6 Most Unlikely Guest Characters In Fighting Games

A tale of souls and hidden blades, eternally retold.

Ezio Soul Calibur
Namco/Ubisoft

Guest characters in fighting games are nothing new, with the first one popping up all the way back in 1993 with Fighting History's Karnov. These days, if you don't have a guest character in your game then you can't sit at the table with the cool kids. It's gotten to the point where we even have entire games built around watching characters from dozens of different franchises punch each other in the face, like Super Smash Bros or J-Stars Victory VS.

If you really want to outdo your competitors, you gotta bring out the big guns. That's why we've been lucky enough to see characters like Freddy Krueger and Leatherface popping up in Mortal Kombat games over the past few years, because nobody loves guest characters more than Ed Boon himself.

In the face of fierce competition, many studios have had to really pull their finger out when it comes to interesting and, more importantly, surprising additions to their rosters.

Some studios, though... they may take things a little too far. No one looks at the character selection screen on Super Smash Brothers Brawl and thinks "You know what? I want to play as R.O.B. today", and though we shouldn't dissuade publishers for thinking outside the box, just maybe, there is such a thing as going too far...

6. Hornet (Fighters Megamix)

Ezio Soul Calibur
Sega

Fighters Megamix is a neat, if somewhat dated fighting game that was released for the Sega Saturn all the way back in 1996. Touted as one of the first "real 3D" fighting games ever made, it featured a plethora of different Sega characters including Janet from Virtua Cop 2, every character from Virtua Fighter 2, a polar bear from Sonic the Hedgehog and, uh, a car from Daytona USA.

To be frank, it's pretty self explanatory why this is so strange. Not only does it stand on its rear wheels in same way cats do in those freaky videos where they walk on their hind legs, but it (he?) also has this brutal move where he grabs your face (with a tyre) and then "drives" on your face (with his other hand-tyre).

Oh and yeah, it's a sentient car. There are so many questions here and nobody to ask. Does the car have a driver? If not, how did a sentient car come to participate in a fighting tournament? What's Hornet's backstory? And most importantly, have Sega contacted Pixar's lawyers about their blatant copyright infringement?

Contributor

Lewis Parker hasn't written a bio just yet, but if they had... it would tell you to follow him on Twitter @LPCantLose, and to make sure you stay hydrated.