I think Joanna should be the second guest character because she is another Rareware staple, and fits the game’s universe perfectly. She also comes from a world of corporate rule where aliens have contacted Earth. Maybe she’d have a rivalry with Glacius.
Now that Orchid is no longer a secret agent, Joanna could fit that role better with acrobatic moves and high-tech gadgetry. On the previous forum, I posted an idea of a gun-kata style character as a potential future character in the game. Examples of gun-kata in fighting games would be Luna Himeki from Vanguard Princess and Devil May Cry’s Dante in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Joanna could have a gun or maybe a pair of guns that she dual wields akimbo-style, where firing them is simply one of her normals and requires the use of a unique “Ammo gauge” mechanic. She would need to reload her guns constantly with a special input, and different moves would have different ammunition costs: simply firing the guns would cost single bullets, whereas she would have special moves that deplete 3 bullets and shadow moves that deplete 5 bullets. If she has full bullets then she would also have access to a move where she could dump the entire magazine. How exactly this would work in Killer Instinct is a little unclear to me, but perhaps her bullets would grant her amazing zoning ability and stage control.
It’s just a basic idea so far, but there should also be ways to incorporate her iconic gadgets, such as the BombSpy and the Laptop Gun.
Chris doesn’t use gun-kata. He uses firearms as tools and nothing else, without any flair or grace. He just aims and shoots, he doesn’t perform any gunplay or tricks with them. Dante goes crazy with his guns.
It’d be cool and easy to implement (thinking of the stock animation of the characters when hit by jagos shadow fireball or Kan Ra’s scarab breath ball, and that’s used for Joanna’s multiple ammo hit animation)
I honestly don’t know how I feel about it. Granted you offered something I THINK may properly balance Gun using fighters. One of the reasons I despised them was because the bullets shoot to far, to fast and are easily spammable from full screen. However if she gets a reload animation and if it’s long enough to make her vulnerable for the opposing character to react it could discourage players from not spamming so much.
I also hope she can’t just crouch and shoot because that will make getting in impossible if she can shoot at any angle from a character that can slide or come in from the air. So having it aim at a point where she can shoot at chest level may be nice. Unless she has to use a super move that uses alot of ammo again, it can discourage outright spamming because if you just try to spam fast bullets to keep them far away for too long you won’t have the chance of an anti-air or something like that.
Dante was one of the reasons I disliked MVC3 alot. Other than the infinites. I’ve never been fond of gun-using characters in fighting games. So long as they can make the character punishable for mindlessly using up their ammo I can see this working.
I prefer her move set be more like her game just like rash have her move set try to recreate her games gameplay
Some of her melee moves for normals as well as a few of her more generic guns as well for normals but they do not do any chip damage, three punches gets you a forward roll three kicks a back roll, her more sci fi guns are her specials, her instinct could be the laptop gun sentry mode
I dislike when characters from other genres are put into fighters and play nothing like their home game, it’s why I was so disappointed with Phoenix wright, but loved rash. I still do not dislike your idea, but I do not like it for Joanna
As much as I’d love to see Kaim from Lost Odyssey, my guess is that they’ll go with a more high profile character and while that could mean a Halo or Gears character or perhaps some sort of Quantum Break or Scalebound cross promo type of deal, I think that Joanna Dark is the best choice.
As OP said, she’s a Rare character, and one I think is in dire need of a comeback. Like Battletoads, Perfect Dark could use a bit of a marketing campaign before that happens.
I think that her world fits perfectly in KI’s world. The sci-fi elements, the sort of dark, neon riddled city that looks rather inspired by Blade Runner, the high tech gadgets… It all feels like a place with Ultratech in it.
I could see her using an acrobatic style that mixes quick, twin pistol gunplay (both short range shots and strikes) with rolls, flips, spins etc. But she also has to be able to use some advanced tech. Maybe she can use a floating spy cam that can both shock enemies and self destruct.
I feel like there’s a lot more that could be done, perhaps shotgun enders, a twin u-z-i anti air move with Fulgore’s eye laser range on it, use of the laptop… I see a lot of ideas that could work for her where she incorporates gunplay, but it’s not the only focus of her character by any stretch.
The key would be in utilizing that variety so she’s not just a gun character that spams long range shots (as has been said). I think IG could do it. I think they could knock a character like this out of the park and if we’re getting another guest, I think she’d be a great choice.
I’m now thinking a full adventure game of Joanna Dark like Tomb Raider with the story featuring guest appearance by Orchid and an unlock of Orchid to use in the game
Or have tag team in KI with Joanna and Orchid like R Mika
Your complaints don’t make any sense. How are they going to “recreate her game’s gameplay” in a game that plays NOTHING like her game? You said you were disappointed with Phoenix Wright which I also don’t understand, they replicated PW’s gameplay in a fighting game as much as they possibly could. Are you seriously disappointed that Phoenix Wright didn’t have a move that caused you to spend hours listening to character dialogue and looking for flaws in an opponent’s reasoning? You clearly don’t know anything about what’s feasible in a fighting game and what isn’t.
