Kids WB Create a Roster

 

As a Quick Introduction to this blog, I am a huge fan of the Build the Roster Series by Thorgi's Channel on Youtube, and was challenged to make one of these in his format. Definitely go check out his awesome videos if you like this, and let me know if you'd like to see more blogs like this!

Cartoons have had a long history of fighting games, ranging from decent to pretty embarrassing, but with recent breakout successes like Nick All-Star Brawl fueling the fire behind the concept, I think we can start to see more of these in the near future. Lately Warner Bros has been a long topic in the cartoon community with the recent company shakeups after the merger with Discovery and that brings us to today's topic, what if we decided to make an All-Star Brawl style game for WB’s original Cartoon Channel, Kids WB! Now I know it’d be downright weird for them to make a fighting game celebrating a now obscure and dead cartoon channel that hasn’t been heard from in almost 20 years, but hey, Childhood Nostalgia is on the rise for the Kids WB Era, and with Cartoon Network’s last attempt at a fighting game not going over so well, Maybe a similar game that appeals to a slightly different audience would be crazy enough to work!

Now the first thing to consider here is Roster Size, Nickelodeon All-Star Battle Royal launched with 25 characters, while Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion launched with 26 giving us a good foundation for the rough size that one of these network fighting games should be. Between the 2 numbers, I think due to CN’s closer association with Kids WB, as well as the OH SO WB Behavior of wanting to slightly 1up their competition like savages, I think it's safe to say they’d go with the 26 number just to offer more bang for their buck then their Nick counterpart.

Now as for the story of this game Kids WB Presents an interesting challenge with the clashing tones of its various series, featuring lots of goofy comedy cartoons with animal characters, as well as a lot of darker and gritty superhero action shows, and pretty much everything in between. For this reason We will be taking notes from the Marvel VS Capcom franchise in terms of writing, as they had to perform a similar balancing act merging the heroes of Marvel Comics with a wide variety of Video game series that could be far more or less dark and make it work. As such the game will focus on an antagonist from one of this forgotten networks series’, in the distant future reigniting conflict here, merging universes together as he wages war across time trying to conquer the Kids WB Multiverse during its prime to prevent the network from being absorbed by CN. But who would this villain be? Well I have the perfect one in mind, and that is None other than Imperiex, the primary antagonist of the extremely popular but unfortunately short lived Legion of Superheroes cartoon, one of the last series Kids WB aired. As an all powerful and very dark villain from the distant future, he's the perfect choice to create such a plot.

Kids WB’s series can basically be broken down into 4 Key Types, Looney Tunes shows, which are either reruns of Looney Tunes, or new shows that take place in the same universe. DC Comics Shows, which are shows based off of DC Comics in some way. Kids WB originals, which is any show they made themselves that Isn’t connected to DC or LT, and Anime which is just Japanese media they paid to have dubbed and aired. And On that topic I am sorry, but I just don’t think it's realistic for a game like this to have the anime characters. I tried to justify it in my head but ultimately a Game like this would be made by Warner Bros. to advertise Warner Bros stuff first and foremost, and not only do they Not own the rights to these anime characters but I would find it hard to believe companies like Nintendo, Konami and Toei would be willing to lend them out for this purpose without demanding way too much money. So with that in mind let’s get into the roster!

1: Superman (DCAU): This was not a hard call, I mean you got a multiversal crisis heavily involving DC Comics, this looks like a job for Superman! But beyond that Superman: The Animated Series was a huge deal, first Airing on Kids WB and being the first DCAU series to do so, and it was on this they ended up building their DC Animated Universe Franchise, even adjusting the continuations of Batman: TAS to match IT’s style. Superman, even just the DCAU version, is iconic and still gets tons of content today and is easily someone that WB would want to use, having well known and iconic powers, and while we would have the DCAU Superman as the default form, we would also have his design from Legion of Superheroes Season 2 as an alternate skin to better tie into the Imperiex plot. Superman would be a very beginner friendly character, much like he is in the Injustice Series, being pretty good at basically everything, but not the best at any of those, making him easy to pick up, but difficult to master.

2: Pinky & The Brain: When Kids WB First premiered in 1995 it started out with exactly 4 series, I’ll talk about the other ones further down trust me, but probably the biggest one to talk about here is Pinky & The Brain. After being spun off from the larger Animaniacs series, the duo were the first Steven Speilberg cartoon to debut on Kids WB, and basically became their iconic cash cow Icon characters for what remained of the 90s, having a long and successful run and even getting new content as recently as last year, so yeah they kinda just had to be here. As for how they’d play, I see Brain modifying his classic humanoid robot suit for battle in an attempt to use the chaos of the event as an opportunity to take over the world. I Take notes from Eyedol from the most recent Killer Instinct game, a two headed monster where you can swap between which head is in control, with each one possessing a different skillset giving the player access to different moves. This would be perfect here with the Player able to swap between whether Pinky or Brain is driving the suit at the time, Brain with more precision attacks while Pinky has more chaotic AOE ones. And for a supermeter they would be in perfect sync, a state that briefly gives the player access to the moves of both of them at once to allow for more advanced combos for a short time.

3: Batman (The Batman): Another pretty clear pick, you have Superman, you gotta have Batman too, that's just a no-brainer. But what wasn’t a no-brainer is which Batman to use here. DCAU Batman is the more iconic here, but considering that Batman: The Animated Series was a Fox Kids Network series that Kids WB only showed in Reruns, the Fact that we are already going to have quite a few DCAU Characters in this roster, and the tragic death of DCAU Batman's voice actor in recent years, I Felt it was probably best to go with the version from the more recent and sometimes overlooked The Batman series, but having said that, of course we would include DCAU Batman as an alt skin, would be a missed opportunity not to. But just because it's less Iconic doesn’t mean The Batman is a slouch, this series is very long standing in its own right, and is praised heavily for its high tech and gothic style and grit by fans to date, having a comparable amount of content to DCAU Batman post TAS, including 5 seasons and a really critically acclaimed crossover movie with Dracula. Batman would be a grappler style fighter who has the ability to set up traps using his various gadgets to allow him to control the area and get in close and land some straightforward and powerful combos. To balance him out he would have a relatively low amount of HP compared to most characters, making him a high risk, high reward style fighter that benefits those who strategize.

