Smashboards Creates: Battle of AGES, a SEGA platform fighter

[osby]

1. Tag Battle
2. Raid Boss

But honestly, all of these feel like they can be in

 

[tonygameman]

1. Wonderland Wars
2. Tag Battle

 

[Deleted member]

1. Tag Battle
2. Wonderland Wars

 

[Flyboy]

1. Wonderland Wars
2. Tag Battle

 

[Qwerty UIOP]

1. Raid Boss
2. Classic Mode

 

[Tankman from Newgrounds]

1. Classic
2. Custom Battle

 

[YoshiandToad]

1. Raid
2. Tag

 

[Speed Weed]

Allllllrighty then - results time!

Classic: 5 points
Tag: 14 points
Custom: 1 points
Raid: 4 points
Wonder: 6 points

And so, our first mode to come in a free update is Tag Battle!!!!! Congrats to uh....oh. Yeah.

....Anyway, it's finally time to cover the second character in Season 1! We did our fifth and final Sonic character, and now it's time for our other additional rep. But this time....

Job #216: Submit a base game series to give a second character to

Yep, we're doing this again!

There are plenty of series in our roster that could warrant a second rep, and when it comes to this stuff, I like doing thorough explorations, I like having the opportunity to dive deep into all these different options from a particular series. So we are, in fact, doing this again. So just submit a series from our roster that doesn't yet have a second character, and then we'll vote on the series, and then we'll do a job for a second rep from the winning series, and vote on them, and that shall be our next character!

Here are the available series for submission:

-Alex Kidd
-Sakura Wars
-Space Channel 5
-Fantasy Zone
-Skies of Arcadia
-NiGHTS
-Bayonetta
-Phantasy Star
-Puyo Puyo
-Shin Megami Tensei (counting other Megaten stuff in general)
-Super Monkey Ball
-The House of the Dead
-Shenmue
-Jet Set Radio
-Wonder Boy
-Shining
-Golden Axe
-Shinobi
-Virtual-ON
-Panzer Dragoon
-Ninja Princess

So we have quite the pool! Also worth noting that starting with DLC, all previously disconfirmed characters are back on the table. That should be it - have fun!

 

[Qwerty UIOP]

Golden Axe

 

[YoshiandToad]

My first submission in this thread was Alex Kidd, so my first 'second rep' DLC series is...unsurprising.

Here's some of the most notable characters in the series:

• Ashra: Main antagonist of Enchanted Castle, able to perform rock paper scissors moves and shoot his limbs off. Pretty neat. Probably a good grappler if we're honest. Grab game? We got that.
• Egle: Alex's big brother, king of Aries and knight protagonist of his own game Pit Pot. Pit Pot was adapted from the first game Alex Kidd creator and Phantasy Star planner, Kotaro Hayashida created, the unreleased Chain Pit.
• Janken the Great: Main antagonist of Miracle World, Ashra's father, Battle of Ages assist and capable of turning people into stone with his magic.
• Gooseka, Chokkina and Parpalin: The most famous characters from the series after Alex himself no doubt. Their heads can fly off as projectiles. Gooseka is a physical powerhouse who throws rocks (appropriately), Chokkina has mystical abilities and Parpalin is a heavyweight(at least in DX) who can summon lightning clouds.
• Stella: The 'Luigi' to Alex's Mario, Stella was Alex's sidekick in the arcade version of The Lost Stars. Fun fact: Ken Sugimori did some fanart of her. Appeared in the archie comics as Alex's sidekick, and she recently appeared on the Switch version of Sega Ages as a scorecard girl alongside Alex's Girlfriend from Alex Kidd in Shinobi World.

There's others, but I feel these are the chief contenders should Alex Kidd be considered.

 

[OrpheusTelos]

Job #216: Shin Megami Tensei

Oh wowee, the huge Megaten fan is submitting Megami Tensei for the second character job. Who coulda saw that coming? Jokes aside, Megaten is so massive and far-reaching that just focusing on Raidou and Devil Summoner is just barely scratching the surface of what this franchise has to offer. I really do feel like our Megaten representation could really benefit from having another DLC fighter, and there are no shortage of fun choices at our disposal. You’ve got your newer faces like Ringo and Nahobino, your legacy picks such as Demi-Fiend, Serph, or Nemissa, and even Jack Frost is back on the table if you’re into that. My personal preference would be for us to finally get a numbered mainline SMT rep like Nahobino or Demi-Fiend, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a truly bad choice for Megaten.

