Day 7: Your favorite relationship

Before we get started, we as a committee of writers changed this from “favorite couple” to “favorite relationship” because games don't really have much of a romantic side... yet.

But they do have relationships that aren't really traditional. Which of course, makes them interesting. Alright with that out of the way, here's our picks.

Mike

Bayonetta and Luka 

I like Bayonetta and Luka. It's a fun relationship that doesn't expect to be taken seriously. It's cheesy and full of ridiculous writing and exposition dumps every five minutes, but I liked seeing it develop over the course of the game.

    

They aren't an example of a great romantic couple like Squall and Rinoa is widely considered to be, but whatever.

 

I really enjoyed some of the little back-and-forth between the two. And it was nice to see that Bayonetta does care about Luka as much as she enjoys messing with him.

 Point is, seeing the two characters on screen together was rather charming, and made me smile. And that wasn't something I expected from a game like Bayonetta.

Kam

Terry Bogard and Rock Howard from Garou: Mark of The Wolves

Pictured: Rock Howard (left) Terry Bogard (right)

As much as Terry Bogard is my favorite fighting game character, he's a complete airhead. I mostly like him out of narm charm, and compared to nearly any other (male) fighting game character who is either a:

> Prick with an attitude
> Chaste Monk
> Hotblooded yelling guy.

his head in the clouds easy-goingness/love of life is still unique.

Anyway, that's beside the point, to really explain why I like this relationship, I have to give you some SNK fighting game history. Here's the long and short.

At the start of the Fatal Fury series, Terry's dad was killed by this final boss corporate asshole Geese Howard; (it's okay to laugh) Terry, after witnessing this as a kid, decided to kick a bunch of ass, learn street kung-fu-do and murderize Geese by kicking him off his tower of capitalism.

Eventually Geese came back to life like seven or eight times or some shit, (fighting games are stupid) and Terry killed him off for good.

After doing so, he adopted Geese's son, Rock Howard, (again, totally okay to laugh) I don't know how he did this, because Terry should be wanted for murder, but whatever, video game logic.

Pictured: Dawwwwwwwwwwwwww 

Then in the (unfortunately) last entry in the Fatal Fury series, a time skip happens and Rock and Terry have aged considerably. They enter a new tournament called "Maximum Mayhem" where Rock learns of his true dad, and his uncle shows up, putting...

Anyway, it gets more complicated from there, I should actually get into the real reason why I like this relationship.

1. They actually grew up Terry. Yeah he's still heads in the sky, America Southtown F-Yeah,
blah-de-da. But in a weird way, he matured while maintaining who he was.

This is seen in his new appearance, who went from looking like a hot Dominoes pizza guy, to this modern... grizzled, no that's not right, to this modern, jaded, no that's not right either. Uh, cool middle aged guy who isn't grizzled or jaded? Yeah that works!

2. Then there's Rock, who's in-game movelist consists of half Geese Howard moves and Half Terry Bogard moves. In story terms, that means he's trying to not succumb to his darkside, but at the same time, he can't view Terry as a good guy, because well, he murdered his dad in cold blood, but at the same time Terry is the one who raised him...

...you see where I'm going with this?

Anyway, that's what's interesting to me, the gray and gray morality. Plus it doesn't hurt that Terry and Rock subvert a typical father/son relationship itself.

Rock, despite what the fans say, is not an emo teen, sure he angsts, but in the events of Mark of The Wolves, he's more just in a bad situation that's taking it's toll on him, rather than angsting for drama.

Pictured: SNK being amazing at their craft

And Terry has this existential problem of the fact that he killed Rock's dad, which brings the question, is Terry actually as bad as Geese or did Rock grow up this way because Terry raised him right...

...okay I'm reading way too much into this.

Mark of The Wolves is an awesome fighting game  with a really cool father/son relationship,  that's still something "story based” games haven't pulled off as well.

But to get back to my honestly again, if I saw this relationship in my current state of mind, I would of laughed my ass off. It's plagued with a hilarious amount of SNKgrish, and some truly terrible translation. But, 12 year old me was a little less jaded, and could see it for what it is, and that it's a step forward to the eventual day that a fighting game tells an awesome story.

I can't wait for when that happens.