***Update 2 years later*** Since this video keeps popping in and out of the algorithm. Baiken? She got made more accessible and normal, hardly as difficult as she used to be. Juri? She's basically a completely normal character now in SF6, just build store and go, and you can still use her moves without it. Angel? Difficult as ever, and people keep trying her and bouncing off near immediately. She's the only one who has kept her difficulty since this video was made.

Alt Title: 'Should characters be as hard as their players?'

fun fact: the reason why baiken only has one arm is actually a reference to how the players act while playing baiken

I personally believe faust is the most fan service character,.look at him 9 ft tall ideal male body, arcsys is shameless

The premise is: You have to EARN your sexy. Put in your time. Sexy is your reward for mastering such a difficult style.

They need to keep the sex appeal characters difficult. Everyone may love the thicness but very few can truly handle it.

They have a lot of.... Fan art, yeah.

I believe Baiken is a bit of an interesting case though as she wasn't originally meant to draw people in or be beginner friendly. After all she was a secret character in the original Guilty Gear, who you must unlock by finishing Arcade Mode with a certain character without continuing. Makes sense for her having a bit of a weird playstyle. At least compared to Juri who was all over Super IVs marketing.

Giovanna from strive is a good example of the opposite effect a lot of people play Giovanna cause I mean look at her. And she's the perfect character to learn the games systems, she plays aggressive, she's easy to combo with, and she gets extra perks as her super meter fills that helps close the skill gap.

Allow me to bastardize a metal gear quote to illustrate “fighting game character popularity” in relation to the playability of the character. “It's a sexy girl, I'll give You that. But the Large breasts give You no tactical Advantage Whatsoever"

"They have a lot of *fanart* dedicated to them." Yeah, sure. Let's call it that.

my own conspiracy theory: the fan service characters are intentionally made hard to use so that when the game is streamed by players or shown during tournaments or other high profile events they never get seen. That way the game can supply the horny without turning away the mainstream

Its not even just booba. Tekken's Lei, who is based on Jackie Chan a popular action movie star, doesn't have that many players because he wasn't strong for a while and has a lot of stance. But people really really wanted him back when he wasn't in T7's original roster.

A true waifu lover WILL main them regardless how good, bad, easy or hard they are. *Cries in reflectless Videl*

Tekken Devs: Thanks for the lesson. Here’s Leroy Smith.

I actually didn't even care about Baiken until I learned how dope her defense is. I love it when a character can be played defensively and still be fun as hell

*almost a year later update* Angel is just as difficult as ever in KoF XV, however Baiken got ultra simplified and she got turned into a offensive pressure kinda character with her entire defensive portfolio simplified into one basic counter. I guess arcsys wants to turn "baiken mains" into actual baiken mains. No SF6 yet so we will have to see about juri :-0

To be honest I don't think even the Angel players know how to play Angel.

Well the problem is that it’s hard to play a character like Baikem with one hand.

I remember seeing Angel back in the day and basically doing this exactly, almost dying cause of her moveset... and then I committed and she is now my go to point.

Top 10 reasons why Juri is popular 10 left pinkie toe 9 the left ring finger toe

“Baiken is a very defensive character “ Jokes on you im into that shit!!!!! In all seriousness im glad they make those kind of characters hard to use. Its like a self balancing tool.

Baiken's design was heavily inspired by Himura Kenshin of Rurouni Kenshin. Character designer Daisuke Ishiwatari stated that he got the idea when he saw a picture of Kenshin and mistook him for a woman. The name "Baiken" is likely named after Baiken Shishido, an Edo period samurai.

Loved the new Juri costume inspired in high school japanese gangs. Angel's coolest lore is that she was created because the guys at SNK lost a KoF money match to another developer

So Baiken is basically a Sam Sho character in a guilty gear game.

I missed the garbage truck editing and putting this video out so now I can't put out my garbage til next week. Please like and subscribe.

I'm a Super Sayan 10 Goku Main

You should do a video called: Fighting Game Characters That Online Players Underestimate. Bo Rai Cho from MKX is a perfect example. Everyone thinks he stinks and is a dumb character, so nobody plays him. But his mixup game and near unpredictability make him an absolute powerhouse in the right hands

I play Baiken, she’s absolutely terrifying once you get her pressure going. She has to play defensively to condition the opponent and build tension, but when she goes on the offense, she can be absolutely monstrous

If I recall Baiken came to be because Daisuke thought Kenshin was female. But ya, ballistics are a reason

Can we get the sequel to this: "ultra popular fighting game characters that people actually play"?

