EXE FIGHTING GAME CONCEPT
FINALLY I'm done with this lil idea that spiraled into something way bigger! There's a lot to go over so just sit back and enjoy the insanity ❤️
What is happening?
NightTime.GOD has dragged several Exes into his pocket dimension to host a brutal fighting tournament for his own amusement, because there's nothing in the multiverse he loves more than than going face to face with strong challengers. With the host himself as the final boss, 20 entities must fight eachother until only one remains if they wish to return to their respective universes, as they're effectively stuck in NightTime's dimension for the duration of the tournament.
This is, ultimately, a maze with no prize for the contestants. Since those who die in battle simply return to their universe and the same happens to the winner upon defeating NightTime, which causes the pocket dimension to colapse. It's literally just for the love of the game, and hey, the other exes don't know that so adds a bit of a fear factor for entitie that are used to being in control over things.
The arena
Being a pocket dimension, the world is ultimately small and divided in several different stages that serve as arenas for the fights. Each stage is a perfect copy of a place from the home universe of every exe present, however, since they're ultimately fake recreation, these tend to have an eerie and lifeless feeling to them, as it isn't even that hard to reach the stages edge and see both but darkness beyond the invisible wall that keeps entities within their boundaries.
It is possible to break through these walls and breach into a different (random) stage by violently slamming an opponent agaisnt the wall with a chain of combos until it can't sustain the pressure. Would it be possible to break out of the dimension as a whole with enough presume from various exes teaming up? Its food for thought.
In terms of what stages are in, I'm not super familiar with the worlds of all exes here so while this isn't the entire scope, here's a few I'm sure would be around;
-Jail Zone (MZ)
-Desolate hill (Hero)
-Outsides of the shack (PMG)
-Scorching Angel island (CorX)
-Corrupted Windmill isle (Infectious.ROM)
-The blank space (Sonic.Webp)
-Sonic's hangout (Mephisto)
-Ruined Mobius (Lithium battery)
-Special stage (Xilog)
-Cult's lair (2018X)
-NightTime's pallace (NighTime.GOD)
The fighters
Before reading this section, if you aren't big on fighting games I highly recommend watching at least this video that goes over a handful of archetypes. It doesn't have all of the ones I ended up assigning here, and I did explain what each of them is whole setting who is what, but a bit more knowledge always helps.
MZ the Zone cop
Hey look, it's the reason I even got this idea in the first place-
If you’ve seen some of my art of MZ where she’s interacting with other Exes you may have noticed how often she tends to be grabbing them by the head in different scenarios, that’s because nothing is more fitting for her fighting style than a Grappler! A big, strong heavy hitter that excels at getting close to their opponent and obliterating them with grabs and their following combos. She may not be the fastest, but she sure hits hard as hell!
Another thing about grapplers is that one style/strategy when playing as them is to straight up just wait for the opponent themselves to come at you and grab the shit out of them, which I feel that fits MZ’s militaristic, very serious self. No messing around, her moves are precisely calculated with flawless execution. She’s trained for this line of work her whole existence after all.
So you go girl!! Grab those Executable files by the head and slam their faces into the ground repeatedly or against your knees with many many kicks! Good ol’ Zobonik would be very proud.
Hero Hedgehog
With Hero’s big thing being how he can rampage violently under certain circumstances + Doesn’t stop fighting until his opponent is (in pieces) down, I think a Rushdown is just the type of character he’d be, seeing as their fighting style consists of closing in the opponent and hitting them with as many fast hits in short succession between one another. Very in tune with Hero’s “PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH BITE TEAR PUNCH KICK until either the opponent or himself are done for” approach when it comes to his fights.
Rushdowns also tend to not have great health, relying on knocking out the opponent fast, which I feel also fits Hero considering his cardiac problems that kick in with the adrenaline spike that comes with how violent he gets in fights. He may be brutal, but he can’t last that long unfortunately.
