Apologies for any confusion in the Vanilla Ice section. I edit these videos with headphones on at all times so I wasnt aware how hard it is tell the difference between "Vice" and "Bice" without them. Will not repeat that mistake when i eventually get to talking Boss Ice in another video
Brother the whole time I was thinking “damn, that’s a genius bit, he says he’s going to give them different names for better understanding and then calls them the same name over and over again. He’ll repeat the name so many times on the same sentence too! This guy’s real fun!” Whoops.
I heard the differentiation and immediately just cackled and went "WAIT A MINUTE", thinking about how, in Japanese, they don't have a "v" sound so they substitute it in loan words with a "b". It's a precedent for the two syllables sounding a bit similar, albeit not that similar obviously. Just very funny to see that be used to distinguish the two, when "b" is a replacement for "v" in a whole ass language, pfft.
@@Carlitonsp1 and the alpha series was from before DLCs were a practical part of the games industry. If the environment had been different, alpha 2 and 3 might have been the DLCs and balance change patches of the Alpha series.
@@shaynehughes6645 yeah i agree, sf6's base roster should have had all 121 previously playable street fighter characters available, it is totally normal and valid to complain about "locking legacy characters behind a paywall"
I like how you tried to difference Boss Vanilla Ice and playable Vanilla Ice by calling them Bice and Vice but ended up making telling the difference harder.
Heritage for the Future is such an anomaly of game balance I honestly shouldn't be shocked that the unplayable boss character is weaker than the playable version.
Honorable mention to Elizabeth from P4AU, a superboss put wholesale into a fighting game, with passive meter gain, access to every status/various instakills, etc. She also says "Yay!😊💖" on victories.
The funniest part about Liz is that she’s _just_ there to be the token superboss in the original P4A and little else. And she *still* gets one-upped in the role by her sister Marge in Ultimax!
Elizabeth was originally an ordinary character in P4A so it doesn't match the theme of the video. You'd have to compare the boss vs playable versions of Shadow Labrys.
interrupting gill's revive is way easier said than done. it's actually pretty easy to wiff your attack, or just panic and missinput, and because of how quickly his health recovers, you're unlikely to kill him, and if you don't, he's gonna kick your arse. yeah he just broke his meter, but he's also gill, he doesn't need meter to beat you, and you're probably not doing to well since you just got done fighting gill.
It _really_ punishes players inversely proportionally to their skill level. The less experienced you are at fighting games, the more likely you are to miss your window to interrupt his healing, and the more likely you are to get roflstomped when Gill gets back up.
He also pushes your character away with the force generated so it's harder to get near him. Odds are he's going to get back 30-50% of his health if you do knock him out of it. Fortunately he takes extra damage whilst regenerating.
Correction, Thanos has 6 supers in MSH, but it's possible you haven't seen the sixth. I believe Maximilian saw the more rare one in a recent stream and flipped out. The Mind stone super will discolor the opponent and flip their controls. It is unblockable and lasts for some time. That super and the Time stone super were not included in the MVC2 iteration of the character.
Boss mode stage 2 Nagoriyuki is in permanent blood rage with no downsides and juiced up specials that can still cancel into other specials. He still has to enter blood rage at the start of the fight so you can open with some advantage. Playable he has been top tier since launch.
Really enjoyed the Geese deep dive. I feel like everyone knows about SNK characters, but unless you're from one of the SNK countries, most folks don't really KNOW know them.
Similar to the Elizabeth example shown below, Castlevania Judgement takes a boss from a non-fighting game and translates him to a fighting game In this case, Dracula, who notably does not receive a heavily edited moveset or design like everybody else in the game's roster and mainly fights via teleporting and waves of fireballs... just like he does in the 2D games
GBVS is a similar case, I'm not familiar with the gatcha at all but iirc Belial, Beezlebub and Lucilius were unplayable bosses in the gatcha and VS was the first time you could control them. Arcsys is known for their incredible attention to detail so I'm sure there are a tonne of references in their poses and animations that flew over my head.
@@strepsilsaregood4u Beelzebub and Lucilius is kinda funny - in the lore theres a character who is basically "original Beelzebub" and "original Lucilius" but they are actually playable a good deal before the definitive bossfight version of them was put into the game Theres some mechanism between them that was similar but since Bubs and Lucilius was the 2 biggest bossfight, they had more mechanics than the playable "original" version. For example original Bubs simply "become stronger everytime they use super, and have barrier". Bubs boss fight have 2 alternating form depending on you letting him use super or not, and he also gets stronger everytime he supers - but if you cancel it, he becomes weaker. Original Lucilius only have vague similarity to Lucilius due to The Fighting game Lucilius gimmick of becoming stronger as he uses more special moves was translated into GBVS but a lot of his more iconic mechanics actually didnt make it(one version of Paradise Lost was to nuke you before the fight started so the idea is to fight Lucilius you need to have high enough max HP to survive Paradise Lost before the fight started) Original Bubs later get a new version that gets some mechanics from bossfight Bubs - Bubs have a move that does time-skip if you failed to cancel it. The new version have that move re-interpreted as a supporting skill Funny enough out of every character in GBF gacha, not just one who have made it into VS, Seox is actually the most "playing him feels like playing a boss character' in the game. All of his skills are comically overpowered for its class, his super move applies 2 separate dodge buff(most character who are designed to have dodge on super only have one of them) and hes by far the most powerful character in terms of raw power in the game. GBF is kinda unique in that your actual power only contribute towards hitting the internal damage cap, and you need to apply various multiplier to that number to get your actual damage so the best characters are the one who have the best/most efficient multipliers. Seox's actual power is roughly 330% of standard character and yeah this is a complete outlier. The ussual power level of what the playerbase called "Gorilla" is 130%. Seox's damage multiplier is also really good - and just as comically over the curve, its just nowhere as funny as his raw power. Seox is so stupid that he's probably the reason why Dark element's gimmick was to have as many character who can click no button to contribute to a set up since Seox is completely dominant in 1 button category He's been in the running on top of Dark's meta since his rebalance in late 2019 which was called "the Charlotta update" since at the time the dev team of Cygames liked Charlotta's kit so much, that several characters was remodeled to be a Charlotta clone
To me, the funniest tidbit of boss character lore actually comes from Strive. Emo Tarquin compiled Dustloop pages for the different _Extreme_ boss characters, and the one for Nagoriyuki actively advises to treat him as "a special case" in EX character matches, because he is pretty much unbeatable unless you mess up. They made a boss who's banworthy when compared _to other bosses._
it's actually pretty funny how both boss characters on the JoJo arcade game are kinda bad and the average gamer will still have a hard time trying to beat them for the first time... It's at these moments that I understand it why people say this game is hard to learn... and idk how did you not even mention Rugal on this video, I think it kinda deserves a part 2 just because of that, it'd be really fun if it's at least half as good as this
@@Wolfedge75 yeah, in vanilla 98 rugal is bottom tier and in UM he's very high tier but not boss tier, and in 15 i don't have the game but he's low-mid tier iirc
It’s also worth mentioning that Nightmare Geese from KOF 2002 unlimited match has a super easy meterless infinite making him one of, if not the most broken version of Geese
Pyron and Phobos have only been canonically playable one time and one time only. Capcom KNEW they screwed up, and removed them from the next title's first arcade version. Nobody really plays the upgrades, so they're effectively in jail.
