Was surfing the forums and noticed that the outlook on guests is generally negative. Why is that?
So far I had seen the argument that KI is a serious fighting game with its own universe.
But guest characters do not interfere with lore they are independent. Some might say that they take up slots of characters that otherwise would be originals that add to the story
but from a story telling perspective, more characters doesn’t equate to a better story. If a character doesn’t have a distinct purpose in a story they are a hindrance more than anything.
Another argument I saw was that guest characters are throw ins, or not well made. Which is baffling, Arbiter is exceptionally well made and plays uniquely to anyone else as does RAAM and Rash. (I see less complaints about Rash though… Not sure why he sticks out the worst as a character among the cast).
The last argument I see Eyedoll should have taken priority over guests. But that destroys the story argument.
Eyedoll deserves his own season after we defeat Gargos. He should not be a throw in.
Since guest characters are well made and play uniquely, they add to the game, I can’t see the argument against them. Sure they don’t add to the universe but shoehorning original characters to pad a story or franchise is muuuuch worse.
If you dislike that guest character due to the character traits or franchise, that’s a different story; but as it stands the guest characters do a lot of good by drawing the attention of people. They aren’t intrusive (stage limitations are a budget constraint, but I can see the disappointment of aviter getting a stage whilst Mira doesn’t. I’m assuming that gargos’s astral plane will be selectable).
What do you guys think, and if I missed something let me know. (Also for the record, the only additional guest I personally want it Joanna Dark. I’m not advocating for KI to turn into super smash bros Xbox.)
As a fan of guests this is what I’ll say. If we weren’t told they were guests and had never played the respective game these characters came from. We’d be completely oblivious.
I think MS and IG have done a great job with guests and I prefer a couple of them over some of the new original KI characters. Looking forward to whoever we get as a final character and hoping for more of the same in a fourth season.
I assumed as much, the more I read into it, the more he stance seems neutral. As for he universe. I usually approach the story as a cheesy joke, which I think everyone should. A corp created raptors to combat their foes? umm…
It’s still a an argument I wanted to highlight, for the minority that actually plays for the story? Idk even that sentence sounds weird to say. Story shouldn’t even be an argument.
I don’t “hate” or much mind guest characters. I suppose the same can said with a majority of the users on the forums just in a less appealing voice.
The big issue is just the lack of originality, as there are 3 returning, 3 guest, and 1 original. But, this is where the community splits, per say.
This is because a good handful of us would love another original concept complete with his/her/it’s own diverse backstory. But, that would conplete the cast of 8 characters and leave out the final character people have demanded. Eyedol.
Because of that, some users will shift the blame onto the guest characters and deem it, “a wasted slot for a potential new character”, considering that Eyedol is a must-have.
Mostly because none of the guest characters are characters I like. I don’t care about the franchises they are from either, and I don’t like playing as them in the games they are guest characters in.
And they take up space that could be given to already canon characters or new/original characters that would be canon to the game.
The only guest character in any fighting game I have liked just a bit is actually Rash. I think IG did a good job with him, and he is a fun addition. But when two others fill up a season’s roster, it becomes too many, imo. Then I would rather have none.
Sadly, because of their inclusion, my own interest in the game has been lowered greatly. I hate that I feel this way, but I just don’t feel like playing KI much anymore because of them.
I have nothing against guests, and this is coming from a guy who doesn’t have interests in Halo or Gears of War.
In reality, guests can be a good business decision as they bring more interest and hype in, which thus attracts more potential players. Also, guest characters don’t get any biases like being balanced differently or move inputs drastically different from the other fighters (aka they fight just like the rest of the cast).
Now should guest characters begin to overshadow the number of classic/original characters? That answer is no. Guests makes things more interesting but in the end it’s still a Killer Instinct game, not a fighting all-stars title.
I always saw Killer Instinct as a bit of a mash-up so I had no problem with guest. In fact, I knew I wanted a Battletoad. Because I thought, they’ll be interesting gameplay wise. (and other people agreed as well)
However I do find it annoying that folk got it in their heads that guest are going eat up half of the KI roster and KI going to be Smash Bro… That scenario is both paranoid and stupid.
K I’m gonna type a bunch of stuff that will hopefully explain why I’m cool with guest characters. Agree to disagree or not. I don’t care.
My opinion in a nutshell (shelled nuts!)
I personally have no problem with the guest characters because although they aren’t part of the story, or are original, their designs DO fit in with KI’s character development style (again in my opinion. No idea if IG actually thinks like this).
Other fighting games choose a fighting style first and then decide what the character looks like and how they act, but what makes KI so special as a fighting game (to me) is that the character takes precedence over the fighting style. The developers (DH and IG) build the fighting style OUT of the character design.
Guest characters fit this perfectly. Take an existing character people know/like, and then figure out how the shadowy heck to make them an actual fighting game fighter! Character creates fighting style! BOOM! How anyone can not find this an exciting proposition, or that it takes away from a game in any way just seems… disheartening (In my best General Raam accent -“Me so sad!”)
