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Fairy Tail, my favorite anime series and also one of Kodansha’s top 10 most popular Manga ever. The series has had many video games before, but it still has yet to break into the Fighting game scene. With the Anime adaptation of the Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest sequel series upon us, and the rising popularity and trend of Anime Fighter games popping outta the woodwork in recent years like Dragon Ball FighterZ or My Hero One’s Justice, I figure it's high time we take this trend over to Earthland. Make a game where we can play as our favorite wizards and go head to head in over-the-top flashy spectacle fights to Celtic Rock music just like the show! So let's Buckle in as we take a look at what would be a dream roster for the game, Fairy Tail: No Limits!

Now the first thing we gotta determine here is also the first thing to determine with a lot of these games: How big is the base roster going to be? I know that this is a hypothetical scenario and I could just say ‘Everyone down to Happy’s Mom is in this game as playable’, but that's no fun, part of the challenge of this is finding that sweet spot where you can be realistic with the roster size and still try to make the most satisfying variety of characters. That, and honestly if I don’t put some kinda limit on it I’m just going to keep naming characters I think are cool until I get down to the ones that are just okay and you AND I both lose interest. So, I have noticed a trend in Anime fighters, the vast majority of them start with a relatively modest roster size, and then in the sequel they have a titanically sized roster due to reusing the models for every character from the first game and using their budget almost entirely on adding a whole cast’s worth of new faces. Since this is the first game, logically we are going to go with the former. Dragon Ball FighterZ began with a starting roster of 23 characters and 1 original character. My Hero One’s Justice started with 23 characters. Naruto Shippūden: Ultimate Ninja Impact started with 24 characters. It Really feels like 23-24 characters is just the general sweet spot for the first installment of an anime fighter. So Let’s go with 23 for now and see what we can add in DLC later!

Now another important thing to note is where to Set this game? Fairy Tail is a battle shonen and thus has an overarching story so whenever they make new supplementary material for it, even if it isn’t canon, it has to fit in somewhere in the FT Timeline so fans of the series can more easily jump onboard. Luckily there is a perfect place to set this in my book, the last chapters of the Fairy Tail anime featured a year long timeskip after the defeat of Zeref and Acnologia, and before the start of the Sequel series, so it seems like a no brainer to set this fighting game during that year to fill in the gap between the two series. This would give us access to almost any characters we want from the OG anime people watched, as well as allow us to tease and set up tons of things that will happen in 100 Years Quest, to sell it to the fans who had never looked into that series and get them excited for the new sequel anime. It's that kind of product synergy that gets media companies really excited. 

Lastly for how the game would play, Friendship and Teamwork are fairly central themes of Fairy Tail, so we would make this game a team based fighter, where players can select anywhere from 1 to 3 characters to play as, and have the ability to swap between their selected characters at will, or summon them onto the screen briefly for assist attacks, similar to Marvel VS Capcom, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle or Skullgirls. And just like Skullgirls, we would adjust things so that both players start off at equal power, even if they select different team sizes. For example, if you were to select only one character and go up against someone who selected three, then your one character would have triple the HP they would normally, to keep it balanced. Characters would have a regular Meter that they could burn portions of in order to enhance attacks or other aspects of their play, as well as fully fill up to perform a super, which could trigger anything from a really big flashy attack to a super state that makes them stronger in various ways. BUT, Fairy Tail is a series that is known for giving its characters a relatively large and diverse variety of abilities, trying to fit all of them into some kinda set formula doesn’t work. So what I am going to do is have a mechanic for this game called Traits, a unique mechanic for every character in the game that lets them use their abilities in a way different from the other characters, something that a lot of more modern fighting games implement to help their characters stand out as distinct and fun to play as.

So with all that in mind, it's time to finally start filling out that roster!

Team Natsu:

Yeah so I am taking a direct note from Thorgi and getting the obvious pics outta the way all at once so we can keep it interesting. Fairy Tail is a series that TECHNICALLY doesn’t have a main character as it is supposed to be the Guild Itself that is the focus, but yeah if you asked any fan who are the central characters of Fairy Tail, it'd definitely be these 5. Natsu Dragneel, Lucy Heartfilia, Gray Fullbuster, Erza Scarlet and Wendy Marvell, collectively referred to as Team Natsu. These 5 are an absolute REQUIREMENT to be in this game, Natsu, Lucy, Gray and Erza have been central to every single arc since the series began. Meanwhile Wendy was added to the cast 6 arcs into the series, since then joining the main cast, being central to every single arc since, and becoming one of the most popular characters in the series, even getting her own solo manga in Nakayoshi magazine. Frankly if we released this game with even 1 of these 5 characters missing from the base roster, fans would be up in arms wondering why? So we gotta have them in here. Now thankfully, all of them have quite different abilities and cover a lot of playstyles, so including all the main characters isn’t a detriment to the game's variety as it often can be, speaking of which…

Natsu Dragneel:

Starting things off with the main poster boy, Natsu’s got ‘Rushdown Character’ written all over him. He’s nimble and somewhat short, so would be skilled at clearing distances quickly, and has a tendency to brashly rush in, fists blazing, and unleash a whole combo of attacks at once with fiery passion. Natsu would be great at stringing quick combos of attacks to deal massive damage in quick succession with lots of fiery punches and kicks. We’d give him his Fire Dragon’s Roar as a standard distance attack, the ability to burn (lol) some of his meter to briefly enter into his Lightning mode to further enhance his attacks with electricity, and while he wasn’t able to become a playable character in his own right, we would still include Happy by giving Natsu a move to call him out to Help Natsu fly through the air for a short time, similar to Painwheel from Skullgirls with her Helicopter mode. He’d need that extra mobility too because Natsu can often be brash and reckless with his normal combat strategy, so fittingly a lot of his moves would be rather unsafe and punishable if the player gets carless. Natsu would be a fairly easy character to pick up and play and do fairly well with, but be difficult to fully master for this reason, as he rewards being aggressive in combat, but not so much so that someone could reliably bank on that. For Natsu’s Trait, in addition to taking no damage, we’d have him able to gain a small percentage of his meter back every time a fire attack is used on him, be it from an alley or an enemy. We’d definitely have to play around with how much Meter he gets by doing this to make sure it's not broken, but I like the idea of the mind games both the opponent and the player would have to go through when strategizing how best to combat/support Natsu respectively. As for his Super Move, if Natsu gets full meter, you can activate it and have Natsu enter into Dragon Force, a temporary state where all his attacks would be enhanced and he’d take reduced damage from all projectiles due to his magic burning aura of flame.

Lucy Heartfilia:

On the other side of the spectrum we’ve got the more or less narrator of the story, the Celestial Spirit Mage, Lucy. Gee I wonder what kinda fighter this girl who summons spirits to fight with her would be….maybe a Summon Fighter? Who’da thunk! Lucy’s main abilities would revolve around summoning various spirits to assist her in battle, now considering she has over a dozen of them, not every single one of them is going to make it into this moveset, I’m sorry Pyxis the compass bird, we might have to cut you, but we would try to represent a bunch of them. Have Virgo able to make pitfall traps around the stage to function as hazards. Have Capricorn rush in and put the opponent in a Full Nelson to give Lucy a free hit, Loki could come in and make a blinding flash attack that would stun the opponent, and Scorpio and Aries could each shoot a giant projectile, Scorpio’s knocking the opponent backwards and Aries’ hindering their movement for a time. But Lucy doesn’t just call out her spirits and let them do all the fighting, no she is characterized by fighting With her spirits in an equal partnership. So we’d of course give Lucy several basic attacks such as some combos with her whip, and her patented Lucy Kick which wouldn’t do too much damage in their own right, but would have some decent range on them to adhere to her somewhat keepaway strategy. But to further enhance this Lucy’d be able to burn portions of her meter in order to activate Star Dresses. 