I actually have a friend who legitimately mains Juri. He wasnt sure who he wanted to play in 4 and one match reluctantly decided to try Juri, because he didnt want to be lumped in as "one of those people", and he ended up really liking the moveset. He scares me with how good he is.

The fact I have to become a badass to actually main the cool hot female character (Baiken, Mina, Juri, Yuzuriha, Bullet, etc.) just makes it EVEN BETTER!!!!!!

I always liked the _idea_ of playing Angel way more than actually playing her. I love her goofy wrestling theme but I was never a fan of her voice actor, so I'll never put in the time to actually learn her stuff.

Today on the rooflemonger show, we will be analyzing the classic character archetype of the boobie woman.

Ivy in Soul Calibur 2 was exactly this. By the time I got her command throw down I was just starting to realize that I’d never be able to create openings for it and execute it when I wanted to. Maxi and his million stances ended up being my favorite mashing character.

The irony though my boyfriend plays all these characters 😂 He plays Baiken for her hard executions. He plays Juri because she goes in and personal. He plays Angel because it's closer to Naoto Kurogane (which is his main in BBCF ) and to him she's fun to play. In conclusion the man is a madlad and got no chill giving hands to people 😂

Lei in Tekken for a non-sexy character that fits the bill. The character is super popular but he uses many wierd stances so few actually use him.

Who here after Angel was announced for KOF15? A whole new generation of players are gonna pick her and nope out the moment they see the movelist!

Jack-O Valentine is the perfect example of the fanservice character that's easy to use.

Fighting games have a huge coomer fanbase it makes perfect sense that many people enjoy fighting games for the aesthetics. Allot of the cute female characters end up having the most causal filter play styles lmao

As an actual Juri player it bugs me when people talk about how they main her in street fighter but either don't play the game or have only played it for 5 minutes

Lesson of the say: Be careful which brain you use when picking your main.

Being honest here, the fact that Baiken is a bit of a harder character makes me really want to learn her that much more. And believe it or not booba is not really the main reason I like her, its the Akira Kurosawa esc openings/finishes and the whole samurai angle that I love, I like Nago for the same reason.

So I have been thinking about this phenomenon in fighting games. The super popular sexy character everyone loves(and everyone says they "main") but the second they try to go at the character, its way too hard! What is it with these characters that easily draw people in, but are actually way harder to use than normal?

I guess Arcsys did learn their lesson, this is how we got Giovanna

As a Baiken main, I've been going hard learning all her options in the training mode and grinding in online matches The booba lures in, the gameplay grips you forever

In a weird, twisted sense, the sexy characters are your goal. You come into the game as a newbie, get completely backhanded with said sexy character, Practice the character for months if not years and then accomplish your goal by doing so. A goal that nobody wants to actually achieve in a 5 minute horny state.

I think the lesson is to a make sexy tom boy character with a spirit dog and don't give her enough moves.

It’s funny because I dont really like Angel as a character but she’s one of the most fun characters to play for me. Vanessa is one of my absolute favorites all around tho

Juri has been 1 of my favorite characters since her introduction and I never new she was considered a hard character until this video. I miss her spin kicks from sf4.

"To hard to use for the people they just brought in". That is a very interesting point.

In DBFZ, everyone was screaming Janemba for DLC. Nobody plays him

The badass hardened big asset female character is honestly a fighting game trope. Ivy is another one thats decently hard to use compared to the rest of the cast. And any Iajutstu samurai girl as well. Always have 2 big things about them and some weird mechanic to troll the thirsty bois Luckily I play the Sporty girl trope like Asuka or Yuri and they’re usually easy to pick up or a Shoto

This is a good video. I remember one of the earliest examples of these being Ivy from Soul Caliber. Mind you, Ivy is easier to pick up than the characters talked about in this video but casuals who play her do run into a wall the moment they run into another human player that has even a basic understanding of how valuable side stepping is, because most of the moves casuals throw out with Ivy are really easy to side-step and so they still get blown up. Casuals can still fall back on a character like Taki if Ivy isn’t working out for them though since she’s easier to pick up which is why the Ivy example isn’t quite as loud as others.

