What if they were in a fighting game?

Some would call this 'fighting game brainrot'

Being a fan manifests in different ways for people. Some are casual about it, some collect merchandise, some soak up details, and some create transformative works. When I’m truly a fan of something it isn’t in a passive sense where I simply take it in and move on. I think about it, and I fiddle with it in different ways in my mind.

As part of that I enjoy thinking about the design of games. This often leads to imagining how different characters could fit into the context of different games. Fighting games in particular tend to get me thinking, as it’s a character focused genre known for crossovers and adaptations.

Which is why I’ve set this post to explore and share some of those thoughts, putting characters in different fighting games or fighting game subgenres with my imagination. But this isn’t just going to be a ‘here’s my dream roster for Smash Bros’ post, though I am fully capable of doing that.

Instead I want to focus on the essence of each of character I’m using for this, their role within their story, and how that could be expressed within a fighting game. More of a conceptual overview than a full fledged fighter moveset.

Frodo Baggins in Multiversus

I thought it’d be most interesting to do a character who is obviously not much of a fighter and has low odds of ever appearing in a fighting game, like Frodo from the Lord of the Rings. Technically Frodo already has appeared in a fighting game, a bootleg reskin of another bootleg. Which obviously is not that faithful.

Then I remembered that with Multiversus there actually is a non zero chance of him appearing in a fighting game. Multiversus also has something distinctive about it compared to most other fighting game, a focus on teams of two fighters acting simultaneously as the default that characters are designed around, rather than a side option. Which I realized could work in favor of doing something interesting with Frodo.

Frodo isn’t a fighter, but he is the one who actually sets up Sauron’s defeat by getting the One Ring to Mount Doom. In platform fighters like Multiversus you can do a lot of damage to opponents, but what actually matters is being able to send the opponent out of bounds.

So putting those two elements together, I’d give Frodo attacks that can KO at relatively low damage percent, at the cost of being difficult to land and having overall poor damage output. He’d be like a grappler in the sense of easily losing control of the battle, but getting high rewards if he can do the one thing he’s good at. He’d lack the intimation factor of the typical big body grappler as well, being more easily underestimated.

And with this set of strengths and draw backs, Frodo would work best paired with a heavy hitter. Someone who keeps enemy attention on themselves while racking up damage so Frodo can achieve the win condition while the enemy isn’t looking. In other words the exact strategy that led to Sauron’s defeat.

Multiversus also favors rather involved mechanics, with cooldowns and meters for different moves. For this I’d give Frodo some limited stealth with the One Ring, but if used for too long as indicated by some sort of meter, the Nazgûl arrive to attack everyone regardless of team.

In addition to showing one aspect of risk the One Ring carries (hard to convey the inherent corrupting nature of power in a fighting game), it’d also fit into the gameplan outlined above, giving a way for Frodo to generate the sort of distractions he’s been designed to work best with, alongside a strong element of risk as a drawback.

It’s often the characters who don’t normally fight that can make for some of the most interesting fighting game designs, precisely because they’re not a natural fit. In a way it’s a puzzle for the designers to solve, and solving puzzles is fun.

Jonathan and Mina Harker in a traditional fighting game.

On the topic of book characters, not all of them are that inherently difficult to see in a fight. Like Jonathan and Mina from Dracula, who see just enough combat to use as a basis for a fighting game moveset, like Jonathan using a kukri and Mina having a gun.

As the main romantic couple of Dracula I like letting them fight together as one. And while the plot often has them split up, they are very much a couple that actively supports each other. It’s also well within typical fighting game design at this point to throw in the occasional duo fighter.

Thinking of an actual fighting game that could have them is difficult, again I assume Multiversus has the right to some movie version of them since it’s a giant flex of IP ownership, but I have yet to hear wholeheartedly good things about the portrayal of Dracula characters in any film. So I decided to be more general instead of using a specific game.

In this case how I’d make it work is that either Jonathan or Mina takes to the fight on the main stage, and the other is following in the background. There’d be a mechanic for them to swap places, and moves where the one in the background briefly jumps in and does an attack of their own, so both are actively in the fight. This was taken outright from the maid twins in Melty Blood, which notably also features vampires.

Additionally, they’d have a mechanic where they grow more powerful in some way once below a certain health threshold. Jonathan’s hair would turn white and Mina would gain a burn mark on her forehead, reflecting their state in the novel’s final act. What it represents in a deeper sense is how they only became threats to Dracula as a direct result of him preying on them.

None of these are original concepts for fighting games, low health mechanics in particular are part of how some fighting games work for all characters. But there’s a way that they could fit for Jonathan and Mina specifically, and finding ways that existing mechanics and systems could be fitting for something else is fun.

Luke Skywalker in a tag team fighting game.

Luke Skywalker has appeared in a variety of video games, including a fighting game called Masters of Teräs Käsi, which got a nod in Solo incidentally. But I had a specific thought about him and fighting game gameplay not covered by any of them. Which is why this is the briefest section.

Luke is a character whose major victories come from inspiring others rather than fighting on his own. He isn’t the chosen one, he’s the one who redeems the chosen one, the finale of each movie in the original trilogy having someone save him. So if I were designing a tag team fighting game and included Luke, I’d reflect that by giving him some dependency on his team members.

The easiest way to do that is to simply not give him any projectiles (or far reaching attacks/ counters for projectiles) in a roster where those are common. Plenty of Star Wars video games have distinguished Luke from other Jedi (and the Sith) by letting him use a blaster alongside his lightsaber, but here that wouldn’t be the case.

It likely says much about me that I’ve thought about Luke Skywalker’s broader narrative role and went ‘oh it could be represented like this in a fighting game.’ I meant it when I said I’m always fiddling with things in my mind, and I swear it’s not all converting things to a fighting game format.

More than any detail of the gameplay concepts here, I hope I’ve properly conveyed my fascination with how fighting games express characterization through mechanics. That’s the real core of this, the canvas rather than what I painted on it.

Optional Response Prompts: Are there any bits of characterization expressed through gameplay you’re fond of, in any sort of game? For the fighting game players specifically, who is your favorite ‘oddball’ fighter?