About another "Two Characters who have the 'same' moves but one with motions and one with charge", you also have Juni and Juli in Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper/console version
Nine and Izanami from BlazBlue Central Fiction always come readily to mind. On Nine's side she's already spouting good and disjointed normals that only empowers her drive attacks when the land (even if they're guarded) and she has a multi-teleport for an even more devastating mixup. As for Izanami... ribcage. Also, these two technically count as boss characters becoming playable. The Arcade version of CF was released in three sets. Nine was the boss of Act One and became playable Act Two onward while Izanami was the Act Two boss and was only playable in the third and final act. Also also, if you do well enough in ACT 3's arcade mode you can fight an UNLIMITED version of either of them (or series protag Ragna, but this is about arcade bosses). For that, all I have to say is... Good luck.
They were technically bosses first, but they were clearly designed as playable characters above all else. ArcSys just makes a lot of blunders on their first iterations. Susano'o was in the same boat (also the only unblockable character in the series IIRC, been a while) and he's nowhere near as annoying if you don't let him gain momentum.
@@anothenblue2630 To be fair, most bosses can be disguised as regular characters. The fact that they have some of the newest and most involved tech isn't lost on me either.
@@StormVII there's generally more thought put behind playable characters in more modern games than bosses since the latter are designed to eat quarters. Izanami back in CT or Guilty Gear days would probably just have free ribcage and wouldn't lose access to guard in that stance. Nine is where things get iffy because there are way less measures to reel her back in CF, but we had Kokonoe in CP.
@@anothenblue2630 Counter point; pay to win DLC kind of is the new boss character in several instances nowadays. They've gotten much better at it, but the presence can still be felt at times.
@@StormVII while not wrong, there's still more of a pretense there. I can look at most of those and pretend they tried. It's nothing a free character can't be given by accident. It takes exceptional audacity for one of those to, say, have a fullscreen laser that comboes into itself multiple times and shaves off half of your healthbar.
about 2 similar characters with different inputs -the swordsman sisters from Yatgarasu is one of them, one uses circular inputs, the other uses charge inputs, for moves that are basically identical, visually -iirc on the later games, they also make one of the grannies of the Power Instinct series a charge character to make her different from her twin -technically, Guile & Charlie in SFV, even tho Charlie is so far removed from his classic fighting style at that point
EM Pulse in COTA is one of the most hilarious projectiles I've ever seen in a fighting game, just completely unhinged fighting game character design I love it so much
I think it’s more important that fighting game boss characters focus on a diverse and difficult to play move sets and that it’s doubly important that their AI be actually good. Have the moves be questionable sometimes. It’s not enough to just pay more quarters to eventually memorize attack patterns anymore, we need to be able to take advantage of subtle weaknesses. Players would feel so much more satisfied with fighting the boss because the player feels like they won the fight in wits alone. I think that this would benefit the playable version of boss characters, too. Make them tough to play as and even more difficult to *utilize* effectively.
13:32 A good example of this is Nash vs Guile in Street Fighter V. Both are traditionally charge characters, but SFV makes Nash a motion character instead. He plays as more of a hybrid zoner/pressure character than a straight-up zoner like Guile does.
You should've also talked about Geese's Nightmare mode. In 2002 UM when you unlock him... he has one of the most convoluted inputs for a super Ive ever seen.
13:33 There is actually 2 other duos of characters I can think of that have similar moves with different inputs. Ash and Saiki from KOF XIII, and Washizuka and Kojiroh from The Last Blade 2. Those characters are really cool and I love the differences between them, so I'd recommend checking them out!
Let me add in 1 more duo with a similar dynamic: Elektrosoldat & Adler from Akatsuki Blitzkampf. But charge characters having a variant character that utilizes motions and vice versa are always a welcome surprise.
Another one to me is Hazama and Terumi from later Blazblue games. Hazama’s specials are performed out of a stance, while Terumi just performs them straight up.
Magneto's force field can absolutely be destroyed, but it takes quite a large amount of hits. Usually I build the super meter throughout the match, and then immediately use it when Magneto has his shield up. I know of 3 characters that can destroy the force field almost immediately: Cyclops (Mega Optic Blast), Iceman (Arctic Attack) and Storm (Hail Storm). Colossus can also destroy the force field with heavy attacks, but it's very risky.
The funniest thing about Guilty Gear bossess is the fact that the best one is from a game that isn't even really a fighting game lol Valentine in Overture is an incredible boss fight in her own right though, with the music ("Diva"), obstacle course to get to the ficght and then actual boss fight
@@Wolfedge75 Speaking of Justice ( yes pun intended) she was I believe only playable in the first guilty gear accent core and accent core+R idk how she was in missing link but She was really broken in AC due to having full screen spammable progectiles and an amazing airdash
@Kader6310 The funny thing about ML Justice is that she was obviously designed to be a busted boss character, having 3 airdashes, total invulnerability while walking backwards, meterless Imperial Ray, etc., but because she didn't have access to the comically broken charge system she ends up being an honest mid tier.
Last Blade 2 Kojiroh and Washizuka are another example of two characters having similar moves with one as a Charge character and one as an motion input character. They're not complete moveset clones but they share a projectile and anti air, albeit with different properties.
I'd argue against calling them moveset clones since the only thing they truly share is the DP (and one is clearly much better than the other), otherwise they are completely different. Fun fact is that there is a lore reason behind it, since they are in the same police force.
Gill was my secondary pick in SFV, (mained Seth) but I only picked him up after the final patch. It's hilarious seeing what he was like on release. I already struggled to win with him and it's funny knowing that I was playing his strongest version
13:25 one example I know of is Shimo and Hina from Yatagarasu. Since neither were boss characters this means that their similar moves having different input methods leads to them having very different gameplans, one being a more mix heavy offense character and the other a very pressure oriented poke machine that has to really choose when she's going on defense
My dream joke costume for Gil would be one that's a subzero outfit on his ice half, and scorpion on his fire half. Sorta like that one midboss from thrill kill whose extra costume turned him into ryu and ken as conjoined twins
Seraphic wing also can’t be parried so there’s that Cota magneto can be thrown in his force field in a way. If he uses hyper gravity to pull them in, then throws a character with a counter throw as thier tech (sentinel, iceman,colossus, psylocke, juggernaut) and they tech he loses his invincibility.
Love this video, definitely major Big Yellow vibes and I'm here for it. Some other random bosses you didn't mention but I can't keep myself from talking about: As a lot of people know Shadow Jago in KI was a boss character (playable through hacking) until they ran a fundraiser and made him playable (for 10 US dollarydoos) afterwards. Boss Shago was basically Jago, but had better frame data, a few unique attacks (double fireball that beat every projectile, his famous low slide kick, and an overhead similar to his playable axe kick among others), but the worst offender was probably his instinct. In instinct, his specials had a meter vampirism effect until you hit him, and he would keep gaining meter even if you were out. He wasn't the hardest boss because his AI wasn't designed to snort quarters and his boss jank wasn't as busted as the others on this list, but still pretty memorable especially when secret boss characters were becoming less common. Playable Shago is similar to Jago in a lot of ways, but has much trickier movement and mixup options with his unique mechanic that allows you to spend meter to change his specials. Playable Shago is most known for his infuriating zoning and stylish pillar combos that are pretty unique among the cast though his damage is poor and he's really meter hungry as almost none of his moves are safe, requiring you to choose between safety, mixups, and damage. Every boss Rugal is busted, but I've actually played against CVS2 God Rugal so I'll talk about him. CVS2 Rugal is known for his short combos but high damage and massive disjoints, which happen to be perfect for a boss character; so of course G. Rugal has that but better. Better frame data, less floaty jump, and new tools like the teleport, an unblockable command grab, and of course, 2 new supers. The boss will constantly teleport around and throw out frame perfect G. Cutters and supers like the dreaded G. End, which has a really quick startup and is basically invincible on the first few frames. Rugal also has a Demon if you try to block G. End, and either of those supers will one-shot R1 and delete R2 characters with a bit of chip. And, despite CVS2 being Capcom, you know he's got the SNK AI sauce. Balanced Rugal's main thing in every version I know of is his huge normals and extremely high damage supers. He's usually around mid-low tier because of his bad movement and lack of combo variety, but usually always has a way to combo into his round-deleting supers. Unfortunately not a ton to say about him besides the fact that he's based because he's Rugal. Great summary on all of those guys, I'd heard about Magneto but I had no idea why he was broken until now.
