What game are you talking about in particular? First thing comes to mind, for me at least, is Terry and Mai being in SF6 - personally I think it was a mistake lol
On that note vice versa for Ken and Chun-Li being in City of the Wolves.... Like come on, man.

All of them really. It was cute in Soul Calibur 2 but that's it. After that it quickly became a gimmick to squeeze easy money out of casual plebs who don't care otherwise. What spurred me venting about it in print today was learning the new Garou Season 1 DLC has "no plans at this time to sell the base game and Season Pass 1 individually". This basically means I'm not playing City of Wolves until they do sell characters separately which is a bummer because I was looking forward to that one.

Aaaah, I see I see. Really the only two times where I GENUINELY was interested in guest characters was Kratos in Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny and Kratos again in Mortal Kombat 9 - yes, I am biased lol. Other than that I never really cared for guest fighters and as the years went on, I saw it as a waste of space for other characters that were in the franchise but got taken out of consideration simply because of the popularity of a character outside the franchise. Now yes, "But Snacker, you were hype for Akuma in Tekken 7?" Yes I was but, now I feel like it was pretty unhealthy for the game.... Which is deeeefinitely was lmao

When you're a fan of a character specifically it's hard not to get excited when they get some love. But yeah, by all accounts I hear Tekken 7's "Akuma meta" was pretty godawful. XD

I'm indifferent to it personally. I mean we already have MUGEN where people can just put in characters from everywhere, and people mod Smash Bros and Rivals of Aether to do the same.

I'd love if crossovers were kept to crossover games. Makes sense there. =T

Same, but then Rivals of Aether isn't a crossover game. Doesn't stop people from modding in Ronald Mcfuckingdonald to beat up the furry OC roster. :V

Was referring more to Smash in that comment. Sorry to say I have no idea what Rivals of Aether is. X3

It's a fighting game on Steam that plays like Smash Bros, but the cast is wholly original and they're all furries. The original game is very modible and people often put in weird custom characters for it like Ronald Mcdonald. So it's basically Smash Bros but also MUGEN.

It means two less characters that are original or in some series a return in a new light (specially if they're not used for a long time). One offs are one thing but this contuing trend reeks of live service limited time crossovers.

Doesn't it though? That's my biggest gripe you said right there. Those slots wasted on novelty characters to squeeze extra cash out of fair-weather players could have been used on returning regulars or making something new. Either way, it's a healthy move for the property which long time fans have an investment in. But naw, forget that. We need that Spawn money or whatever.

Yes I know about the latest City of the Wolves and it still bugs me like really Ken and Chun-Li but not the other Kim Brother (Jae Hoon) or Hokutomaru. I'm happy to see Mista Beeg (KoF'96 Announcer), but what does having TWO Capcom characters have to do with Garou....argh because of the paid crossover is all I can think (contracts etc).

For whatever it's worth, I think they still have to reveal three more characters for the base roster and I know a lot of people are expecting the rest of the OG MotW cast (other than Grant) to fill it out. But man...old Scott Steiner-looking Mr. Big is a HUGE and very pleasant surprise. Those two guest slots could have been spent n any number of awesome Fatal Fury characters. Yamazaki, Raiden, Blue Mary, Rick Strowd, Duck King...that's not even looking at possible Art of Fighting characters. God, such a waste. -.=.-

Xiangfei, Bob Wilson, Franco Bash, heck no love for Hon-Fu who was a great Jackie Chan nod not Lei Wulong XD

I know you and I have talked about this at length in your streams, but I figured I would put my opinion in this public venue, too, since you've invited me to do so. :P

If the guest integrates into the game's setting without getting too fantastical, I'm generally okay with it. Off the top of my head, the only character who's really managed this without already being from the source company (like Ryo "guesting" in Fatal Fury Special) is Ezio Auditore's appearance in Soulcalibur V, since they're both historical fiction. It's when the game puts its hands on its hips and playfully gripes, "Oh, look at that, a time/dimensional portal opened up and now Nicole-458 from the Halo series is here in Dead or Alive!" that I roll my eyes at the practice. Or when they're there "just because", like Gon in Tekken 3, or Cole, Toro and Kuro in Street Fighter X Tekken.

Mortal Kombat's probably been the worst about this lately. MK9, Freddy getting in was... okay, I guess it's a cute one-time thing. But then they just kept leaning into it and it's like, "Enough already." Makes it funny that now Warner Bros. wants out of the video game biz, since they probably spent buttloads on those licenses and actor likenesses in the first place.

I can totally get behind this reasoning because there's a logic and consistency to it. I may hate Robocop in Mortal Kombat on principle but past that we both agree he makes no sense there. Conversely, I can concede something like Terry being in Street Fighter is FAR less grievous. X3

And then you have stuff like Fred Durst self-inserting into that WWE title and the Fight Club game, which is just weirdly narcissistic lol

But by the same token, this means you can make Fred Durst your punching bag, so... bonus???

Yeah, mean, I know I've seen the likes of Clive n Noctis end up in Tekken games, though I'll definitely agree, I dislike how it takes you out of it, granted, not a fighting game expert, but I found it equally annoying in games like Warriors Orochi, having Ninja Gaiden n DoA characters in it as guests. (even if they're at least still owned by Koei.) or like the NieR stuff in FFXIV, just... idk, something about the aesthetic shift at times *really* ends up annoying me, so I end up disliking it. xD

Hey, don't need to be an expert to think a character is ridiculously out of place as a guest or be frustrated that a more deserving character got a chance. X3

fair, hehe, think the only one I liked, was Clive in Tekken, and that was purely for his interaction with Reina, resulting in Clive being confused over what cosplay is, since us in the FF community remember that time Ben Starr dressed himself up as Tifa. so it's doubly amusing.

Admittedly, I get where you're coming from. I remember back in the 2000s when it was a huge thing that each version Soul Calibur 2 had a different guest character, but these days all 3 would slowly be added as DLC.

Yeah, that first time was kind of fun, but mostly because Link in a fighter was rad for the time. It's gotten so out of hand though.

The biggest downside is we don't get the wacky joke characters we get in MUGEN.

Does Mortal Kombat count?

Mortal Kombat is, in my opinion, the absolute worst offender of this habit by a mile. XD