[Michael's Note: This FAQ is incomplete due to time constraints. Additional submissions and comments welcome.]
LORA DOUBET
Height: 170 cm
Weight: 168 kg (doesn't look that heavy)
Hair: White-Blonde
Eyes: Blue
BWH: 90-56-88
Birthday: May 1st (23)
Location: Neo York
Stage: Lora's stage is the park atop the lower section of the Shiroko-Tsuhi arcology, with the towers of the arcology and Neo York rising in the background.
Background: Lora is a full-body cyborg with enhanced speed and strength. She also has some esper potential, but she can only use it to sense other espers. She works for Shiroko-Tsuhi Corporation as a security specialist. She was trained in Jeet Kune Do, but Lora has modified her style radically to take advantage of the superhuman capabilities of her cyborg body. She is friends with Raven.
Entrance:
Home Stage: Screen pans way up high to the skybridge above the stage ground level where Lora stands. She waits a moment, then leaps down, the pavement breaks where she lands as a small cloud of dust is kicked up. As the dust settles, she stands up from her landing crouch and flows into her ready stance.
Other Stages: The S-T Gunship flies by over head and Lora leaps out of it. Otherwise identical to the above.
Win Quote: Whips off her jacket and hangs it over one shoulder, cocking her hips, she gives a thumbs up—"Coolness!"
Alternate Win Quote: (Raven) "Hey are you okay over there?"
Moves: Lora's speed is up in the top tier of the game, (although she's not the fastest in the game and she's nowhere near as fast as Marta). Her attack moves themselves aren't blindingly fast, but her reaction time makes it easy to counterattack and turn the tables on her opponent. While it is possible to perform multi-hit chain combos with Lora, it's not as easy as with some other characters. But then, Lora doesn't have to rely on combos, as any single hit she does makes is going to HURT!!
Her main weaknesses are that she has very limited ranged attacks and no true "instant kill" moves. She balances that with her movement abilities which allow her to bring the fight up close and personal whenever she wants. She is also very tough and hard to stagger. Lora is able to leap amazing distances and so can take on opponents in the air with ease. In fact many of her special attack moves involve a leaping or charging element to them.
Charge: Backs up a bit and runs at her opponent at high speed, slamming into them and clotheslining them.
Somersault Slam: Lora leaps a short distance into the air and tucks her arms and legs in, spinning. As she comes down, she uncoils into a stomp with both feet into the opponents face! Ouch!
Supersonic: Lora winds back and slams her foe with an open palm strike that sends them flying back head over heels several times. Check out the shockwave animation at the point of impact! This and the Somersault Slam are both good for getting a bit of breathing room and also to get another special move going.
Flying Axe Kick: Lora jumps High in the air and comes down with a downward heel kick that drives her opponent's face into the ground!
Combo Slam: Complicated to get off. Best against slower or already stunned foes. Lora haymakers her opponent into the air, then jumps up and catches them during the "hang time" and does a flipping aerial throw into the ground that makes the pavement shatter when the opponent hits. If you are quick enough to pull off the bonus move, Lora will come down and land in a heel stomp to the gut while the opponent is still prone. This maneuver has the potential to take away from a third to one half of her opponent's life energy gauge...
Air Combo Slam: As above, but at the start Lora jumps high into the air to grab an airborne opponent instead of hitting them high up to start with. Otherwise it's the same maneuver.
Seburo .50: Lora can use this standard damage gun at range against anyone whether on the ground or in the air. If the button is held down for a full second and then released, the shot doubles in power. But there are only 9 rounds in the gun.
Earthshaker: When power bar is fully charged, Lora can pull out the BIG HONKING HAND CANNON O' DOOM for one enormously damaging shot. Only 3 shots available, so make them count!
Arclight: Calls in an aerial strike from the S-T Gunship!!! Forward mounted guns and commandos hanging out of the side of the ship hammer the opponent with their combined weaponry. If timed correctly and all shots hit, truly apocalyptic amounts of damage can be done! Not a guaranteed "instant kill" move, but usually gets the job done. Check out the animation closely, yes, that's Deunan and Briarios providing fire support from the side door of the gunship.
SPECIAL: Lora automatically turns to face teleporting opponents without any controller input. This can be disorientating for those new to the game. But more experienced players can use the opportunity to make an attack in the lag time of the teleport.
Notes: When it comes to sheer physical prowess, Lora is one of the most powerful and well-balanced characters in the game and she is able to soak a ton of damage. Since she doesn't rely heavily on combo attacks to generate damage, she is actually one of the easiest characters in the game to learn how to play, although her fighting style has a lot more depth than you might expect, given that. Her special moves are all spectacular looking and deal a lot of damage.
