"A fighting idol's life is tough. But I got my fans to think of."
Athena Asamiya, The Psychic-Powered Idol!
Who Is She?
Athena Asamiya is the protagonist of SNK's 1986 arcade classic, Psycho Soldier. In this first appearance, she's a Jpop Idol in training, with psychic powers that come from being a descendant of mythical hero Athena, who appeared in SNK's game of the same name earlier that year. In this first appearance, she's tasked with stopping a legion of evil creatures alongside Sie Knsou, but the two have since become more known as recurring characters in SNK's flagship title, The King of Fighters. She's since appeared in every instalment of the series and become one of it's most notable characters, playable in other SNK games such as SNK vs Capcom: Match of the Millenium, Capcom vs SNK 2, and SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy. In 1999 she even received her own game on the Playstation, Athena: Awakening from the Ordinary Life. In this entry, Athena's powers have just activated, and she has to find out how she really received them and how they're connected to the government agency of Tantauls.
What Can She Bring to Smash?
Athena's psychic powers bring along a lot of potential. In Psycho Soldier, her main attack was the ability to shoot psychic bolts, and in the King of Fighters series, she can concentrate all of her psychic energy on her limbs, allowing her to make her attacks more powerful. In the former entry, she also has the ability to create a psychic shield around herself that hurts opponents. Her most powerful ability, one that would translate well to a Final Smash, is to transform temporarily into a giant bird that can devastate anything in it's path. Of course, this would all be meaningless in a fighting game if she couldn't actually fight, and she can. Athena is proficient in Kung Fu, preferring to focus on agility rather than offensiveness, and can easily hold her own ground.
Stage, Music, And Everything Else
Stage
No stage feels more worthy of being able to represent both Athena and the entire KoF franchise at the same time than Osaka at Noon from King of Fighters '96! The road below the overpass could be made part of the level, while the omega/battlefield form is more similar to it's original appearance. Plenty of SNK fighters, from series reps like Kyo and Iori to Athena's own allies, Sie Kensou and Chin Gentsai, could make cameo appearances cheering the fighters on.
Seeing as she's a Jpop Idol, it'd be a crime to not include Athena's vocal theme! Reeking of the 80s, Athena's theme first appeared in Psycho Soldier with both English and Japanese language versions. It was later packaged with the Famicom release of Athena on cassette, and was used as her theme in King of Fighters '94, '96, '97, and 2002.
Athena, in the nature of SNK's franchises, has had a multitude of costumes over the years. Given Nintendo's penchant for giving DLC characters unique alternate costumes, I think these two would be a good fit:
King of Fighters '98 - This costume is Athena's most popular one. This is the one used most often in crossovers, and was picked to represent her retro costume in the most recent instalment, King of Fighters XIV.
King of Fighters 2000 Striker - Based on the armour worn by Athena's ancestor of the same name in her game, this costume would represent this deep cut nicely. She had another, more skimpy alternative in SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy, but this one feels a little more fitting for a game like Smash.