When doing this the player will be presented with 4 different potential dresses to choose from, and each corresponding to a different button, similar to Shulk’s ability in the Smash Bros franchise. They’d then press the button for the Dress they want and Lucy’d transform, and of course the 4 Dresses we’d pick would be of Spirits she can’t summon in her moveset to represent more of them. The Taurus Dress would enhance her attack power and give her access to a grapple attack. The Cancer Dress would give her additional Sword attacks. The Sagittarius Dress would increase her speed and give her a ranged Arrow attack. And the Aquarius Dress would increase her HP and give her a move that summons a water shield like she did in her fight with Jackal. Just like her powers in the show, Lucy would be a very complicated character to play around with, giving the player a large pool of unconventional ways they can try to use her. For her Trait, If Lucy is about to be defeated by a big super move, Houralogium will automatically save her from the attack, which just like the show, we will only have him able to do once per match. And for her Super Move, When Lucy gets Full Meter, she can summon out Gemini and go into her Gemini Star Dress and the two of them would recite the incantation for Urano Metria, hitting the opponent with a Flashy attack of stars from the night sky, which is both cool, and incorporates the only remaining Zodiac Spirit she didn’t use so far.

Gray Fullbuster:

Next up is Gray, the kinda/sorta Rival character to Natsu, at least as far as archetypes go. Gray’s bread and butter is Ice Magic, but if you think he's basically going to just be the same as Natsu with a different element, think again! While Gray can and will certainly throw hands when he needs to, Gray is a lot more of a spacing character overall, tending to keep some distance between himself and his opponents through Ice Projectiles, Disjointed Ice Weaponry and big Area of Effect Ice Attacks to freeze his opponents before they can get to melee. This would be reflected in his moveset as Gray would be able to make waves of Ice travel along the floor, shoot Ice Blasts and create large spires of ice to attack, all of which if not properly blocked, would freeze the opponent in place for several seconds, similar to Sub Zero in the Mortal Kombat series, giving him the chance to counter attack. Gray would have some basic Melee attacks as well which wouldn’t be near as flashy but would be designed to knock the opponent away to regain distance. We’d also give him a teleport move where the Gray you are fighting will suddenly turn out to be an Ice Clone and the real one will jump in from behind. All are good options to allow Gray to fight more effectively if a character were to get in close. Basically, Gray would be antithetical to Natsu in terms of playstyle, stronger at a distance and not wanting to rush in and I think that's only naturally fitting. Gray would be able to burn Meter in order to go into his Ice Demon Slayer form, which would enhance his attacks with Lavender Ice, and give him access to his Zero Longsword attack to improve his close range capability. Because of his Demon Slayer Magic I felt the one direct mirror he should have with Natsu is their Trait, we’d have him able to gain a small percentage of his meter back every time an Ice attack is used on him. Lastly, I had a few different options for a Super Move here, but Ultimately I think the best choice is the Zero Destruction Bow which he used to Kill Mard Geer.

Erza Scarlet:

The One, The Only Erza Scarlet, S Class Wizard and former 7th Master of the Guild, of course she isn’t being left outta this! At first glance, Erza is your classic Sword Girl character, and yeah that is pretty accurate, her being an honorable and skilled knight who specializes in Swordplay, but Erza is a character who is prepared for any situation, having literally hundreds of different armors and weapons that change up her stats and abilities. So Erza was both one of the easiest characters to do the playstyle for due to her clear fighting style, but also one of the hardest cause HOLY Flip does she have a lotta stuff she could bring to the table. How is Lucy easier than she is in this regard? Anyway Erza would be a setplay character who specializes in Swordplay. Setplay characters in fighting games are characters that have generally very good options across the board but do need to utilize strategy to set these things up to some extent. Erza would have strong defense, decent range and Hit like a Truck, but would not have a lot of mobility relatively speaking, preferring her characters to come to her so she can more accurately counter whatever they do. 

Erza’s trait would be similar to a Trait of Black Dahlia from Skullgirls who has the ability to set her gun arm to different types of ammunition to produce different effects. In Line with this, Erza would be able to requip her standard sword to one of a variety of other swords she carries to enhance her attacks with different magic and elements. The Flame Empress Sword would produce Fire enhanced attacks, and The Sea, Wind, and Lightning Empress Swords would do the same with their own elements. This would give Erza a lot of options for harming specific enemies and aiding specific allies, but just like Dahlia, swapping weapons would take a couple seconds and Erza would be vulnerable if caught while doing this. Erza would also have an ability similar to Lucy’s that allows her to change her armor for a time by Burning Meter. The 4 Armors I picked for her were a more difficult choice but I ultimately went with The Heaven’s Wheel Armor which would give her flight and the Scattered Petals Projectile attack, The Adamantine Armor which would drastically buff her defenses but lower her speed more, The Armadura Fairy Armor which would make her faster and give her an energy attack, and Her Iconic Clear Heart Clothing, which would make her attacks far more powerful, but also make attacks she gets hit by do equally as much damage. And lastly, Erza’s Super Move has almost certainly got to be the Iconic Nakagami Starlight attack she used to defeat Minerva in the Grand Magic Games, and later Ajeel in the Alvarez War.

Wendy Marvell:

And the last and newest member of Team Natsu, Wendy Marvell. Wendy is probably THE character who grew most as a fighter throughout the show, and boy does that show. Between simultaneously being a Dragon Slayer, Healer AND Enchanter, Wendy has the highest variety of any character so far, possessing so many goddamn powers, I probably could have made 3 different movesets without a single repeat. So to get into basics, Wendy is a Sky Dragon Slayer and focuses on Wind attacks, and despite her appearance and archetype, the character she takes the most after in fighting is actually Natsu, with it being important to her story she’s learning how to be strong like him. So Naturally we will take a lot of inspiration from Natsu as well in terms of moveset with Wendy also being another Rushdown character. But this wouldn’t be a direct copy paste, Wendy is not as strong nor as reckless as Natsu is, generally being much more careful and using her wind powers to not only get in close but also get out of there before her opponent can hit back. So Wendy would have lower HP and Damage output than Natsu, but Higher Mobility and Agility, having a longer jump and levitation abilities, making her more of an Aerial Dominance type fighter, fittingly so. In terms of moves, Wendy would of course have several wind enhanced physical attacks like her Sky Dragon Talon or Crushing Fang, Her Sky Dragon Roar as a Distance attack, and just like Natsu with Happy, she’d have a move to call in Carla for an assist. But instead of Carla jumping in in Cat form to help her fly, she’d jump in in human form and deliver a swift kicking attack, which wouldn’t do a lot of damage by itself, but would launch an opponent into the air making it a great tool to start or extend combos.

Going into Wendy’s Trait, Since Air is just everywhere, It wouldn't really make sense to have her gain anything extra from Air attacks like with other Slayers with their elements, so We are going to base her trait off her Healing abilities. I couldn’t resist taking a note from Talim from the Soulcalibur series, who has the ability to gain a small portion of her own health back every time she damages an opponent. Healing abilities are always looked down upon in fighting games for being very hard to balance and often leading to broken characters, but Talim’s I liked as the boost to health is relatively minor, and the player actually has to work by dealing damage to the foe to get it back. But to change it up, Wendy’s Trait wouldn’t just do this for her own health bar, but the health bar of whatever character is on screen when she is on your team, until she is defeated, as Wendy uses her magic to boost her friends more often than herself. Wendy would also have the power to spend bars of Meter in order to gain access to her pink haired Dragon Force Form. I know for Natsu, we saved his Dragon Force for a super move, but Wendy uses Dragon Force far more often than him, being her primary powerup as she never received a second element in the OG series, so it makes sense to have it be more easily accessible for her. In Dragon Force, Wendy’s attacks would deal more damage, and her mobility would be increased with a temporary flight ability. As for her actual Super Move, we’d go with Wendy’s flashiest attack, the Shattering Light Sky Drill, which is the most common attack she uses to defeat enemies. 

Alrighty, now that we’ve got the obvious choices outta the way we can now start adding some more variety! We’ve stuck exclusively to characters from the actual Fairy Tail Guild so far, and they aren’t going to be the last characters from there either, trust me, but for our next choice let's shake things up by adding a character from Outside the Guild, and the most clear inclusion would be….