 

[osby]

Job #216: Phantasy Star

Nei is pretty cool but she barely scratches the surface of her series' roster and that's not even going into PSO. I think adding another fighter to this series would give us a chance to throw a bone to the Online part of the franchise. It also has a huge variety of characters, as expected from such a long-running JRPG series. You have protagonists like Rolf or Ethan, popular NPCs such as Elenor or Matoi and even an assortment of villains and monsters. I think there's a lot you can do with a second Phantasy Star fighter.

 

[tonygameman]

Re-submitting a certain series with slight adjusments.

Job #216: Secondary DLC Fighter from the Base Series - Virtual-ON

Virtual-ON's legacy/importance and how it paved the way to "arena fighters" is nothing to scoff at (much like how Virtua Fighter inspired 3D fighters like Tekken and Dead or Alive), all thanks to it's character designs, those sequels, merchandise like novels that bring out more interesting lore than you'll expect from gameplay alone and appearances outside the series in other SEGA games & even Super Robot Wars. There's also a very wide variety of other Virtuaroid mechas besides Temjin, who would work as fighters to accompany him, with various examples being:

• Fei-Yen - Fellow poster mech/mascot, who wields a beam rapier/bowgun-combo weapon and is very agile/fast, despite having weak armor/defense. She can also shoot Heart Beams to stun anyone hit by those heart-shaped projectiles. When her health drops below 50% or severely damaged, Fei-Yen will glow golden and enter the "Hyper Mode" state, gaining increased speed and attack damage (much like Terry's Desperation Move gimmick in execution, but only buffs her stats). Maybe her All-Star Move would involve her fellow "sister units", Angelan and Guarayakha, also designed after the "magical girl" trope and created by L'ln Plajiner?
• Apharmd - I know that his "Hatter" variant is an assist, but we're talking about his more well-known self who is probably a different character canon-wise. A soldier-based Virtuaroid, who is mainly suited for mid-to-close range combat, being equipped with modified dual tonfas called "Tongfers", which he can use to create gusts of wind and a close-range beam shotgun to blast opponents. Like Temjin, Apharmd is also armed with Power Bombs, which may sound like a ideal semi-clone pick.
• Raiden - A powerful and heavily-armored (allowing him to dish out lots of damage), yet slow Virtuaroid, who has plasma cannons hidden within his shoulders that fire huge laser blasts, a bazooka and can sacrifice his armor for a massive speed boost, as seen in Oratorio Tangram.
• Viper II/Cypher - One of the fastest Virtuaroids (with poor defense like Fei-Yen), Viper II/Cypher can shoot homing beams from the launcher on its chest, use its 7-way spread missile arm cannon as a laser blade and has the ability to transform into a fighter jet to ram into enemies.
• Specineff - A cursed, skeletal-like assassination Virtuaroid, who is quick and weak in speed/defense respectively, even wielding claws, a gigantic beam scythe/rifle (used for homing ghostly fireballs and scythe shockwaves), shuriken-shaped wings that he can throw at enemies and possesses a unique ability of disabling weapons. He can also make himself completely invincible for a short period of time when his damage is getting low by using his Death Mode (though in Virtual-ON, it lasts only for 13 seconds before immediately dying himself unless he defeats an opponent).
  • Would sound like a cool villain fighter, which I think we may lack a bit with only two of them, Doctor Eggman and Selvaria Bles themselves. And even the closest character we'll have for Ridley or even Castlevania's Death/Grim Reaper himself, both by size, alignment and personification. Trust me on that, guys.
• Angelan - A blue sorceress-like Virtuaroid, who uses her staff to control the element of ice, able to attack by shooting freezing beams, generating barriers and summoning floating ice pillars or giant dragons. Like her predecessor Fei-Yen, she has low defense and a comeback mechanic, which will grow angelic wings on her back that makes her more powerful and gives the ability to fly for a short period of time. She pretty much acts as a counterpart to Specineff's death-based motif.

