distinct from the real person, Cristiano Rodaldo? And if that were the case, why didn’t they they just ask Capcom to use Roberto Miura from Rival Schools? It makes no sense on any level.

Roberto from Rival Schools, already cooler than Ronaldo.

It’s especially strange when you consider how things have done in the past. For years, the normal way of incorporating real personalities into a video game was through homage. You create an original character who’s heavily inspired by—but legally distinct from—the real-life person you want in your game. Just look at all the Bruce Lee homage characters in fighting games to date: Fei Long in Street Fighter, Marshall Law in Tekken, Jann Lee in DOA, Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat, Maxi in Soul Calibur, and many, many others. Hell, Fatal Fury even had their own, he was named Hon Fu. The point being: you can put a real person into your fighting game, just make up a fictional character with an original name and enough of that person’s recognizable traits.

But they didn’t do that with Ronaldo and Ganacci in COTW, probably because gameplay and/or narrative cohesion were not their goals. Homage characters wouldn’t have sufficed, because the name recognition was all they were aiming for. SNK wasn’t looking to innovate or improve on the game, so much as to simply expand its audience.

The thing is, adding random celebrities to your legacy fighting game series is not only strange and off-putting, it also looks rather desperate. Normal stunt casting in TV or movies is embarrassing enough, but the novel way it’s been done here is utterly baffling. I know every developer is looking to grow their game’s audience, but—call be a curmudgeon—I think this is the wrong way to go about it.