If tag teaming, try pairing her with Raven. As Raven's ranged telekinetic blasts and flexibility is a good counterpart to Lora's more straightforward technique. The change-up is usually a bit disorientating to opponents.
RAVEN CLARK
Height: 170cm
Weight: 51kg
Hair: Black (with white streak)
Eyes: Dark Brown
BWH: 94-66-91
Birthday: June 22 (22)
Location: Neo York Zero Zone
Stage: Clark Street in front of Auntie Lydia's clinic; a rather run-down section of the Zero Zone.
Entrance: The camera pans towards the side Raven is in and she suddenly teleports in with a loud bang, wavy effects surround her, and cracks appear on the pavement.
Winning quote: She folds her arms as the wind sends her coat flapping forward and says: "Sorry you forced me to do that."
Alternate winning quote (Lora): "Oh, I'm sorry! Are you all right?"
Pros: Powerful attacks, ranged attacks, extraordinary defense, lots of special tricks
Cons: Difficult to use, low speed, easy to damage and stun when not defending, few normal combo attacks.
Gameplay: Raven is a very difficult character to get used to and has perhaps the most unusual control scheme in the game. First, half the buttons work differently for Raven than they do other characters. Raven doesn't have several different kinds of punches and kicks—actually she has no kicks at all. What the buttons do, however, is a bunch of special tricks that make her a completely unique character.
Raven really only has two melee attacks—a relatively weak normal punch, and a powerful telekinetically enhanced smash. The weak punch is only really useful to quickly break out of an enemy combo and because it's the one attack she can't use without risking stunning herself—see below. The telekinetic punch is slower than most melee attacks but it's very powerful and some variations on it cause massive knockback or knock-up—so there's a couple of combinations you can perform with it, but most of them only have two hits.
Raven's esper blasts are one of the most powerful ranged attacks in the game. If you hit the button repeatedly, Raven will build up power before sending the blast away—but she will be unable to move or defend while doing so, so it's often unsafe to go for a maximum power blast unless you're out of reach of the opponent.
Raven not only has the highest jump of any character in the game, but if you keep the button down, Raven will stay up, levitating over the arena and forcing the opponent to use either a ranged attack or a jumping attack to reach her. The jump button also effectively makes her immune to most of the nastiest throws in the game—hit and hold the jump button while Raven is in mid-air, and she'll right herself and start levitating. She can still take damage from short throws where she doesn't have time to recover in mid-air.
Raven also has a really strong defensive posture. Not only is it so effective that only the most powerful attacks will do any damage while she's shielded, but the shield is all-around—so even an attack from behind will not hurt her. She also has a teleportation move. Nothing fancy there, she pops out and pops back behind the enemy. A nice twist is that if you're holding the jump button while you pop, Raven will re-appear in mid-air behind the enemy—this change of angle might surprise the opponent.
The most unusual ability Raven has is to "grab" opponents at range. While she has the enemy grabbed, she can pull him in the air, push him in the ground, or throw him around—but she needs to do it quickly because the other player may break out of the grab by shaking the joystick. One of Raven's few combos is to yank the opponent towards her in this way and use her telekinetic punch to clothesline him as he flies past—that's almost guaranteed to stun them.
There's a few tricky issues when using Raven however. Perhaps the most difficult for new players to wrap their heads around is the fact that if you play Raven by mashing the buttons repeatedly you are almost guaranteed to lose. The thing is that while Raven's attacks are very powerful, if she tries to use them too quickly she'll stun herself, giving the opponent a free shot. Raven's weak punch and defensive shield never cause stunning, and repeatedly using the same button won't cause any problems, but when switching between the useful attacks, you have to be careful to pace yourself.
She does have one special attack. If she manages to pummel her opponent a bit without riposte, she can perform a complex combination to summon the Clark Street Devils who will swoop by on bikes, firing guns or swinging lead pipes. Raven is still active while this is happening—a favorite trick is to use telekinesis to pin the enemy in place while the Devils wallop him.
Oh yeah, fighting the computer-controlled Raven on the higher difficulty levels is a bitch. The computer is really good at using all of Raven's weird tricks and she *never* seems to stun herself.
SANDRA BLACKMORE
Height: 177 cm
Weight: *NOT LISTED*
Hair: Black
Eyes: Blue
Birthday: (26)
Location: Neo-York
Stage: A street in the Neo York Zero Zone at dusk. there are derelict buildings in the background, as well as a burnt-out car, rubble, potholes, et cetera. A small crowd is watching in the background.