Xilog
Given Xilog’s fire powers, I considered assigning them the zoner archetype, but all long range and nothing else didn't really feel like Xiggy to me + every fighting game needs their All-rounder and I think that fits him a lot more than zoner.
A jack of all trades with a wide array of moves at their disposal; command grabs, counters, anti-airs, invincible reversals, and of course fireball projectiles! Can't forget that one :)
2018X
2018X is notoriously kind of a huge loser and not actually all that strong. What's the best way to win a fight when you lack the power to knock out your opponent? Waiting for timeout of course! And that's exactly what the Runaway archetype does.
With long ranged attacks that serve more to push the opponent away from them than deal any significant damage, faster movement speed and moves to help slip away to the other side of the screen, this dude is really just stalling until the match time runs out. What an asshole.
Lithium Battery
Given Battery’s whole thing is blowing themselves up at random regardless if they’re actively trying to do that or not, add that to the fact she’s not much of a fighter either and I think the best category for her in this would be a Zoner. This archetype is all about avoiding contact with the opponent by using a variety of long ranged moves to not only hit them from far away but also push them away from your character, paired with tools to flee if the other gets too close and oftentimes increased movement speed.
Zoners can be subdivided into two types; the projectile-based zoners (self-explanatory) and the normal-based zoners (rely on the use of a weapon or long body parts to attack). In Battery’s case, she would obviously be a Projectile based zoner cuz, ya know-💥💥💥💥💥
Patch and 2011Punk
For this one I wanted to play around with the idea of an entity that inhabits two vessels simultaneously that these two have going, and for that there’s no better fighting game archetype than the Puppet!
A puppet fighter is when instead of just one guy you actually have two guys that are controlled simultaneously by the same inputs in battle, oftentimes each character. They’re notoriously hard to master, given double hitbox and oftentimes complicated and long inputs for moves, but if you know what you’re doing then they’re a real powerhouse.
Going off the fact that Patch is the most rational of the two while Punk is very out there and impulsive, I imagine Punk would have more aggressive moves with lots of pressure on the opponent, similar to a Rushdown, while Patch would stay sorta in the back and attack through long distance moves by her void hands and only deal really strong blows when the time is right, like a Hit and run character.
Nephyllon
Something that stuck to me when reading about him is that, within his world, his power is limitless but outside of it he isn't nearly as powerful until he's gathered enough souls. So i thought a Setplay character would fit this characteristic of him very well, given these are characters who are pretty powerful but need to execute some form of setup so they can use their stronger moves in combat, either by a specific string of combos or some input that needs to be executed prior to certain attacks (think like you're fighting using a gun and every so often you need to stop and reload it to keep using).
In Nephyllon’s case I imagine some input would lead to him just floating there for a bit and chanting something in whispers that brings him souls to absorb, upon doing so he is able to chain way stronger attacks until he runs out of energy and needs to get more souls.
Since he's vulnerable to attacks when summoning these souls, his core gameplay would revolve around keeping away from the opponent to summon with long ranged attacks that push people away from him, executing this summon, and then charging violently at them with the newfound power.
INCARNATION
Incarnation is pretty different from most Exes here in the sense that he gets through his victims via screwing over their mental health to the point it least to them bringing harm to themselves rather than Incarnation actively physically harming his victims.
This made assigning him an archetype a little challenging and at the end of the day I think Mix-up reflects this idea of messing with people's minds the best, seeing as it's a style all about tricking your opponent into thinking you do a certain move but actually doing another thing and catching them by surprised.
For that I imagine he would float around instead of having a walk cycle in a somewhat lifeless manner and, to really emphasize this trick thing, have moves that look somewhat similar to one another in terms of how they look. Never let them know what your next move will be I suppose.
Critical Defect
A big thing about Critical defect is his insatiable hunger to assimilate and consume more and more code, so I feel like in the context of the tournament he'd absolutely use this as an opportunity to do the same to his opponents.