No matter what you want, they are not going to make you fight from Joanna’s first-person perspective and hack into computers to open doors. I don’t know if you’re aware, but some things just do not translate to a fighting game. Some things are simply incompatible and you have to accept it. You can’t have a game that plays like Civilization and Diddy Kong Racing at the same time. The reason Rash works in this game is because he is from a game that also heavily features side-scrolling combat, therefore the two games are compatible. When you’re dealing with crossovers that span different genres, some things have to be compromised.
I like the idea actually. At first I was like meh, but after reading your description I’m all for it. She would be like the Grammaton Clerics from Equilibrium. Someone like that would actually be pretty formidable.
To be honest, Rash has spoiled me in terms of moveset for guest characters. I think Joanna’s character design aesthetically fits with KI, but it’s going to be difficult to translate a FPS character and their gadgets to a 2D fighter. I’m sure they can come up with creative ways to do this, but you will end up with some combination of Stryker from MK and Jill Valentine from MvC. That’s fine, but it is much more “shoe-horning” a character into the game than taking someone like Rash and putting him in.
I’m still in favor of adding costumes that are homages to these characters rather than the characters themselves. I think a Joanna Dark outfit for Orchid would be second only to a Lara Croft outfit in terms of both appropriateness and hype.
I very much doubt that Joanna would be like Stryker from MK.
MK has a habit of not doing anything imaginative with their characters. Joanna would not just be standing around in a combat pose and pulling out guns when she needs them. If they go the gun-kata route then she’d constantly be performing tricks with her guns and flipping around all over the place while firing them. Stryker doesn’t do that, he treats a gunshot as an attack in of itself and doesn’t add anything of his own to it. He doesn’t have a fighting style. You say that they can come up with creative ways to do a gun character but then contradict yourself by saying they will “end up with” Stryker? What you’re saying makes no sense. Which of ANY of the current KI characters plays ANYTHING like a character from MK? I think you’ll find that none of them do, and that wouldn’t be any different with Jo. MK characters are slow and cumbersome, and are differentiated from each other only by their special moves, which is the polar opposite of KI.
I really hope she does end up being the second guest character because I’ve been wanting a gun user type character for a while now and she fits that role perfectly.
What I mean that I don’t want her to become a character a player can just sit back and spam fast moving projectiles from full screen and not do anything else BUT that.That’s why I hated Stryker so much in MK9
That’s one of the reasons I never liked gun-using characters Fighting games.
IF Joanna even arrives in KI I only hope she does not end up like that.
It makes perfect sense, and is not at all contradictory, if you just read it instead of going off half cocked and reactionary. It’s not too hard to see how “like Stryker” doesn’t mean literally copy and past the entire character, moves, tempo and combat system from MK, is it?
We have several examples of characters with guns from multiple fighting games. None of them are great. They shoot things, throw bombs or lay mines and and use tazers and other gadgets. That doesn’t thrill me. Could IG do it? Of course. Could they make it fit? Sure. But here’s the thing - even if you take your gun-kata idea. How is that anything like Joanna dark? She doesn’t do any of that stuff. It’s just taking the character model and then turning it into a completely different character to fit in KI. That’s fine, but all I’m saying is it’s not like Rash.
Well, to put it simply, I think gun-kata fits Joanna Dark like a glove. Consider that Joanna is quite obviously inspired by the Rare developers’ passion for action and spy movies, and that her games were held back by technical limitations of the time. Super advanced movements that gun-kata requires weren’t really feasible in the N64 days as they were still just figuring out how FPS games should control on a console. PD0 was held over from that style of gameplay, because the game was supposed to be released for GameCube but was stuck in devhell for that entire console generation. Even if you consider her moveset from PD0, it still makes sense for her to use gun-kata as she makes heavy use of combat rolls, highly athletic parkour techniques, and dual-wielding pistols in PD0 alone. Since she’s being adapted for usage in a fighting game obviously this means she cannot be COMPLETELY similar to her FPS incarnation, since FPS Joanna relies entirely on guns and uses very little melee combat which is necessary for her inclusion in a fighting game. If she relies entirely on guns then the most logical thing to do, when adapting her for a fighting game, is to give her a martial art that relies on guns. They don’t need to go heavy with explanation on it, just claim that Joanna’s been studying gun-kata in her spare time, since she already has time to do parkour.
I’m sorry but your comparison to Stryker still doesn’t make any sense even if you ignore the notion of copy/pasting the combat system from MK. It’s just not in KI’s style to have a character that uses very little movement. All the KI characters animate beautifully and are extremely active/in motion whenever they fight, this is the polar opposite of Stryker from MK, or any MK character for that matter, where the movesets are entirely utilitarian and lacking in any style, grace or flair. Comparing the styles of KI to MK is like comparing night and day. I cannot picture Stryker (or a “Stryker-like” character) working in any capacity in the context of KI as his moves are very stiff and limited. So if you take away the idea of copy-pasting the character, moves, tempo and combat system from MK then your comment simply makes no sense at all, because without any of those things Stryker would not be Stryker. He’d necessarily be an entirely different character within the confines of KI, which proves my point that changes and compromises need to be made when adapting a character from a different game for usage in a fighting game like KI. Your argument literally proved the opposite of what you were trying to prove.