It's funny you mentioned, during the Gill and Urien part, about there not being very many examples of characters that perform the same moves but with different types of inputs. I can think of one really really good example from an obscure game: Rina & Mina from the game Kenju (playable on FightCade). They're a pair of twin sisters who occupy one character slot, and you can switch between them freely during battle. Rina has mostly charged moves and Mina mostly has motion moves, and most of their moves are the same. So not only does that game have this, it has this in what is technically one character slot so you can experiment with both of them freely. I almost exclusively play Mina, personally.
Geese's Raging Storm was buffed almost every game in FF series. At start it was small column, but later it was heigher, then wider and next game it was given huge spike in forward area to allow it be more accesible as combo tool
Unnerfed playable bosses are some of my favorites in older fighting games. Suffering through arcade mode is worth it when you come back as the dickhead final boss that whooped your ass so many times.
12:54 2 frame startup!?!? I'm a tekken player, so I don't know if my response to that is normal in the SF community, but... just do that! Just do that move over and over! Why do any other move if you have a 2-frame move?!
Actually, in KOF XIII happened the similar situation to that of Urien & Gill's, since Ash, who is a charge character starting from his appearance in KOF 2003, while his predecessor, Saiki (who isn't boss, but unlockable character, and not actually broken) is a motion character.
15:24 The sf5 version of boss gill when he revives, its MUCH harder to interrupt because if you are too close when it activates, it sends you into a spinning knockdown
I'm surprised you didn't talk about the KOF bosses, specifically before 02 UM came along, since the bosses in those games weren't meant to be playable (except for probably mid bosses like Saisyu). In fact, some characters like Omega Rugal (specifically both his 98 and 2002 appearances) have resulted in bans of the character.
You can actually combo into bice's specials, it requires a tandem and stand crash setup though. If I recall correctly it also breaks his stand on mode(?) theres definitely a video about the ball combo though, probably with little views.
First we had Magneto's force field. Nowadays we have Izanami's Ribcage which: Is a normal special and uses her guard gauge instead of her meter, so she can use it as many times as she wants. Renders her invincible to everything save for grabs. If she runs out of guard gauge mid attack, Ribcage stays up until the attack animation is done. This includes her timestop super, which has 4 seconds of startup.
A video about fighting game bosses? Neat. Honestly those are the most fun for me, but I've got a couple notable mentions While people talk of MK bosses being OP like Shao Kahn and Corrupted Shinnok, I honestly think none of them compare to N64 Trilogy's Motaro. Aside from his teleport being faster, still having the projectile reflect ability and spammable fireball, there's one little tweak he has that makes him utterly broken: he can move while using his kick attack, as in, he can move either back or forward when his attack is coming out. This kick not only does insane amounts of damage per hit and has absolute vertical priority, but it stunlocks if blocked, and there's nothing you can do it about it, not even the CPU. This means he has a literally one-button unpunishable delete normal that ensures victory. You don't have to do _anything_ else other than move forward and spam High Kick or Low Kick. He also ironically makes the fight with Shao Kahn trivial because Shao will just keep spamming his projectile, which bounces back towards him. You can even exploit the AI by simply firing a projectile and it''s programmed that he will attempt to punish by zoning you, so he just ends up eating two projectiles back to back in an endless loop. Inferno has had a slightly interesting history. Barring his appearance in Soul Blade as SoulEdge, he was playable in Soulcalibur where he was a mimic character that randomly copied movesets between rounds. What set him apart from the other mimic fighter Edgemaster was that he had unique specials that he could use with any style. Furthermore, he actually got an attack buff based on what character he mimicked. He'd get super powerful when copying the likes of Nightmare or Astatroth, but minimal increases on Xianghua and the like. The only character he doesn't get a buff from is Cervantes. When he returned for Soulcalibur VI however. Well...I don't think even Kazuya's new Devil forms compare. Instead of being a mimic character, he's basically a suped-up Nightmare, who is already very powerful in this game. All of the specials Nightmare has with his unique charge gimmick, he has by default. He not only retains his moves from past games, he gets Night Terror's flight stance, can follow up some of his attacks with teleports, has a near full-screen attack that will revenge-punish if interrupted, has super easy juggles and his damage output is ridiculous. His standard throw alone literally takes out half a character's health on hit and his Critical Edge will basically insta-delete if the opponent has taken damage already. And the thing is, Namco didn't do _anything_ to balance him out as a playable character; they basically gave you a broken character to go nuts with and knowing this, he's locked out of online multiplayer.
Both oro & Gouki has Acces to more than 1 super at anytime, Gouki has one of his three Super arts ( Metsu Gou Hadoken, Metsu Gou Shoryu or Messatsu Gou Rasen) + Kongou Kokuretsu Zan (KKZ) & Rageing Demon (Shun Goku Sastu) While Oro has one of his 3 regular supers (Kishin Riki, Yagyou Dama or Tengu Stones) but when pressing 2 or more buttons to activate his super he gain's the EX versions of his super that has other propertys, Tengu Midareishi (EX Tengu Stone) gets 5 stones total for a faster meter burn, the grab super gets one leap forward into a biiiig jump up that throws the opponent on his head, and the EX Yagyou-Odama he throws a large energyball diagonnaly down. If i could have a normal char with 2 supers at the same time I think Hugo would be broken with SA1 and SA2 at the same time would be sacry cuz nor ground or air would be safe close to him, jumping would get grabbed by Megaton press and standing to close would be GigASSed.
The funniest part about Geese is that the only games where he’s _explicity_ broken and overpowered are the original Fatal Fury, Real Bout Special and KOF ‘02UM (in his EX form). In all other games he’s a boss in he’s still a *_Nightmare_* to fight but he’s technically a normal character, hardly any different from the rest of the cast.
To me, nowadays, bosses should never be non-playable. It's just so much fun playing as the busted boss as it does playing a random character. All that experimentation and testing is worth it.
Gill has a special place in my deus of villains. He was MADDENING. I spent WEEKS trying to beat him and when I was like 14, I went thought a very deep SF3 phase. I got ridiculously good for a while. Eventually, I got to the point where I would trash him. But I will never forget how much practice and losses it took. I will never forget the first time I THOUGHT I beat him, and he did that resurrection move. Man that shit was demoralizing LMAO but I still had a huge attention span and was still a kid- I didnt have to work, so I spent hours after school practicing. it made me feel very connected to the character because it made him feel like he was MY Bison. I remember watching my brother growing up playing street fighter and the challenge of figuring out Bison. Although I eventually did too, but Gill was a whole different animal.