 

[Deleted member]

House of the Dead

A classic Sega Shooter series. We have a character from the Zombie revenge spin off, but I think the series is long running enough to justify a second character. We could go for a human character like Agent G, Issac or Kate or a zombie / monster like the Megican

 

[KneeOfJustice99]

Allllllrighty then - results time!

Classic: 5 points
Tag: 14 points
Custom: 1 points
Raid: 4 points
Wonder: 6 points

And so, our first mode to come in a free update is Tag Battle!!!!! Congrats to uh....oh. Yeah.
View attachment 360347
....Anyway, it's finally time to cover the second character in Season 1! We did our fifth and final Sonic character, and now it's time for our other additional rep. But this time....

Job #216: Submit a base game series to give a second character to

Yep, we're doing this again!

There are plenty of series in our roster that could warrant a second rep, and when it comes to this stuff, I like doing thorough explorations, I like having the opportunity to dive deep into all these different options from a particular series. So we are, in fact, doing this again. So just submit a series from our roster that doesn't yet have a second character, and then we'll vote on the series, and then we'll do a job for a second rep from the winning series, and vote on them, and that shall be our next character!

Here are the available series for submission:

-Alex Kidd
-Sakura Wars
-Space Channel 5
-Fantasy Zone
-Skies of Arcadia
-NiGHTS
-Bayonetta
-Phantasy Star
-Puyo Puyo
-Shin Megami Tensei (counting other Megaten stuff in general)
-Super Monkey Ball
-The House of the Dead
-Shenmue
-Jet Set Radio
-Wonder Boy
-Shining
-Golden Axe
-Shinobi
-Virtual-ON
-Panzer Dragoon
-Ninja Princess

So we have quite the pool! Also worth noting that starting with DLC, all previously disconfirmed characters are back on the table. That should be it - have fun!

Okay, I may be overthinking this, but here's how I'm thinking of this job.
1. Are there other, interesting characters to include from this series?
2. Would these characters actually sell DLC (due to a combination of recognisability and coolness)?
3. Would they be fun to play and bring something unique to the table?

So with all that said, I'm submitting Jet Se-

Hear me out.

1. Yes! Whether you want to go the villainous route with Satan, the rival route with Draco, or an alternate take on Arle with Amitie, there's plenty of potential inclusions that would make sense.
2. Honestly, I don't see why not! Puyo Puyo is one of SEGA's bigger IPs these days, and has been around for long enough to become sort of a legacy series that's still relevant to this day.
3. I'd say for the most part, yes! Arle's mechanics still leave a lot of room for other parts of the series to be represented in different ways, plus there's unique abilities and such for plenty of characters.

Whilst I do think other series could bring more to the table, Puyo Puyo is still an important series in SEGA's history, plus it has the added bonus of only having one rep as of now - so another character would feel like a solid inclusion.

 

[Flyboy]

Job 216: Shining

Shining is a long-running RPG series by Sega that has a ton of great games with a ton of great characters. I think our last Shining round was a big hit, and while we have the classic games represented well in base roster, DLC is the perfect time to really splash out with some fantastic out-there choices from games like Shining Hearts, Shining Resonance, and more. I'm particularly fond of Agnum Bulletheart from Shining Resonance (a character who fights with a guitar!), or the various pirates from Hearts, or even the many great heroes and villains that have appeared in other games in the series. There's a lot to appreciate in this series and I think another deep dive is definitely warranted!

 

[Speed Weed]

Job #216: Sakura Wars

Sakura Wars is one of SEGA's most popular and successful franchises and is treated with a lot of reverence by them, so I think a second rep is definitely warranted. And indeed, there's a number of options here! You have the other main girls, for one: Erica is a very popular character, Gemini is a frequent suggestion in here and has a very neat contrast with Sakura, and Amamiya would represent the revival. There's also Ichiro Ogami, the main dude for most of the series, and who can be a dual swordfighter. I do also feel like the original Flower Division is iconic enough that you can get away with throwing another one of em in here. I think Sumire could be pretty cool, as a long-range naginata fighter with a very fun personality, but you could also do Maria as a sharpshooter, Kanna as a brawler, etc. There's also any number of other girls from throughout the series who could make for interesting submissions. There's a lot of potential here.