Jellal Fernandes:

Jellal has been one of the longest standing characters in this series, being introduced within the first arc, and having a notable role at pretty much all times, to the point they literally had 3 of him running around at one point (not kidding). Having been involved in 7 major arcs in the OG series including the 3 largest and going from a Magic Council Member, to a Mind Controlled Villain, to a Tragic Rebel seeking redemption, to steadfast Ally of the Guild, as well as being Erza’s primary love interest, he’s obviously more than important enough to warrant a spot. Plus, Jellal has a major role in the 100 Years Quest sequel, so it’s also good to give him some focus in this interquel game to help with the synergy. But enough on that, how would Jellal play? Jellal has a lotta random ass powers to him that we can pull from, but his primary ability is Heavenly Body Magic, the ability to use the magic of outer space as a weapon. Jellal would play like a typical all rounder type character, having options for many different playstyles, but not being a master of any of them. He’d have some decent Melee attacks, as well as his Iconic Meteor move which would let him fly into the opponent with a damaging Light Aura, similar to Jon Talbane from the Darkstalkers series. He’d have a good distance attack via summoning a small storm of Asteroids down on the opponent's position. And we’d also give him a few tricky abilities like giving him his teleportation move to get outta jams, using an illusion to counter an opponent's attack, and giving him a grab where he can put that Bind Snake emblem on your body and briefly stun you in place. Jellal would basically lose to more specialized characters if they can keep him in their effective range, but he’d have a lotta tools they’d have to watch out for that could let him turn that around. As for Jellal’s trait, I’m actually going to do something special and tie it into his Meter Burn to do something similar to Nine The Phantom’s ability from the Blazblue series. By Burning some Meter, you can perform an enhanced physical strike with Jellal which will be augmented with an Element, cycling between Fire, Earth, Water and Air. If you manage to hit your opponent 4 times with this, one of each element, then Jellal will have built up enough elemental magic to perform an Abyss Break and create a giant, flashy and highly damaging blast of darkness across the stage. This would be a bit of fanservice, as The Abyss Break is a power Jellal has that is hyped up as being really powerful multiple times, but we never actually get to see him use if in the series proper, so putting it in here and giving it this cool, complex activation requirement to hype it up again would do great. But because of Jellal never properly using it in the series, I couldn’t in good conscience use it for his Super Move. That honor of course goes to his Iconic Grand Chariot Attack, one of the flashiest moves in all of Fairy Tail, and what Jellal used to defeat the Oracion Seis and later Neinhart.

Gajeel Redfox:

Alright, heading back to The Fairy Tail guild for a bit, the Next character we need to have is Gajeel. For the Fairy Tail characters NOT on Team Natsu, I made a chart where I tallied all Fairy Tail arcs that each of them got a dedicated fight scene in. And the character who came in first place in that regard was Gajeel with a grand total of 9, including a couple arcs that didn’t involve the whole guild, like Edolas. Considering that, alongside the fact he is a Dragon Slayer and that he and Levy are having a Baby in the sequel, which was revealed at the end of the OG series, we definitely have to have Gajeel in this game! As for how he’d play, Gajeel is an Iron Dragon Slayer, being as strong and powerful as metal itself. And we’d be sure to reflect that by making Gajeel the Tankiest character in the entire base roster. Gajeel would be your big Unga Bunga character who has a massive pull of HP and could hit people Iron Hard in return. But all that heavy metal would weigh the guy down making him relatively quite slow, making him disadvantageous against characters that can deal damage at a distance, but very intimidating to those who have to get in close. Gajeel would have many of his trademark attacks like his Iron Dragon Club and Iron Dragon Sword for close in attacks, as well as his Iron Dragon’s Roar for a ranged option. He’d also be able to burn Meter to turn his entire body into Iron, giving him an extra hit of armor to attack someone through their attacks. With Gajeel’s Trait, we’d give him a short range ground-pound attack where he punches his arm into the ground and makes a metal spike pop out and uppercut the opponent, but every time he uses it, the range on it gets further and further until you could eventually hit them from full screen with it, making it more difficult to avoid him. But the coolest thing for Gajeel would be his super move, where Gajeel would temporarily go into his awesome looking Iron Shadow Dragon Mode. This mode would not only enhance his attacks but would give him access to a shadow teleportation move that would compensate for his normal lack of speed while active.

Juvia Lockser:

Right behind Gajeel in that chart I made in 2nd place, which is fitting I suppose since they were both former Phantom Lord mages, is Juvia, who got major fight scenes in 8 total arcs, including ones that didn’t have the whole guild involved like Tower of Heaven. This makes Gajeel and Juvia the two most common 6th wheels. Plus there's also plenty of other reasons to want to include Juvia in this on top of that, such as her being Gray’s love interest and her recurring roles in the sequel series. Now Juvia is a water mage and she has a wide variety of Water attacks that have a tendency to flood the entire screen. That screams Zoner to me, or a character who is most powerful and deals the most damage from a distance. Juvia would have a wide variety of water attacks from her trademark Water Whip Attack, to projectile and AOE attacks like Water Slicer and Water Nebula respectively, which would hit hard, hit fast and be tricky to avoid. We’d also have her able to shoot out her Water Lock bubble as a slow moving projectile which, if it manages to hit the opponent, will trap them inside briefly, allowing Juvia to get off free hits. She’d also have the ability to Burn Meter to enhance her Hydrokinetic attacks by increasing their temperature to Boiling. Juvia would also have a teleportation like ability where she would turn her own body into Water and flow to the other side of the screen before turning back, just to make her harder to pin down by an aggressive opponent. Like all Zoners, she’d need this as while we would give Juvia some basic melee attacks, they wouldn’t be all that good, and combined with the low HP we’d assign her, Juvia would need to stay away or would get in trouble quickly. For her Trait, I knew we’d have to include her Iconic water logia body somehow, but powers that just make you outright immune to physical attacks don’t exactly work in fighting games without putting some kinda limitation on it. So I was thinking we’d give her a parry type attack similar to the Street Fighter games. In these games if an opponent attacks you, you can press a counter button at the precise time the attack is about to land and you will parry it, resulting in the move dealing no damage, and giving you the opportunity to counter attack. This would work great with Juvia, who if you do something similar for, would result in the opponent's attack passing through her harmlessly. Lastly for her Supermove, I was thinking her big Whirlpool attack from the Grand Magic Games sucking them into the ground and spitting them back out like a geyser would be flashy enough.

Meredy:

Alrighty, now It’s time to get some weird picks in here, but I think there's a problem with that. What exactly IS a weird pick in something like Fairy Tail? Is Toby the weird Dog Man a Weird Pic? How about Ichiya? I think being a Weird pick doesn’t necessarily mean being a strange character, so much as it means being a character most people wouldn’t have thought would be in this game and I don’t think those guys making it would be too shocking to be honest. Now yes, you could definitely use FILLER characters if you wanted a true Weird Pick, but literally no one on Earth wants to see that. So what I am going with is, characters with really cool abilities who didn’t get a lot of time to shine in the OG series, and the first one of these I am going with is Meredy (pronounced Meldy)! Meredy is a member of Jellal’s guild, Crime Sorciēre and aids him on his missions to rid the world of evil organizations. She is also very good friends with Juvia, being one of the few characters to have a particularly strong bond with her besides Gray, so her inclusion does wonders to flesh out potential interactions among the cast. But Meredy herself is rather underutilized in the series proper, only getting one major fight in the arc that introduced her, then being kept outta combat beyond small scraps for the rest of the series, and so far, hasn’t actually been seen in the sequel series at all. The Fans wanna see more from her and giving her a much needed spotlight in this game is just what the doctor ordered! In terms of Gameplay, Meredy specializes in Maguilty Magic, a lost magic dealing with the senses. Unlike most Fairy Tail characters who physically throwdown at least to some extent, Meredy is entirely a Zoner character, who specializes in projectile attacks. We’d give her her standard Maguilty Sodom attack that lets her generate and fire swords constructed of light all over the stage that can come down in different arcs, appear behind a person, and even be used in close up range to make it less easy for an opponent to dominate her if they manage to reach her. With Meter Burning she’d also be able to enhance these attacks by adding to the quantity of these swords, making them just that much more annoying for the opponent to avoid. She’d also have light beams that can travel full screen, and a handful of rather weak physical attacks. At first that is, For her Trait, Meredy could use her Sensory Link power to boost her own physical capabilities by joining her own senses together with her allies. This would work even if she was on a team by herself, but if she did have allies with her this same boost would also apply to them for the duration making her a really interesting utility character to pair with others. This also ties right in with her Supermove, which in Meredy’s case would let her create a Sensory Link from herself to the opponent's character. This would be a forced empathy effect causing Meredy and The Opponent’s characters' health to both be affected exactly the same by whatever happens to them. They’d take the same damage from any attack landed on either, they’d be healed the same amount by any healing moves used on them. This would be interesting as it could either force a stalemate between the players for the duration of the effect, just like when it was first used in the actual series, or be used very strategically by either one as they gamble on whether the damage would be worth it.