If I may put in me two cents, among all unplayable fighting game bosses, Azazel will always hold a special place in me heart. You fight through Tekken 6 and everyone's normal, then the game throws this giant Egyptian dragon/Jackal thing that's for some reason in 4k resolution, is 15 feet tall and moves at double everyone else's FPS and you can't hit him unless you counterhit, combined with his OST he looks like the most final boss, final boss to ever final boss.
13:25 Last Blade 2 - Washizuka and Sanada. Very similiar characters in many ways expect some special, but both have 2 idetical specials. One is charger aka Guile and other is rushdown
13:30 Regarding 2 characters with similar specials but different inputs, Mobile Suit Gundam Ex Revue has several characters which have a mook and Char variant and while their moves look similar they have completely different inputs
A big shout out to Pyron from Darkstalkers, who was the only boss in any game ever that made me rage enough to punch a hole in the drywall at 15. Jinpachi from Tekken probably would have also if I was still 15 when I played the one he was in, but thankfully I had another decade of emotional control under my belt by then
any fighting game where you have characters with projectile normals and some who don't have them it's pretty easy to figure out where the ones with projectile will land on a tier list. ergo give everyone or no one projetile normals.
Great video however I believe the earlier versions of Gill in New Generation and Second Impact are generally considered to be extremely weak boss characters, Third Strike buffed most aspects of him to make him a much bigger threat, still a good video, if you ever get the chance I'd highly recommend looking into Shin M Bison from Alpha 3, easily his grimiest incarnation
My personal favorite is Justice from Guilty Gear. Imperial Ray, that super where she fires a laser in a circular pattern around the screen, was just a special move back in Missing Link. So she could absolutely dominate neutral, but also rush you down and delete you with her insane mobility and damage. Also she was fully invincible while walking backwards. Absolutely ridiculous character In +R, she's just kind of an alright zoner, albeit with a hilariously useless install where for a full meter you can relive the glory days of being the most mobile character in the series. For 10 seconds
If you want another example. Feral Chaos from Dissidia Duodecim. But he is restricted by ability points so you can't really make full use of his entire skillset.
The 1st time I fought Gill in the arcade,I automatically thought, CAPCOM is on their way to equaling SNK in the "psycho boss" category. Great video, subbing now
Vids with these breakdowns or retrospectives on characters histories are pretty cool. I hope we'll get to see some follow-ups to these, cause I think going over characters like Goro or Rugal and Akuma as well could be cool, if you're up for it.
I’ve never played SF3, but Gill looks and sounds pretty cool! I love how his sprite looks like it’s emitting light in a way and the side of the screen you’re on changing the elemental attacks is such a nice detail. Unfortunately in SFV he loses both of those cool traits and his hair is a bit of a stiff mess lol, poor guy got done kinda dirty by the switch to 3D lol.
Something to note with MKT Shao Kahn is that he actually is nerfed in player hands. His shoulder charge no longer staggers or knocks down, and his hammer no longer stuns. Oddly, the N64 version gave these properties back, at the cost of adding massive cooldowns to his specials. Oh, and he can infinite the whole cast by looping his throw.
Though it's not a traditional FG, Def Jam FFNY also has a fully playable Boss character without any changes. Snoop Dogg aka Crow was quite infamous, even 5yo kids know he's busted. He has ungodly fast mobility, insanely damaging and fast strings that's mighty hard to parry inbetween, chain stuns, meter that fills up very fast in tandem with his charisma, wallrun attacks that can KO and borrowing special KO mechanics that only streetfighters possess (despite him not a streetfighter). And after all that, you would think he might have poor defense like Akuma to balance all that offense? Yeah no, he has VERY high toughness and health for someone as quick as him, makes him hard to KO, stun or submit. "punch parry" (or usually referred as Parry+) exclusive to martial artists that inflicts damage and limb damage, works in tandem with his submissions to wear out enemies' limbs, and it's hard to hit him back. Overall, he's hardbanned, competitively, and casual, along with other 3 characters (Sticky Fingaz, Doc, and Carmen Electra, who may and may not be the only one rivals him by strength). Watch a tournament where he's unbanned, and see anyone losing switch to him or Carmen without any second thought.
Apologies for any confusion in the Vanilla Ice section. I edit these videos with headphones on at all times so I wasnt aware how hard it is tell the difference between "Vice" and "Bice" without them.
Will not repeat that mistake when i eventually get to talking Boss Ice in another video
Brother the whole time I was thinking “damn, that’s a genius bit, he says he’s going to give them different names for better understanding and then calls them the same name over and over again. He’ll repeat the name so many times on the same sentence too! This guy’s real fun!”
Whoops.
I heard the differentiation and immediately just cackled and went "WAIT A MINUTE", thinking about how, in Japanese, they don't have a "v" sound so they substitute it in loan words with a "b". It's a precedent for the two syllables sounding a bit similar, albeit not that similar obviously. Just very funny to see that be used to distinguish the two, when "b" is a replacement for "v" in a whole ass language, pfft.
Wait it was an honest mistake? I thought it was both on purpose AND hilarious. Whoops
I thought it was a comedy bit, it really threw me off 🤣
imo a good solution would be calling them B Ice and Vice, our B Vice and Vice
I really like how Akuma went from the most hype and mystery character to assimilating himself and eventually becoming a casual inclusion in the roster
Except when he's DLC because locking legacy characters behind a paywall is awesome
Crying about a character being dlc when he's ALWAYS been dlc outside of vanilla SF4 is astonishingly showing how much this guy kmows
@@Dhampire1976 I think he was also in the base roster of Alpha 2 & 3, but the Alpha series has the most amount of "Same game, but new stuff" feel.
@@Carlitonsp1 and the alpha series was from before DLCs were a practical part of the games industry. If the environment had been different, alpha 2 and 3 might have been the DLCs and balance change patches of the Alpha series.
@@shaynehughes6645 yeah i agree, sf6's base roster should have had all 121 previously playable street fighter characters available, it is totally normal and valid to complain about "locking legacy characters behind a paywall"
I like how you tried to difference Boss Vanilla Ice and playable Vanilla Ice by calling them Bice and Vice but ended up making telling the difference harder.
And Vanilla Ice’s actor for his playable appearance is the same as the 2014 anime, the original one who was a boss would later voice Ken masters
Mfs do be stupid like that trying to be smart
The fact that you said “Master of Magnet” brings a smile to my arcade frequenting face
Shout out to Big Yellow's hourlong deep dive on 3S Gill
Welcome to the fighting games, Max.
@@BasicallyGoblinimillian Dood
Heritage for the Future is such an anomaly of game balance I honestly shouldn't be shocked that the unplayable boss character is weaker than the playable version.
Heritage lives up to the JoJo tradition of being "balanced" by having no balance and making everyone completely broken...
Pet Shop: *laughs maniacally*
HFTF achieves balance by making everyone broken as shit
Mariah & Khan would probably be good in any other fighting game, but in HFTF everyone else is so broken they suck.
29:22 "He's also more adorable than most regular characters"
- Autogenerated subtitles
That's what I heard him say. I haven't figured out what he actually said/meant. Door-able?
@@TheBlackSeraphdurable
Honorable mention to Elizabeth from P4AU, a superboss put wholesale into a fighting game, with passive meter gain, access to every status/various instakills, etc.
She also says "Yay!😊💖" on victories.
... Who is also super mid.
The funniest part about Liz is that she’s _just_ there to be the token superboss in the original P4A and little else.
And she *still* gets one-upped in the role by her sister Marge in Ultimax!
