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Last month, Square Enix and NHN PlayArt launched Dissidia Duellum: Final Fantasy for mobile devices. This gacha-based 3v3 Arena Fighter entry in the Dissidia franchise launched with ten characters from across the Final Fantasy franchise. Among these ten characters was Krile Mayer Baldesion from Final Fantasy V.
For those unaware, Krile Mayer Baldesion is a party member who joins mid-way through Final Fantasy V. Like all party members in that title, her abilities are determined by what Job the player gives her. Years later, a character with the same name would appear in Final Fantasy XIV, but aside from sharing a name and some minor character details, these two characters were as different from each other as the franchise’s many Cids.
While Krile quickly proved herself to be a great addition to the Dissidia roster as one of the best Support characters in the game, her inclusion in this game was incredibly confusing to many. Not only was she not the main character of Final Fantasy V, but she wasn’t even one of the more popular party members from that game.
Seeing a franchise like Dissidia, which has always included just the protagonists and villains from each Final Fantasy game (with the very occasional popular side character from the series’ best-selling entries), include a deep cut like Krile made fans around the world much more interested in speculating about what characters this game would include than before.
I would be willing to wager that if you polled 100 people and asked them to name ten Final Fantasy characters, not a single one of them would list Krile.
To test this, I actually did hold an open poll where I asked 75 people (With a demographic that consisted of both friends and strangers) to name nine Final Fantasy characters to see if anyone would think of Krile. I had accidentally asked for nine because I myself misremembered the starting roster size. I apologize if this misleads the data in any way.
Many of the people polled did list side characters from across the franchise in addition to franchise mainstays, with some people even coming incredibly close to naming Krile by naming her grandfather and fellow FFV party member, Galuf Mayer Baldesion.
While Krile did surpass my expectations and managed to be named more than the least-named character in the poll, Kunsel from Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, at the end of the results, only three people listed Krile; as an extra point of data, she was also the least listed Final Fantasy V character in the poll.
Below I have included some data from the poll I held:
| Character | Placement in Poll | Number of Votes |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud Strife (FFVII) | 1 | 30 |
| Tifa Lockhart (FFVII) | 2 | 18 |
| Terra/Tina Bradford (FFVI | 3 | 17 |
| Aerith Gainsborough (FFVII) | 4 | 14 |
| Cid (Unstated) | 5 | 13 (3-Way tie for fifth with Tidus and Vivi) |
| Character | Placement in Poll | Number of Votes |
|---|---|---|
| Krile (FFV) | 15 | 3 (27-way tie for fifteenth place) |
| Character | Placement in Poll | Number of Votes |
|---|---|---|
| Kunsel (Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth) | 17 | 1 (46-way tie for last place) |
I will admit that these numbers turned out better in Krile’s favor than I intended while gathering data for this piece, but despite that I feel it is better to share them anyway and I do still believe her low placement speaks for how odd it was it see her in the starting roster of this title.
By all means, there is no reason why Krile specifically was chosen for this roster. The gameplay role she fulfills as a support character that specializes in healing allies is one that could have theoretically been filled by any character in the Final Fantasy V party due to that game’s job system. This role could have even been filled by a natural White Mage character from a different Final Fantasy game.
I, however, absolutely love the inclusion of Krile in this roster. To choose such an obscure character this early in the game’s lifespan gives me hope that future roster picks will be just as obscure and entertaining. Dissidia Duellum will be adding a new character to the game every two weeks, and seeing Krile in the game this early gives me confidence that the game won’t be playing it safe with most of those picks.
When a development team has to pick and choose what characters will be in their crossover fighting game roster, it’s natural to expect that they’ll just choose the popular characters that everyone already knows they want to play as. However, the best rosters will always include something bizarre for the purpose of surprising players and making the game most interesting.
Another great example of a Krile-level obscure character to be included in a crossover fighting game roster comes from Arc System Works’ upcoming Marvel Comics fighting game Marvel Tokon. Alongside the most popular superheroes in existence, like Spider-Man and Captain America, this game will allow players to fight as Danger from the X-Men comics.
Danger is a character who debuted one year into the 2004 run of Astonishing X-Men and has since occasionally appeared in X-Men-related storylines. She has currently only appeared in comic books, with no prior appearances in outside media like cartoons or video games before Marvel Tokon.
