7 Unique Fighting Game Characters That Don’t Fight Like Anyone Else

The vast majority of fighting game characters play the same way - hitting their opponents with punches, kicks and special moves until the opponent’s life bar is empty. Not the remarkable, standout fighters in this video though, who have totally unique mechanics, moves and play styles that mean they fight like nobody else. Enjoy, and subscribe for more videos like this from Outside Xbox!

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[joeschmo]

The One-Punch Man game had saitama as a character, but due to the fact that he would win the fight with a single punch, he always ends up being late to the fight. Basically you have to run out a timer with your team effectively down a fighter until he shows up and wins effortlessly

[cached_arts]

For years, I've tried to explain this weird anime I watched as a kid to people as "people in bird costumes fighting aliens or something" and could never remember the name, so, thank you Andy for finally granting my mind solace.

[Adeios]

Can't forget about my man Voldo who actively chooses to fight his enemy with several attacks that can only be performed when facing away from his enemy, such as knocking his opponent back with his butt for starters, and let's not even get started on his crawling position he takes to charge at opponents.

[Jonathon_Hennessey]

In the 2013 reboot of Killer Instinct one of the game's characters ARIA has three health bars instead of two they belong to her alternate bodies who can be called in to help out during a fight when when ARIA's artificial intelligence isn't inhabiting them, ARIA herself gains different attacks depending on which body she's using.

[OtakuJuanma]

I want to add Hanataro Yamada from Bleach Shattered Blade (aka "that silly medic boy from the anime").
In a game where you use your sword for whick combos and hurt your enemy, his sword HEALS the oponent and only his specials deal damage.

You can use abilities to charge your super meter, but healing the enemy charges it better, which makes your sword awaken and become a scalpel (it makes sense in canon) and become able to finally damage normally.
The scalpel has THE worst range of the game, and an average damage, but the reason why you use it is because once you've awakened your blade you can unleash the second strongest move in the entire game, that being a giant explosion/energy slash that covers about 4/5 of the screen.

Only the final boss' ultimate attack deals more damage.

[rashkavar]

Voldo from Soul Calibur is an excellent entry in the list of insanity. His body bends in ways I'm not sure a human body is supposed to, which makes him genuinely confusing to fight against. He's not as unique as characters like Steve From Minecraft, who bring whole new mechanics to the battlefield, but he's by far the hardest character to read in any Soul Calibur game that has him.

[little-earth-star]

My favorite example of unusual fighters is Koishi Komeiji from Touhou's fighting game installments.
In Hopeless Masquerade, Koishi doesn't instantly perform her attacks, instead she stores them and uses them automatically when certain conditions are met. (For example, her long range grab activates when she hits her opponent with another attack)
In Urban Legend in Limbo and Antinomy of Common Flowers, Koishi's auto attacks now happen as soon as the input, but now they are stronger in certain conditions.
Needless to say, it took Koishi mains some time to figure her out.
Edit: I forgot to mention, they are aerial battles because everyone can fly, which is already unusual for a fighting game.

[breakinggreens]

In PlayStation all stars (PlayStations smash bros like): You need to collect exp orbs to use your super moves which are the only way to kill your opponent, usually you can do this by hitting them, and the way to prevent your opponent doing the same is by blocking.
Sly cooper can’t do this, instead he turns invisible, this is inservice to his master thief origins, if he is able to do a combo from behind a player, some of their exp is transferred to them directly. He is the only player in the game that has an exp transfer and no block button.

[emberthefox]

On the topic of Nick Wright in UMVC, I think he could genuinely tank at least one hit from the likes of the Hulk. The guy has some crazy durability. My terrible memory can't keep track of the more significant blows but he can casually brush off things like whips and hot coffee being thrown at him at high speeds. Play through the Ace Attorney series and you'll see that he's taken a lot of beatings of varying levels.

[frodobaggins]

Min Min is also a pretty unique fighter in Smash Bros because she doesn't have special moves in the same way that other characters do. Instead, her special moves are linked to her right arm whilst normal punches are linked to her left, and you can alternate between punches this way

[ktoon]

Steve may be the bigger odd ball character in smash but the first character with a really odd play style is still Olimar who plays more like his original game where you need to keep track of your Pikmin and use them for the right senecio.

[haouleo]

Every time Andy makes a video about fighting games, the world gets slightly better

[pamimoo]

What I’m hearing is Jack-O’ Valentine is a great example of asymmetric gameplay design. Also a lot of these probably are too, but still.

[sambridgett]

When I see Oxbox do a fighting game vid, my mind goes "an Andy Farrant production" in trailer-man voice.