 

[Speed Weed]

Oki doki, voting time has begun!

Here are our options:

Golden Axe ( Qwerty UIOP )
Alex Kidd ( YoshiandToad )
Shin Megami Tensei ( OrpheusTelos )
Phantasy Star ( osby )
Virtual-ON ( tonygameman )
The House of the Dead (@Darkonedagger)
Puyo Puyo ( KneeOfJustice99 )
Shining ( Flyboy )
Sakura Wars (meeeeeeeee)

Vote for your top 3 picks - keep your own submission in third place if you're going to self-vote.

 

[Champion of Hyrule]

1. Sakura Wars
2. Phantasy Star
3. SMT

 

[osby]

Most of these can get interesting new fighters so I tried going for the ones that can benefit from different second characters without the choices being too obvious or few.

1. Shining
2. The House of the Dead
3. Phantasy Star

 

[KneeOfJustice99]

1. Phantasy Star. There's a lot that makes sense to represent here - be it other games in the main series, or even Phantasy Star Online - and with plenty of potentially unique picks, it makes a lot of sense to have.
2. Shin Megami Tensei. A bit of personal bias here, but SMT always has a lot of unique picks to pull from, and would likely sell DLC pretty well too. Whilst we do already have an SMT character and two Persona characters, there's still a lot of potential here.
3. The House of the Dead. Lowkey, I think this is a bit of a dark horse pick in a great way. There's plenty of potential for characters, unique movesets, interesting extra content - whilst I think Phantasy Star could do with "more content" and SMT has a massive amount of potential, The House of the Dead edges into third place for me.

 

[Tankman from Newgrounds]

1. Phantasy Star
2. SMT
3. Puyo Puyo

 

[Deleted member]

1. Phantasy Star
2. Sakura Wars
3. MegaTen

 

[Janx_uwu]

1. House of the Dead
2. Phantasy Star
3. Sakura Wars

 

[OrpheusTelos]

1. Phantasy Star
2. Shining
3. Sakura Wars

 

[tonygameman]

1. Phantasy Star
2. Alex Kidd
3. Virtual-ON

 

[YoshiandToad]

1. Phantasy Star
2. Sakura Wars
3. Puyo Puyo

 

[Qwerty UIOP]

1. Puyo Puyo
2. Golden Axe
3. Phantasy Star

 

[Flyboy]

1. Phantasy Star
2. House of the Dead
3. Shin Megami Tensei

 

[Speed Weed]

And it's officially time for the results! Let's take a look:

GA: 1 points
Kidd: 1 points
SMT: 7 points
PS: 28 points
V-ON: 1 points
HotD: 8 points
Puyo: 5 points
Shining: 5 points
SW: 9 points

And so, we have an absolute ****ing sweep. Ahead of the competition by nearly 20 points, we are finally getting a second Phantasy Star character!!!! Congrats to osby for getting his submission in!

Job #217: Submit a second Phantasy Star fighter

We shall now decide on our second Season 1 fighter, and that is of course our second PS rep. There's a ton of potential here, whether you wanna go with another classic character or an Online rep or a rep for Universe or Portable. It's one of SEGA's most storied and longest-running IP, so naturally There Is A Lot You Can Do Here. That said, it definitely doesn't have the same mainstream exposure as your Sonics or Yakuzas, so I encourage the less familiar people here to shoot your shot and dive deep for whatever pick sparks joy for you. I hope to see some cool picks pulled out, and uhhh yeah that should be it!

 

[OrpheusTelos]

Gonna resubmit Elenor for this round because she’s epic and I like her

Job #217: Elenor Camuel

View attachment 341218

Created by the eccentric Newman inventor Dr. Jean Carlo Montague, Elenor is an android in the RAcaseal class. Although she’s loyal to her creator, she yearns to go out into the world and make friends outside of Dr. Montague’s lab. She also possesses the ability of understanding MAGs, which are Phantasy Star Online’s collectable creatures in a similar vein to Chao in the Sonic Adventure games.

