If you have not already listened to the podcast of this category, this is the final results, so this will spoil the course of the discussion on that podcast! Be warned!
This one’s a knock-down drag-out every year. It’s also pretty Kyrie and Six (me!) centric every year, with Jen mostly playing tiebreaker to our dueling passions. But every year, we settle on a winner and runners-up that we’re happy with. This year was no different.
The Winner
Omega Rugal (The King of Fighters XV)
In single player games, if you want a player to feel powerful, you can just make them powerful. Obviously, it’s not a simple thing to do, and you need to take into account if power will feel powerful if it distorts and ruins the context around it, but, overall balance is not the biggest concern. In a multiplayer game, especially a fighting game, this is not really an option. So how do you make a character feel powerful in a fighting game?
In The King of Fighters 95, 2002, and Ultimate Match… they just made Omega Rugal powerful. Ridiculously, overwhelmingly powerful. This is what led to things like the meme Kyrie and I cite all the time- an arcade cabinet with a piece of paper taped to it reading “PROHIBIDO JUGAR CON RUGAL.” Translated: “IT IS FORBIDDEN TO PLAY RUGAL.” This was his legacy- being a character that would get you beat up or kicked out of arcades for playing
When they introduced him in KoFXV, I think we all knew they’d try to balance him- that’s just how fighting games are made these days. But we also assumed they’d defang the boy. Sure, it’s fun to have Omega Rugal back, but it wouldn’t be the same. He wouldn’t be the bombastic, devastating playable boss he was before.
Wrong. With this one, SNK walked the knife’s edge, and brought us our mesh tank top boyfriend intact, fair and fun to fight against while still over the top and immense in animation and presence. Opinions vary on his tier placement, but no serious list has him higher than B+, and some drop him as low as D! Astonishing for a character that feels this good to play.
The Runners-Up
Inquisitor (DNF Duel)
Would you like to block, my friend? Whatever you answered, you best be ready to- that’s the name of the game in DNF Duel. Or rather, that’s the name of defeat. I have lots of problems with DNF Duel, a game where offensive is king and life is cheap. Blocking is a losing option, but the only worse one is NOT blocking. So yeah, hold back, because Inquisitor is about to bust out that big, flaming wheel.
Like most of her peers in DNF Duel, Inquisitor is a good design because of the parts of her that are kinda bullshit. The number of free high-low mixups she gets, the flashy combos once you inevitably guess wrong, and the elaborate flourish of her axe to end the sequence. Despite this, she’s actually more fair than a lot of the others in her game- Crusader or Striker I’d be too angry to permit them in this spot. But Inquisitor has just enough flaws that counter-play feels possible… if too hard, like the rest of that game’s defense.
Testament (Guilty Gear Strive)
Kyrie and I have been slowly turning around on Strive, even as some friends of ours turn against it. You can’t please everyone, and consistently adding characters with more involved mechanics definitely pushes your game more towards our preferences. With Testament, Guilty Gear pushed Kyrie out of her comfort zone. In UNICLR, she plays Akatsuki. In Melty Blood, she plays Miyako. In Street Fighter, she plays Ryu. You might not be familiar with all those characters, but the essence is, she plays characters with straightforward and reliable tools. She wants to punch you in the face, without sacrificing the ability to switch up her game plan when she feels.
None of this is what you’d call how Testament plays. And to be honest, I had the impression that she was playing Testament for story and aesthetic reasons. Would be hard to blame her- reinventing Testament as a playful nonbinary exploring their gender identity is a strong pitch, combined with a great look. But that’s selling it short, both Testament and Kyrie. Strive really did teach Kyrie to embrace a setplay style through Testament, pretty much the opposite of how she usually plays. And that’s a remarkable achievement.
Street Fighter 6 is on the horizon. Now, I’ll be the first to say that Street Fighter V was a mess. It just never felt solid, its rules arbitrary and its flow uncomfortable. I think it’s a bad fighting game. But even with the series at its weakest, there were some cool movesets to be had there. I hope 6 brings some more of that to the table… plus whatever Granblue Fantasy has in mind with Versus Rising. Could Charlotta make the list once again?!
We’ll see you Monday with more Gimmick Awards!
Our art for the Gimmick Awards 2022 is a commission from @inkopolis on Twitter.
