Protagonist characters

I've said for a long time that my favorite characters aren't necessarily the same as the developer's favorites, as the protagonists from the point of view of the games, or even fan favorites.  That's not always true, of course, but I do have some esoteric tastes on occasion.

While my own fan faction moves glacially slowly (I've been tinkering with it for four? years and still don't have much to show yet) I'm feeling a bit more motivated than normal right now, so I'm thinking again of who I want to use and who I don't.  Part of that is the Marvel movies--The Avengers in particular.  I've spent plenty of time talking about why I think American style superhero stories and karate supers are analogous, and when I get excited about one, it almost inevitably leads me to the other.  The other is that after considerable time not even thinking about it at all, I'll probably actually pick up either an Xbox 360 or a PS3 in the next few months (and then store it until Christmas, but that's neither here nor there.)  Although it'll be for "the family" meaning mostly the kids, frankly, the younger boys are as excited about getting Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 as they are any other title.  And if they're doing that, then it's no big deal for me to pick up Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition (which is already very cheap), King of Fighters XIII (which will be before Christmas, I bet) and even Street Fighter x Tekken or something.  This all is, of course, turning my attention back to my long-neglected fan fiction efforts.

So, who are the characters I really like?  As protagonists, I mean?  Terry Bogard is probably my absolute favorite of all the characters in all the games.  And as the main protagonist and hero of the Fatal Fury series, as well as a very prominent member of the King of Fighters series, he's a natural to include.  If I'm going to use Terry, I also want to use Blue Mary.  I'm also including Alice Bogard--who isn't really even a character in any version of the game that I know of other than some pachinko game in Japan--just because she's a nice foil for Terry in many ways.

Because NESTS is going to be important to the story, K' (and probably Maxima and Kula) will be important.  They also become important characters for bridging the Capcom and SNK divide on the "good guys" side, since I'm combining NESTS and Shadowloo.

Orochi is also important, in many ways because the Orochi storylines are not only pretty cool and iconic for the King of Fighters series, but also because they have exactly the same "feel" as a kind of Darkstalkers vibe, which means that I can use the concept as another bridge between the Capcom and SNK universes.  This means that Kyo will probably play a significant role at some point--even though I'm actually not as big a fan of him personally as SNK clearly is.

I can't ignore the street fighters, and Ryu (teamed up with Ken and Sakura, I think) make a great protagonist team.  I'm always wanting to set Chun-Li up with someone, and I'm not sure who's the best candidate (given that the SNK fighters already seem to come pre-paired off, for the most part.)  I also like Guile as a protagonist character, plus he gives me an easy connection to the various military style characters from SNK.  In fact, given that Guile works with Chun-Li, he also gives me an easy connection to the very many law enforcement type characters too--Heidern, the Ikari warriors, Kevin Rian, Mary, Seth, Vanessa, and more.  Cammy, as an agent type character, also fits in there, and I've always thought she was an interesting character to write about.

I'm not quite sure what to do with some other characters who I also like, but who don't have an obvious story waiting to be told.  Athena, for example.  I think Mai is over-rated and over-exposed (in more ways than one) so I'll probably pass on making her an important part of any story.

For villains, I'm actually having an easier time combining them.  As well as Geese's organization, which will be important because my version of Southtown will feature as the main setting for the stories, I've got three basic supervillainic organizations.  NESTS, which includes Shadowloo, is ruled by Bison, who is presumed dead after the events (more or less) of SFA3.  The events of SF2 will kinda be folded into my narrative, so he'll obviously have to come back.  Other important leaders of NESTS include Igniz, Zero, Krizalid, Vega, and Sagat.  Both Cammy and K' are defectors from NESTS, from an earlier AI programming experiment, and from a cloning experiment respectively.  I love how that one's all nice and intermeshed between SNK and Capcom characters.  The second is the Hakkesshu, or Orochi cult.  These are the guys who want to raise Orochi as a new god amongst humanity.  I don't really like a lot of the characters from the original Orochi sagaline (Chris? Yashiro? Shermie? These are supposed to be the ultimate villains?  Give me a break.)  I'll keep Goenitz, and otherwise look for alternative Heralds--including Urien, Jedah and Krauser.  Jedah will in fact be the ringleader, and his stage from Darkstalkers 3 with the god-fetus will in fact be Orochi, struggling to be born by stealing the psychic animus of humanity--especially their "negative" emotions.  Of course, this is also the source that powers Bison's psycho drive.  Instant conflict between the two organizations.  Brilliant!

The People of His Distant Land, or the Past, or whatever they call themselves, are another great organization (even if they can't seem to settle on a name.)  Using Saiki, Mukai, Magaki and with minor members Shion and Botan, I've already got a great core from the King of Fighters series.  There's a strong Darkstalkers like vibe to this group already, so I'm going to include Morrigan and Gill as part of the ruling caste too.  Gen and Rugal will be involved somehow too because--well, mostly because why not?  It also explains why Rose and Adel seem to be manipulated by this organization so much.  Because they want to steal Orochi's powers, they obviously oppose both Jedah and Bison's group.  And of course, the heroes don't want any of the three of these organizations to achieve their goals, because it would be Bad News™.