She was also a playable fighter in 'BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle' as part of the Ver. 2.0 Expansion Pack.
@@ryanm.8720 Where she's literally the worst character in the game while having the best assists in the game
Elizabeth was originally an ordinary character in P4A so it doesn't match the theme of the video. You'd have to compare the boss vs playable versions of Shadow Labrys.
interrupting gill's revive is way easier said than done. it's actually pretty easy to wiff your attack, or just panic and missinput, and because of how quickly his health recovers, you're unlikely to kill him, and if you don't, he's gonna kick your arse. yeah he just broke his meter, but he's also gill, he doesn't need meter to beat you, and you're probably not doing to well since you just got done fighting gill.
He also pushes you back slightly upon resurrecting
It _really_ punishes players inversely proportionally to their skill level. The less experienced you are at fighting games, the more likely you are to miss your window to interrupt his healing, and the more likely you are to get roflstomped when Gill gets back up.
He also pushes your character away with the force generated so it's harder to get near him. Odds are he's going to get back 30-50% of his health if you do knock him out of it. Fortunately he takes extra damage whilst regenerating.
Skill issue
@@BenMarcWilliams Worse players do worse. How tf is that inversely?
I love how janky all of Boss Ice's animations are. Whenever he walks or jumps, it looks like someone is clicking and dragging him across the screen.
Melee Bowser dash ahh movement
Correction, Thanos has 6 supers in MSH, but it's possible you haven't seen the sixth. I believe Maximilian saw the more rare one in a recent stream and flipped out. The Mind stone super will discolor the opponent and flip their controls. It is unblockable and lasts for some time. That super and the Time stone super were not included in the MVC2 iteration of the character.
Boss mode stage 2 Nagoriyuki is in permanent blood rage with no downsides and juiced up specials that can still cancel into other specials. He still has to enter blood rage at the start of the fight so you can open with some advantage.
Playable he has been top tier since launch.
you basically have to throw loop stage 9 nago until he dies
@@LoraLoibuOr play Goldlewis, it's been a while but I vividly remember BT chunking his stun gauge even on block.
for those who don't play STRIVE, the downside to blood rage is nagoriyuki immediately goes into cardiac arrest and starts rapidly losing health
@@polarbearwilliam He normally also suffers from acute dementia and looses access to all of his special moves.
@@polarbearwilliam and in S4 they changed zansetsu which is a super that can only be used during blood rage to where he instantly goes to 1hp
Really enjoyed the Geese deep dive. I feel like everyone knows about SNK characters, but unless you're from one of the SNK countries, most folks don't really KNOW know them.
i love how you talk about that jojos game at every chance you get
As he should
Someone has to
It's so good yet so broken
Similar to the Elizabeth example shown below, Castlevania Judgement takes a boss from a non-fighting game and translates him to a fighting game
In this case, Dracula, who notably does not receive a heavily edited moveset or design like everybody else in the game's roster and mainly fights via teleporting and waves of fireballs... just like he does in the 2D games
GBVS is a similar case, I'm not familiar with the gatcha at all but iirc Belial, Beezlebub and Lucilius were unplayable bosses in the gatcha and VS was the first time you could control them. Arcsys is known for their incredible attention to detail so I'm sure there are a tonne of references in their poses and animations that flew over my head.
@@strepsilsaregood4u Beelzebub and Lucilius is kinda funny - in the lore theres a character who is basically "original Beelzebub" and "original Lucilius" but they are actually playable a good deal before the definitive bossfight version of them was put into the game
Theres some mechanism between them that was similar but since Bubs and Lucilius was the 2 biggest bossfight, they had more mechanics than the playable "original" version. For example original Bubs simply "become stronger everytime they use super, and have barrier". Bubs boss fight have 2 alternating form depending on you letting him use super or not, and he also gets stronger everytime he supers - but if you cancel it, he becomes weaker. Original Lucilius only have vague similarity to Lucilius due to
The Fighting game Lucilius gimmick of becoming stronger as he uses more special moves was translated into GBVS but a lot of his more iconic mechanics actually didnt make it(one version of Paradise Lost was to nuke you before the fight started so the idea is to fight Lucilius you need to have high enough max HP to survive Paradise Lost before the fight started)
Original Bubs later get a new version that gets some mechanics from bossfight Bubs - Bubs have a move that does time-skip if you failed to cancel it. The new version have that move re-interpreted as a supporting skill
Funny enough out of every character in GBF gacha, not just one who have made it into VS, Seox is actually the most "playing him feels like playing a boss character' in the game. All of his skills are comically overpowered for its class, his super move applies 2 separate dodge buff(most character who are designed to have dodge on super only have one of them) and hes by far the most powerful character in terms of raw power in the game.
GBF is kinda unique in that your actual power only contribute towards hitting the internal damage cap, and you need to apply various multiplier to that number to get your actual damage so the best characters are the one who have the best/most efficient multipliers.
Seox's actual power is roughly 330% of standard character and yeah this is a complete outlier. The ussual power level of what the playerbase called "Gorilla" is 130%. Seox's damage multiplier is also really good - and just as comically over the curve, its just nowhere as funny as his raw power. Seox is so stupid that he's probably the reason why Dark element's gimmick was to have as many character who can click no button to contribute to a set up since Seox is completely dominant in 1 button category
He's been in the running on top of Dark's meta since his rebalance in late 2019 which was called "the Charlotta update" since at the time the dev team of Cygames liked Charlotta's kit so much, that several characters was remodeled to be a Charlotta clone
To me, the funniest tidbit of boss character lore actually comes from Strive.
Emo Tarquin compiled Dustloop pages for the different _Extreme_ boss characters, and the one for Nagoriyuki actively advises to treat him as "a special case" in EX character matches, because he is pretty much unbeatable unless you mess up.
They made a boss who's banworthy when compared _to other bosses._
it's actually pretty funny how both boss characters on the JoJo arcade game are kinda bad and the average gamer will still have a hard time trying to beat them for the first time... It's at these moments that I understand it why people say this game is hard to learn... and idk how did you not even mention Rugal on this video, I think it kinda deserves a part 2 just because of that, it'd be really fun if it's at least half as good as this
32:55 Interesting name for a Shao Kahn variation
Reminds me of Vman naming his Jade variation 'Kotal's Hoe' (since offensive words such as 'ho' are banned).
Tekken players also fucking hated Geese lol
I honestly feel like Rugal is a more iconic SNK boss than Geese. Prohibido jugar con Rugal existed for a reason
I know it’s a meme but still, only *Ω* or God Rugal is “prohibido”, right?
@@Wolfedge75 yeah, in vanilla 98 rugal is bottom tier and in UM he's very high tier but not boss tier, and in 15 i don't have the game but he's low-mid tier iirc
Perhaps he could make a part two talking about more bosses he didn’t talk about
Genocide cuttah
It’s also worth mentioning that Nightmare Geese from KOF 2002 unlimited match has a super easy meterless infinite making him one of, if not the most broken version of Geese
Pyron and Phobos have only been canonically playable one time and one time only.
Capcom KNEW they screwed up, and removed them from the next title's first arcade version.
Nobody really plays the upgrades, so they're effectively in jail.
About another "Two Characters who have the 'same' moves but one with motions and one with charge", you also have Juni and Juli in Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper/console version
Nine and Izanami from BlazBlue Central Fiction always come readily to mind. On Nine's side she's already spouting good and disjointed normals that only empowers her drive attacks when the land (even if they're guarded) and she has a multi-teleport for an even more devastating mixup.
As for Izanami... ribcage.