I did not hold a poll asking people to list Marvel characters, as I did for Final Fantasy characters, as that would be meaningless. To call Danger an obscure character is to call the sky blue. When Marvel Tokon was first revealed, every comic nerd began to devise their own fan rosters for the game, and none of them included Danger.
The only people aware of this character before her appearance in Tokon were those who actively read X-Men comic books (A market that is rarely appealed to compared to those who are only aware of X-Men via the 90s cartoon or early Fox movies).
Revealing Danger would be playable so early in the game’s marketing immediately sent a message: No character is off the table; anyone can be in this game. Every character reveal trailer for Marvel Tokon will now be more suspenseful simply because Danger has already been revealed.
This type of surprise character can also help players expand their horizons and try new things. While most Marvel Tokon players would have been satisfied with a more well-known X-Men like Cyclops, the inclusion of Danger can also introduce a whole playerbase to a period of X-Men comics that they may be unaware of and could potentially fall in love with.
There is an art to marketing and generating fandom hype. When a playerbase knows exactly what to expect from a roster, then you may as well reveal the entire thing at once, as characters who are expected won’t be exciting.
Weird picks like Krile and Danger are what make character rosters interesting. While a game can have a normal and adequate roster that consists only of a franchise’s main and important characters, that can also result in a roster feeling boring compared to others.
One example I have of this is the upcoming Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game. This game’s 12-character roster includes the main characters of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the villains of that show, Korra from The Legend of Korra, and one villain from her show.
That’s a fine enough roster, but without any surprises or obscure characters, it’s hard to feel excited when looking at the character select screen. Despite this title drip-feeding its roster like other fighting games, it’s barely made a drop in online discussion.
Imagine if Gameplay Group International had revealed that June was a playable character instead of just a support. In a scenario like that, the fandom would have been on the edge of their seats, wondering who would be in the game next, even if she was the only weird pick. Just a little bit of spice will make the entire meal more interesting.
When people talk about the characters they want to see in a roster, very rarely do they get excited for the expected characters. Every Dragon Ball fighting game will include at least a few variations of Goku, but it’s characters like Cooler who get the crowd cheering and talking.
Now, not every weird roster pick like these will be met with the same amount of excitement. As a franchise gets larger, so do fan expectations. When not every roster character reveal shakes the world, some might even start throwing around the phrase “wasted slot” to degrade them.
I had considered not including Super Smash Bros. or similar multi-company crossovers like Project X-Zone in this feature, as I find claiming that a niche franchise is a strange pick can come across as disrespectful or, in some cases, bigoted if the franchise is one that is popular in one country but not another.
However, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate does include one fighter who absolutely meets my criteria for a weird fighter that I want to see more of, but many in the Smash fanbase did not feel the same way.
Shortly before the launch of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Nintendo revealed the game’s first DLC fighter in a short reveal that had many questioning if it was a joke. This character was a Piranha Plant from the Super Mario Bros. franchise.
If one goes to the comment section for the reveal trailer of Piranha Plant on YouTube or looks through posts about the reveal on internet forums and social media like Twitter, they will find mountains of negative opinions and people bemoaning that Piranha Plant had somehow stolen the roster slot of a more deserving character.
The inclusion of Pirhana Plant, a character that by all means is not a named individual character but just a generic enemy type, when the entire internet was asking for more popular characters like Geno or Waluigi, did not make me angry; in fact, I had the exact opposite reaction.
While many considered this character to be a waste of a roster slot, I saw something more than that. Seeing the development team behind Smash craft a large moveset out of an enemy that has traditionally done nothing but stand still and repeatedly bite was a sight to behold.
This is the other advantage of including a strange character in your roster. Everyone already has their own vision for how someone like Waluigi would play in Smash. There is no shortage of fan-written movesets online that take advantage of well-known aspects of his character, such as his tennis skills. Someone obscure like Piranha Plant, though? That is much harder to make a moveset for.
To this day, I still can’t believe that aspects of Piranha Plant’s moveset, like the spiked ball attack, exist. Taking a template as unexpected as this one allowed the development team to be incredibly creative and make something that truly could have only been done with a character this minor.
That’s what I want more of in fighting game rosters: creativity. Weird roster picks like this always end up making a roster more interesting for both the player and developers. It might be strange to see Krile stand alongside Cloud Strife in Dissidia or for a Piranha Plant to stand alongside Shulk in Smash, but they’re what make these games so fun.