Laxus Deryar:

Coming back to Fairy Tail, next up we got the final Dragon Slayer in the guild, Laxus. Laxus is one of the heaviest hitters in the entire Fairy Tail Guild, and despite starting things out as a villain character, has really made a habit outta fighting on the guilds behalf, as he comes just short of Juvia with how many arcs he's had big dedicated fight scenes in with 7. Alongside being the leader of his own subset of the guild, his inclusion is a pretty safe bet. Laxus is a Lightning Dragon Slayer, and is known for being one of the biggest, strongest and toughest guys around, to the point that despite actually having a lot of distance attacks, a lotta his fighting style involves him getting close in on an opponent, and overpowering them with his physical might. With that in mind, Laxus would primarily be a Grappler type character, having High HP to deal with a lotta hits, and some devastating up close combos that involve grabbing and slamming the opponent and shocking them with electrical attacks. We wouldn’t be able to incorporate All his powers because of this, but Laxus would be able to summon lightning from the sky down onto his position to damage those who get near him, pummel the opponent with electric enhanced punches, kicks and grabs, punch the ground and cause a geyser of electricity to erupt from it to launch the opponent, and instead of the typical Dragon’s Roar distance attack the other slayers have, Laxus would have the Heavensward Halberd, a lightning javelin construct he’d throw across the stage, which would be easier to avoid as we want him to be more tailored to close combat. As a Grappler, Laxus would have a natural weakness against more range tailored characters, but for one Bar of Meter, Laxus would be able to summon a Lightning aura that would give him a free hit of armor against projectiles to give him some utility in that matchup as well. The Supermove on the other hand I thought it would be cool to have him summon a scaled down version of the Thunder Palace ability he used in the Battle of Fairy Tail Arc, which for how powerful it was we never got to see used properly, so it’d be more fanservice to show it now. For Laxus’ Trait on the other hand, I actually have a pretty cool idea, and It would revolve around his Red Lightning ability that he used to defeat Wall. Remember that? Well in the sequel series they actually explain what that's about. Red Lightning is an enhanced version of his normal lightning that increases in power the more of Laxus’ own blood is spilled. Essentially meaning the closer Laxus is to being defeated, the more Red his lightning turns, and the more powerful he becomes. So my idea is essentially to do something similar to Lucario from the Smash series, where Laxus starts off with his pure yellow lightning and dealing fairly average damage. But the lower his Health Bar gets, the more the Hue of his lightning changes, going to Orange at 75% health, Scarlet at 50% health, and downright Crimson at 25% health, each stage increasing the percentage of Damage Laxus deals with his attacks until by the end of it he's hitting like a freight train. Now we wouldn’t make this brokenly OP or anything and there's certainly strategies to deal with this, but we want this to be intimidating to people when they go up against him the first time and I think this would more than do the trick.

Brandish μ:

Alrighty now to incorporate more aspects of the series into this game, we need some more recent characters here and the Spriggan 12, the villains from the final arc of the OG series, are a perfect fit, having intimidating arsenals of powers and a lot of relevance and popularity from how recent they were. And out of all the Spriggan 12 members that survived the arc, Brandish is easily the most popular, being not only the first one we meet, but a more morally gray character who got a lot more focus and fleshing out than almost anyone on average. Brandish is also a recurring character who pops up several times in the Sequel series in an ongoing side plot with Lucy, meaning including her is far more important than the other 12 members as she needs to maintain her relevance and we can use this to set up some things that happen IN said sequel. Now getting into her playstyle, Brandish’s magic is called Command T, which gives her the general power to alter the size of whatever she wants. This is a fairly broken ability, but is balanced out by Brandish’s own lazy and aloof demeanor. Brandish is not an aggressive character who goes on the offensive, she's the kinda character who lets her foes take the offensive while she puts forth only what is required to deal with them and nothing more. Because of that, Brandish would be a very Counter heavy character, having limited and unimpressive mobility and direct attacks, but have a lot of tools to interrupt an opponent's attacks and combos, and counterattack really hard. This makes her an interesting character to both learn and go up against as she’d be at her best when responding to what the other player does. Brandish would be able to expand the ground upwards to block combos from the opponent and knock them straight up for a counter attack, have an Anti-Air attack where she points her finger at you and temporarily gives you a giant head, stunning you briefly, and an attack reflection ability where she can shrink a person's projectiles and launch them back to sender even larger, like she did to Lucy’s attack in their battle. These attacks would all hit hard, but they are also all things you can do in response to a foes moves so you’d need to be more on your game to pull them off. Brandish would have a lazy walking speed and we’d have some fun with her animations, having her grow bored or pull out a tropical drink for herself if she stands still too long, just because it’d be funny. Her basic attacks would include her slapping the opponent around, pulling out that Knife she keeps in her coat to slash at them, tossing some pebbles she finds in her pocket as a projectile, and taking off one of her heels to beat you with it as a fun B. Jenet reference. None of these would do too much damage on their own, but by Meter Burning, Brandish could get a little more serious and use her size manipulation to Enhance these attacks. Suddenly those pebbles turn into boulders mid air, that knife and shoe turn into a great sword and club on contact, and maybe she shrinks you down to mouse size before slapping you back to normal. Brandish would also have notably Low HP, I mean did you see how easily Cana knocked her out with a Sucker Punch once? But Brandish also has the ability to heal herself via shrinking her injuries down to nothing, so I actually think for her Trait, we’d give Brandish a passive healing factor that constantly Regens her health at all times. Now this would not be very fast, and basically is just to balance out how low we’d make her HP without it, but an effect it would have that really ties her playstyle together, is it would incentivise the opponent to keep on attacking her and not take breaks between combos to strategize where she will end up getting much more health. And for a Counter heavy character, making your opponent want to attack you with some amount more desperation is a beautiful thing. Lastly, in regards to her super move….yeah come on, you just know we gotta have her grow to Kaiju size and stomp on the whole stage, that's too obvious and cool NOT to do.

Mirajane Strauss:

Alright making one more brief stop at the Fairy tail guild, we need a representative of the Strauss siblings and their iconic Take Over abilities in this game. And between Mira, Elfman and Lisanna, Mira was a fairly obvious choice. Mira is the oldest sibling and clearly the most powerful, being an S-Class mage comparable to Erza. She’s gotten major fights in more arcs than both her siblings combined at 6. And also Mira is just a genuinely very popular character among the fanbase in general, so it makes sense to include her, some of these don’t need too much justification ya’know? Anyway, Mirajane uses Take Over magic, with her speciality being Satan Soul, the power to turn yourself into Demons. So for this we are going to have to give Mirajane a Trait similar to Lucy and Erza where you would have a dedicated button to swap what forms she's in, with each option having different effects. Unlike them though, Mirajane would actually start the fight in her generic Satan Soul demon form, rather than her human form. I know Mira can certainly fight as a human, but she doesn’t have the lionshare of her powers and mostly resorts to boxing in that state. So for the sake of programming, Mirajane would swiftly turn into her Satan Soul form at the start of every match, with the player then having the option to swap to other forms or back to this at their leisure. Anyway Mirajane would be a very aggressive rushdown type character who would have a variety of kicks, claw slashes, and a handful of her trademark demonic projectile attacks to throw at the opponent. She’d have her Soul Extinctor as a really cool projectile attack, Evil Explosion as an Area of Effect attack off her body, Satan Blast as a rising uppercut and Dark Deflector as a counter projectile. These would all be standard moves accessible in any of Mira’s Takeovers, but they would have some unique traits. Her Basic Satan Soul form would be able to fly using its wings, and would be able to Burn Meter to enhance her physical attacks with Water as a nod to her using Water against Freed in their fight. Her Halphas form would have the highest Durability and allow her to Burn Meter to enhance her attacks with Lightning. Her Sitri form would have the highest Speed and allow her to Burn Meter to enhance her attacks with Fire. And Lastly, her Alegria form would have the highest Attack Power and allow her to Burn Meter to enhance her attacks with Darkness. And for her Super Move, we’d have Mirajane turn into her Seilah form and use Seilah’s Macro curse to take control of their mind, forcing them to remain still as she delivers a gigantic explosion upon them, which would be really spooky and atmospheric, and do a ton of damage.