Also, these two technically count as boss characters becoming playable. The Arcade version of CF was released in three sets. Nine was the boss of Act One and became playable Act Two onward while Izanami was the Act Two boss and was only playable in the third and final act.
Also also, if you do well enough in ACT 3's arcade mode you can fight an UNLIMITED version of either of them (or series protag Ragna, but this is about arcade bosses). For that, all I have to say is...
Good luck.
They were technically bosses first, but they were clearly designed as playable characters above all else. ArcSys just makes a lot of blunders on their first iterations.
Susano'o was in the same boat (also the only unblockable character in the series IIRC, been a while) and he's nowhere near as annoying if you don't let him gain momentum.
@@anothenblue2630 To be fair, most bosses can be disguised as regular characters. The fact that they have some of the newest and most involved tech isn't lost on me either.
@@StormVII there's generally more thought put behind playable characters in more modern games than bosses since the latter are designed to eat quarters. Izanami back in CT or Guilty Gear days would probably just have free ribcage and wouldn't lose access to guard in that stance. Nine is where things get iffy because there are way less measures to reel her back in CF, but we had Kokonoe in CP.
@@anothenblue2630 Counter point; pay to win DLC kind of is the new boss character in several instances nowadays. They've gotten much better at it, but the presence can still be felt at times.
@@StormVII while not wrong, there's still more of a pretense there. I can look at most of those and pretend they tried. It's nothing a free character can't be given by accident. It takes exceptional audacity for one of those to, say, have a fullscreen laser that comboes into itself multiple times and shaves off half of your healthbar.
about 2 similar characters with different inputs
-the swordsman sisters from Yatgarasu is one of them, one uses circular inputs, the other uses charge inputs, for moves that are basically identical, visually
-iirc on the later games, they also make one of the grannies of the Power Instinct series a charge character to make her different from her twin
-technically, Guile & Charlie in SFV, even tho Charlie is so far removed from his classic fighting style at that point
EM Pulse in COTA is one of the most hilarious projectiles I've ever seen in a fighting game, just completely unhinged fighting game character design
I love it so much
I like the part where he said you can just spam Magnetic Blast in the air because like
*That's exactly what the boss did*
I think it’s more important that fighting game boss characters focus on a diverse and difficult to play move sets and that it’s doubly important that their AI be actually good.
Have the moves be questionable sometimes. It’s not enough to just pay more quarters to eventually memorize attack patterns anymore, we need to be able to take advantage of subtle weaknesses.
Players would feel so much more satisfied with fighting the boss because the player feels like they won the fight in wits alone. I think that this would benefit the playable version of boss characters, too. Make them tough to play as and even more difficult to *utilize* effectively.
13:32 A good example of this is Nash vs Guile in Street Fighter V. Both are traditionally charge characters, but SFV makes Nash a motion character instead. He plays as more of a hybrid zoner/pressure character than a straight-up zoner like Guile does.
You should've also talked about Geese's Nightmare mode. In 2002 UM when you unlock him... he has one of the most convoluted inputs for a super Ive ever seen.
13:33 There is actually 2 other duos of characters I can think of that have similar moves with different inputs. Ash and Saiki from KOF XIII, and Washizuka and Kojiroh from The Last Blade 2. Those characters are really cool and I love the differences between them, so I'd recommend checking them out!
Let me add in 1 more duo with a similar dynamic: Elektrosoldat & Adler from Akatsuki Blitzkampf.
But charge characters having a variant character that utilizes motions and vice versa are always a welcome surprise.
@@Wolfedge75 HOW COULD I FORGET THEM!!! I feel a bit ashamed of myself. Akatsuki Blitzkampf is one of my favorite games of all time!
Another one to me is Hazama and Terumi from later Blazblue games.
Hazama’s specials are performed out of a stance, while Terumi just performs them straight up.
Magneto's force field can absolutely be destroyed, but it takes quite a large amount of hits. Usually I build the super meter throughout the match, and then immediately use it when Magneto has his shield up. I know of 3 characters that can destroy the force field almost immediately: Cyclops (Mega Optic Blast), Iceman (Arctic Attack) and Storm (Hail Storm). Colossus can also destroy the force field with heavy attacks, but it's very risky.
Decapre and cammy is another example of two characters with similar movesets where one is charge and one is motion
I’d say Juni is a purer example of “Cammy, but charge”
and guile and charlie in 5
We don't even talk about 2002UM nightmare Geese. Still to this day arguably his strongest boss appearance.
2:19 you can tuah them down???
I heard this when I was listening back on the recording for that segment and I can't unhear it now.
The funniest thing about Guilty Gear bossess is the fact that the best one is from a game that isn't even really a fighting game lol
Valentine in Overture is an incredible boss fight in her own right though, with the music ("Diva"), obstacle course to get to the ficght and then actual boss fight
The only downside is that you can’t replay her boss fight with someone else.
But yeah, gameplay videos don’t do Valentine’s final form Justice.
@@Wolfedge75 Speaking of Justice ( yes pun intended) she was I believe only playable in the first guilty gear accent core and accent core+R idk how she was in missing link but She was really broken in AC due to having full screen spammable progectiles and an amazing airdash
@Kader6310 The funny thing about ML Justice is that she was obviously designed to be a busted boss character, having 3 airdashes, total invulnerability while walking backwards, meterless Imperial Ray, etc., but because she didn't have access to the comically broken charge system she ends up being an honest mid tier.
How can you forget Sagat? The OG SF boss.
And still has his boss privileges.
who wants to play sf1?
SF1 is a reach because nobodu cared about it, but we can say the original unplayable first 4 in SF2 count.
Ayyy i was just making dinner, perfect timing
Literally was just thinking about a new upload lets gooooo
Last Blade 2 Kojiroh and Washizuka are another example of two characters having similar moves with one as a Charge character and one as an motion input character. They're not complete moveset clones but they share a projectile and anti air, albeit with different properties.
I'd argue against calling them moveset clones since the only thing they truly share is the DP (and one is clearly much better than the other), otherwise they are completely different. Fun fact is that there is a lore reason behind it, since they are in the same police force.
Interesting how Vanilla Ice is the rever of a playable boss, instead of being weaker he's noticble stronger/better.
Just on the thumbnail, you got a sub
Thanos also has objectively the funniest walk cycle in MVC2, just missing the phonk beats 😂
13:33 abk knowlegde kicking in because there are two exemples of that in soldat/adler and tempelritter/valkyria
Gill was my secondary pick in SFV, (mained Seth) but I only picked him up after the final patch. It's hilarious seeing what he was like on release. I already struggled to win with him and it's funny knowing that I was playing his strongest version
"The boss version is comonlly refered as bice,so I'll call him that.I'll call the playable version vice for reference"
13:27
nash/guile sfv
adler/soldat abk (arguable)
13:25 one example I know of is Shimo and Hina from Yatagarasu. Since neither were boss characters this means that their similar moves having different input methods leads to them having very different gameplans, one being a more mix heavy offense character and the other a very pressure oriented poke machine that has to really choose when she's going on defense
My dream joke costume for Gil would be one that's a subzero outfit on his ice half, and scorpion on his fire half. Sorta like that one midboss from thrill kill whose extra costume turned him into ryu and ken as conjoined twins
Such a underated channel deserves more love.
13:33 A niche example is Ash and Saiki from Kof XIII.