The idea I have is him working as a somewhat gimmicky Clone character, which as the name suggest, is an archetype of character that has most if not all that is of him based off of another character in the roster, usually spinning it in a way to make the character play similarly to its original counterpart but still a little different.
In Critical defect’s case, at the start of every match he would run a scan of his opponent and his fighting style will shift into the same as whoever he's fighting against in addition to stealing a handful of their moves, including special/gimmicky ones such as Infectious’s bites or FriendTails’s ability to grow stronger the less health. In addition to this really malleable style, I do think he would have a generally pretty fast movement speed alongside the ability to teleport as a jump-dash that temporarily removes his hitbox, and create portals to escape being cornered around the map.
X-Lytes
Yes, the goofy lil Sonic windows zone goobers get a spot in this hypothetical roster! What? Do you think they don't have what it takes to absolutely obliterate someone in battle?
There exists a rather niche fighting game character archetype that consists of a character that’s basically a frankenstein of many different moves taken from several different characters without the slightest hint of a coherent fighting style other than confusing the shit out of the opponent with the amount of different things they’re doing. With the X-lytes being several little dudes with slight variation from one another, I figured the Composite archetype would fit them pretty well! Though there would be a bit of a struggle to manage their hitbox given how many of them there are..
Sonic.WEBP
With his personality being described as a playful little thing that likes to mess with people I'm settling him as a Mix-up with a significant lean into being a Projectile-based zoner given the fact that going from nothing to a hellish I fighting arena would definitely overwhelm and spook him due to the sheer whiplash here. The idea is that he'd be able to throw files at people and also enlarge/open them to block attacks, while also having a short distance teleport to go from one side of the opponent to the other. Helps with escaping when you're getting beat up against a wall ya know.
NULL-DATA
Seeing as it isn't all that different from a standard MKll when it comes to its skills in combat, I decided to give NULL the Brawler archetype.
This category is essentially the lovechild of a grappler and a rundown; a big bulky dude, who lacks the reliance on grabs and is not the fastest, but packs a bunch and excels at chaining combos to hit the opponent lots of times in quick succession. I also like to think it would retain MKll’s lil spiky ball attack and its charge as a mid-air dash as mobility.
Sonic.eXD
Now, there are notable mentions of one of eXD’s powers being the ability to control the corpse of dead vessels, which are very fitting of a puppet character. However, given eXD is also mentioned to be incredibly violent when it comes to her victims, which when paired with her chaotic and downright unhinged nature just screams Rushdown character to me. Just keep stabbing and tearing them apart till they’re no longer recognizable babyyy!!
And hey, Mrs.Fortune from skullgirls is a rushdown with some puppet character abilities. So eXD can still bring in her deal vessels to make fighting her an even crazier experience :]
JOY
Since one of the inspirations to how his world looks like is Sonic battle, I thought I'd look up how Sonic plays in that game and go off of that for Joy’s archetype. But turns out that, although Sonic is listed as being fast and having a good balance of attacks and defense moves, the game doesn't really have set character playstyles like standard fighting games and instead you pick between shot, power and trap at the start of each battle which change how your character plays to an extent.
With that in mind, I'm setting Joy as an All-rounder. A little bit of this, a little bit of that and a lot of fun to be had!
DIVA.exe
For her style I'm taking inspiration of this one drawing where Diva is in kinda like a kicking pose + restraining the tails vessel from her world using her ribbon to assign her the archetype of Zoner, more specifically a Normal-based zoner given a bulk of her moves would come from whipping opponents with the long ribbon parts of her bow and kicking the shit out of them with lots of footsies work.
I also think it would be neat for her special to involve summoning MG as an attack and him just running over the opponent like a truck.