Sting Eucliffe:

Alrighty, it's about time that we got some of Fairy Tail’s well known allied guilds some representation in this game. And the first and most deserving one of these is the Sabertooth Guild. Sabertooth is the 2nd strongest guild in Fiore behind Fairy Tail and showed up to Assist Fairy Tail in every major arc since their introduction in the OG series, including Tartaros, and even recently showed up again in the sequel series to play a major role in the current arc, so yeah, probably should give them priority here among outside guilds. On top of that Sabertooth has easily the most guild members that could work well in a game like this, so we are going to be including Three of them today and the first of them is none other than the Master of the Guild himself, Sting! So with this choice, I knew I had to include one of the twin dragons if I was doing Sabertooth characters, but I thought we definitely don’t need both just for the sake of variety. I chose Sting over Rogue because not only is he the Guild Master, and does cooler stuff, including defeating one of the Spriggan 12 members, but since both Gajeel AND Sting absorbed Rogue’s shadows as a second element, he doesn’t exactly bring a lot new to the table unfortunately. Anyway, Sting is a White Dragon Slayer and specializes in both White and Holy Magic, and is a levelheaded fighter so we’d give him more of a classic Shoto archetype where he can do a little bit of everything but not as good as those who specialize in those things. Sting would have a lotta Light enhanced strikes and special moves like the White Dragon Flash attack. He’d have a grab move where he'd activate the Holy Nova explosion attack, a couple decent distance attacks like Holy Ray to produce a swarm of small projectiles, and White Dragon’s Roar for one big powerful one, and he’d be able to burn meter to activate his White Drive to enhance the power of these moves somewhat. For Sting’s Trait, he’d be able to use White Dragon Claw, a really cool hax move he used once in the Grand Magic Games, and then never again so we’re correcting that here! This move allows sting to place a magical Rune called a Stigma on a person's body and completely paralyze them while it’s there. With this he’d be able to stun the opponent for several seconds in order to pressure them and set up combos. This would be able to be interrupted, but it is still a scary ability to keep in mind when facing him. And lastly of course we have to let him go into White Shadow Dragon Mode with his Supermove, giving him a short period where he becomes massively more powerful, plus to differentiate it from Gajeel’s Shadow Mode, rather than the Shadow Teleport, Sting would get access to the White Dragon Silk attack, which is the power he and rogue won all of their big fights with.

Rufus Lore:

For my second Sabertooth choice, I wanted to go outside the box with another unexpected pick that would get people talking. When Sabertooth was introduced in the Grand Magic Games arc, it was established they have 5 uber powerful wizards that put them on top. And while 3 of these Wizards would continue on to have some decent prominence, the other two have kinda taken a backseat, not really showing up or doing anything major since the Grand Magic Games, despite the fact that they should still be perfectly relevant powerwise. So I definitely think it would be a great move to bring one of them back for an unexpected pick to get people excited and talking. And the obvious choice for this was none other than Rufus Lore! Unlike Orga, who would basically just be another Laxus with less versatility and personality, Rufus is a total showman with his fantastic design, unique and super interesting abilities, and confident, over the top theatrical personality. His fight against Gray is widely considered one of the best moments in that entire arc so if we have the opportunity to bring him back for a long awaited return, I Am Taking It! Rufus’s main ability is Memory Make Magic, an extremely hax and versatile ability that allows him to create things utilizing his own Memories. He was a very tricky fighter who would create big flashy and versatile attacks and avoid being attacked back by using various teleportation and spacing moves. This was apparently a pretty crucial part of his strategy because in their big fight, once Gray managed to get in close it took him only two hits to knock this guy out. Rufus’ powerful distance attacks, low HP and overall keepaway strategy is absolutely screaming Zoner archetype from the hilltops, so lets make it official! Rufus would be able to deal a lot of damage at a distance using several of his flashy projectile attacks, including his trademark, Night of The Falling Stars, which would fill the screen with a spread of lightning projectiles from the sky, Karma of the Burning Land, which would create a hot lava flow traveling along the ground towards the opponent, Shrine of Turbulent Fang to make small Tornado’s that travel across the screen towards the foe at different speed, and Downpour of Ancient Wisdom which would trap a foe in place for a few seconds with a Gravity Field, which would make these attacks more difficult to avoid. Rufus would be much weaker up close, but we wouldn’t make him helpless. He’d of course have his Afterimage ability to teleport himself to safety if need be. And for his upclose attacks, he’d have some rather unimpressive slaps and kicks, but if he  Burns Meter, I actually thought it would be really interesting if, given Rufus’ ability to memorize and copy spells he sees, he’d directly copied the basic attacks of whichever character he was fighting, similar to Kirby in the Smash Series, which would be fun and interesting to play with, but also would save some time with his animations. For Rufus’ Trait, Rufus has a power called Forget, which allows him to Nullify any spell projectile he has seen before. If an enemy throws a projectile at him, you could perform forget at just the right time and counter the attack before it hits you, making Rufus the games best Zoner as he can Zone you but you would struggle to Zone back. Lastly for his Super Move, I’m going to go with his super big and powerful Sword of Frozen Black Lightning, an attack that uses both Gray’s Ice, as a nod to how Rufus gained respect for Gray after being defeated by him, and Orga’s Lightning, which is a nice reference to him to still give him some representation since he didn’t make it into the game himself.

Minerva Orland:

And lastly for our brief turn into Sabertooth, I wanted to grab one of their female members for this game, and the two most obvious choices are clearly Minerva and Yukino. Now speaking candidly, between the two, I am much more a Fan of Yukino. She’s an overall better written and more likable character, but when designing a game like this, variety of playstyles is a really important factor. Yukino would basically play very similar to Lucy, but with significantly less options. Her using the same kind of magic as Lucy, but with only 3 spirits as opposed to Lucy’s more than 10, and without the ability to use Star Dresses like Lucy could. Meanwhile, Minerva has a much more unique powerset unlike anyone else's thus far, so I am left with the choice of benching Yukino for now. Minerva is also a great choice for this in her own right, having a major role in the GMG, Sun Village, Tartaros and Alverez arcs in the og series, as well as coming back in the sequel arc. She’s got connections not only to her fellow guildmates, but also to Erza and to a limited degree Lucy as well. Minerva also went through character development from a wicked villainous to a morally good character, but I think most can agree that this was kinda a rushed redemption and we could use a bit more time with her coming to terms with the stuff she did, which this game would give us the ability to do. Going into her playstyle, Minerva’s primary ability is Territory Magic which allows her to Manipulate Space, or the distance between things, as well as alter the properties of area’s. With this in mind, I’m actually going to start with Minerva’s Trait, which I am basing off the move Squigly has in Skullgirls called Center Stage. This move shifts the entire stage to put Squigly at the center and throws off the orientation of the other character by suddenly moving them to a difficult to predict part of the stage relative to their foe. This works perfectly into a Setplay strategy that I think Minerva would excel in. Minerva is a rather powerful mage, so her moveset would be generally strong, but it would require her to invest resources into setting up bigger more damaging combos. Minerva could shoot damaging energy projectiles, create orbs that will trap the foe inside for several seconds on contact and drain their meter, and set certain spaces in the map to remotely detonate in explosive blasts after a short time. These attacks wouldn’t be crazy difficult to avoid in and of themselves, but when coupled with Minerva’s stage shifting trait, avoiding them becomes a lot harder real fast. Minerva would also have a teleportation ability, only we would make it a unique one that teleports both Minerva and her opponent, making them swap positions, something Minerva is known to do as a trademark and would further play into her setup strategy. In close range, Minerva would have pretty decent sweeping kicks and punches in both range and power, as well as that Grapple Beam-like attack she could slam her foes around with. By Meter Burning, Minerva could also enhance these attacks with her claws since she is technically still half demon after Tartaros. Lastly, Minerva’s Supermove has to be the Yagd Rigola, which summons a giant battle god to briefly attack the foe, not only is it flashy but it also doesn’t super connect to her other powers so it was the best way to include it.