Also, the first minute of this one has reminded me I really ought to dig my copy of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom out.

[roguedogx]

Andy:"even in space! How's that possible?"
Issac Clark:"you don't want to know."

[devinspencer]

Another entry from Guilty Gear would be my favorite, Zappa. His basic special summons a completely random special that changes how you play. Do this enough times and you can call forth his ultimate summon that has some of the best attacks in the game.

[SpillyoftheLabyrinth]

Onslaught from Marvel vs Capcom (at least in the first one, I haven't played the others), is really unusual. His second form is so big that it has to be in the background, only certain parts of his body actually have hit boxes, and he is flying, which means you can just stay above the range of most of your enemy's attacks and spam the move that sends missiles across the screen.

[GhengisJohn]

So here are the examples that I could think of, even if I'm not sure they're different _enough_ to qualify.
The first is the character Manaka from the game Aquapazza. What makes her different? None of her attacks are on purpose. Her entire move list consists of her carrying a stack of books and tripping, slipping and generally being a klutz, only hurting her opponent on accident. Her heaviest attacks involve her accidentally knocking over bookshelves that fall onto her opponents or falling over causing the stack of books to go flying into the air, becoming deadly projectiles.

Hakumen from Blazblue is unique in that he can't do any special moves without a resource called Magatama. While other fighters might have resources they use to bolster attacks like Izayoi's Zero-Type gauge or a hand full of moves with limited uses like Bang Shishigami's nails, Hakumen is unique in that he can't do any special attacks at all, the only resource available to him are his normal attacks and a defensive counter that requires his opponent to hit him in a strict window. To put this into perspective, imagine if Ryu from street fighter could only throw his hadouken 3-4 times and then had to recharge. Hakumen recharges Magatama slowly over time, or when successfully landing a counter, encouraging a thoughtful, patient style of play because access to his better tools is so finite.

And last but not least Angel from the King of Fighters. Sure, she may not _look_ that unusual as fighting game characters go and if you were to simply _watch_ footage of a pro playing her it wouldn't be readily apparent what's different about her as you'd see a fighter punching, kicking and throwing their opponents but surface appearances would be deceiving as anybody who's ever _actually tried to learn to play_ Angel might tell you. That's because taking a deeper look under the hood would reveal something called the "Unchained System" or "Unchained Circle System" a set of mechanics wholly unique in their complexity to Angel which could be described as the super saiyan version of a "rekka", or at least they could be if words accurately did the concept justice. Google "Angel unchained circle system flowchart" for a more accurate idea of what you're dealing with and brace your mind for the fact that there are 7000 unique paths through the unchained circle system. She's pretty renowned among fans of the series for drawing new players in with her appeal before making the game look as daunting as possible. Good luck with that, is all I'm saying.

[AfroRyan]

Arakune in Blazblue is pretty unique, in that you mostly have to run away and have your various minion bugs attack for you. It can be very hard both to get used to fighting as, and against.

[wofgal]

I absolutely love Andy's writing style!! I could quote so many delightful quips from this video, but my favorite line was the 'Egregious waste of pizza' - not only because I love pizza, but also because 'egregious' is one of those five star words that my ears can't help but perk up at hearing ;) <3 And that reminds me that I also meant to comment a few videos ago in order to express how much I ADORED Andy's alliterative line about the "Felicitous felines" in the 7 Weirdest Easter Eggs list video, ooh.. if there's one thing that I truly can't resist, it's alliteration - on top of 'Felicitous' being another one of those five star words that I rarely hear that leave me feeling a little bit awestruck <3 :)

P.S. i wrote a much longer comment that Youtube isn't letting show up properly for some reason, which is breaking my heart, aww.. I used to have this same issue with other large Youtube channels, & it's one reason why i largely stopped commenting on Youtube years ago and started writing for the Yogscast on a blog - I wrote a big comment on Oxtra's list video yesterday (which thankfully posted fine with no issues <3 ) explaining more - and if the OX crew would like to read the full post that I wrote today (which includes notes about other recent Andy streams & related videos <3 ) the full thing is at teresasoxnotes dot tumblr dot com along with pretty much all of my other Oxboxtra related writings <3 I'd feared having this trouble with Youtube again, but my one Christmas wish is to have my writings read and enjoyed by the Oxboxtra crew, aww.. so I'll keep trying to post, but my very first post on Oxbox's Youtube having this much of an issue showing up properly is so sad for me, aww.. I just want to tell the OX crew how passionately I love their content, but Youtube seems to hate showing my lengthy, adoring, rambly comments, lol..