Welcome to my new blog! Also some thoughts on KOFXV's DLC line-up so far.

 Welcome to my new blog! 

This is the type of vibe I hope these blogs bring!

Hello everyone! My name is Nathan, but I assume that around 99.9% of the people reading this blog will know me better as Scotia. I'm a 25 (soon to be 26!) year old from the United Kingdom and these days I'm (somewhat) known as an upcoming YouTuber who focuses mostly on fighting game news, characters and stories. My main interests are The King of Fighters and Street Fighter but I have a lot of interest in other things like Final Fantasy, Persona and too many other things to name here, but those are the main ones! Outside of video games I am a big fan of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and have, in the last year or so, began collecting manga, so I'll no doubt make some blogs on stuff relating to that whenever I feel like I have something to say about them.

So why am I doing a blog? Don't I already make videos on my thoughts on things? Well yes, that's true, but sometimes you just can't really bring yourself to go through the whole process of making a video or justify writing, recording, filming and editing something that could easily be summed up in a series of tweets or even a blog. I know that probably sounds super lazy but I'll still make videos on stuff that I think deserves a video, I just feel like this is a much easier way for me to just throw some thoughts out there and maybe even interact a bit with some of the people who follow me. And hey, I might even make some videos based on what I write here! Basically what I'm trying to say is that these blogs and my videos will be their own thing that sometimes go hand in hand and that one isn't replacing the other. 

So with that (lengthy) introduction out the way, what am I going to be talking about today? Well, I thought I'd get an intro out the way and maybe talk a little about some recent KOFXV news just so I can give you all an idea of what these things are generally going to be like. 

I'm quite surprised at how quickly these teams are going to be releasing!

So we finally know the first two DLC teams coming to KOFXV! Well, we knew about them a while ago but at least we're now getting a proper look at them. So to give a quick summary of my thoughts on the line up so far; I'm excited! These are six characters I like a lot that each deserved to make it into the game so I can't really complain about the choices even if they aren't my immediate requests. I really wish they were in the base roster though. I'm pretty much over XV having a smaller base roster than XIV but I think I wouldn't have had any complaints if at least one of these teams was thrown in with the initial 40 characters, but hey at least we're getting them. 

I guess Garou-era Rock is canon now? That's going to be interesting for sure!

So Team Garou makes its first reappearance since KOFXI! As I'm sure anyone will tell you, Garou: Mark of the Wolves is an incredible game and is probably the only fighting game that I think can take the crown of 'best fighting game ever made' from 3rd Strike, so I'm naturally pretty damn happy to see this team back. In terms of the formation, it's good! However, the weird part of my brain keeps telling me "If this was Garou they probably wouldn't team up because Rock, B. Jenet and Gato don't really have any interactions or real relevance to each other in that game.", but this isn't Garou, and this team looks incredibly fun so that weird part of my brain can just stay quiet on this one. I mean hell, if we can have Kula, Angel and K99-I mean Krohnen on a team together then anyone can team up with anyone.  

Rock is Rock and will no doubt always look cool no matter what game or engine he's in. I do like the character a lot but I've recently felt this bit of ambivalence towards him and I'm not sure why. I think maybe because of Maximilian Dood? I'm not blaming it all solely on him of course, but I feel like his love for the character has seeped into his fanbase and there are now a legion of Rock Howard fans who have probably never touched Garou that keep asking for him. I don't want to gatekeep a character or anything like that, but I do sometimes wonder how many people out there actually like Rock or if they simply like the idea of liking him. Who knows though, maybe it was him already appearing in XIV that's kinda made this reveal sort of lacklustre. Or maybe it's because his popularity made him a given as DLC so I'm not even the least bit shocked he's back. Don't get me wrong though, he looks a colossal step up from XIV visually and I enjoyed the brief bit of gameplay we got of him, but after Yamazaki he's probably the character out of the six I'm the least hyped for. Still hyped though!

Next we have Gato who admittedly is a character I never really put a lot of time or interest in. I always thought he was cool, but other characters in Garou and KOF caught my eye more. His gameplay in XV looks fun though, I'll definitely be giving him a shot. I've heard he's usually a very strong character in his other game appearances so it'll be fun to see if he's as dominant this time around. Story-wise I'm interested in finding out why he even joined up with B. Jenet again after she pretty much lied about having info on his dad in XI, something which she seems to have said again to get him to join in XV. Maybe Gato is Garou's resident himbo? 🤔

Then finally we have B. Jenet, a character similar to Gato who I always thought was cool but never really put a lot of time into. I think out of everyone from Garou, she's probably one of the better choices to bring into KOF so I'm not surprised they brought her back. Her model turned out great and her climax is amazing, so it's great to see SNK did her justice. I hope she becomes more of a mainstay after this. I remember thinking she was going to be the third slot in the Women Fighters team before Athena got revealed so I wouldn't mind seeing her in that team in a future game if they want to move Rock and Gato around. 