Cana Alberona:

And we’re back to Fairy Tail again! At this point we need to get some of the more popular faces in there, regardless of how many fights they have had, as that would just be too standard and predictable for a fighting game roster. So while technically being beaten out in total fights by Elfmen, we’re going with Cana instead! I’m sorry Elfmen fans but we already have representatives for both the Strauss Sibs and Take-Over Magic with Mira. We need more variety and fanservice and Cana brings both in spades! Cana is the daughter of Gildarts, the strongest Wizard in the guild, and has canonically been a member of the guild longer than any of the MC’s despite the similar age. She has been in the series since the first arc and has been instrumental to several arcs from Tenrou to the Grand Magic Games, to Tartaros, Alvarez and even the sequel series so she definitely deserves her own spot. Cana’s primary abilities are Card magic, which mostly focuses on throwing cool card projectiles with different effects like Gambit or something, but despite that distance game mentality, Cana can still scrap up close, known for being rather strong and able to use a somewhat of a Drunken Boxing type fighting style for unpredictable moves. So we would make her a combination of a Mixup and Zoner character who would be able to counter an opponent with hard to read moves in up close combat and rain down lots of different card projectiles on the opponent. We’ll give Cana her standard Light Card projectile attack which shoots a big barrage of cards across the screen, but by burning meter, she’d be able to enhance her cards into her Explosive cards to make much more damaging blasts. Cana would be able to make shields of cards to block attacks for a short time, as well as use her ability to turn herself into a card to teleport around the opponent to increase her defensive game. For her trait we would give Cana several attacks where she draws a card from her Deck and holds it out to the opponent to attack them in different ways, but they would be able to attack with various different elements that she has shown to be able to use before. Just like Black Dahlia's mechanic we used for Erza, Cana would have something similar where you can stack her deck to be able to blast out a huge attack of Water, Fire, Wind, Ice or Lightning in whatever order you want to best aid you in damaging your foe or aiding your allies. This would make Cana somewhat tricky to play but able to be pretty oppressive if you put in the time to learn her. Also her Supermove would just be Fairy Glitter, you KNOW It would be Fairy Glitter, if it wasn’t Fairy Glitter, that would just be ridiculous.

Freed Justine:

We have room for just one more Fairy Tail member on this base roster so I have to make it count, and one character archetypes we have yet to represent in this game is the Trap characters…..Trap SETTING Characters, or characters whose gimmick is setting up hazards around the stage that mess with the opponent and make them have to avoid the things to get to you. And there is simply no character in the entire series more suited to that playstyle than Freed Justine! Freed also has a lot of arguments to be in the game regardless, getting in fights in a surprisingly high number of arcs, and being the most popular of Laxus’ Thunder Legion. As for how he’d play, Freed would specialize in keeping his foes at a distance to give himself time to set up various areas in the field both to benefit himself and harm his opponent. He could set up invisible walls that reflect projectiles back to sender, place areas on the stage that heals him while he is standing in it, boobytrap parts of the stage to electrically shock people, and be able to summon gusts of wind that blow the opponent into these obstacles similar to Rachel Alucard from Blazblue. This sounds like it could be pretty busted, and It is, but it would require some time investment to set up meaning you would have to be a very skilled Freed Player to use this to its fullest without getting interrupted. Freed would be able to use simple sword attacks up close and fire a simple and easy to dodge sword beam projectile for normal attacks. He Would be able to enhance these moves by Burning Meter to use Dark Écriture: Pain, but they would still be nothing to write home about, and Freed would not easily be able to hold off most other characters up close. To Help him buy time to better set these things up however, Freed would have both his Teleportation and Flight abilities as moves to help play keep away, and would have a Trait somewhat similar to Sting’s, using Dark Écriture: Fear to temporarily make his opponent panic, stunning them for a few seconds. But for his Supermove, Freed would use his most powerful ability, Dark Écriture: Absolute Shadow, a superstate that turns him into a badass looking ninja monster man which would seriously buff his melee attacks and let him fire big beams of darkness for a short time.

Invel Yura:

We really need to get some Villains into this game. We cannot simply have all heroes in here or there wouldn’t be much of an excuse to fight stuff. But selecting a villain for an interquel game can often be very difficult, as you need someone who would reasonably still be both a threat AND evil, and you also can’t just introduce a totally original villain for the purposes of one of these without getting into fanfiction-y territory. Thankfully We have just the thing for that! The Spriggan Twelve, the prominent Antagonist group from the final arc of the original series are still quite relevant in terms of powers, and a good half of them survived giving us a quick group of former baddies to pull from. 

But we wouldn’t just be doing this for the sake of it, as we find out from Brandish in 100 Years Quest that after Zeref’s defeat, there was a power struggle in the Alvarez Empire that resulted in Ajeel becoming King, and Invel and Neinhart being imprisoned. These are events we are merely told about in a few panels, which would be happening Exactly when we plan to set this fighting game, so it seems like a perfect thing to go more into in this game's story! We’d have Spriggan Twelve members clashing with each other and the rest of the cast vying for control in this power vacuum, with Invel ultimately serving the role of a major villain trying to gain power and use it to further attack Fiore for revenge, who the player would defeat in the story leading to his imprisoned state in the main series. Anyway let’s get to how he’d play! Invel is an extremely powerful Ice Wizard who has power over winter itself. This gives him quite a few similar abilities to Gray, so it's important that we ensure that his playstyle differentiates him from Gray in particular. A Big difference between Invel and Gray is that while Gray is perfectly willing to get into fist fights and melee combat, Invel really doesn’t, even when someone else starts attacking him in Melee, he can’t defend against it well and still relies on creating distance and using his ice abilities to persevere. So where Gray was more of a spacing type of character, Invel would be a full Zoner, he hits people from far away with special magic attacks, but gets bullied up close. Most of Invel’s arsenal would be easy enough to learn and program, he’d be able to shoot a few different Ice Beams across the stage and call in powerful ice gusts to push the opponent backwards. Both of these attacks would be able to briefly Freeze the opponent in place, leaving them open if not blocked, and Invel could burn some of his meter to increase the duration of successful freezes. He could also summon Ice Barriers to block attacks for him, which coupled with his wind abilities would allow for limited keep away. I cannot give him things like a Teleport move as he just doesn’t have that power, but I will give him notably more HP than the other Zoner characters to balance this. It’s certainly justified as he endured a Much more savage beating from Gray than Rufus could for example. Invel would have very limited swats and kicks for his melee attacks which would intentionally not be very good to balance him out. Not the most intimidating arsenal of abilities so far so I think for his Trait, Invel needs something rather intimidating, and he’s got two pretty trademark abilities that could work for it. Between the two of them, I am going to go with Absolute Ice Shroud, as not only would it work better, but also is a really cool ability that didn’t get as much love in the main series. This ability allows Invel to summon a cool looking armor over his entire body made of Netherworld Ice, which instantly freezes anything it comes into contact with at Absolute Zero. Invel would be able to activate this for a short time and while it would be active not only would his Defenses be buffed, but he’d deal frost damage every time the other player touches him, giving them just that bit of extra incentive to Not start beating up the Zoner in melee would go a long way for his viability. And don’t worry about his other ability, the Ice Lock, as we can just use that for his Supermove, letting him Mind Control his opponent and force them to deal a high amount of damage to themself similar to some of the super moves of Quan Chi from Mortal Kombat.