I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised that one of those new costumes for Juri was an awesome Sukeban throwback outfit. Especially considering the other one is just Juri in a sports bra, half a dress, and a Bison/Vega hat.

Damn I felt attacked when he brought up vanessa.

Nakaruru: A character that has been one of the front faces of SamSho since its inception, but plays like a weirdo and has been considered a competitively underpowered in most of her games, so learning her doesn't feel especially rewarding.

One thing this video doesn't mention is how truly scary are the real mains of these characters: Good Baikens never willfully get priority unless is to bait, and this means you can't rush into her, try to get a projectile hit and even try to poke her because you know she can AND will counter everything you throw at her. Yuri with her special imput basically doesn't follow the rules of the game everyone else plays, like he said. In both SF IV and V she essentially screws over anyone who can't/doesn't know how to counter her, and so any character that isn't a Zoner is gonna have an hard time.

They also gave Angel one of the best themes in 2002um 😭

Fancy talking about sexy fighting game characters and not bringing up Talbain :p

7:52 Deep Lore. So much of it too. Her story is breathtaking.

Baiken's amazing and I loved playing her way back when I played the game religiously. Not as my main, but pretty close. Something about her move set really clicked with me, despite her short-ish range. She had pretty good priority on most of her moves last I checked and tatami spam can be funny as well now and then. Wouldn't care in the slightest if they got rid of her sex appeal. Would still play.

Hate to say it, but I played more Dan as a joke than actual Juri in SFIV

12:00 lesson of the story is... Don't make a character that looks like people would want to play with one hand hard to use.

Ok so I've never seen angel or whatever her name is, but seeing that people's elbow does make me wanna player her, but even I can't be arsed learni g all that and I'm now new.

I don't know why no one plays juri. She's so fun in my opinion and storing moves is such a cool concept. I also love her dragon kick/spinnyspinny

Eliza from tekken 7 is a character everyone likes but no one knows how to play them and new people don’t even bother cause of her sex appeal 🖤🖤

I think ArcSys learned their lesson with Giovanna. Sexy cool character who is very simple, especially for guilty gear.

Me a Makoto main finding out she’s #2 on Capcom’s popularity ranks.... I only ever saw 3 Makotos on my whole life time and 1 was a guy picking her to spite me and I beat his ass. There was one Canadian Makoto that we shared tech with one another.

"Im a faust main"

This is so funny to me, because i main all the 3 characters on this video, and i heard a lot of people saying they main them as well and how they were always better than me because i am a young girl and i dont know anything about real FGC, i remeber a guy i told "i main Juri since Sf4" and he told me "I main her since SF3" Yes, you read that well, there was a guy who said he Mained Juri since a game she wasnt in Also i love your pronunciation of Angel

_Plays Angel and Baiken_ Wow, I feel special. Not gonna knock it. I played Baiken because he counters are BS. and Angel... meh, largely for the eye candy but stayed for the mixups I could get in KOF14. (I still suck at KOF because 4 button fighter kek) Great video and keep up the content.

I'm kinda embarrassed to admit how much I like Baiken, now. Honestly, though, I actually did play her in XX (and what little I played of Xrd).

Your voice soothes me with a similar cadence to Rob from Comics Explained... Except we're talkin' bout fightin' games instead of comics

Its just one of those characters that makes you feel better they are in the rosters, its like a reassuring presence lol

What a nice break from gaming news and tutorials. Great video! Keep them coming.

All I get from the Angel section is "They put Zell's limit break in a fighting game"

It's funny because Juri is the the only reason I would check out Street Fighter because I like Taekwondo. And when you described the negative edge system I was so stoked on that because I've never seen or played that in other fighting games. But now I'm just sad because they took it out in 5.

it's an expression of love, to dedicate your time to a difficult character if you love Honda, Honda will love you back, after all

The discrepancy between what characters are being played compared ones that are globally popular is just an example of how the fgc is just a fraction of people who love and grew up with these games and characters. U make a good point on making popular characters more accessible (i.e. like Lili from Tekken). I think the thing about Baiken and Angel is that they were designed at a time before it may have been known what kind of characters would be globally popular from a Japanese person's perspective in between the years 1999-2001. Angel is the most obvious of these examples because she is so far in the direction of obscure design, no new player was ever going to pick her up day one and feel competent at the game. She's far too technical. She seemed more like a character for fighting game nerds who like to lab and also appreciate a nice view (like myself). In other words, cheesecake (fanservice) doesn't necessarily mean the character was meant to be globally popular. I think Angel has been in a total of 3 fighting games (4 if u count KOF 02UM) and only one of them was canonical. So if shes popular, its in a small vacuum. Another example of this sort of "fighting-game-nerd-who-likes-cheesecake" style character design, is Hanzo from Yatagarasu (also designed by the same guy i think). Creative/awkward gameplay mechanics, but she's super nice to look at.

