Job #106 - Arcade Character: Rikiya Busujima from Zombie Revenge/The House of the Dead
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So first things first, a quick summary of House of the Dead:
If you have enough of an interest in SEGA to participate in this thread, then I'd honestly be very surprised if you'd never heard of House of the Dead. Among SEGA's stable of properties, it stands out as one of their most iconic and popular properties that aren't, like, Sonic/Megami Tensei/Yakuza/Puyo/Phantasy Star/Sakura Wars-level big. Having graced us with zombie shooty since the 90s, it spans multiple games, helped usher in the light gun shooter revival of the 90s along with other franchises like Time Crisis and SEGA's very own Virtua Cop, is about to get two remakes, has made consistent appearances in SEGA crossovers, and was even big enough to get its own ****ty live-action movie. So yeah, pretty big! And when looking at this roster and the series that aren't in yet, I'd absolutely put HotD among the ones that have Gotta Be In.
Particularly relevant to here, however, is the fact that House of the Dead actually has quite the amount of spinoffs with followings of their own. There's Typing of the Dead, House of the Dead: Overkill, Loving Deads, and probably the least remembered of all of these:
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So just what the hell is Zombie Revenge and who the hell is Busujima for that matter?
Zombie Revenge is a 3D beat-em-up that was released by SEGA in 1999 for the NAOMI arcade board and later the Dreamcast too - there was also a PS2 port in the works that got canned. The story revolves around a goverment experiment to "recycle" the dead for military purposes, nicknamed "U.D.S.", standing for "Undead Soldiers" (the above flyer isn't the most accurate). It doesn't quite pan out. Suddenly, one year later, a zombie outbreak is unleashed upon the city, with no one knowing where it came from. And as such, it's up to three AMS agents - Stick Breitling, Linda Rotta and our man Busujima - to save the world and figure out who's behind this.
Rikiya himself is a Japanese agent of the Home Office Special Affairs Division with a mysterious past, who employs his own style of "Busujima martial arts" in battle. Despite what his appearance and fighting style might suggest, he's actually the most collected of the trio (an example of this is when (ZR ending spoilers)
Stick begins to feel shame over his father's actions and the role they played in the main villain's motivations, Busujima immediately tells him not to worry about it and that it's in the past. What a bro!). He also seems to not fear death and have the ability to sense evil in others, and the bizarre implants in his body and the properties of some of his moves have led some to theorize that he might actually be a cyborg of sorts.
Zombie Revenge can basically be described as a House of the Dead game, but with the gameplay of something like Spikeout or Dynamite Cop instead of the series' traditional rail shooter gameplay. So you don't just shoot the zombies, you also get to beat the
** outta them! Honestly...this game fascinates me. It's such an interesting part of the franchise's history and it's got some genuinely really cool stuff. This era of SEGA arcade games had a lot of cool weird **, and Zombie Revenge is the perfect representation of that.
Though.....why pick Busujima as the HotD rep for this game? I understand that having such a relatively obscure character represent the franchise seems like a hard sell, so I'll try my best to explain why he'd be my personal choice:
So first of all, unlike the rest of the franchise, Zombie Revenge is a beat-em-up. Which means that any characters from the game would have an easier time transitioning to a fighting game. While I do believe that the mainline characters
can be brought over to a fighting game, it just so happens that we have an alternative option that fits in more. But even then.....the game's cast is pretty damn obscure. At that point, wouldn't it just be more worth it to go for someone from another part of the franchise anyway? Well, yeah, I'd say that would be the case....for Stick and Linda. But not my man Rikiya. For two reasons:
A. Compared to the other two members of the trio who frankly aren't super interesting....Rikiya is
cool as . And I think it's that "cool" factor to him that makes it so that even if he isn't the most recognizable character in the series, he's at least justifiable as a "fun deep cut" sorta pick. Characters like Nei, Selvaria and Raidou were fantastic choices IMO because they were really fun characters that gave this roster a distinct spice and clearly came from a place of love for SEGA's stable of characters - and Rikiya I think is a fantastic example of the kind of super cool characters we can go for under this mindset. Overall, I feel like even if he isn't the most well-known HotD character, he still makes for a fun left-field pick and he has enough of a cool and standout design to make people that pick up this hypothetical game but don't know him go "bro who the is this dude he looks cool as **".
B. And even if he's not the most recognizable HotD character...he's honestly the only character from Zombie Revenge specifically that I still see people talk about. Like, there have been occasions where I brought him up in places that aren't really dedicated SEGA fan circles or anything (including this very website) and it shocked me to see some people actually recognize him. That's not to say that he's this ultra-iconic superstar, because he isn't, but I think the fact that he's, again, pretty much the only ZR character people still remember does help him! Even if the story and some of the marketing gave off the impression of trying to push Stick as The Main Dude, at this point it's pretty safe to say Busujima has basically become the "face" of Zombie Revenge - well, as much of a face as you can be for a game like this anyway. Zombie Revenge very much employs the "guy/girl/wildcard" dynamic of other SEGA games, and in that sense, Busujima is kinda like the equivalent of, say, Gilius Thunderhead or Scooter from Alien Storm - technically not the
main main character, but definitely the coolest, most distinct and most memorable one.