I feel like most people here are familiar with Phantasy Star’s uber-successful online side-series just as much as they are with the classic RPGs, but I cannot stress how important PSO is to the gaming landscape. While a handful of console games experimented with online capabilities prior to it, with some notable examples from Sega being Virtual-On, Daytona USA, and ChuChu Rocket (the latter of which would actually lay the foundation for how Sonic Team would approach development on PSO), PSO’s Dreamcast release would become the first fully online console RPG and become a major influence in the genre. It’s very likely that without the original PSO, series like Monster Hunter would not be what they are today. The game received a sequel in 2012 that is still going strong to this day, and even with the servers for the original game shutting down in 2010, dedicated fans are still enjoying it via private servers. Even if all the MMO JRPG hype is surrounding the critically acclaimed Final Fantasy XIV and its free trial these days, the impact PSO left on the gaming landscape cannot be understated, and it’s the main thing keeping the Phantasy Star franchise relevant in the modern day.

Alright, so why Elenor specifically out of PSO’s cast? I’m not really the best judge of who the most popular PSO characters are, but from what I could observe, she seems to be one of the more well-liked cast members. One of the DLC quests in the first game focuses on her and her twin sister, Ult. She also has quite a bit of merch, most notably a keyring strap as part of the Sega Girls line. I was torn between her and Rico Tyrell, another incredibly popular character from the first PSO who is arguably more relevant to the story. It was incredibly close between the two, but Elenor just barely beat Rico out because honestly, I find her potential playstyle to just be a bit more interesting. Also wow cool robot.

Being a part of the Ranger class, Elenor would primarily focus on firearm attacks, but there is a specific quirk that makes the android characters in PSO unique. Instead of being able to use magic, they have the ability to set traps. This could give Elenor a greater focus on stage control in her playstyle, similar to someone like Snake in Smash. You could also implement the MAGs into her moveset since she has a close association with them. Basically how they work in PSO is that you can equip one of them at a time and they’ll provide a stat buff to the player. The more they level up, the greater the increase to both the MAG’s and player’s stats. Also when the player takes damage, they can gradually charge up and unleash a powerful Photon Blast. This is something you’d have to tinker around with to make balanced, but it’s an option that makes sense for her to have.

tl;dr - wow cool robot

 

[osby]

Job #217: Ash/Sue (Phantasy Star Online 2)

While Phantasy Star Online usually avoids giving its protagonist defining traits in order to let players customize their avatar however they like, it still has two character templates that act as the "default" male and female protagonists of the game. Inspired by characters from the first PSO, Ash, and Sue are the two faces the protagonist can take. Ash is a Human Hunter while Sue is a Newman Fighter, which is used to highlight their fighting styles in various promotional material but they can switch to other classes and techniques available to players, as well.

Story-wise, the protagonist is a Meteorn, someone who fell to the planet Halpha in a capsule, along with many others. Missing their memories, they join the organization ARKS in order to protect the planet against ancient machines. While they are silent protagonists, they are nonetheless usually seen as dedicated overworkers who try to take the load off their colleagues.

While they are better-defined characters in the game, we so far shied away from heavily customizable fighters, which could be an interesting new ground since it would allow us to make use of all kinds of weapons and abilities PSO2 offers, as well as giving each alternate costume a completely different design, maybe even along with some SEGA collaboration cosmetics.

 

[Flyboy]

Job 217: Rico Tyrell (Phantasy Star Online)

Rico Tyrell, also called Red Ring Rico, is a major character in PSO, a scientist and skilled warrior with brains and weaponry. Tragically, her natural curiosity would also be her downfall, as Rico would stare into the void for far too long, eventually being influenced and ultimately mutated into Dark Falz, the final boss of many Phantasy Star games.

As a hunter, Rico would specialize in melee combat, with fists, swords, and daggers, as well as basic spells, but I think it's the Dark Falz connection that makes her a really interesting prospect. It's ultimately a very tragic story, her fate, so maybe it's a little callous to do, but I think being able to really run with the Dark Falz possession and give her some moves based on PSO's version of the recurring boss would be really interesting.

