Last night you saw me post pictures of new Puzzle Fighters found like Smoke, Onaga and even Monster. Some of you, and myself included, theorized that the game just generates on-the-fly shrunken bodies and bigger heads. I just found out, this is not true. Several pieces of evidence support this:
1. Artwork for other "bobble-head" versions of fighters like Ashrah and Hotaru
2. Some Puzzle Fighters do not use their main costume. Some use their alt costume. Some look completely different than either costume (Shujinko and Onaga are examples)
3. Each "hidden" fighter has a set special move, no matter who I chose n the regular Puzzle Fighter character select screen. For example, whether I pick Scorpian, Sub-Zero or Nightwolf with the Monster code on, Monster will still always use Kollapse.
4. None of the "hidden" Puzzle Fighters are glytchy, not even Onaga. They all have the full set of animations, right down to the funny dance if you get the Bomb Bonus.
and finally...
5. Each "hidden" Puzzle Fighter has a unique animation for when they do their super. For example, Onaga will breath fire on his opponent. This proves wrong the belief that each character is simply coded on-the-fly to do one set of animations.
So it's set that there is all 30 Puzzle Fighters in the game. Why are they in the game? I have several theories...
A. The guy who designed the Puzzle Fighters designed one for everyone all at once. Midway later just pick and chose to use certain ones when they put the game together. This goes for the loading screen artwork too.
B. They are indeed unlockable, maybe related to Koffin WQ.
C. They are not unlockable for Puzzle Kombat, but the character models are there because a "Puzzle Kombat" mode for regular Kombat.
I am leaning towards option C. I don't think they're all there for no reason at all (A), and I don't think there's a different character select screen (B). Another piece of evidence for this is, if you go to the Photos section of Kontent, and look at Jim Terdina's picture, you'll see the Puzzle Kombatants fighting in arcade kombat.
Discuss.
Link to pics here: http://www.elranzer.com/mkd/