I've been thinking about other Garou characters I'd like to see make into KOF, and I think my top two picks will always be Kim Dong Hwan and Kim Jae Hoon. I don't really play Garou enough to have a main, but if I did it'd probably be Jae Hoon. I've often thought about having a team of Rock, Dong Hwan and Jae Hoon as a kind of 'next generation FF' team but unfortunately I don't know if SNK or the fanbase would be OK with two characters having extremely similar movesets taking up slots. Other characters I'd like to see would be Kain, Freeman, Marco and Hokutomaru. I like Kevin but I think I'd rather see him as a cameo than be playable. 

More like Team Drip Town, am I right?

So now we move on to Team 2 of the season pass and the one I was honestly the most shocked by; Team South Town. So when the DLC characters got leaked a few months back, I was honestly not happy that these three were DLC. I actually like the idea of them being a team (I think I even had them together in a roster wishlist I did before XV got revealed) but I think it's pretty darn cheeky of SNK to release three characters from XIV as DLC (one of which was even DLC in that game too) and ask us to pay money for them. Evidently SNK thought the same as they decided to give them all some of the sickest redesigns I've ever seen. Damn you SNK, making me question my stance on something by making it awesome! For real though, I do think it's lame that they're selling these guys as DLC (twice in Yamazaki's case) and even though giving them new designs helps make that hard pill go down a bit easier, it's still tricky to swallow. I'll probably give more thoughts on this when we see more of them, but it's something I am torn on. 

Let's break-down the team though, or as much as I can do based off what they've shown us. Starting with Geese and man this is a real slick look for him. Geese is a character I've always liked and one that I honestly never thought would see a real redesign. Maybe some changes here and there, but I was sure he'd be in the hakama forever. This is a great look for him though, and is of course clearly inspired by the amazing Real Bout box art (as is the case with Billy), but Geese having such a drastic new design will take some getting used to. I think I want to see the rest of his design before I make a final statement on it, but as others have pointed it out this design definitely leans towards Geese's more 'mafia/crime kingpin' side which is a really cool direction for him. 

Then we have Billy and oooooohhhhhhh boyyyyyy, I was not prepared for this. If you follow me on Twitter then you'll have no doubt seen me rep Billy's render as my current pfp which is a shock even to me because I've never really looked at Billy in that type of way until now. This look is KILLER for him and is by far his best design (imo ofc). Who knew you could make a character 10,000x more badass by just putting him in a sleek ass suit and calling it a day. For real though this has really risen my interest in Billy by a lot and although I probably won't main him in XV, I will absolutely give him more of a look than I would have done if he had his XIV design again. Stellar job by SNK. 

Finally we have Yamazaki who I was a little...I guess wary about following his appearance in XIV where I thought he hands down had one of the WORST models in that game. He was seriously down there with Andy for me. His hair was so bad in that game, I couldn't even look at him seriously. My worries were for naught however as SNK did a great job giving him a glow up that fixes a lot of the problems he had in XIV while keeping him relatively the same. The biggest change is obviously the fantastic looking white coat which was a great addition that most people will know fits with the character. I don't play a lot of Yamazaki but from his render he looks great and I'll gladly give him another chance in XV now that his model doesn't burn my eyes. 

As for the elephant in the room, however, I'm really bummed to see Hein sitting out this game. I wasn't a huge fan of him in XIV but I thought he probably had the most potential out of the newcomers in that game. I really became interested in him though after the reveal of him being up to shady stuff with Luong in the Secret Agents team story, so it sucks he has to continue this plotline vicariously through Luong. I'm sure SNK have a plan for Hein but it's a shame to see him, along with a lot of XIV's newcomers, not come back. 

So yeah, I think that'll do for the blog today! I didn't think I'd end up writing that much but I actually had a lot of fun writing it. I'd like to make this a regular thing for me so hopefully you all enjoyed reading it. I don't know when I'll make the next blog, probably when the next bit of news for KOF or whatever else drops and I want to say something about it. Before I go I just wanted to give a shout-out to @AzzyFGC for inspiring me to start this blog (even though they probably aren't even aware of it lol). I enjoy reading their blogs and figured I would probably enjoy writing my own, so thanks to them for that. 

As always you can follow me on Twitter @ScotiaVIII and subscribe to my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAMDzPBfA1kfURIqKlNuN2g. Hope you all have a great day and I'll see you in the next blog!