Jacob Lassio:

Alrighty and our next former Twelve member to make it into this game is none other than Jacob! Now honestly, Jacob was one of the last characters I picked for this roster, I probably woulda picked Dimaria over him, all else being equal. But there is just so much more story potential with Jacob, especially because Dimaria is established to have completely retired from combat after apparently being traumatized by Natsu’s E.N.D. form. We see in 100 Years Quest that Jacob ended up becoming one of Ajeel’s advisors in the new Kingdom once things settled, and that always struck me as pretty odd. Jacob is a deadly villainous Assassin and didn’t go through any big character growth within the series proper. In my head canon, I think that maybe Jacob was initially on Invel’s side in the Vengeance upon Fiore Camp, but over the course of the events that followed, he was won over to the side of Peace and got some redemption as a result. I think that could be pretty interesting to depict in this fighting game, and not to mention good for creating a lotta different cool fight combinations in the story. Now for gameplay, as mentioned above, Jacob is an Assassin, a calm collected killer who is shown to be very skilled in Hand to Hand combat. For these reasons I am gonna make Jacob a combination of a Stance and Grappler style fighter who focuses heavily on counters. In his fight with Natsu, Jacob was one to allow his opponent to come towards him and then parry away their attacks and put them into a hold. This is a great strategy for countering Rushdown style characters…which Natsu IS so it makes perfect sense. Anyway Jacob would deal most of his damage up close, slamming people into the ground and putting them in painful holds designed to break bones, generally being a very intimidating presence to approach. He’d have multiple especially tricky and devious techniques including throwing knife projectile attacks, a Teleportation power that allows him to suddenly creep up on you, and the power to enhance his moves with his Red energy by burning some meter. Jacob’s Trait would revolve around his stealth magic, allowing him to turn himself completely invisible for a short time, similar to Reptile from Mortal Kombat, which again is just gonna make it somewhat harder to avoid him, adding to that intimidating air. Jacob’s primary ability is actual Spatial magic, but interestingly enough he doesn’t use it too often due to his thing for more honorable combat. This was helpful for differentiating him from Minerva, but for his Supermove, we gotta use his power to spatially warp you to the afterlife for some big dramatic attack he can do.

Ajeel Raml:

And the last Spriggan 12 member I am going to be putting in this game is Ajeel! As the one who ultimately ends up taking the throne of Alvarez in the power struggle, we had to feature the Desert King in this roster to properly depict this story. Not to mention you can also use the opportunity to explain some things like how Max The Sand Guy is revealed to have met and learned some spells from Ajeel in 100 Years Quest. He’d be a bit of an anti villain for this game's story mode who could be with or against you at various points to help with the fighting dynamic. Ajeel’s main ability is his advanced Sand Manipulation and boy can he do a lot of things with it from Melee attacks to distance attacks to summoning monsters and more. Because of that Ajeel would use a lot of abilities similar to ones we have seen before but in a different combination. My idea for Ajeel is to be a Shoto style character, the basic fighting game class who is pretty good at everything, but not the best in anything, an overall generalist if you will. He’d be good in hand to hand, able to summon forth Sand Weapons to attack with such as Axes and swords, much like Gray. He’d be able to fire off Sand Projectiles for a distance attack, and even sand counter projectiles that turn projectiles they collide with Into sand and nullify them. He could make Sand pitfall traps, teleport, and even summon a sand monster on the other side of the screen to attack with. Ajeel’s whole thing would be giving the player Lots of options to attack with, but they wouldn’t necessarily lead into each other evenly so one would have to practice their strategy for him to be really good. He could Burn Meter to enhance his attacks with additional Sand Gusts, and of course could Summon a Giant Sandstorm with his super move that covers the whole screen. Ajeel, like Juvia, is also a Logia being who can turn his body to sand, so his trait would ultimately be fairly similar to hers, but as he's a quite different character otherwise, I think that seeing how that power works in this context still lends to being fairly unique. With a Zoner character like Juvia turning into water briefly would allow them to regain some distance, but Ajeel doing that with sand would give him away to break their combo and counter attack.

Kagura Mikazuchi:

Alright, now that we got some villains we need to come back and give some other allied guilds some representation, don’t want it to come off as though we’re giving Sabertooth Special Treatment after all. That being said, there isn’t a whole lot in terms of options with other allied guilds. Nobody cares about Quatro Puppy, Blue Pegasus doesn’t have anyone you could take seriously, Lamia Scale woulda been good but a lot of their best options got removed by this point, and I think between Gray and Invel we already have too many Icey boi’s to go for Lyon. Because of that the clear choice for characters to go for was Mermaid Heel, the super cool guild of Girlbosses introduced in the Grand Magic Games arc. And there's no better character to include than the strongest member of the guild, Kagura! Kagura is an awesome character, but I feel as though she hasn’t gotten a chance to shine since her introduction in the GMG. She was IN the Alvarez Empire Arc but she didn’t get to majorly contribute to the defeat of any of the Spriggan 12 members…..despite somehow fighting THREE of them, so I think we owe her this redemption to her status as a badass. Now Kagura is a powerful Swordswoman who was obviously meant to parallel Erza, but besides being skilled with a sword there is fittingly not a lot of overlap in their powers. Erza’s primary appeal is swapping between different swords and armors to fit the situation, but Kagura doesn’t do that at all, with her trusty Katana, Archenemy, being more than enough. Kagura would be a hyper aggressive Rushdown fighter who would be able to come in hard and fast with a barrage of highly damaging sword attacks at blinding speed. She’d be notably faster than any of the other sword characters in the game but have a weakness in terms of HP which would be a big contrast from Erza’s more tanky status to balance her out. Kagura’s primary power besides her melee fighting ability is her ability to manipulate gravity which we would use to enhance her attacks and mobility further. She would be able to trap an opponent in a gravity bind to stun them briefly, do a charge attack where she runs on the ceiling of the stage, launch herself at high speeds in dramatic anime fashion, utilize a counter projectile move where she forces attacks to ground level, and Burn Meter to use gravity to increase her swords weight to enhance its damage further. Kagura would also have her danger sense as a trait which will put her into a state where she will automatically parry any attack that is thrown at her, making her unable to be damaged for a brief time. To balance this, Kagura would only be able to do this once and not be able to attack while this is active, but this would be a great tool to use against the big attacks others could throw out and make them waste their resources, forcing those going up against Kagura to constantly keep this in mind and hesitate to use them. And for a super move, I think the best option to go with is for Kagura to float the opponent in midair before finally Unsheathing her Sword and dealing an insanely high amount of damage in one big anime sword attack than ends in a cool pose, it just has that hype flavor we’re looking for.

Millianna:

Ya know there's a certain archetype that is super common in anime that is Also extremely common in Fighting Games, and that is none other than The Catgirl! Yes from Darkstalkers, to Samurai Shodown, to Blazblue and even Skullgirls, catgirls are a fairly recurring element in fighting games that are quite beloved by the fans. So if Fairy Tail has more than its fair share of Catgirls, I say we take the opportunity to include one in this fighting game! With that in mind our second and final choice from the Mermaid Heel guild is their catgirl Millianna. Millianna was first introduced in only the 6th arc of the series, being one of Erza’s best friends, before coming back in the GMG arc with a new guild and a new look where she suddenly became extremely popular for I am SURE are entirely wholesome reasons. Anyway, Millianna is one of those weirder out of left field choices that really works out in every way. She has a lotta fan support, we know she is actually rather powerful from how well she compared to characters like Lyon, but she also has somehow never had a full on fight scene in the series giving us the ability to break some ground with her. Millianna also fills a role in fighting games we haven’t gotten a lotta representation for up till now, Grapplers! Yes Millianna’s main power is to produce long whip-like bindings that nullify a wizard's powers while restraining you. Heck even when not using her powers Millianna excels in hand to hand and fights specifically by putting someone in holds before physically plumbing them. So we would of course give Millianna a lot of grabs and holds and a multitude of basic attacks that can lead into them, including a bunch of punches, kicks and scratch attacks with her retractable claws. These attacks would work fairly well in normal melee but would be more effective once she has her foe in one of her holds. Millianna would have the lowest HP of any of the grapplers in the game, but would also have the highest speed and most indirect ways of getting up close, such as her trait that allows her to use a “substitution jutsu-ish” counter attack based on her illusion powers. In practice this would be similar to Juvia and Ajeel’s logia ability where they try and attack her in an invincible state, only instead it would turn out to be an illusion and you’d get counterattacked into a grab. Millianna’s primary power would be using her Cat Ropes, shooting them out to grab the opponent and pull them in close, Scorpion Style, and would take a few seconds for another player to break free from them. By Burning Meter, Millianna could also increase the number of these ropes she unleashes with a single attack making them harder to dodge. And with her final super move, Millianna would put an end to this cat and mouse game as she summon enough Binds to fully encase her foes body before jumping atop them, claws unleashed and scratching them so much it makes a cartoon-y dust cloud, as a direct reference to one of Taokaka’s supers.