4: Freakazoid: Freakazoid is a character who fits this game to a T, as a Crazy parody superhero character who was made by the same studio behind Animaniacs and Pinky and The Brain, He does a really good job at bridging the Gap between the Looney Tunes and DC Characters to make the game that much more cohesive! He is also very iconic to the Kids WB Brand, also being one of the 4 series that the network debuted with and Airing his entire series exclusively on the network. Freakazoid would be a very fast rushdown style character who uses a lot of random attacks that neither the opponent nor the player would really be able to predict, basically being designed as a character who acts like you are button-mashing whether you are or not. There would be a science to him, but it would be the most complicated on this list to figure out, but he also wouldn’t be that much worse if you had no idea what you are doing.

5. Omi: Xiaolin Showdown was THE Big Kids WB Cash Cow of the 2000s, being basically the big series that it was pushing and the one that I and all my friends were into from it at the time, so of course we had to include their lovable and iconic mascot, who they used the crap out of in the ads, Omi in this roster. As a Master Martial Artist Xiaolin Monk who has Hydrokinetic powers, it's not too difficult to give Omi a moveset for a fighting game. I could see him being a Shoto style fighter with some Aerial Combat traits mixed in to account for his love of jumping and leaping style attacks. For a Super Move I would think a good one would be to have the other monks show up and do the Dragon X Kumei Formation to give him a brief power boost and access to his Wudai Weapon. But I think one of the most fun things to do is have him carry several Wu into battle with him for him to use as a way to really show off why his series was so cool. Give him an Ice Projectile with the Orb of Tornami, have him able to armor himself or turn invisible using the Two Ton Tunic and Shroud of Shadows respectively, you can get really creative with it! But another huge aspect of this pick, we really gotta have fun with the character interactions, like can you imagine Omi, who Does NOT understand slang, interacting with a bunch of meta, wisecracking 90s characters?

6. Static Shock: Another really big superhero series that came out and aired on Kids WB was Static Shock, which was an extremely important series at the time that a lot of people are quite fond of, and was eventually properly incorporated into the DCAU after its second season. Due to his main character status, interesting powerset and importance to Diversity in cartoons at the time, I think Vergil more than earns his place as one of the few DCAU characters to feature here. I see Static being more of a Zoner/Traps style character, not being known for his close quarters combat, instead using his saucer to play keepaway from the opponent as he fills the screen with electric attacks. He’d be a very dangerous character at a distance, but would have limited options if the opponent actually got close on him.

7. Phantom Girl (Legion of Superheroes): Speaking of DC, if our main villain is Imperiex from Legion of Superheroes, we need to have some other characters from that series in this game involved in this plot to help explain what's going on and have some personal investment. After doing a lotta research on the members of that show and looking into the popularity in the fanbase, I eventually settled on Phantom Girl as the best option. Tinya is one of the most prominent and popular characters in the series, being the daughter of the president, having an interesting character and also some of the most unique powers both for her own series and this roster, basically having the powers of a ghost. Her being in some control over the Phantom Zone also makes her one of the best equipped characters to apprehend Imperiex after he is beaten. With her phasing, Tinya would be somewhat of a tank style character who specializes in parries and grabs, using her intangibility power to protect her from attacks and capitalize on it afterwards. Her shortcoming is the player cannot get too greedy or reckless with this move or she will get punished hard.

8. Rikochet: Mucha Lucha! Would be a fantastic series to represent here, not only is it one of the biggest and most iconic series that Kids WB made in the 2000s, up there with Xiaolin Showdown, but it is almost MADE to be turned into a fighting game. Being a series set in a world full of Luchadors who possess shapeshifting abilities that allow them to perform unbelievable signature attacks, making a moveset out of these is a cakewalk. Of the characters in the series, It's a pretty safe bet to go with the main character Rikochet, who even in universe, is the basic definition of a Rushdown character who is able to clear distance quickly and deal numerous consecutive hits with his flashy special moves like the Spinning Top and the Pulverizing Pinball. He’d really just be a very fun addition to the cast, ready to face all these new powerful opponents in the ring.

9: Jack Spicer: This roster mostly has a lotta heroes and anti-villains so far so I think it's high time we had another Villain in this list, and there is NO Villain that Kids WB seemed to love more than Jack Spicer, a man they used in their advertisements for Xiaolin Showdown so much, a poll once found that a very large portion of their audience actually thought he was the main character! Anyway Jack is a really fun character and would work well in an evil scientist role against various DC characters, while showing off how much more over the top cartoony he is. He’d be a very gadget based fighter who focuses on zoning, who is able to summon Jackbots, fly with his copterpack, and set various traps. I would also wanna see for a super move, him to pull out his Iconic Monkey Staff, allowing him a significant boost in melee combat for the duration, temporarily removing his big weakness.

10. Drix (Ozzy & Drix): I went back and forth with using the Ozzy & Drix series in this list, we’ve had size disparities in Fighting Game adaptations we’ve had to settle before, but the cast of this series is literally Microscopic! That said, considering how iconic this series was at the time and how it was a Kids WB exclusive, on top of how Surprisingly well it lends itself to a fighting game adaptation, I ultimately Decided it was worth adding a shrinking/growing aspect to the reality warping plot for the sake of including them. Anyway, I decided to go with Drix here despite Ozzy being the main character, as I feel like Drix just has more potential for a move set, and we already have quite a few main characters in the roster so this helps make the roster more interesting and varied. Drix would primarily be a Zoner character using his primary weapon, his giant arm cannon. This thing can fire a wide variety of different ammo with various effects, making Drix play similar to Samus Aran or Megaman from the Smash series. Drix would also be distinct from other Zoners by having a very high amount of HP, but limited mobility.