With the recent release of Juri skins, I almost wanted to download SF5 again just to try her again. Rooflemonger looking like the thought police rn...

"Jokes on you i'm into that shit" is the situation for me when playing Juri for the first time on SF4.

I was never a Baiken main but she was one of my favorites. I mained Bridget in X2 who I think is probably harder to master. Whether in MOBAs, class based shooters, or fighting games, I tend to be attracted to the more unusual or unconventional characters. I’m a bit older and never really had particularly fast reflexes so perhaps a defensive character like Baiken suits me better.

as a new player, watching this makes me want to play angel. her having so many follow up options makes her seem like "play what you know" type character. at lower levels her combos are weak and short but still doable and they just get longer and longer as you get better

When I started playing Angel, I quickly decided to memorise 3-4 options and call it a day.

Because of Angel's zany complex shit, its hella entertaining to watch online matches and watch her just go to town in one massive combo. Yeah, her voice is grating, but by god nothing quite encapsulates KoF combo nonsense like her. (Except for all those KOF 13 Evo videos of Flame!Iori or Mr. Karate, but let's not think about those mistakes.)

I think the logic is that if a character is designed to be extremely difficult to play, you better make the character extra appealing if not nobody would want to play them in the first place.

Remember when they overcorrected Angel's difficulty in 2002 by giving her monstrously long invincibility periods? lol

But if the hardest characters to play are also the non-fan favorites, no one would pick them, right? If you want to invest countless hours into learning a difficult character it might as well be a super sexy character. That's just the icing on the cake.

This was a great explanation of Angel. But I like that these popular characters are hard. For every Angel, theres a Mai

Tbh, Baiken was one of the characters that played in Xrd Rev 2 besides Millia, Chipp, Slayer, Bedman, Raven, Jam and I-No. Despite being difficult, I loved learning how to play her because she was one of the main characters that got me into Guilty Gear and ArcSys games as a whole. Juri is funnily enough one of my SFV mains (Primarily a Cammy, Ken, Chun and Akuma player) though I don't blame you with the negative edge stuff coming from someone who played fighting games on and off as long as I was able to hold a controller. Hated playing her in 4 but she's a lot more... Tamed in 5 imo. Nevertheless, this is an amazing video dude! Love your content.

I play both Juri and Baiken. Not even because of their “assets” I just absolutely love their gameplay style

As an actual +R Baiken main this is 100% true

I actually like defensive characters like Baiken, Jubei, Hakumen and so on. I mained Steve in Tekken mainly because of his evasive maneuvers and I've noticed that I don't do kicking all that much to begin with. I wouldn't call myself a Baiken main though, GuiltyGear has the problem that it has too many interesting characters,...please never fix that "flaw" Arc System Works. :D

funny how this video got recommended today, hu.

That's how I am with Juri as well. I was so excited when she was announced for the first season. But this is basically why Giovanna is why she is designed to be simple.

“Ultra popular characters that nobody uses.” Me, a Frieza main in FighterZ: “Hmm. 🧐”

I don't know what you are talking about before the video I only knew Baiken as "that cool and badass samurai character" and once you explained her gameplan it's sounded so much fun to me I dunno about people, but I found the counter from blocking thing is pretty interesting and fun and after thinking... I am ALWAYS gravitated towards weird characters and at least for me they tend to be the joke characters like Dan,Lowain,pac man AND mega man from street fighter x tekken lol I play platinum from blazblue just because she has a freakin poggo stick and can hit you on the head with a pan and the sound effect is just PERFECT it makes the move tbh for me

Angel is one of my mains for KOF because the moves I can pull off are extremely satisfying with their damage and impact. Otherwise, she’s just such perfect eye candy! 😍