Seraphic wing also can’t be parried so there’s that
Cota magneto can be thrown in his force field in a way. If he uses hyper gravity to pull them in, then throws a character with a counter throw as thier tech (sentinel, iceman,colossus, psylocke, juggernaut) and they tech he loses his invincibility.
Love this video, definitely major Big Yellow vibes and I'm here for it. Some other random bosses you didn't mention but I can't keep myself from talking about:
As a lot of people know Shadow Jago in KI was a boss character (playable through hacking) until they ran a fundraiser and made him playable (for 10 US dollarydoos) afterwards. Boss Shago was basically Jago, but had better frame data, a few unique attacks (double fireball that beat every projectile, his famous low slide kick, and an overhead similar to his playable axe kick among others), but the worst offender was probably his instinct. In instinct, his specials had a meter vampirism effect until you hit him, and he would keep gaining meter even if you were out. He wasn't the hardest boss because his AI wasn't designed to snort quarters and his boss jank wasn't as busted as the others on this list, but still pretty memorable especially when secret boss characters were becoming less common.
Playable Shago is similar to Jago in a lot of ways, but has much trickier movement and mixup options with his unique mechanic that allows you to spend meter to change his specials. Playable Shago is most known for his infuriating zoning and stylish pillar combos that are pretty unique among the cast though his damage is poor and he's really meter hungry as almost none of his moves are safe, requiring you to choose between safety, mixups, and damage.
Every boss Rugal is busted, but I've actually played against CVS2 God Rugal so I'll talk about him. CVS2 Rugal is known for his short combos but high damage and massive disjoints, which happen to be perfect for a boss character; so of course G. Rugal has that but better. Better frame data, less floaty jump, and new tools like the teleport, an unblockable command grab, and of course, 2 new supers. The boss will constantly teleport around and throw out frame perfect G. Cutters and supers like the dreaded G. End, which has a really quick startup and is basically invincible on the first few frames. Rugal also has a Demon if you try to block G. End, and either of those supers will one-shot R1 and delete R2 characters with a bit of chip. And, despite CVS2 being Capcom, you know he's got the SNK AI sauce.
Balanced Rugal's main thing in every version I know of is his huge normals and extremely high damage supers. He's usually around mid-low tier because of his bad movement and lack of combo variety, but usually always has a way to combo into his round-deleting supers. Unfortunately not a ton to say about him besides the fact that he's based because he's Rugal.
Great summary on all of those guys, I'd heard about Magneto but I had no idea why he was broken until now.
What about joy mech fight? You can play as the bosses there too, having the exact same moves as them
10:41 You know this is also where Kolin makes her first appearance as gills assistant. So she is a pseudo boss fight character turned real in sfv lol
It's funny you mentioned, during the Gill and Urien part, about there not being very many examples of characters that perform the same moves but with different types of inputs. I can think of one really really good example from an obscure game: Rina & Mina from the game Kenju (playable on FightCade). They're a pair of twin sisters who occupy one character slot, and you can switch between them freely during battle. Rina has mostly charged moves and Mina mostly has motion moves, and most of their moves are the same.
So not only does that game have this, it has this in what is technically one character slot so you can experiment with both of them freely. I almost exclusively play Mina, personally.
Great vid! Gotta say though, v.ice and b.ice sound nearly identical without headphones. Made for a VERY confusing time listening while cooking, lol!
Geese's Raging Storm was buffed almost every game in FF series. At start it was small column, but later it was heigher, then wider and next game it was given huge spike in forward area to allow it be more accesible as combo tool
Unnerfed playable bosses are some of my favorites in older fighting games. Suffering through arcade mode is worth it when you come back as the dickhead final boss that whooped your ass so many times.
Shao Kahn was playable in MK VS DC Universe too
12:54 2 frame startup!?!? I'm a tekken player, so I don't know if my response to that is normal in the SF community, but... just do that! Just do that move over and over! Why do any other move if you have a 2-frame move?!
Magneto is so cool and he has such a cool sprite, it's a shame they never never made him a not a boss character.
Actually, in KOF XIII happened the similar situation to that of Urien & Gill's, since Ash, who is a charge character starting from his appearance in KOF 2003, while his predecessor, Saiki (who isn't boss, but unlockable character, and not actually broken) is a motion character.
15:24 The sf5 version of boss gill when he revives, its MUCH harder to interrupt because if you are too close when it activates, it sends you into a spinning knockdown
I mean, sure, Geese is a great boss character, but the term "Snk boss syndrome" is because of Rugal :0
I'm surprised you didn't talk about the KOF bosses, specifically before 02 UM came along, since the bosses in those games weren't meant to be playable (except for probably mid bosses like Saisyu). In fact, some characters like Omega Rugal (specifically both his 98 and 2002 appearances) have resulted in bans of the character.
“Mr. Bombpop” fuck. YESSSSSSS!!!!!!!
I will from now on be calling Gill that name
Rugal Bernstein is one of these, even throughout the kof series(even if he's playable) he's badass and have unfair movesets
Hey! I love your videos and the way you narrate, I think a Midler video would be pretty cool
You can actually combo into bice's specials, it requires a tandem and stand crash setup though. If I recall correctly it also breaks his stand on mode(?) theres definitely a video about the ball combo though, probably with little views.
You forgot that thanos retains the best backward walk animation in fighting games
First we had Magneto's force field. Nowadays we have Izanami's Ribcage which:
Is a normal special and uses her guard gauge instead of her meter, so she can use it as many times as she wants.
Renders her invincible to everything save for grabs.
If she runs out of guard gauge mid attack, Ribcage stays up until the attack animation is done. This includes her timestop super, which has 4 seconds of startup.
A video about fighting game bosses? Neat. Honestly those are the most fun for me, but I've got a couple notable mentions
While people talk of MK bosses being OP like Shao Kahn and Corrupted Shinnok, I honestly think none of them compare to N64 Trilogy's Motaro. Aside from his teleport being faster, still having the projectile reflect ability and spammable fireball, there's one little tweak he has that makes him utterly broken: he can move while using his kick attack, as in, he can move either back or forward when his attack is coming out. This kick not only does insane amounts of damage per hit and has absolute vertical priority, but it stunlocks if blocked, and there's nothing you can do it about it, not even the CPU. This means he has a literally one-button unpunishable delete normal that ensures victory. You don't have to do _anything_ else other than move forward and spam High Kick or Low Kick. He also ironically makes the fight with Shao Kahn trivial because Shao will just keep spamming his projectile, which bounces back towards him. You can even exploit the AI by simply firing a projectile and it''s programmed that he will attempt to punish by zoning you, so he just ends up eating two projectiles back to back in an endless loop.
Inferno has had a slightly interesting history. Barring his appearance in Soul Blade as SoulEdge, he was playable in Soulcalibur where he was a mimic character that randomly copied movesets between rounds. What set him apart from the other mimic fighter Edgemaster was that he had unique specials that he could use with any style. Furthermore, he actually got an attack buff based on what character he mimicked. He'd get super powerful when copying the likes of Nightmare or Astatroth, but minimal increases on Xianghua and the like. The only character he doesn't get a buff from is Cervantes.
When he returned for Soulcalibur VI however. Well...I don't think even Kazuya's new Devil forms compare. Instead of being a mimic character, he's basically a suped-up Nightmare, who is already very powerful in this game. All of the specials Nightmare has with his unique charge gimmick, he has by default. He not only retains his moves from past games, he gets Night Terror's flight stance, can follow up some of his attacks with teleports, has a near full-screen attack that will revenge-punish if interrupted, has super easy juggles and his damage output is ridiculous. His standard throw alone literally takes out half a character's health on hit and his Critical Edge will basically insta-delete if the opponent has taken damage already. And the thing is, Namco didn't do _anything_ to balance him out as a playable character; they basically gave you a broken character to go nuts with and knowing this, he's locked out of online multiplayer.
