As well as visual design, making your characters fit clear archetypes is vital for designing a cast of diverse fighters when creating a fighting game. In their quest to become a titan of the platform fighter genre, Wavedash Games have laid out some of the character archetypes they will be experimenting with while developing their game. They’ve already revealed their ‘Speedy Brawler’ and that’s Ashani. This is your spectator friendly character–someone like Captain Falcon in Super Smash Bros. They hit hard and look cool while doing it. According to Jason from Wavedash, Ashani is about 30% familiar tools and 70% new designs. I think with her suit giving off sparks, I imagine we’ll see a knee of justice in there somewhere.
The next archetype is again familiar to Smash fans and that’s the Space Animal like Fox or Falco. So, they’ll have a Shine-esque move, will be very speedy and can have great combo potential but they will take some proper training to master. MagicScrumpy has done some experimentation with what the “Ultimate Spacie” would look like so that could be a possible starting point for imagining what this Space Animal will fight like. Next up is a Sword Fighter, which is another archetype Smashers are used to. Focused on silky smooth movement and rewarding you with perfect spacing via a mechanic like Marth’s tipper, Wavedash’s Sword Fighter should suit anyone who loves pulling off a Ken Combo.
These three familiar archetypes should be seen in action by the end of this year, but the next five are fighters who remix various character styles and elements to hopefully create something brand new. One of them is a Weapon Fighter, so someone who uses something that isn’t a sword to fight. Personally, I’ve always wanted to see a lance or axe user in Smash, based off either Ephraim or Hector from Fire Emblem, so this should be the character many have been hoping for. Grappler is the next fighting archetype and we actually know a bit more about this one than just early design ideas. The fighter’s name is Xana and she is actually past the prototyping stage, with Wavedash attempting to take elements of characters like Donkey Kong from Smash, and melding it with traditional grappler characters like Potemkin and Zangief. With the best platform fighter characters being highly mobile, balancing a grappler so they can keep up with the speedier cast members will prove quite the challenge.
Next up is the Projectile Master, so the closest analogue would be a character like Snake or Samus in Smash, or maybe Morrigan in Marvel vs. Capcom. They rack up damage by zoning your opponent and limiting their approaches, before killing with a powerful charge move. So, imagine Morrigan’s Soul Fist pressure but with Samus’ Charge Shot to finish the stock. Following them is an archetype which can be equally annoying which is the Duo. Obvious comparisons here are the Ice Climbers and Rosalina & Luma, who can be the absolute bane of certain players. Wavedash are attempting to make playing against their Duo fighter as fun as playing with them, so expect no wobbling style technique in their platform fighter. I hope at least.
Finally, the last archetype of the starting eight is the Floaty. These are characters like Mewtwo or Peach who have low weights, low fall speeds and are adept at really slowing the pace of combat down in order to fit their gameplan. These are the polar opposites to your Space Animals, this archetype is all about defensive, distance based play. I’ll leave you to speculate on your possible ideas for how these characters may end up but make sure to comment on the video with your own ideas for a fighter you’d like to see in the finished game.
Source: Wavedash Games