It was tough deciding on who to go for because the Phantasy Star series has a ton of major characters, and PSO2 especially just seems to have an awesome cast, but a combination of major story importance in PSO1 and a way to represent multiple aspects of the series stuck with me. Plus she's cute and I like her.

 

[YoshiandToad]

Job 217: Katori and Saga (Phantasy Star Online 2)

Katori: "I believe the greatest characteristic of the Soaring Blades is that they are so easy to use. Even someone as unskilled as I can use them."
Saga: "...It's great that you acknowledge your lack of skill, but don't say it when promoting our class."

Katori is a polite, silver tongued, elegant speaking Newman who will try to sales pitch the class to anyone who listens, however she also hates putting in any real effort to her own training and is notoriously lazy. She often claims she is a delicate lady and it is unreasonable for Saga to expect her to keep up with a fitness nut like him.
She weilds the Soaring Blades, a pair of gigantic blades that can shoot photon blade projectiles, spin around her to protect her, with plenty of combo potential. Their range is quite short however so placement would be important.

Saga meanwhile is a hard working CAST and is very strict about their training. However he often calls Katori out on her laziness and openly doubts she can be useful. Whenever Katori gets carried away too much in her sales pitches, he often has to drag her away by her collar, or tricks her into agreeing to his intense boot camp training.
He weilds the Jet Boots, a pair of bladed shoes that allow him to double jump, and hit hard and fast although with far more limited photon arts than Katori's Soaring Blades.

Together they showcase the highly mobile Bouncer Class; a physical class that was introduced in Episode 3, making them relatively newcomers.

Why these two in particular?
Their constant clashing personalities would allow for an entertaining pair of fighters who bicker and swap out with one another for certain moves. I'm imagining Katori being forced to be the main fighter by Saga as part of her training, whilst he'll jump in and drag her by the collar to perform recovery moves with his Jet Boots. Plus hearing Katori trying to convince all the other fighters to become a bouncer class rather than what they currently are percieved as (Fighter, summoner, hunter, gunner, etc) would be rather fun.

Katori actually beat Matoi in the Japanese 2015 NPC popularity poll in the women's category, and Saga came 2nd only to Huey in the men's category meaning they have got some fan favourite demand behind them too.
It's understandable; the duo are very entertaining when paired together constantly taking snipes at one another and snarking at the others attitude. Probably doesn't hurt that Katori is a cute futuristic shinobi and Saga is a cool robot(tm) though.

Lastly; Phantasy Star Online 2 is, of course, a MMO featuring team ups between multiple players...what better way to represent that then with a pair of characters teaming up?

Thank you for listening to my sales pitch dearest friends, I must go now before Saga finds m-

 

[KneeOfJustice99]

I'll admit I don't know the characters of Phantasy Star as well as others, but after a while of wiki-diving, I think this could be a good inclusion.

Character Name: Lashiec
Character Origin: Phantasy Star (1987)

Once a kind and benevolent leader of the proud kingdom of Algo, Reipard Lashiec was a man who spent his life serving his people - first as a Prime Minister, and as a High Priest, before taking the throne upon the death of Reipard Aures. For a time, all was well. Using his magical power as an Esper, he worked to solve the problems that did still plague Algo, but in his search, he came across a being in the form of evil itself, the Dark Falz. Corrupted by this power, Lashiec's rule became one of an iron grip of terror, with his own power bolstered by the unspeakable force he had unleashed.

Lashiec is one of the few antagonists from the Phantasy Star series with the dubious distinction of having appeared more than once. Two thousand years after his death, and the defeat of Dark Falz, he appeared once more as a zombie in Phantasy Star IV, and has since appeared as the sole antagonistic character from the Phantasy Star series in SEGA Heroes.

As for his moveset, I picture him being a powerful and heavy-hitting "dark sorcerer" type, though the Dark Falz within him essentially uses him as a puppet - a force that is indeed at play from time to time, but leaves Lashiec limp when outside of his body. The idea of a dark sorcerer with powerful mid-range tools is an interesting one we don't yet really have, and the introduction of a new antagonistic force is an interesting one in terms of character interactions and the like. However, his large amount of magical power comes at the cost of his close-up potential being limited and slow.