In CVS2 Shin Akuma & Ultimate Rugal get nerfed when you play as them they have low health.
Both oro & Gouki has Acces to more than 1 super at anytime, Gouki has one of his three Super arts ( Metsu Gou Hadoken, Metsu Gou Shoryu or Messatsu Gou Rasen) + Kongou Kokuretsu Zan (KKZ) & Rageing Demon (Shun Goku Sastu)
While Oro has one of his 3 regular supers (Kishin Riki, Yagyou Dama or Tengu Stones) but when pressing 2 or more buttons to activate his super he gain's the EX versions of his super that has other propertys, Tengu Midareishi (EX Tengu Stone) gets 5 stones total for a faster meter burn, the grab super gets one leap forward into a biiiig jump up that throws the opponent on his head, and the EX Yagyou-Odama he throws a large energyball diagonnaly down.
If i could have a normal char with 2 supers at the same time I think Hugo would be broken with SA1 and SA2 at the same time would be sacry cuz nor ground or air would be safe close to him, jumping would get grabbed by Megaton press and standing to close would be GigASSed.
The funniest part about Geese is that the only games where he’s _explicity_ broken and overpowered are the original Fatal Fury, Real Bout Special and KOF ‘02UM (in his EX form).
In all other games he’s a boss in he’s still a *_Nightmare_* to fight but he’s technically a normal character, hardly any different from the rest of the cast.
To me, nowadays, bosses should never be non-playable.
It's just so much fun playing as the busted boss as it does playing a random character. All that experimentation and testing is worth it.
Gill has a special place in my deus of villains. He was MADDENING. I spent WEEKS trying to beat him and when I was like 14, I went thought a very deep SF3 phase. I got ridiculously good for a while. Eventually, I got to the point where I would trash him. But I will never forget how much practice and losses it took. I will never forget the first time I THOUGHT I beat him, and he did that resurrection move. Man that shit was demoralizing LMAO but I still had a huge attention span and was still a kid- I didnt have to work, so I spent hours after school practicing. it made me feel very connected to the character because it made him feel like he was MY Bison. I remember watching my brother growing up playing street fighter and the challenge of figuring out Bison. Although I eventually did too, but Gill was a whole different animal.
If I may put in me two cents, among all unplayable fighting game bosses, Azazel will always hold a special place in me heart. You fight through Tekken 6 and everyone's normal, then the game throws this giant Egyptian dragon/Jackal thing that's for some reason in 4k resolution, is 15 feet tall and moves at double everyone else's FPS and you can't hit him unless you counterhit, combined with his OST he looks like the most final boss, final boss to ever final boss.
33:59 "Geese Howard is SNK's M. Bison"
In Capcom vs SNK, Geese's Capcom rival was literally M. Bison
13:25 Last Blade 2 - Washizuka and Sanada. Very similiar characters in many ways expect some special, but both have 2 idetical specials. One is charger aka Guile and other is rushdown
13:30 Regarding 2 characters with similar specials but different inputs, Mobile Suit Gundam Ex Revue has several characters which have a mook and Char variant and while their moves look similar they have completely different inputs
A big shout out to Pyron from Darkstalkers, who was the only boss in any game ever that made me rage enough to punch a hole in the drywall at 15. Jinpachi from Tekken probably would have also if I was still 15 when I played the one he was in, but thankfully I had another decade of emotional control under my belt by then
Reminds me of how sometimes RPG's will do the same by having the bosses be playable later on but nerfed so hard most characters outdo them.
any fighting game where you have characters with projectile normals and some who don't have them it's pretty easy to figure out where the ones with projectile will land on a tier list. ergo give everyone or no one projetile normals.
Great video however I believe the earlier versions of Gill in New Generation and Second Impact are generally considered to be extremely weak boss characters, Third Strike buffed most aspects of him to make him a much bigger threat, still a good video, if you ever get the chance I'd highly recommend looking into Shin M Bison from Alpha 3, easily his grimiest incarnation
The EX series boss Bison is on some pixie dust magic shit.
Desk made some videos about him a while ago, he's buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuusted.
My personal favorite is Justice from Guilty Gear. Imperial Ray, that super where she fires a laser in a circular pattern around the screen, was just a special move back in Missing Link. So she could absolutely dominate neutral, but also rush you down and delete you with her insane mobility and damage. Also she was fully invincible while walking backwards. Absolutely ridiculous character
In +R, she's just kind of an alright zoner, albeit with a hilariously useless install where for a full meter you can relive the glory days of being the most mobile character in the series. For 10 seconds
33:30 - Can't argue with that logic XDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXD
If you want another example. Feral Chaos from Dissidia Duodecim.
But he is restricted by ability points so you can't really make full use of his entire skillset.
Really enjoyed the video! Thank you for the educational experience
instant thumbs up for including Shao Khan in the thumbnail 👍
The 1st time I fought Gill in the arcade,I automatically thought, CAPCOM is on their way to equaling SNK in the "psycho boss" category. Great video, subbing now
Great video! Loved the topic.
Vids with these breakdowns or retrospectives on characters histories are pretty cool. I hope we'll get to see some follow-ups to these, cause I think going over characters like Goro or Rugal and Akuma as well could be cool, if you're up for it.
Lore accurate Magneto do be cooking
I’ve never played SF3, but Gill looks and sounds pretty cool! I love how his sprite looks like it’s emitting light in a way and the side of the screen you’re on changing the elemental attacks is such a nice detail. Unfortunately in SFV he loses both of those cool traits and his hair is a bit of a stiff mess lol, poor guy got done kinda dirty by the switch to 3D lol.
Incredible video! I enjoyed the HftF segment a lot. If you ever do make a follow up, i'd love to see you discuss Eyedol from Killer Instinct.
I am surprised you didn’t add Rugal to this list
Something to note with MKT Shao Kahn is that he actually is nerfed in player hands. His shoulder charge no longer staggers or knocks down, and his hammer no longer stuns. Oddly, the N64 version gave these properties back, at the cost of adding massive cooldowns to his specials.
Oh, and he can infinite the whole cast by looping his throw.
Though it's not a traditional FG, Def Jam FFNY also has a fully playable Boss character without any changes. Snoop Dogg aka Crow was quite infamous, even 5yo kids know he's busted. He has ungodly fast mobility, insanely damaging and fast strings that's mighty hard to parry inbetween, chain stuns, meter that fills up very fast in tandem with his charisma, wallrun attacks that can KO and borrowing special KO mechanics that only streetfighters possess (despite him not a streetfighter). And after all that, you would think he might have poor defense like Akuma to balance all that offense? Yeah no, he has VERY high toughness and health for someone as quick as him, makes him hard to KO, stun or submit. "punch parry" (or usually referred as Parry+) exclusive to martial artists that inflicts damage and limb damage, works in tandem with his submissions to wear out enemies' limbs, and it's hard to hit him back. Overall, he's hardbanned, competitively, and casual, along with other 3 characters (Sticky Fingaz, Doc, and Carmen Electra, who may and may not be the only one rivals him by strength). Watch a tournament where he's unbanned, and see anyone losing switch to him or Carmen without any second thought.
Bro I never knew heard anyone even mention magneto from children of the atom . Awesome video big dog !!