Opinion: When Are There Too Many Guest Characters?

At some point, it feels like I fell through a mirror and ended up in some backwards world. When I was younger, the idea of a guest character was cool. What do you mean Kratos is in Mortal Kombat? Or Ezio in Soul Calibur? But now, even though I'm hyped for reveals like Terry Bogard in Street FIghter, I find myself looking at guest characters with trepidation.

To me, guest characters are kind of like caffeine to a game's systems. A little bit can be a refreshing jolt. It's a fun quirk of Tekken 7 that somehow, Akuma is terrorizing that game, too. But push it too far, make it too much of the game's identity and you start cannibalizing the game it came from.

When Guest Characters Kill A Game

My first memory of this was Blazblue Cross Tag Battle- as part of the game's 2.0 update it expanded its characters beyond the initial four games it was crossing over- now, characters from Senran Kagura, Akatsuki Blitzkampf and Arcana Heart were all there, with the tank noises of the Blitztank working the crowd like it was the Eras Tour.

However, rather than revitalize the game's subreddit, it somehow made it worse. What should have been discussion of fun new combos with the new lineup of characters instead devolved into people just asking for more guest slots. "Where's Saber?" they asked. "What about Eltnum?"

It's been hanging over like a specter for Mortal Kombat too. I'd consider Mortal Kombat one of the most aesthetically unique fighting games of all time- you think cyborg ninjas and wizards, you're probably thinking of a Mortal Kombat character.

In the series quest of paying homage to the 80s, the game's had a healthy supply of guest characters, from horror icons like Multiversus character Jason Voorhees to Robocop and even Spawn. It's here where the caffeine problem starts- of course I'm going to want to do Spawn combos in a Mortal Kombat game, those two were made for each other. But now Mortal Kombat 1 has just announced its second season pass, and just like the first one half of it is guest characters. Really? You bring back Noob Saibot but stuff him next to Ghostface?

Given Mortal Kombat 1 is supposed to be a dramatic reimagining of the Mortal Kombat universe you'd kind of expect more time would be given to, well, reimagining those characters. Heck, we're now in our second season and Kotal Khan is still only ever mentioned as having been defeated off-screen. At least when he jobbed in the last timeline we got to see it.

When It Feels Corporate

Of course, the biggest problem is when the guest character feels corporate. The problem with Mortal Kombat blowing two slots on Homelander and Omni-Man is that they reek of cross-brand synergy. The best of Mortal Kombat's guest characters are 80s throwbacks because they match the aesthetic so well- yet here's two characters, modern as modern can be, with shows streaming now on Amazon Prime.

I don't think cross-promotion is bad, but when you break your rhythm for it it particularly stands out. Heck it's not just WB Games- Melty Blood Type Lumina had two DLC passes, and a solid 75% of the second one was Fate/Grand Order characters to supplement the Fate Character who made it into the base roster.

There's also the problem of when it starts to feel like too much. Tekken 7 had multiple guests over its near-decade-lifespan. If Noctis, Negan, Geese and Akuma had all been one season I'm sure there would have been just as many people upset about it as there are whenever another Mortal Kombat 1 DLC rolls around.

It really starts to hurt if people only know the game for its guests. I think Soul Calibur in particular already suffers from this- Ivy, Sophitia and Nightmare are some of the most unique fighting game characters- yet any discussion about Soul Calibur 7 will always boil down to "which characters should make guest appearances this time?".

It's why I'd always liked Blazblue, Street Fighter and Guilty Gear's approach- at the end of the day you were getting characters from that setting. It didn't matter if a character like Rashid or Giovanna didn't play like traditional characters from their games- they are designed to that visual language and feel like they belong.

Still, They're Fun Though

Of course, there's the argument to be made that this is all sour grapes. 2B is a genuinely fun addition to Granblue- look at how many more people suddenly cared about Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising when they find out she wraps her legs around your head for her super in that game.

For every purist not liking some generic anime girl coming into their game there's a larger potential for new fighting game players born this way- and I think diluting the visual purity of your favorite game might be a little worth it if there are still fighting game players in the next 5 years as a result.

I mean, there's also the characters you absolutely love to see in other games. Akuma, to me, is an invasive species that you just love to see destroy ecosystems. You thought Street Fighter characters were bad at handling a guy with air fireballs and Demon Flip mix, wait till you see a Heihachi main try to deal with it, it's some of the most fun ever. The same can be said for Terry Bogard- all my opinions about guest characters disappear as soon as he asks me if I'm OK.

Still, part of the reason the fighting game community has its flavor is that every game has its distinct visual identity. There's a reason game-specific stereotypes can exist- each fighting game is its own little biome, In a sense, a good guest character can do a lot for shaking up that biome as long as they don't feel too invasive- Lucy from Cyberpunk Edgerunners has a wild enough design that she could have come from Daisuke's sketchbook, just like how Terry Bogard feels at home on the streets of Metro City doing power dunks on some Mad Gears.

The trick is instead just balancing it in such a way that players don't think the game itself isn't being cannibalized and turned into a platform for other series. Just like how Marvel movies are an endless parade of useless fancasting and throwbacks to movies you swore were bad 10 years ago, exercising some restraint in your fighting game roster might help your game feel more like a true entry and less like a secret Versus title.