 

[Janx_uwu]

Kai (Phantasy Star Zero)

Kai is a rootin, tootin, gunblade-shootin' cowboy who won't back down from a fight. Now, to acknowledge the corn, there ain't a whole lot I can gather from the various wikis, but he is an hunter who often takes up a big brother kinda role for the party. With the aformentioned gunblade I imagine him to be a quite versatile character in AGES who could slice-and-dice up close or blow his opponents to smithereens from afar. He'd also be mighty fine at settin' up the other fighters with manipulatin' moves to shoot 'em like fish in a barrel. On the contrary, I imagine his fellow challengers would give him a whoopin' if they caught him at mid-range, when his blade nor his gun can do much of nothin'.

Now, why in tarnation would you vote for a character I could hardly find much info on, other than he's a pretty cool buckaroo? Well, I'm not quite positive on that front, but what I do know is that you'd be all down but nine to fail to understand why having a pioneerin' sharpshooter on our roster would be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

yes i'm using funny cowboy words to make up for my lack of phantasy star knowledge

 

[Speed Weed]

Alright, so realistically I do think SEGA would go for a PSO2 character - that, and we could use more recent characters in general. And there are plenty of great options here! But as tempted as I am to submit someone like Risa the trigger-happy robot girl, I do think the following character should be in the conversation. Introducing...

Job #217: Matoi

Matoi is a major NPC in PSO2, and one of its most notable characters. She's a young human girl with no memory of her past who was encountered by the protagonist and taken in as a member of ARKS. In truth, she's actually Klariskrays II, a member of an incarnation of ARKS' Council of Six, and who was presumed dead in a battle that happened ten years prior to the game. In the game's fourth chapter, she also becomes one of two people to hold the title of Guardian.

How would she fight? Well, Matoi's class in-game is Force, which are basically PSO's mages. So she does differentiate herself from Nei's claw combat by being more of a spellcaster. She's one of PSO2's most popular and prevalent NPCs, ranking 2nd in the above-mentioned JP popularity poll and oftentimes showing up in stuff like Puyo Puyo Quest or SEGA's 60th anniversary concert banner. All in all, she's a sensible pick that would help provide our roster with some newer blood and represent one of SEGA's biggest modern hits.

 

[Speed Weed]

Throwing in a tracklist for our Roommania stage

1. my love, marshmallow
2. Looking Up The Blue Sky
3. Octopus Daughter
4. Spiral Da-Hi!
5. Which One Of The Twins?
6. Starting Days
7. Hello Hello Nyariansu Ondo
8. God Help! ME !
9. Jagajogo (Panic!/Switch)
10. It Doesn't Really Matter (Metropolis Street Racer)

I do think we should try to do shorter tracklists from here on out, so I did mine with that in mind. Anyway, I threw in the obligatory iconic Serani Poji music, plus some cool tracks from the sequel. As for the two misc. tracks, Panic! is another weird sometimes-acknowledged SEGA game that Tomoko Sasaki worked on, and the Metropolis track was actually featured in Roommania itself. Also I've been listening to some old RadioSEGA archives lately and they play MSR music like every 5 seconds so. Yknow. It's on the mind

 

[Deleted member]

Kireek
An android known for his serious and calculated personality. He's an executioner for the criminal organization known as the Black Paper. He's also known by his moniker of the Black Hound. He wilds a scythe, something we don't often see in platform fighters. I think having a character who's more of a villian could be interesting, though Kireek is more morally complicated. From what I understand he's a pretty popular character.

 

[Speed Weed]

Oki doki it is finally voting time

Here are our options:

Elenor Camuel ( OrpheusTelos )
Ash/Sue ( osby )
Rico Tyrell ( Flyboy )
Katori and Saga ( YoshiandToad )
Lashiec ( KneeOfJustice99 )
Kai ( Janx_uwu )
Matoi (meeeeeee)
Kireek (@Darkonedagger)

Vote for your top 3 picks - keep your own submission in third place if you're going to self-vote.