Vice, Revivified
(Original post date: December 9, 2024. Re-edited for some errata and details on December 10, 2024; added details about Vice in KOF XIII and corrected spelling mistakes.)
(This is an expansion of some thoughts listed on my Bluesky.)
So, one of my major passions outside of like, making video games is playing video games. And The King of Fighters is one of my favorite fighting games to play.
Very recently, we were blessed with none other than the news that Mature and Vice are returning to The King of Fighters in its newest installment, The King of Fighters XV. They were both introduced in KOF '96, but have only been in KOF '98, KOF 2002, KOF Neowave, KOF XII (which Vice skipped), XIII, and XIV.
While Mature is cool and otherwise great, my main concern is with my snake arms grappler wife herself, Vice.
Now, Mature and Vice have always been distinct from each other with key moves (Vice has always exclusively had the rapid-kicking Ravenous and Outrage moves; all of her special moves are focused on either power hits, grabs, or setups for launches, whereas Mature goes for speed and slicing attacks), but much like Ralf and Clark sharing the Argentine Backbreaker for a long time even as those two diversified, they still both had a shared move in Deicide--the screen-reaching snake arms snatch you see in the video up there--for a while.
Much like Ralf and Clark, this changed for Mature in KOF XII and Vice in KoF XIII, but at something of a cost due to how absurdly cost-prohibitive the spritework was; there wasn't much room to fill in their movelists, a problem which persisted for most of the cast. More specifically, Vice lost both Ravenous and Outrage, but got the jumping grab Splash to compensate for it (sort of) and kept Decide, as well as slimming down to two super moves aside from her Neo Max--the close-range grab Negative Gain and the air-only grab Overkill. Aside from that, Decide no longer throws opponents away on hit, and instead brings them in close to Vice for zoning, pressure or command throws. The main consequence of this, however, is that while she has a stronger identity as a grappler, her combo structure, much like the structure of a lot of other characters in KOF XIII, became comparatively less interesting, even though she wasn't a worse character for it per se.
KOF XIV kept the retools from XIII, and Vice still does work in KOF XIV as a perfectly cromulent character, but it becomes a little more obvious that there are empty spots in her toolkit when compared to other characters in the game; she mostly only has EX Deicide or Mayhem for setting up juggle combos in both games, and again, while she's not necessarily bad or weak, she's very one-dimensional in that sense, which is unfortunate considering how interesting the rest of her kit is (especially in tandem with her strong normal attacks).
So what has KOF XV done to change this for her?
So much.
In general, KOF XV has deliberately re-expanded character toolkits, giving most characters a movelist comparable to their pre-XII and XIII-era appearances even if their moves have been generally reworked. KOF has always been an offense-heavy game, but XV puts less barriers into using EX moves for meter by reducing the cost of EX moves to half of a super meter stock, and also provided stronger meterless tools to start cooking up an offense.
Vice has benefited from this philosophical change in a few major ways. She's gotten back an old target combo from the old games that lets her launch opponents into the air after landing a standing Heavy Kick, and the EX versions of several of her existing special moves retain their combo-juggling properties from previous games; a shoulder-tackling EX Mayhem still launches the opponent on hit for another Mayhem into a Splash, and the ground scraping EX Gorefest command throw is a perfect setup for other juggles. Even better, some of her existing special moves have gained new properties; EX Splash, for example, is projectile invulnerable, letting Vice close the gap and bust through projectiles for far cheaper than she's been able to previously (since EX moves are relatively cheaper to use in KOF XV--again, they're just half a super meter now), and in particular her Blackened command throw has actual invulnerability on startup. Its slower startup than Gorefest means that it can naturally be hopped or jumped over, but now she has a meterless reversal option on wakeup, if a risky one.
But, most prominently, we have a new-old move in Deicide - Avatar, the anti-air version of Deicide, and that makes everything great.
Originally "Deicide - Slayer" in Capcom vs. SNK 2, Deicide - Avatar has to be used as a pre-emptive check against jumping opponents in order to be effective at that job, but has invulnerability to air attacks and slams the opponent down in front of Vice, bouncing them off the ground for more combos when the Heavy or EX version is used.
I said on Bluesky "After a long time it feels like Vice's kit is unified", and Deicide - Avatar is the move that made me say so in addition to her other changes.
Before the return/reintroduction of Deicide - Avatar, Vice's options during juggle combos were largely "do another Mayhem, follow up with Splash either to secure a kill or to super cancel into Overkill if the meter is available" or "use EX Deicide to try and set up for the same". Using Mayhem into Splash for anything aside from extra damage in previous KOF games sacrifices okizeme opportunities after the opponent gets up.
However, with Deicide - Avatar, Vice now has the option to simply put the opponent down right in front of her for potential oki, or (in the right situation) keep her meter costs relatively low by using Heavy Deicide - Avatar to set up for followups instead of burning meter on an EX Deicide or EX Deicide - Avatar. Of course, doing Mayhem into Splash into Overkill is still entirely feasible and fine, but now Vice has options for controlling the pace of the match in concert with the things she could already do. On top of that, Deicide - Avatar rounds out Vice's anti-air toolkit with an even more rewarding option than simply doing a crouching Heavy Punch or attempting an air-to-air attack--if you call out an opponent with Heavy or EX Deicide - Avatar, then they actively pay for that mistake, and that's what makes her XV iteration potentially so interesting--and exciting--to play.