Again all my own opinion, so no feeding me to Gargos, what with his insatiable addiction to human souls… my soul’s way too fatty…
And if we assume the extreme of next season bringing another three guests, that would be a total of six guests. Six guests out of the 35 or so characters would be roughly 17% of the roster being guests. Currently, we have three out of 26 characters being guests, which is roughly 11%. Majority of the characters are KI characters AND every KI character from past games made it into the game (Eyedol will join too hopefully. He has to.). It isn’t like KI fans are being ignored, and they even had a survey that most extreme casual players are completely unaware of. Sure the survey has guests on it, but it has a lot of things diehards want. I think it’s fair to give everyone something they like.
I feel like this argument doesn’t really make sense at all, if you think about it. You say you dislike guest chars in the game as a whole, because you don’t like the specific guest chars included in the game by themselves individually.
How would it be any different if they were 3 original characters that you happened to dislike? Is it because they would “add to the story or the lore” that it would then be ok for you? Because the story is evolving pretty well with the characters we do have, and it doesn’t need more original characters to clutter things up.
I find it shocking that the presence of additional characters which you happen to not like takes away from your will to play the game. All 3 characters fill a great role (rash particularly less as he isn’t especially unique, and he is ironically the one you’re most ok with! RAAM is KI’s first true grappler which is amazing in and off itself and arbiter is a really great ranged spacer and setplay character, quite unique in the roster) in the game and are really well developed in terms of gameplay, and they also happen to fit in pretty well with the game’s looks and world, IMO.
If we had the exact same 3 movesets but in characters which were not from any other IP’s and were original to the KI world (which wouldn’t be farfetched at all, as they fit perfectly into the game, gameplay-wise), would you suddenly be cool with it? ^^’
I hate guest characters because in KI, I want every character to all be a part of the same universe, lore-wise. Sure, you can say that the guests don’t interfere with the story. But that’s not what matters to me; I simply don’t want them to exist in the game at all. The aesthetic of MP matches matters a lot to me.
Very few people actually hate guest characters, rather the majority just don’t like having too many guest characters. Having half the season be guest characters does seem like a little much, especially given how awesome the real characters are. That’s why you’re seeing a lot of “NOT ANOTHER GUEST CHARACTER PLZ” on the forums and in chat.
It’s alright if you don’t understand it or agree with it, but that’s how I feel about it, and yeah, it is rather sucky that a few guest characters kinda ruin it for me.
And no, if they just made “original concepts” and kept the movesets, I wouldn’t just accept them either, however, I would be MORE acceptive of them, for that one reason that they are KI characters and not from some other franchise. Then the “guest” bit would be out of focus and I would be able to focus on other things, such as their gameplay, appearance and story. Thing is, I don’t like the guests’ gameplay either… honestly, if I did, then I might have been more forgivable about their inclusion, because all in all, the gameplay is the most important thing in a fighting game.
I guess it does have something to do with “immersion” as well, but I’m pretty open-minded on that part when it comes to a game like KI where the story isn’t such a big focus. It would be alot different if it was Mortal Kombat, a franchise that has always had the story as a focal point, even back at the old days with the very first games. And especially in Mortal Kombat where they have so many cool characters who don’t always make it to the roster, and then guest characters take up space that could otherwise be given to one of them. KI doesn’t have that problem though, as all the previous KI characters (sans Eyedol) are now on the roster.
There are several things that play in. I couldn’t care less about Halo and Gears of War, so having characters from those franchises guest KI really sucks, imo. But a character as Rash, a character from an old Rare franchise AND who is a rather fun addition to KI, I can easier get behind that for numerous reasons, and therefore be more acceptive of his inclusion.
It’s all about personal taste for me. Even Kratos’ inclusion in Mortal Kombat (9) was something I thought was originally a cool idea, since I knew the head dev of Netherrealm Studios, Ed Boon, is a BIG fan of the God of War series, and I am as well… but they simply screwed it up, because he is not fun to play as in MK9 and he doesn’t feel like Kratos as he is lacking the fluid moves of his chained blades, but is rather slow and clunky. And all the horror icons that guests MK… I couldn’t give less a damn about them either! I would never want them in the game.
I couldn’t care less if RAAM is the first true grappler in KI. Actually, it wounds me that it isn’t a REAL KI character who is the first true grappler! That it was a guest character who was given that… that really sucks, imo!
Like I said, you don’t have to understand or agree with me, but that’s how I feel.
This is truly part of the problem as well. 3 guest characters in one season… it’s just too many, imo.
Fair enough, I didn’t mean I needed to agree with you, I really just meant to try and see your point of view, and you made it pretty clear now
Personal taste aside, I’d like to hear why you dislike RAAM and Arby, gameplay-wise. Because I find it really hard to see how someone might think they don’t fit KI’s gameplay or why they’d prefer to not have their character archetypes in the game altogether.
In any case, I for one, am all for a couple of guest chars in any fighting game, as long as they’re well done and play well with the rest of the roster, like it happens to be in KI. They go a long way to sell the game to other ppl and help spread awareness of the game itself and the IP, and that’s 100% positive for fans and devs alike, obviously. I also find it inspiring and a true testament to IG’s development skills that they managed to create characters that fit and play so well within their game and remain so beautifully accurate to the original chars’ designs (and no, I’m not a huge fan of any of the 3 games they come from).
That being said, I don’t have any issues with agreeing to disagree with ppl who feel otherwise. Personal taste will ultimately be personal and not really dependant on anyone else’s approval at all =P