11. Jackie Chan: Another very popular action series from Kids WB is Jackie Chan adventures, Surprisingly being one of their longest running series at 95 episodes, despite its fluctuating quality. The obvious choice for what character to pick here is Jackie, yeah he’s another main character, but the show's GIMMICK is that it stars famed Martial Artist, Jackie Chan, so it’s arguably the most appropriate time to have the main character. My idea for how Jackie would play is similar to my idea for Omi, a largely Shoto style martial arts based fighter who performs special moves using various Talismans. We of course would have Jackie use talismans with very different effects to the Wu we give Omi for variety, but yeah I REALLY wanna see a Wu vs Talisman fight in this game like all the kids I went to school with did, even the interactions would be really funny as we can have Jackie pull his classic “It belongs in a Museum'' Line in response to the Wu. Just because it would be funny I wanna give Jackie an alt skin of his Evil self when split with the tiger talisman just for the interactions…..actually screw it, give Omi a skin of his evil self too! Let’s get nuts!

12. The Flea: with how Iconic and well suited to this it is, I felt that Mucha Lucha was one of the series that most deserved having more than one slot in the Base Roster. The Flea is one of the three main characters of the series alongside Rikochet and serves as the primary comic relief character, ending up being used a lot in Kids WB’s ads as a result. Unlike other Luchadors, the Flea does not rely entirely on his shapeshifting but also his extremely foul odor in combat, which would do great at differentiating him from Rikochet as his moves would focus more on grappling and smell based projectiles. We’d also give him a higher HP than Rikochet due to the absurd and comical amount of abuse he takes in the show, including continuing to fight without half of his internal organs inside of him as a plot point once.

13 & 14. Sylvester & Tweety: I’m tackling these two characters at once as the reasons they are included are fairly similar. One of the 4 series that the Kids WB network debuted with was Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, which aired exclusively on Kids WB for its full duration and was the most successful piece of new Looney Tunes content the network featured, basically making them THE most appropriate Looney Tunes characters to represent the network. Now in terms of how they would play, they would basically be polar opposites. Sylvester would be all attack, plenary of Rushdown pounces, scratches and using traps to attack which would be very aggressive, but also somewhat telegraphed and punishable. Tweety on the other hand would be a counter focused character, acting completely unaware he’s even in a fight but having moves that seem to damage the target by complete accident such as stepping on loose floorboards or knocking over things, making him more of a spacing character and weirdly enough somewhat of counters to each other.

15 & 16. Hawkgirl and John Stewart (DCAU): another pair of characters I wanted to tackle at once, I had a time trying to choose which of the DCAU Justice league characters to include on this roster, I thought of legitimately good arguments for all of them, but in the end I settled on these two. Why? Well when I try to imagine the Founding members of the Justice League from the DCAU specifically, by far the most obvious difference is rather than Aquaman and Hal Jordan, they have these two instead! Considering that John has only ever been in fighting games as an Alt skin of Hal, and Shayera hasn’t been in one at all, this game would be a perfect opportunity to give them a place to shine, and as a bonus them having a romantic relationship with each other previously gives us a lot of juicy options for interactions. We can take notes from the Injustice Green Lanterns for how John would play, but to set him apart I think I’d give John more of a turtle strategy, where he focuses on tanking things with his defensive powers and counter attacking with powerful efficient strikes rather than showing off and being aggressive. Shayera on the other hand would be the opposite, an Aerial dominance character similar to Painwheel from Skullgirls who jumps above the opponent and deals an aggressive string of attacks with her mace in aggressive fashion.

17. Yakko Warner: Of the 4 series that Debuted Kids WB, the one I had the hardest time justifying representing here was Animaniacs. This series did not start on Kids WB, but on the Fox Kids Network, and only moved to Kids WB for its later seasons. And after Animaniacs finished, Wow did WB whore out the reruns of this series, letting them play on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Discover Family, and hell if you count Hulu doing the Reboot series, technically even flipping Disney! Making it one of the hardest series to tie to any one channel I have ever seen! But ultimately, I think if one network had to best represent the WARNER Sibs, this is easily the most fitting, and given the recent Animaniacs reboot, WB would definitely want to put one of them in here for synergy. Now the Warner’s don’t really have enough signature attacks to have their own move sets, so I’m going with Yakko, who is the most basic of the three and more or less the leader, and has the snappiest way of speaking for his interactions. But I do think his Moveset would include several assists from his Sibs. Such as Dot popping in with her pet to briefly stun the opponent in fear, or Wakko with his Gag Bag generating randomly selected tools for Yakko to fight with.

18. Candle Jack: We still need to get some more villains in here and probably the best rogues gallery to tap into at this point is that of Freakazoid. There were a lot of choices to consider here, with The Lobe normally being identified as his arch nemesis, but between The Brain and Jack Spicer, I just felt that would be too many nefarious mad scientists. Instead I went with Freakazoid’s most ethereal otherworldly foe to tie into the cosmic level threat. Candle Jack is a terrifying boogeyman creature who supernaturally kidnaps anyone who mentions his name and takes them to a realm where they don’t exist anymore, because he’s insane. He has one of the most creative power sets of Freakazoids villains lending himself to being a grappler who uses teleportation to keep himself In Your Face, rather than Run, and it would be really interesting seeing him cross paths with seasoned DC heroes like Batman as well as goofy easily frightened characters like Jack Spicer.