Appearance: Sandra has pale skin, shoulder-length shaggy black hair and blue eyes. She has a scar over her right eye. She is tall, with a good shape (When is there a woman in a fighting game who doesn't? ^_^ lol). P1 costume has her in a gray jumpsuit. P2 has a black outfit with a long black overcoat. (In the PAL version, there is a P3 costume which is a black uniform with an armored torso harness and big boots and an eyepatch over her right eye. You get this costume by beating the game with her, then selecting her on the character select screen with the START button)
Entrance:
Sandra stands there examining her claws, then turns to face the opponent. (Note: In the P3 alternate costume, she has her claws out and looks at them, as if she's surprised to see them there)
* - vs Shion: She sighs and looks up, then rubs her eyes
* - vs Sarah: She shrugs and looks apologetic
* - vs Drake: She stands there, hands on her hips, tapping her foot angrily against the ground
* - vs Ran: She furtively looks around before turning back to face Ran and grins like an idiot.
Entrance Quotes:
"Okay, you big tool. Let's just get this over with."
"Come on you big boofhead, I haven't got all day."
"Tool"
"Time to kill the bad guy and get a beer."
* - vs Shion: "Tool. What have I done to deserve this?"
* - vs Shion: "Come on. My life stinks enough as it is. Just go ahead and do it."
* - vs Sarah: "Sorry about this, Sarah. I got a job to do."
* - vs Drake: "Okay you big tool. You've had this coming to you for a long time."
* - vs Gem: "Who the frelling hell are you?"
* - vs Gem: "Go away. This is no place for kids."
* - vs Ran: "Tool. Tool tool tool tool tool tool tool."
* - vs Ran: "Oh no. I'm not messing with Mr. Manic Nuclear Bomb with issues."
Victory:
Sandra turns with her back to the opponent. facing away from the camera, looking at her extended claws
* - Instant Kill Victory: Stand there, looking innocent
* - vs Shion or Ran: Stands there, dumbfounded
* - vs Shion or Ran, Perfect Victory: Dances around, punching the air and carrying on like an idiot
* - Time-out draw: Stands away from the opponent, kicking dirt around.
Win quotes:
"I don't believe it."
"For once, something that didn't blow up in my face."
"Gotcha, sucker."
"I guess my luck had to change one day."
* - Perfect Victory: "Tool. Something actually went right for me."
* - Instant Kill Victory: "Don't mess with the NYPD."
* - vs Shion: "I - I don't believe it."
* - vs Shion, Perfect Victory: "Take that, Queen Tool Fairy!"
* - vs Sarah "Sorry Sarah. Are you okay?"
* - vs Drake: "I told you you had it coming, Mr. Perfect."
* - vs Ran: "I - I did that?"
* - Time-out draw: "Well, I guess it's better than getting beat up."
Theme:
"This is Ponderous" (Artist's name I forget)
* - vs Gem: "Daring Lousy Guy" (Ditto)
Moves:
On a purely damage-per-attack basis, Sandra is one of the weakest characters in the game. She's not particularly fast, and her reach is nothing special. What Sandra is good at is grapples and combos. Most of her basic attacks chain into combos very easily, allowing her to do a lot of damage very easily. She's the best grappler in the game, allowing her to do a lot of damage with her throw combos. She's not that easy to play, and is definitely not a button masher character.
Claw Strike: Sandra's basic hand to hand attack. She pops out her claws and attacks her opponent with them. Not much range or damage, but it combos easily
Slash: Reach attack with the claws. Longer range, but slow
Rabid Wolverine: A series of five rapid strikes; does a fair amount of damage with the first four. If the opponent doesn't block any of the first four, the fifth attack will temporarily stun them
Low Claw: A swipe with her claw at the opponent's leg. If successful it will knock the opponent to the ground. Little damage, but can set up for a jointbreaker combo.
Takedown: Sandra grabs her opponent and throws them to the ground. Little damage, but sets up for a jointbreaker combo
Hold and Jointbreaker: Once Sandra has her opponent on the ground, Sandra can execute a devastating hold combo in which she viciously attacks the opponent's joints to disable them. This attack cannot be blocked, but can be countered.
Standing Hold: Advanced throw; if successful, Sandra can execute a jointbreakrer combo against a standing opponent. This combo is more damaging than the ground combo, but much harder to do and easier to counter
3-Round Burst: Sandra fires a 3 round burst from her SMG. fair range, damage and accuracy
Kick to the Groin: Instead of doing a grapple combo, Sandra can simply kick an opponent on the ground in the groin. Does more damage to male characters. Not much use
Taunt: Doesn't actually do anything. Sandra will break into one of four random poses/taunts.
- Rubs forehead and says. "Tool. What did I do to deserve this?"