The White Mage:

And here we have the final character in this roster. I said at the beginning that this game would take place between the time skip of the main series and 100 years quest, with promoting said sequel being a major priority of the game. One of the best ways to do that is to include a brand new character introduced super early into the series, to make returning fans familiar with them and want to see where their story goes! So there is no better character to do that with than the mysterious new Fairy Tail member, Touka, or as she is sometimes addressed, The White Mage. We wouldn’t be able to do a ton with her in the story of this game, but We could easily use the game to visually set up the events of her meeting Natsu and Happy in her backstory. And we can be certain to hint at all the weird traits about her throughout things in order to really intrigue people. But how would she play? Well The White Mage possesses the power of the Spiritual Arts, a non-magical Ki based ability that lets her take control of beings and their abilities. I’m thinking she’d stroll onto the screen jovially and happy only to swap to a menacing smirk as her other personality takes over and she begins emanating White energy off her form. Because of this Touka would be a very copy-paste character in this series with two different movesets to her. Her initial moveset would be fairly basic, utilizing her Telekinetic powers to play somewhat of a zoner game and knock the foe back and around, and playing keep away using Levitation abilities and her Aqua Area portal spell to teleport around the arena. But her playstyle would rely upon her trait, Dyed White. With this move she would create a large white vortex that pulls the opponent into close range and puts them under her White spell. It wouldn’t do any damage but what is Would do is grant her access to the same moveset of whatever character she used this on. This would naturally make Touka one of the most difficult characters to learn, but also one of the most difficult characters to fight against as you don’t fully know what you are getting into and she could potentially change up her moveset completely with the drop of a hat. Touka’s Meter Burn would naturally be the same as whatever character she is using at the time, but for her Super Move I think it would only be fitting is she called in the Cult of the White Mage and had a group of her mind controlled servants come in and kick your butt for her while she watches with some tea or something.

So there You have it, your completed Base Roster for Fairy Tail: No Limits. Ajeel Raml, Brandish μ, Cana Alberona, Erza Scarlet, Freed Justine, Gajeel Redfox, Gray Fullbuster, Invel Yura, Jacob Lassio, Jellal Fernandes, Juvia Lockser, Kagura Mikazuchi, Laxus Dreyar, Lucy Heartfilia, Meredy, Millianna, Minerva Orland, Mirajane Strauss, Natsu Dragneel, Rufus Lore, Sting Eucliffe, Wendy Marvell and The White Mage. Not including the special White Mage character, that is 11 Male Characters to 11 Female Characters, as well as 11 Characters from the Fairy Tail Guild to 11 Characters that aren’t. All Equipped to tell an awesome Interquel story between the OG and Sequel series. I really went hard with designing this one, and I DEFINITELY made some busted characters here or there, with the funny thing being I don’t know which ones would end up being so cause I made them all pretty busted. But hey, Fairy Tail is a series that thrives on the HYPE, so if you have the ability to go extra with something, you take it every time. And a Real Hype thing would be to go into some characters we could add to this thing to make it better! And you all know the best way to make things better in a fighting game, DLC of course! Now Anime fighters tend to not go too crazy with DLC in the first game, saving it for sequels where they can pull out a lot more, but there are some games like DBFZ that really did go for it, so I am going to split the difference and do 2 Seasons of DLC with 3 characters each. Picking characters for DLC was a fun challenge with a lot of factors, as the base roster is already set, DLC is often the time to get crazy with things and start just adding whatever characters would be cool, while playing more fast and loose with why or how they work.

That leads into my first DLC Pack.

Yeah so the first wave of DLC would be the 3 main powerhouses from the end of the previous series. Mavis Vermillion the good hearted founder of the Fairy Tail Guild, as well as both Zeref Dragneel and Acnologia, the two main antagonists of the series overall. These three characters are massively iconic in the series, all of them being introduced within the same arc right before the series’ major timeskip, and being treated with this impressive gravatas the entire time the series went on. I Could not include any of them in the base roster, as come the time this game would take place, all of them are dead, but honestly the games roster was always going to feel somewhat incomplete without them so they just had to make it in somehow. Now you might be thinking, ‘oh well since these 3 are Deceased their presence isn’t canon to this game and they can’t play a role in the story mode.’ Originally I thought the same thing, but then after thinking about it, I found a work around. So with the whole Spriggan 12 plotline of this game, one member I completely failed to mention is Neinhart, which might be odd considering he Clearly was allied to Invel and went to jail with him post power struggle so Obviously he’d be involved here. But there's a reason for that, that being WOW would Neinhart Not be able to work in a fighting game. Neinhart really cannot directly fight at all, and his power is to summon Facsimiles of powerful dead people whoever he is fighting knew in life to fight on his behalf. To do him properly, you’d almost need to design an entire extra cast’s worth of characters and relocate them to just a character who shows up whenever Neinhart fights x character. It would be ridiculously expensive and overcomplicated and I already included several rather complicated characters as it is. But while this means we couldn’t fight him directly in gameplay, you know what we COULD do with him? Have him summon and control all these powerful deceased characters as his Historia’s to fight against the characters in the story. So with that we’d include Mavis and Zeref to be these powerhouse Zoner characters who have weak defense but op hax distance attacks while Acnologia would be our big Unga Bunga character who rushes in and overwhelms his foes with big hits. And with those three classic characters added, we are going to go the opposite direction with our other DLC Pack.

Yes, the final DLC Pack I am going to refer to as the Diabolos Pack, the guild of super powerful 5th Gen Dragon Slayers who gain their power by Consuming Dragons. After including Touka in the base roster of this game to intrigue old fans into checking out the sequel, now that we have gotten into the DLC we need to include some more new characters to make that last push to entice the remaining casual players to check the series out more. And wouldn’t you know it, Diabolos starts out by introducing a trio of cool new villains into the series we could obviously use, Kiria, Madmole and Skullion. Despite how early these three showed up, they actually repeatedly come back in tons of arcs after the initial one and remain relevant almost like a Fairy Tail Team Rocket for the sequel, albeit much more hard core. So I think their inclusion here would be great for tying the original series and the sequel series together and making this a more cohesive representation of the Fairy Tail cast as a whole. Kiria, with her hyper aggressive personality and Blade Dragon Slayer powers would be great at a rushdown role. Madmole with his super durable Armor Dragon Slayer abilities would make for a great Tanky Grappler character one upping even Gajeel in terms of defense. And Skullion with his haxy and ethereal Ash Dragon powers would be good at Zoning and keep away. This means as a Team they would be a really good combination as they have at least one member who is good at everything, but also means they are kinda a Rock, Paper, Scissors situation against one another.

Well there you have it, a full and comprehensive Fairy Tail fighting game roster. Weirdly this one was a lot harder to make than my previous KidsWB roster, maybe it's just because I am so much more directly a fan of Fairy Tail so I went to the extra effort with this one, but I also think there is something to be said about making a game that is meant to be a love letter to a specific series rather than a crossover fighter where you can more or less just choose only prominent heroes and villains the whole time and the real choices are the franchises rather than the characters specifically. But anyway what did you all think of this one? Do you like Fairy Tail or learning about it? Did this game seem fun to play? Who’d you main based on what was said here? But most prominently,  What are some hypothetical rosters you’d like to see in the future? Be sure to let me know down below!