19. Elmyra Duff: so a pick that is very popular on BtR is the MEME Pick, that hilarious out of left field pick that lets the audience know you are self aware and embracing the joke, and one of the biggest memes I can draw on here is how back in the 90s it was really apparent that someone at WB, someone with REAL Power, absolutely Loved Elmyra. Elmyra first came out in Tiny Toon Adventures, where she got an increasingly large role the longer the show went on. After Tiny Toons Ended, she was the only character from it who came back to be featured in a full crossover episode in Animaniacs. And all of this finally culminated in her returning to Star in her own short lived crossover cartoon Pinky, Elmyra and The Brain, a kids WB exclusive series that shoved Elmyra into the Pinky and The Brain formula, which did NOT Work at All, and even the shows own theme song acknowledges this! Who better to break their way into a big Kids WB crossover roster than a character Known for inserting herself into things whether she’s wanted or not! And it can lead to some hilarious interactions with Pinky/Brain, Yakko, and any of the cute animal characters! On top of that she’s also generally a great pick for a fighting game being the physically strongest Tiny Toons character, she’s got grappler written all over her and I say we give her moves armor and lots of HP to make it easier for her to huggle and squeeze and lovvle to Pieces!

20. Shareena Wickett (Detention): Detention was a short lived and somewhat obscure series in Kids WB’s library, but the same cannot be said for Shareena, or as she is better known, every Kids WB fans first Goth Waifu! Yeah this is one of those cases like Morrigan from Darkstalkers where the character out shined their own series with Kids WB using her as a spokesperson in their programming blocks long after the show ended so she’d get people talking to be sure! Shareena can have a really fun moveset having the kids she leads pop up on screen to do assist attacks to annoy them from tons of different angles, on top of using her own pranks and goth abilities to summon ghosts and stuff to really torment her opponent all while keeping them off of her.

21. Zeta: The Zeta Project is an interesting series that spun off from Batman Beyond and is a lesser known section of the DCAU that I think would be a good thing for this game to put a spotlight on. Zeta himself has a LOT of potential for a fighting game moveset, being a shapeshifting Robot who can turn himself into weapons and take on the forms of others. I picture him having a similar moveset to someone like Double From Skullgirls, transforming rapidly into a bunch of different characters from the game mid combo to perform combinations of attacks that are strong and otherwise impossible to achieve, all while having a bunch of his own powers to show off.

22. Colleen (Road Rovers): Now it's time to include some more Obscure characters, and I think the perfect choice for that would be putting in a representation from Road Rovers! You know that short lived superhero cartoon about Doggies that drive cars and stuff? No? Well it happened all the same! When it came to choosing WHICH of the Road Rovers to go with, honestly any of them would fit pretty well, but I ultimately went with Colleen just because I feel like we needed more female characters in the roster at this point. Colleen is a British secret agent style fighter that uses martial arts to fight, and that would fill most of her basic attacks, But I think that the fun of her moveset would be that she's going to be a Summon Fighter who is able to summon ANY of her teammates from the series to the field to help her fight. The Road Rovers are a team and I feel when you feature a more obscure series like this, you should try and go above and beyond with the representation to do extra work in getting people into it.

23. Batman Beyond: Batman Beyond is yet another DCAU series that debuted on Kids WB and was extremely popular being one of the superheroes they basically made. I briefly thought about having this as an alternate Skin for Batman, but Yeah, Terry with his futuristic Batsuit has a pretty different set of abilities and playstyle, being much more suited to aerial rushdown than classic Batman. I also feel like including a Batman from the Future in this game that heavily involves a time traveling villain from the future and having him interact with legion members would be Really cool and a missed opportunity not to see. Also, just the interaction of Batman talking to another Batman from the future, who is speaking to an elderly alternate universe version of himself, is too funny to pass up.

24. Lexi Bunny: LOL, So if there is ONE Meme that I think could be funnier than Elmyra here, it's actually giving Proper Acknowledgement to the Kids WB Exclusive series Loonatics Unleashed! If you don’t know this series it is a popular point of reference for “What the Hell were they Thinking” being a Gritty Superhero series starring the Descendants of Looney Tunes Characters in the Future, which is not nearly funny enough to be a comedy, but also way too silly to be taken seriously! It gets made fun of all the time including by WB itself for this reason ( https://youtu.be/WloHxTZCAdk?si=DW-cxHDGYBLNPLZt&t=64 ). But that's the extra funny thing… this is a Game involving a multiversal clash due to a villain from the future that heavily involves both DC heroes and Looney Tunes, meaning for the first time in history, the Loonatics, these Looney Tunes style characters from the future who become Dark Superheroes, Are actually incredibly appropriate here! Now of the team, I had to pick Lexi as she is like……easily the most popular character in the entire series, it's not even a question. But her playstyle works pretty well here being an agile martial artist with lightning related powers. I think this would give her cool interactions with characters like Colleen and Static.

25. Father Time: Of the Steven Spielberg Cartoons, by far the most obscure is the Historical Educational series Histeria! Despite being more obscure it is also pretty prominent in Kids WB with its long episode count and being an exclusive. And Who better to represent the series than its wacky time traveling Protagonist, Father Time! Now My Idea for Father Time is actually pretty interesting, being a Major Player in the plot for the good guys side as he uses his time powers to put together a team of Toons in order to help stop Imperiex from messing with history! I Think we can also have some fun with his moveset, giving him some moves that reverse time to enable him to perform longer combos, like we see with Geras in Mortal Kombat, but with more slapstick.

26. Imperiex: Yes we are also going to make the main villain into a playable character, Who I am thinking will become unlockable when someone beats the storymode of the game, allowing us to start with 25 but really feature 26 characters in the starting roster. Imperiex would be a Big Bad and intimidating character to fight against, having lots of strong Area of Effect attacks and the ability to regenerate his own health by reversing his personal time like he could do in Season 2. But He would also have the weakness in general mobility that can allow a skilled opponent to outmaneuver, the idea being to make the player feel op when playing, but not actually be unbeatable outside of Boss status.