- Stares at the sky, tapping feet "If you're going to pummel me, just do it."
- Pops out her claws and does a "come here" motion. "Come on you big tool, I don't have all day."
- Points at opponent. "GODDAMIT, JUST DO IT!"
LAPD Beatdown - Instant Kill Move: Sandra trips the opponent. Then four cops (a short, fat woman, a tall, shapely woman with long hair, a blond man, and a guy with a beard and ponytail) run in and deliver a vicious LAPD-style beatdown to the opponent. Then a police siren sounds and the four of them run off, leaving Sandra standing there looking innocent over the opponent's bruised remains.
(I'd like to thank sirjeremy@stoat-ermine.co.uk for info on the PAL bonus costumes)
SARAH J FERRARI
Height: 170 cm
Weight: 62 kg
Hair: Blue
Eyes: Blue
BWH: 91-54-90
Birthday (Age): NA (Unknown)
Location: Hong Kong
Stage: The top of the Mandarin Towers Building.
Background: Sarah's a synthetic human (As if you couldn't tell my the fact she's blue!) who manages the Mandarin Towers apartments in Hong Kong.
Win Quote: "I hope I don't have to do that again..."
Moves: Sarah's got some of the more unusual moves in the game. She's not much of a fighter (no devastating multi-hit combos here), but she makes up for that with some downright weird (and funny) combat options.
Pistol: That's right, Sarah carries a gun. She can use it to hit anything on the stage, provided her target's not in the air. The attack is unblockable (except by espers...) and does pretty good damage. Pity she only gets 8 shots...
Taser: Get in close and hit your opponent with a blue-white blast of electricity! Once you've tagged your opponent, keep hitting that punch button to do the old Blanka fry! Better yet, after using this attack your opponent is almost always dizzied (especially if your opponent is a cyborg)! The only problem is that you have to get really close... and Sarah's not the fastest person in the game...
Summon Sandra Blackmore: Yes, you read that right. Pull this one off and Sarah produces a cell phone (yes, she pulls out a cellphone!) and calls in her friend Sandra. Sandra comes out of the elevator and starts to whip up on your opponent. Sandra has full health, and *all* of her moves. There is a catch however...
First, you need to be able to play Sandra, and be able to switch instantly. The moment the doors open you lose control of Sarah and she walks over to the far side of the stage to cheer. If you can't play Sandra, you're in a heap of trouble. Also, anything that goes past Sandra (like gun shots, fireballs, and PK blasts) will do double damage to Sarah, and if she goes down, you loose, not matter how much health Sandra has. But, if you can play Sandra and play her well, this is *the* Sarah move to learn and use.
House Cleaning: Sarah's cellphone comes into play again. This time she calls in four domestic cyberdroids to pummel her opponent into the ground. They then pick up the body and toss it off the top of the Mandarin Towers. This is Sarah's instant kill, and damn if it isn't hilarious! Sure it's cheap, but hey, if you can get this one to work, you deserve to win!
Notes: Sarah's the game's version of guys like Dan Hibiki from Streetfighter. Except she's better than Dan (she's funnier for one). I mean, if she loses she says thing like: "What did you expect? I'm not some street samurai cyber-monster, I'm a hotel manager!" or "That's it, enough of this, I'm going out for hot noodles and a cold beer!" She has has very creative attacks and some really funny animation to go on along with them.
SHOKO
Height: 197 cm
Weight: 86 kg
Hair and Tail: Red
Eyes: Yellow-Orange
BWH: 104-70-92
Birthday (Age): Oct 24th (4)
Location: Neo York Zero Zone
Stage: The street in front of Bell's Motors (notice that Ken, Bell, Ayane, and André are all watching from behind the gate).
Background: Shoko is a prototype Fox-class security synthetic. When the corporation that made suffered a very hostile takeover, she escaped and eventually fled to the Neo York
Zero Zone. She currently lives at Bell's Motors and works as a stripper with the Puma Sisters.
Entrance:
Home Stage: Shoko walks up behind the entrance gate to Bell's Motors, but instead of opening the gate she just leaps over it, acrobatically doing a double-flip before landing in a crouch and then assuming her ready position.
Other Stages: Pan to stage right, where Shoko arrives sitting atop the cab of the 9-Tails Towing truck, which stops in a cloud of steam. Shoko leaps from the truck, doing a single-flip this time, and lands as before.
Win Quote: (looking disdainfully at her fallen opponent) "What, you thought I was just a pretty face and big tits?"
Moves: Smashdown: No fancy-looking technique here, Shoko just grabs her opponent, lifts him over her head, and throws him to the ground in an explosion of dust and debris.
