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Fighting games are weird. DLC has done good things for fighting game rosters in general- a game can go from an underwhelming roster to a pretty good one by the time it ends its life cycle. Of course, there’s the ethical question of how a lot of paid characters tend to be better than their base roster counterparts, but this isn’t about that.
Sometimes, a character gets announced, and its not just that nobody likes them, No, sometimes people get mad. Some characters, for whatever reason, make the bile rise and can even go so far as to be told never to come back in future installments. Imagine that.
Anyways, here’s some of these such characters:
Marie Rose (Dead Or Alive)
In a terrible, weird kind of way, it’s almost understandable that there’d be hate for this character. Marie Rose marks a huge depart from, well, let’s just say certain Dead or Alive traditions, and on top of that skyrocketed in popularity, even being on the cover for Dead or Alive Xtreme 3.
As with many things Dead or Alive related, a lot of the flak thrown towards Marie Rose comes from the fact that the Dead or Alive fanbase has trouble being taken seriously on the best of days, and then Koei Tecmo went and threw in what can only be generously described as jailbait into the game. Sure, you could argue that it’s too late to go back on Kasumi and Ayane’s designs, but with a character like Marie Rose, that’s a new commitment to doubling down on the weird anime nonsense.
Suffice to say despite the objections Marie Rose is still a pretty popular character, even surviving the jump into Dead or Alive 6. Despite fan objection, she’s made guest appearances in other Koei Tecmo titles such as Warriors All-Stars, as well as the Senran Kagura series. I think it’s important to note with this example that hated characters don’t have zero fans, it’s just that the people who dislike them tend to be loud enough to take notice. Like I said, Marie Rose sells merch, despite being a posterchild for many Old Guard fans for where it all went wrong.
Byleth (Super Smash Bros Ultimate.)
Smash is a weird game. People’s obsession with the newest fighter isn’t so much a desire to play them as it is the fact that having your brand in Smash is basically a hall of fame status. It’s Nintendo saying “hey, your game is good enough to have it’s main character murder Mario”.
What’s extra weird with Byleth is that the hatred for the Fire Emblem Three Houses protagonist is actually two-fold. The first comes from the fact tat it’s a common opinion in the Smash community that Fire Emblem characters are over-represented. Worse still, they’re all the Anime Swordsman archetype, meaning it’s like going to the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame and finding out all the photos were just Johnny Cash in different Hawaiian T-shirts.
The second, is way more context sensitive: Byleth’s announcement was teased during Capcom’s big push for Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition, which was to release on the Switch with new features like Style Switching. The two livestreams happened to coincide on the same day, and so a lot of fans were hoping that this was to be the day that Dante finally got the respect he deserved and made it into Smash.
What fans got instead, of course, was not only not Dante, but the previously-mentioned oft-maligned Fire Emblem character. Woof.
Elphelt Valentine (Guilty Gear Xrd)
Probably the funniest entry on this list, Elphelt Valentine was a DLC character in Guilty Gear Xrd SIGN. After her addition to the game, she overtook the top spot from fellow Valentine Ramlethal, and has since traumatised a whole group of Guilty Gear players with her great Neutral game, as well as her infuriating setups.
On top of that, she suffers from the Marie Rose problem thanks to her cutesy behavior, ridiculous outfits and Instant Kill super that involves her pulling a bullet out of her cleavage, making you immediately fall in love with her both in the game and at the arcade. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, of course, but it certainly paints an easy target for talking smack about the character.
With Elphelt, aside from the general hatred of cutesy characters, you had an interesting mix because even purely gameplay fans now had a problem with her because she just wasn’t fun to play against. Even now, various Reddit wishlist threads always has at least one Elphelt Anti there, reminding everyone that she deserves to be locked away, never to Bridal Express her way out of Broken Jail.
Of course, that doesn’t mean some of us aren’t still holding out hope that she comes to Strive.
Lucky Chloe
Lucky Chloe gets her flak for being a rejection that Tekken’s plot isn’t bizarre anime nonsense- Because somehow your dad throwing you off a cliff and attempting to annex Poland is apparently a realistic crime drama- after all, just look at her.
Like Marie Rose, she’s a hard pander to the otaku crowd, with her idol outfit, cat ears and gloves, and overly cutesy behavior. Worse still, her dance-heavy fighting style automatically drew comparisons to Eddy Gordo, and some fans were scared she would have bumped him from the roster whens he was first announced.
Apparently the backlash to Lucky Chloe was so bad that Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada even joked that he’d have her replaced with a burly muscular man in the North American release of the game. In fact, unlike Marie Rose you could argue that Chloe is an even harder pander, since she even speaks to camera with that idol-like pacing.
Still, at the end of the day it’s almost weird how much disdain there was for Lucky Chloe. Tekken’s always been a weird game, but just because now it’s weird in the sense that it’s got a cute girl everyone’s gone and bothered Harada. Of course that’s the nature of internet hate, it’s never really rational, is it?
Despite all the internet flak, most of these characters ended up finding their fans. There is some interesting patterns to note with hated fighting game charactersm though. For one, it’s always cutesy characters who get the short end of the stick. People are fine with characters like Negan, who totally don’t fit in Tekken by virtue of being essentially a hobo with a bat, but the moment a girl puts on cat ears we have to have a serious discussion about the integrity of Tekken.
As for Smash Fans, I don’t think there’s ever going to be a Smash character with 100% approval. Even Sephiroth, despite being an amazing pick, still has his detractors, and everyone’s different ideas on what Smash “is” will ultimately get in the way of everyone just being hyped for the next new character to join the list. At the end of the day it’s not that they hate anime swordsman, they just want their anime swordsman.
Still, as long as it just stays trash talk, it’s always fun to see people get riled up over which drawing is now in the fighting game. Stay classy, internet.