So there you have your starting Roster! Batman, Batman Beyond, Candle Jack, Colleen, Drix, Elmyra, Father Time, Freakazoid, Hawkgirl, Imperiex, Jack Spicer, Jackie Chan, John Stewart, Lexi, Omi, Phantom Girl, Pinky & The Brain, Rikochet, Shareena, Static, Superman, Sylverster, The Flea, Tweety, Yakko and Zeta! For a total of 26 characters featuring 9 DC characters, 9 Looney Tunes Characters, and 8 Characters from various Kids WB originals. But don’t think that means I am done just yet, no I think that a game such as this would most likely get about 2 seasons of DLC of Five characters each. Taking a page out of the BtR for Marvel V Capcom 4, I am going to try and build these seasons around certain themes, and the first one will feature characters that have been pretty lacking from this list so far, Villains!

So for the Villain season I am thinking the plot being Imperiex pulled in villains from various series to stop the heroes advance. For story purposes my 5 villains will be Shendu who is the most iconic villain of Jackie Chan Adventures, who can show off more of the Talisman powers Jackie himself didn’t use, with a specific focus on the fire breath and laser eyes ones to give him that real final boss energy. Wuya, the most powerful villain from Xiaolin Showdown, who will have a fun dynamic with Jack and bring in some more cool magical elements to this game. Dee Dee, an interesting Duo fighter from the Batman Beyond series who will be able to do a lot of fun team attacks and tag in and out with each other. Brainiac, one of the most prominent villains from Superman TAS and the DCAU as a whole, we can include a whole bunch of moves he had in injustice 2 and we can also include a skin of Brainiac 5 from Legion of Superheroes to sneak another of their characters into the plot. And lastly, El Malefico, the main big bad villain from the Mucha Lucha movie.

Then For the 2nd season, We are going to have a triumphant return of heroes as a cool send off to the series! First up we’ll add Buena Girl, she is the last of the 3 main characters in Mucha Lucha and I think If we have the opportunity to add her we should, She’ll fill the needed role as the tank to Flea’s support and Rikochet’s DPS, her moves tending to turn her into larger immovable objects with straightforward attacks like bulldozers and torches. Raimundo, who is pretty much equally the main character to Xiaolin Showdown as Omi and the official leader of the team, he can use more wide sweeping kicks and a different arsenal of Wu to Omi such as the Sword of the Storm and the Golden Tiger Claws to do sneaky teleports. Wally West was a breakout character in the DCAU and is a fan favorite in the series, it would be fun to incorporate him into the game, we can give him various superspeed powers to use, and honestly, Not having a Flash in a game involving time travel is also a huge missed opportunity. Ozzy, similar to Buena Girl, Ozzy and Drix is a buddy cop show so you need to try and get both buddies in there, Give Ozzy a lot of flexible martial arts moves that make use of his amorphous shapeshifting powers, give him his pistol for a ranged attack, throw in some cheesy one liners and you’re good! Gear, I mentioned earlier not wanting to have too many super genius Bad Guys, but I think this is a good opportunity to bring in a supergenius good guy and who better than Static’s best friend and sidekick, Gear! Richie would have some wholesome interactions with Vergil and be able to engage in some funny trash talk with Jack Spicer or The Brain.

And there you have it, a Full Roster of 36 cartoony but also awesome characters to see bash together in this unique nostalgic trip of a game! What did you think, who would you most want to play as, why Won’t WB ever make something cool like this? Why DIDN’T I put Goku in the game :P Let me know all that and More!

Rayearth VS Strategy Guide

 

Well I wanted to do something with Magic Knight Rayearth, as I was super excited to watch the epic anime all over again and cover it in one of these, but alas, I could not get the time to do it, poor planning on my part alongside the massive delay with my 100th blog, but I DID have enough time to watch the 1997 OVA series of the same name. I’m an optimist and I think this actually works out for the better as this is connected to the franchise but by far the one people are least familiar with so will have its fair deal of surprises. Despite being called Rayearth, this series is Insanely different from the original manga or anime. If you thought the second season of the Anime diverged from the Manga then you haven’t seen anything yet. But hey, that's what I'm here for, so here's how to be OP in the Rayearth OVA.

Continental Tier:

Welcome to the land of, well, Earth actually as it was invaded by the evil alternate dimension of Cephiro, who sought to sacrifice our world as part of a ritual to restore their own ruined one. This series is populated mostly by powerful sorcerers who are granted magical abilities by the power of animals they bond with, known as Spirit Beasts. The magic used by these sorcerers is incredibly destructive, able to split the clouds apart, cause country-spanning earthquakes, and even create a life-wiping wave that covered the entire planet of Earth in less than 2 seconds. That last feat, performed by the magical priest Clef, was full of destructive power and would be worth hundreds of Pettatons of TNT at minimum, yet could still be matched and defended against by enemy mages like Alcyone and Ascot. Also, similar to the end of MMPR, all the characters present on Earth at the time were able to react and move at relevant speeds compared to this wave approaching them, signifying they naturally move at comparable Relativistic Speeds. So Continent Level and Relativistic will be the maximum allotted stats for counters in this tier.

Mages in this verse are both Invisible and Inaudible to those that do not possess magical abilities, and in Clamp Fashion, they are resistant to the magical abilities of other magic users who are not clearly stronger than them. They are also able to summon forth their Spirit Beasts on command, who both possess and allow them to use certain magical powers.

Common powers that pretty much every sorcerer in this series possesses include the ability to Levitate and Fly, Various kinds of Energy attacks, Advanced Teleportation that allows them to teleport themselves and others even to other dimensions, and Force Fields that are so strong that they can even persist against the attacks of the massively more powerful Deities for a short time. To get into specific characters, you ofcourse have the powerful Cryomancer, Alcyone, a cruel witch who can freeze groups of normal people solid and shatter them to pieces just by looking at them, as well as create and manipulate a wide variety of Ice projectile attacks. Another villain named Ascot has the ability to summon massive amounts of bubbles which are volatile enough to disintegrate anything they touch, including entire buildings all at once. But beyond him in power would be the villainous Ferio, who can summon and command an army of large flying insect creatures. These Insects can swarm around and obliterate structures and defenses danmaku style, and also have displayed the ability to physically hit intangible ghosts.