Roundhouse: Shoko hauls back her fist, and—with a flashy shockwave effect—knocks her opponent head-over-heels across the stage. This attack is a bit slower to get off than most of her other attacks, so is best used against slow or dizzied targets. It's a very good attack to try after she's used her Flash Attack (see below).
Death From Above: Shoko uses her prodigious leaping power to jump completely off the top of the screen. A few second later, she suddenly drops from the sky feet first, crushing her opponent beneath her. Ouch! Notice the slick little flip she does as she bounces off her flattened foe...
Stormbreaker!: Shoko pulls out her huge hand-cannon and takes a shot with it. If successful this attack does a huge amount of damage, but she has a hard time hitting a dodging character and she only gets three shots with it.
SMG Combofire: Shoko whips out her MP2030 SMG and opens up with it. This attack does only moderate damage, but keep tapping that fire button! If you're fast enough, you can get up to four additional hits. This is a combo move, so each hit is more damaging than the last. Land all five and your opponent is dizzied!
Flash Attack: Shoko lifts her shirt and "flashes" her opponent. This does no actual damage, but the opponent is automatically stunned (the other characters shocked reactions are hilariously animated!), which allows Shoko a free crack or two at him with any of her other attacks before he can recover and act again. Be quick about the follow up attack when fighting female opponents, though, as they are stunned only half as long as male opponents, with the notable exception of Marta Nys.
Triple Puma Threat: This is Shoko's flashy (and funny) "instant kill" move. If successfully triggered, the Puma Sisters will leap onto the stage and join up with her. All three then whip Jinsei M-100's out of nowhere, and promptly blast the target to smithereens in a hail of fully automatic gunfire and mini-grenades.
Notes: Shoko is not the strongest, fastest, or toughest character in the game, but she's better than average in all three areas, making for a versatile and well-balanced fighter. Her basic strikes do plenty of damage, and her combo's aren't too hard to get off either. In fact, she is one of the easiest characters to play, and is a good choice for beginners to learn the game with. Her biggest weakness is that she has few ranged attacks, and her accuracy with them is only marginal. Luckily, she has a huge leap and so can quickly close with most any opponent.
BOSSES
CRUSHER
MARTA NYS
Height: 161 cm
Weight: 71 kg (???)
Hair: Black
Eyes:
BWH: 90-52-85
Birthday (Age): (29)
Location: Hong Kong
Stage: Open-Air Market (take a close look, Sarah J Ferrari is in the background).
Background:
Win Quote: "Ling Ling! I did it!" (Ling Ling is in the background too. Look to the right, she's the one with the elf ears and the rack that puts Mai to shame.)
Moves:
Notes: Can you say fast? Well say it again. Fighting Marta is like fighting Vega and/or Chun Li (or both at once). She's damn quick, and the computer likes to go total offense.
SHION NYS
Height: 185 cm
Weight: 75 kg
Hair: White
Eyes: Gray
BWH: 101-62-94 (oh-my-god!)
Birthday (Age): June 2 (31)
Location: Neo York
Stage: Ruined buildings in Mega-Tokyo Bay (yes, I know her location is listed at Neo York... I have no idea how this works.).
Background: Shion is powerful esper weapon who works as a mercenary, hiring herself out to the corporations to do their dirty work for them. She's very powerful, very arrogant, and very dangerous.
Entrance: Floats down from the top of her side of the screen, cloak and hair billowing in the wind. Hovers above the ground, with a little swirl of dust beneath her feet. Finally drops to the ground once the fighting starts.
Win Quote: "Now bow before true power made flesh."
Moves:
SPECIAL: It takes Shion zero time to get up from a throw or knockdown. Yup, just like Raiden from Mortal Kombat, she sort of teleports from the ground to standing upright, and is invulnerable while doing so.
Notes: In case you can't figure it out from her vital stats, Shion is a big girl (look at the game art to see what I mean). She's tall, with long flowing white hair, and arrives on her stage by floating down from the top of the screen. First time I saw that I got waxed in about 5 seconds 'cause I was still digesting the opening animation. My advice? Look at your character until it says "Fight!" and then go at it. Oh, and I have no tactical advice for you... she's strong, fast, has both ranged and HTH attacks, and is damn tough! All I can say is "good luck."
RAN
Height:
Weight:
Hair: Black
Eyes:
BWH:
Birthday (Age): Unknown (Unknown)
Location: Neo York Zero Zone
Stage: Somewhere in the Zone
Background:
Win Quote:
Moves:
Armageddon: I'm not sure what this does, but it makes the screen go white and it instantly kills your character.
Notes:
Return to Kazei 5 PBEM Stories