Fighters Destiny/FAQ
Is this game for me?
Don't play Fighters Destiny if...
- You dislike many attacks being negative on block or hit.
- High speed and air mobility are your thing.
- You like chains or similarly fast, fluent combo systems.
- You want even a hint of story.
- You dislike losing big when they make a good read.
- You love running setups, tech traps, and okizeme.
- You hate being thrown.
Do play Fighters Destiny if...
- You want something totally different than a ‘best-2-of-3’ format.
- You don’t want to remember long combos or blockstrings.
- You like methodical spacing on movement and attacks.
- You enjoy the idea of winning a round with a single well-placed move.
- You like the feel of a slow-paced game with really fast rounds.
- You hate knockdowns, setups, or vortexes.
- You enjoy throwing people.
How do I unlock all the characters?
Boro is unlocked by completing Vs Com Mode (the standard arcade mode).
Robert is unlocked by completing Fastest Mode (a time trial versus a small gauntlet of CPU foes) in 1 minute or less.
Ushi is unlocked by surviving Rodeo Mode (an endurance round versus Ushi) for 1 minute or more.
Master is unlocked by completely clearing a run of the Master Challenge (which means obtaining all 8 skills and defeating all 4 Jokers).
Joker is unlocked by conquering Survival Mode (defeating 100 opponents under semi-random conditions--good luck!).
OK, how do I unlock the characters quickly and easily?
The secret sauce is Leon's 6B(8B). The CPU has a lot of difficulty beating this attack, so you can spam the ever-loving hell out of it and walk through most of the challenges with ease.
Except Joker. That will require a ton of persistence and some luck (or save states). Again, good luck!
How many unlockable skills are there?
Each character can gain 10 skills. However, some confusion arises because they are not obtained through a single means. To clarify:
- Clearing Vs Com Mode gives your character a skill (signified with a star).
- Up to 8 skills can be gained through Master Challenge.
- With those 9 skills, one additional skill can be gained by defeating another player in Win-or-Lose Vs Mode.
A Memory Pak is required for the latter two. You'll know you've completed these when your character has a red "initiate" symbol on their portrait.
OK, how do I unlock skills quickly and easily?
You guessed it: Leon's 6B(8B). Go get a star for each character, send them each through the Master Challenge and gain at least one skill apiece, then switch to a separate Memory Pak and clean house in Master Challenge with a dummy Leon. Take him and his gained skills, and go have him sandbag for your first Memory Pak in Win-or-Lose to top them up on skills. Once dummy Leon is erased, send a new one into Master Challenge and repeat. With 3 Memory Paks and some patience, you can have a fully-tuned roster ready in a reasonable amount of time.
A side note: for some reason, currently Boro seems to have one skill that cannot be gained: 6ABB. The reason for this is unknown as of this writing; it may be related to Boro being unable to gain a star. If any new information arises this section will be updated as required.
What's the tier list for this game?
Currently unknown, however a speculative tier list by TDR_Zunga (aka Zakharan, aka IM_Amazon) circa 2015 was as follows:
- S Tier: Joker
- A Tier: Tomahawk, Valerie, Leon, Bob
- B Tier: Ninja, Boro, Meiling, Master
- C Tier: Pierre, Abdul, Ryuji, Ushi
- D Tier: Robert
Take this list with a grain of salt; due to being based on theory (owing to a lack of competition), only Joker and Robert's places are likely secure. Several characters (like Ninja, Pierre, and Abdul) have properties difficult to quantify on paper, and due to most tools being accessible across the cast it's possible for anyone to win.
As more information emerges, this section will be updated as needed.
What's different in Fighter Destiny 2?
Much of what will be written here is perfectly applicable to Fighter Destiny 2. In fact, the two games are mostly identical. With the addition of only two new characters (Dixon and Fabien), and one mostly new character (Kate), nearly every other character is a reskin of someone from this game, though often with at least one new attack or other properties.
The main flaw is the Fighters Arena: while FD1's skill unlocks can be tedious, Fighters Arena asks you to travel through a board game. Every match you win with someone who isn’t Master earns stats, too. But this takes time, and stats are refreshed with every run. This means greater likelihood of characters being inconsistent from Memory Pak to Memory Pak, or even from character to character where stats are concerned. In FD1, you can load up the entire roster’s movelist in an afternoon. That's not so easy to say about FD2.
All told, unless you want a stronger framerate (or like the newcomers), there's no harm in sticking with the first.
This game seems cool, are there any others like it?
Aside from the aforementioned Fighter Destiny 2, there's also its spiritual sequel Toy Fighter, as well the comparatively-obscure Force Five/Jingi Storm (the former of which includes FD's Meiling on the roster).
Where can I play this online?
The jury's out on that. Due to the idiosyncrasies of being an N64 fighter with Memory Paks figuring heavily into play, online competition does not yet exist.
Toy Fighter is probably the best outlet for an FD netplay fix... for now.