FriendTails.exe
This one was by far the hardest for me to assign an archetype given the fact that, although she’s based on Secret histories Tails who is straight up a serial killer, FriendTails is stated to be harmless and not enjoy loud noises or fights at all (Yip’s also a child, but this wouldn't be a proper fighting game mockup without the kid character that can obliterate grown men).
I then decided to rely on the fact that she has a beast form and make her into a Gimmick character, a pretty self-explanatory archetype that relies on having some form of ability that is added on top of the game’s general rules and mechanics upon fighting them.
The idea is that FriendTails will function initially as a Runaway character, given his scaredy and non-violent nature, but when his health bar gets 2/3rds of the way she’ll automatically transform into beast form and not only get a damage boost but also function like a Rushdown for the remainder of the fight.
Dante.exe
For this one I thought about Dante’s whole thing of just wanting to live normal life on Mobius with Sonic and his friends without giving in to his nature as an being an evil murderous entity. With that in mind, I assign him the archetype of Hit and run!
A style centered around playing defensively and keeping a distance from your opponent until the opportunity to strike them with a heavy hit arises. Because this guy doesn't really want to be here, so he might as well just hit when really necessary to just get this over with.
Though, in reference to his bigger and scarier form, I think it would be pretty neat for his special/ult move to be a transformation into that + a rushdown style of fighting for the duration of the special.
CorX
This one was a little tricky for me. I debated placing him as a rushdown given he’s notably fast and CorX seems like a pretty violent guy in general, But then I remember reading how “if someone were to try to punch him, he’ll just quickly grab that arm and the person’s head and rip off their arm by pulling the arm to him and pushing the head.” and that’s lowkey a grappler 101 type of move, so Grappler it is!
He shall make great use of those long arms and sharp claws! Maybe even a weird ass tongue from the torso mouth? if he has any? Idk i think it would be neat if he had a move where he straight up gobbles the opponent and then violently splits them out after some chewing.
Mephisto.exe
With this guy having two different forms, I thought a Stance character would be the perfect fit for him :]
The stance archetype refers to a singular character that can alternate between two different playstyles with some form of input from the player during battle. For Mephisto’s roblox avatar form, given he’s constantly referred to as an annoying little piece of shit, I can’t think of a more fitting archetype than the Projectile-based zoner. What exactly would he throw at his opponents?.. I dunno, other people’s avatar pieces? pipe bombs? maybe just whatever he's feeling like at the moment. As for his bigger alternative form, I think Brawler seems fitting for such a big scary dude and it contrasts well with the zoner archetype.
Infectious.ROM
Infectious’s most noticeable feature is that the corruption his rom has undergone gives him a digital fucked up version of rabies and his presence tends to cause corruption to spread tho those around him in his face, for that I'm placing him as a Gimmick fighter to utilize this in his style.
He essentially plays as a Zoner, a Normal-based one specifically, utilizing his long arms to hit opponents from afar. But the thing is that his special involves biting down on the opponent and shaking them around before flinging them into the corner of the screen, this applies essentially a poison effect on the other person that will slowly drain their health for the rest of the battle.
While I do think he'd have a bigger hitbox, given Infectious is a big boy, good luck getting to him with all the zoning before rabies melts your brain away.
NightTime.GOD
Our host and final boss! If you expected some crazy gimmick from him you certainly came to the wrong place.
NightTime is all about the thrill of the battle and for that he is a pretty solid Brawler type with great footsies work and coverage for various types of attacks while, of course, panicking really strong punches with lots of pressure on his opponents. Her style might not be the flashiest or most complex, but it is efficient and reliable.
And don’t think we’re wrapping this up without me mentioning everyone’s favorite dumbass and his unfortunate victim right? While I don't think PMG would work as a fighter himself, I imagine he and Emily would take the role of characters in the tutorial mode of the game. With Emily giving the actual command instructions while PMG just uses the opportunity to advertise his game.
Similarly, I didn't want Bug.g to be left out but he isn’t really built for battle, so I'll leave him as the spectator to the matches.