On the Hero side you ofcourse have the 3 main characters of Hikaru, Umi and Fuu. Unlike their canonical counterparts, these girls had absolutely No combat experience or training going into the series, nor did they become Magic Knights and actually have to physically fight anything. That being said, after attaining the Earth’s spirit beasts, they did gain a few magical powers that have enabled them to survive encounters with these villains. Hikaru, with her Spirit Beast, Lexis, has potent Pyrokinesis and Geokinesis, which she can use to attack, make defensive barriers and even teleport, but her most potent abilities would be the various mental plain powers that Lexis has displayed including telepathy, seeing visions of the present and future, and the power to trap foes in complex illusions. Umi and her Spirit Beast, Sirius, aren’t Quite as impressive as this, but they have displayed powerful Hydrokinesis and Electrokinesis, as well as the ability to make large force fields, and likely teleportation. Fuu and her Spirit Beast who actually has a canon accurate name, Windom, have much more potent abilities, including the power to psychically uncover the truth, which allowed Fuu to find out everything about the current situation they were in immediately, including what was happening to people in another part of spacetime. Beyond this, Windom grants powerful Telekinesis and Aerokinesis, and allows one to make tornados, fly, cast force fields, teleport and even Resist BEING teleported against her will by others.

Rounding out the hero side you have a couple more characters including Lantis, a magical Swordsman. Lantis has displayed potent psychic abilities including showing people visions, telekinetically controlling his sword, and the power to BFR someone into a giant mysterious labyrinth dimension with a glance. His sword is incredibly powerful and has the ability to fire purifying beams of light, turn itself into a Wolf creature he commands, as well as hit and kill intangible creatures with any of its attacks. There is also the priest Clef, who sports incredible Super Senses strong enough to inform him when he is being observed across spacetime or sense when others are teleporting into the dimension he occupies. He’s got one Incredibly powerful spell where he can make the entire population of a planet Phase out of Existence into a timewarp where they would all wither and die overtime.

All that being said, by Far the Most dangerous threat to worry about in this tier is the Main villain of this series, Eagle. Eagle is far and away the Most radically different character from his canon counterpart, and yes, I know that's saying something, but it's very true. In this series, Eagle is the older brother of the princess Emurade, both of which are actually the prince and princess of a race known as Fairy Spirits, who used to bring prosperity to Cephiro, but abandoned it after a forbidden love between his sister and Zagato. As a Fairy Spirit, Eagle has a crapton of OP magic abilities, able to Teleport himself and others, Open Dimensional Doorways, astral project himself, spy on people in other dimensions, talk to others telepathically, and has potent illusionary capabilities that let him trap his sister Emurade in an illusion where Zagato was still alive Indefinitely. Eagle can shapeshift his body into an eagle or even turn himself into a logia intangible water form, and sports attacks such as powerful Lightning Manipulation, as well as the ability to summon and control entire Armies of intangible Ghosts of the dead Cephiro Citizens who are strong enough to damage Lantis. The most devastating ability Eagle has in this setting is the fact that as a Spirit himself he has complete control over Deities, the far more powerful god forms that Mages can take. Eagle has used this to Empower Ascots Deity until it went from not being able to beat Umi, to requiring all 3 girls at once to take down. Eagle was able to casually summon and command the Deity of Zagato and use it for himself despite Zagato being dead since before the series started, and was even able to Strip Hikaru, Umi and Fuu of their Spirit Beasts and take them for himself with relative ease. Also, by teleporting his foes into his castle, it becomes impossible for them to summon their deities at all while they are in there, leaving them relatively helpless. Using any kind of summon in this tier would basically be useless.

So what would be some effective strategies for dealing with this tier? There is a somewhat catch 22 situation with the characters in this tier where one needs to have some degree of Magical abilities to even see or hear the combatants normally, but also they will find their magic limited in its effectiveness due to the characters being able to resist magical attacks from anyone not blatantly stronger, meaning you would likely need either a diverse character with both magic AND non magic abilities, or a straight non magical character with some other means of detecting them. Super Senses in general would be extremely helpful in this verse for a bunch of reasons in fact, due to multiple characters being able to use Illusionary attacks, or to flee and hide easily with their various spatial powers, both of which this would counter. To talk about weaknesses of this Tier, the biggest one is how unlike this series’ Canon counterpart, there are little to no fighters in this tier with any close range fighting experience, all of them relying on distance attacks and playing keep away with teleportation and force fields, Even Eagle was at the mercy of Lantis when he unexpectedly teleported next to him and put his sword to his throat. If a melee character could get up close and personal with them consistently, they would not have too much trouble taking them out, especially with their physical strength and durability not seeming to be very superhuman by comparison. Most of the mages attacks involve summoning elemental type attacks or swarming them with projectiles, which can be dodged, an ability like Attack Reflection would be quite strong as It would turn the majority of a characters assets into potential threats. Another strong ability that could be particularly effective in this tier would be the power to control Animals, as if you recall, mages in this tier get all of their powers from bonding with magical animals called Spirit Beasts and if one could simply sever this connection or take control of them, they would be pretty screwed. With this in mind, my first counter to this tier is:

Doctor Animo:

Yeah Doctor Animo from the Ben 10 series would be rather Overpowered to throw into this verse. In terms of physical stats, Doctor Animo isn’t as strong or fast as the mages here, that being said at the Peak of his power when Animo took on the persona of D’void and amped his own body with Null Energy he was able to Effortlessly overpower Humongasaur at his Maximum size, as well as speedblitz Helen, a member of XLR8’s species, which should put him in the Country Level and Sub Relativistic Range, making it plausible he could keep up. Doctor Animo’s main selling point is his primary power, Animal Control. Animo’s ability to control animals is Not something he does through the use of his technology but is instead an actual power that he possesses, as stated by Ben himself in alien force, and shown multiple times throughout the series to be the case. Such as the time he was locked up in prison without access to any of his tech, and escaped by controlling a normal, non-mutated Seagull to fly out and steal specific technological components for him until he could build a new DNA weapon to escape. Animo has been able to control entire armies of animals at once, including insects, prehistoric creatures and even several varieties of Alien animals from other dimensions. If any of the mages from Cephiro attempted to attack Animo, they would find their Spirit Beasts passively put under his influence even if he cannot see them, and thus they would not be able to attack Animo using any of their magical powers. Not even Lantis’ sword would work as an effective means of attacking Animo since his sword is technically also his Spirit Beast, meaning most characters' only option to attack Animo at all would be to attempt to take him in a fist fight. Which, while Animo is weaker than the Mages magical firepower, he is more than strong enough to tank their physical hits and eventually win. Even worse than this, considering the controlled Spirit Beasts would likely reveal themselves to Animo, the potential is real for him to just give himself a great deal of magical powers to use against the verse, or even use his own tech to mutate the beasts into far more powerful forms, or clone them exponentially. Animo also has invented technology that has enabled him to mutate every animal across the planet, or enable him to make portals into other dimensions like the Null Void, giving him the ability to escape from a Dimensional BFR if that were to occur, as well as the ability to one shot all the Cephiro combatants at once with a DNA Bomb if left unchecked. By far Animo’s biggest threat in this tier would be Eagle, who does not rely on a Spirit Beast for his magical abilities, and therefore could Kill Animo in tons of ways he cannot easily defend against with his own powers. If Eagle hangs back and studies Animo first, which he is likely to do in character, Animo gaining control over various Spirit beasts would quickly give him the powers needed to defend against and defeat Eagle. However in the event Eagle engages Animo before anyone else Animo would not be able to win. For an option less reliant on using the verses' own power against it.

The Ancient Dragon:

So while talking about Magical Girl OVA’s, let's bring up the Ancient Dragon from Little Witch Academia. The Ancient Dragon is powerful enough to harm and potentially kill various witches from Luna Nova as well as keep pace with them in speed. These same Witches are able to dish out and survive magic that can scar the surface of the moon and eclipse multiple continents in size, as well as keep pace with monsters that move relevant to an attack that reached the Moon from Earth in seconds, putting it exactly in this tier in stats. The Ancient Dragon is, true to the mythology of its species, completely impervious to all types of magic, which the LWA series can not only match the potency of, but also there's basically no spells in the MKR OVA that just Don’t Exist in LWA, so it's reasonable that there is no way for any character in this tier to harm The Ancient Dragon using Magic. Even worse for them, The Ancient Dragon also automatically absorbs any magical energy fired at it and uses it to grow even stronger. It was able to grow from a pretty harmless lizard to a super powerful threat to the world in less than 5 minutes of screentime. So Not only can the mages really not harm this thing, but they are only fueling its capacity to harm them. The Ancient Dragon also has the power to fly, shoot various elemental attacks, and can sense and actively seek out sources of magic power, which would enable it to track the mages down. The only reasonable way I could see The Ancient Dragon being stopped in this verse is if they created a plan to lure it into another dimension using magic power as bait and left it there, which to be fair  is possible in theory. For a perfect counter,

Keyes:

Keyes, The Black ArchBishop is a powerful Demon from the Fairy Tail series, able to battle post timeskip Lucy, Wendy and Juvia with relative ease, which at this point in the series would give him Large Island level power as well as Quad Mach speeds, which isn’t quite good enough to fight this tier directly but not that he needs that as you shall quickly see. As a Demon, Keyes uses a powersource known as Curses, in the Fairy Tail series, Curses are a malevolent counterpart to Magic that is explicitly Not Magic, able to effect Magic resistant things and survive against things that destroy magic. This means that despite being weaker, Keyes’ Curse Power should circumvent the mages’ traditional magic resistance and affect them normally. Keyes is also clairvoyant and has incredible senses that allow him to detect sources of magic power and see the flow of fate, allowing him to know characters intentions and history meaning he also should have no trouble sensing the Mages in this tier and on top of that seeing through illusions and surprise attacks. Keyes has a great deal of the same Mobility powers the Mages of this tier possess, including flight and teleportation in order to match the mages own, and more impressively, the fact that his body is a Logia Intangible mass of darkness that cannot be physically harmed. Any of the various elemental, physical or projectile attacks are just not going to be able to do anything to Keyes, especially given his ability to spread himself out as a Mass of darkness around the immediate environment, making him hard to even detect or target with attacks. Not even Lantis’ purifying light would work considering Keyes also uses this kind of attack so clearly is not weak to it. Worse off, Keyes’ body is composed of Bane Particles, the microscopic components of Curse Power. Bane Particles are an incredibly toxic substance that poisons any magic user that comes into contact with them be it skin contact or inhalation. The More powerful a Magic user's Magic is, the more devastating the Bane Particle poisoning is, resulting in effects including but not limited to, liquifying their internal organs. Touching Keyes is a potential death sentence to anyone in this tier. And that is especially not good as we haven’t even gotten to Keyes’ main power yet, that being the fact he is a Necromancer. Keyes has complete control over the dead, which would allow him to counter Eagle’s Ghost army, as well as raise his own army of undead to attack the verse with, even including raising any mages he kills to then come back and fight FOR him as his undead puppets since they retain their magic powers when reanimated. Basically Keyes is an invincible plague on this world that would rot it from the inside out.

Large Planet Tier:

In this tier we have the tier of the Deities. In order to fight amongst one another, the Sorcerers of this series, as well as the three chosen girls of Hikaru, Umi and Fuu, physically fuse themselves with their Spirit Beasts to become a far more powerful Kaiju creature known as a Deity. There is somewhat of a hierarchy of Deities in this Ova, with multiple Deities being able to basically one shot lesser ones, but as they would just be some unknowable level above the lower tier Deities that have the feats, they effectively still end up in the same tier. Deities are far stronger than any conventional mage, able to easily shatter the Earth to pieces in a dark future timeline where they weren’t stopped, putting them well into the Yottatons of TNT. They are also faster than Mages, and are shown moving relevant to the Light attacks that Lantis produces, which are portrayed as being actual beams of light. So this tier would be large planet level and around Lightspeed.

Deities allow Mages to fight each other largely by utilizing their potent physical power that cannot be conventionally blocked by the general magical resistances found here. The Mages pilot these Deities and it seems as though whenever physical harm befalls the Deity, similar damage happens to the body of the pilot as well, though that can be a little inconsistent, such as when Hikaru’s Deity got completely eviscerated by Eagle’s yet she survived and somehow it regenerated over time. Generally, Deities can use a lot of the same offensive powers that their Mages have, only more powerful and Kaiju sized, the Deity Alcyone has stronger Ice attacks, Hikaru’s has stronger fire, the works, in addition to having some unique powers, such as giant sharp claws and additional elemental attacks. The Fused Ferio has the ability to fly, as well as use its wings to generate Sonic Vibrations that slice through anything they come into contact with like blades. The Strongest Deity in existence is Rayearth, a Deity formed from the fusion of Hikaru, Umi and Fuu’s Deity which can oneshot practically any other deity with relative ease.

So what are some of the weaknesses of this tier? In general the Deities are far less versatile than the mages overall, they still cannot be seen by non magical entities, but they don’t seem to possess any particularly strong resistance to magic, and don’t seem to have access to a lot of other more tactical abilities the mages do that aren’t expressly combat related such as Illusions, Dimensional Manipulation and potent senses. This interestingly makes them much easier to harm and defend against, provided you have their stats. Also, as said in the last tier, The Pilots of these creatures are not particularly skilled Melee fighters who now ironically are getting into Kaiju brawls, and often fight in predictable ways with simple attacks that a seasoned fighter could handle rather casually. With this in mind, my first counter is,

Chase Young seems like He would be an incredibly dangerous threat to deal with in this tier. Chase is an incredibly powerful ancient warrior who was powerful enough to violently Split the planet in 2 in only the second season. He also more than can compete with Omi in terms of speed, who was able to somewhat compete with the Shen Gong Wu, Fancy Feet, which are faster than Anything including Light, so He is more than capable of fighting the Deities here. The Deities are far larger than Chase but that Is actually to his advantage, not only does he have a lot of experience fighting giant monsters but being such a small target makes him that much harder for a large combatant to target. Chase is a Master tier fighter, easily one of the most skilled characters in the entire series, being thousands of years old and a master of hundreds of fighting styles to the point he considers most magic powers like the Wu mere toys. Chase has super senses to be able to detect the invisible giants, and would have little trouble dodging around projectiles in this verse through the use of his Tiger Instincts to predict incoming attacks as well as the ability to teleport himself likely even behind their forcefields to deal damage. He can also match them at a distance with his own energy attacks and use his levitation to keep up with them if they take the fight to the skies. The real reason he is so cool to use here Is because anyone who he defeats in battle gets transmutated into one of his Jungle Cats and forced to serve and fight on his behalf, this is something that the Deities do not have resistance too and would circumvent the potential of them coming back through regeneration if they can do that. His only real weakness is the potential for him to get ganged up on by a large group of these Deities at once.

Lord Boros:

Might as well go with another world destroying invader. Lord Boros from the One Punch Man series is a being who is easily capable of shattering the Earth with his power and thus would enable him to compete directly with the various Deities here, in addition to that even his minions are stated to have attacks moving at the speed of light so he should have no trouble keeping up in speed either. While Boros does not have magical abilities, He does have potent extrasensory perception that enabled him to sense other beings powers from great distances, this manifests as a visible aura around said being which would allow him to see them. Boros is an extremely skilled fighter with various destructive powers including energy and elemental attacks which would allow him to quickly overwhelm the foes here with his raw fighting capabilities both at a distance and up close. The Best trait of Boros for this circumstances is his insane Regeneration which lets him instantly pull himself back together even when Blown to Pieces. This basically means that He will almost certainly win a war of attrition against the Deity fighters in this tier thanks to their inability to harm him to a point he can’t come back from, while he can very much do the same. His only real problem is with the force fields it may take him a notable amount of time to win, so for the most efficient option…

Cure Sunshine:

From the Pretty Cure series, Cure Sunshine would be able to scale to the villain Baron Salamander who was strong enough to Destroy the Planet, as well as scales to several lightspeed feats from both Marine and Blossom dodging things like the flash of a camera easily, putting her well into this Stat Range. Sunshine has 3 main powers that made me choose her as a target. Firstly, Itsuki is an incredibly skilled combatant, having been trained in martial arts from a very young age, and thats on top of how becoming a Pretty Cure instantly makes you a Master skill fighter even if you had no previous combat experience whatsoever, so when you already ARE skilled, that amp matters all the more. She's also accustomed to fighting giant monsters all the time meaning she should be able to effortlessly beat the crap out of the Deities in a melee. Another important power she has is Attack Reflection, this would allow her to turn all the various Projectiles that Deities can attack her with right back at them, basically forcing them to either take her own in Melee, which they can’t, or Flee and try to surprise her. And the third reason, she has a big projectile attack that literally puts her target in Stasis, locking their body in place and giving her the ability to freely kick their butt. It really is simple, but Sunshine really only has effective abilities to answer all the problems this tier poses in exactly perfect ways. She even has a Cape she can use to gain true flight to keep up with them in the air if need be. But hey, if anyone was going to stop some monsters from turning the world into a dead wasteland, I’d put my trust in her to do it.