Playable characters from Konami's 1991 arcade brawler Vendetta.
They look like tough guys for sure, though the colour coded shirts make them feel like The Wiggles - if the Wiggles were inclined to cave your head in with a baseball bat anyway?
#RETROGAMING
Some enemy concepts from the game.
They all have a distinctly Middle Eastern look to them and there's some SERIOUS creepiness in places, such as the air ship which composes Stage 3 having a Lovecraftian style LIVING balloon!
Even to this day it looks disturbing 😱
24 years after release, SF3's animations remain cutting edge, filled with subtle but powerful nuance.
See Alex's Flash Chop for example, how at the mid point where his hand connects, he bends his knee and pushes off his rear toes whilst pivoting his waist for extra BOOM!
Did you know that when filmation was designing characters for the original He Man series, Man At Arms was given a moustache to make him feel more 'fatherly'?
It's become an iconic and immediately recognisable part of 'Duncan's design across multiple media ever since, beautiful!
I've not read it confirmed as such, but I'm convinced that Musashi's characteristic white/red attire comes from GI Joe's Storm Shadow, himself an iconic design in that ironically he appears to be a hero based on those colours, but is in fact a villain?
Greatest 16bit soundtrack of all time?
Alisia Dragoon was one of the earliest female leads in a videogame but didn't need to impress you with it, her strength and her story was self evident from the get go through the beautiful music.
It remains a gem of a game to this day.
And her beloved steed, Mithril!
Actually a Unicorn, he saw savages ritualistically murder his mother when he was just a foal, breaking his heart, and so his horn never grew.
A young Trisolde arrived just in time to rescue him, and now he'd die for her without hesitation.
Also interesting is that this guy originally appeared in Black Tiger, first as the blue and silver regular 'Dragonian' then returning later in his golden 'Great' version.
Enhanced sprite by RamzaNeko on Deviantart
@HoloCatHead I like the design overall, but a couple of parts of it took things a little bit too far...
Before there was Shantae, there was Rouge, debuting in Capcom's forgotten arena brawler Power Stone way back in 99'...