Next point: moveset potential. In my honest opinion, Busujima would have the coolest moveset of any potential House of the Dead character. Of course, he has martial arts as we've already discussed, but he can also pull off some real flashy and over-the-top ****. Not only is there the usual punches and kicks, as you'd expect, but he also has some ki attacks where he sends out energy blasts, a couple of which can do such things as make you explode or set you on fire. He can also perform leglocks. So yeah, pretty cool. But that's barely scratching the surface. If you've been paying attention, you'll remember that Zombie Revenge is a beat-em-up. And what do beat-em-ups have?
Pickup items. And this game in particular has a really good arsenal to pull from. So if we also pull from this, which I don't think there's any reason for us to not do so, besides the regular handgun which he already could use, Busujima now also has access to such things as
dual handguns, machine guns, guitar cases that somehow shoot out bullets (I'm assuming there's machine guns inside of them but I don't think that's ever been officially confirmed), shotguns, flamethrowers, hatchets, drills, grenades, landmines, tasers, chain guns, laser guns, etc. So yeah - a lotta moveset potential there. And the general concept of an over-the-top martial artist who also has an entire arsenal of (mostly) firearms at his disposal sounds like it could make for an
incredible moveset.
Though there is another problem - Busujima comes from a spinoff, so he might not be the best representation of what HotD really has to offer, right? Ehhhhh, I think he still does a pretty good job, all things considered, because Zombie Revenge isn't
drastically different from the mainline HotD stuff in terms of tone and premise. It definitely has its own style, but it
can still be accurately described as just HotD but you can also punch the zombies. It has just as much spooky, just as much shooty, and yes, it even features the same brand of absolutely beautiful voice acting. It does also have some overt connections - it's been mentioned before that the main trio are all agents of the AMS, but even besides that, the game's penultimate area is actually just Dr. Curien's mansion. So he still works well in that regard, because he comes from a part of the franchise that has enough in common with the mainline games to feel like it still represents the franchise pretty well, while also doing something cooler than your average HotD protagonist.
Which kinda leads us to another thing. HotD is in a bit of a state of quandary as far as potential representation goes, in that there are often these extremes of "character that represents the series very well but isn't that interesting" and "character that would be fun but is so far out of what the series is generally all about that they don't make much sense as the first rep". And while I do think stretching the "proper gameplay representation" rubberband too far can end up blocking off some really fun ideas, I also think you shouldn't stray
too far from what the series generally has to offer for your first rep. Rikiya is one of the more "underground" HotD candidates that I feel strike a nice balance. There are others that could also do this - such as the Magician, for example, who I've also submitted before - but I really like the way Busujima does it in particular, in that he sort of plays with and spices up the general "guy with gun" archetype you'd expect from Residence of the Deceased protagonists. By still, at his core, being A Guy With A Gun, he's still fundamentally showcasing the usual mold of HotD protagonists in a way and thus still reps HotD properly - but by at the same time also being a crazy kung-fu cyborg man who can throw explosive punches and pull out flamethrowers, he's very much the kind of character we can go for if we just want to have fun with our picks. He's cool.
And now here's one last thing - and I believe this point in particular is very important and is the main thing that launches him into being a legitimate contender for the House of the Dead spot:
SEGA haven't forgotten about him. Yes - despite coming from an obscure-ass spinoff that never got any sequels, SEGA somehow still acknowledge this man's existence. The most notable example of this is probably his surprise appearance as a solo unit in the first Project X Zone, which I imagine is where most of the familiarity with him comes from. And in addition to that, there's also his appearances in SEGA's 60th anniversary celebrations. First off, remember that absolutely huge collection of pfps SEGA pushed out in celebration of this event?
Of the three House of the Dead icons, Busujima is one of them, with the other two being boss zombies from the franchise. So of all the human characters, he's the one they picked. In addition, I managed to find this tweet that has a big-ass collection of characters in celebration of their 60th, and guess who's there representing HotD--
Now, is this to say that Rikiya is actually the face of the franchise, or that he's somehow more important than G or Curien or whoever? No, because, well, he really isn't. However, the fact that he was consistently chosen as a representative for the series in a milestone celebration that SEGA made a huge deal out of does show that he's at least a viable choice if we want to have some more unconventional picks here and there. What this shows is simply that were Battle of AGES to be a real game made by SEGA, he could legit end up on their radar for inclusion.
So TL;DR:
-Comes from a part of the franchise that gives him an easier time transitioning to a fighting game, while also making for a fun deep cut and being pretty much the only character that's still talked about from said part of the franchise
-Insane moveset potential
-Despite coming from a spinoff, it's a spinoff that has enough in common with the mainline stuff that he still does a good job at showing what the series is ultimately all about
-Strikes a pretty nice balance between the things you'd want to look for in a HotD rep
-SEGA themselves still remember him
-He has a sick afro
So there we go! That's my galaxy-sized essay on why this obscure House of the Dead character should get in a fighting game that doesn't even exist. I
will get this man in and you cannot stop me.
Oh yeah, it's also worth mentioning that Zombie Revenge had a couple alts for each character, so on top of all this, he's also got some snazzy alt potential:
