Seasoned Warriors is a fighting game series developed by (add later :3). The first game was released in 1996, and quickly reached cult status despite selling less than competitors' games. A sequel, Seasoned Warriors 199-10, was released in 1998. The series has been praised for its varied characters and technical gameplay, though has been criticised for balance issues in the earlier games.
Seasoned Warriors
Story
In 199X, the 4th Great Culinary Tournament draws in chefs from across the world. On the 8th day of the competition one of the competitors, Sir Robern G. Odin, assaults his opponent and throws him from the 15th floor of the competition venue. Upon review, the judges declare there's no rules against violence and a new most popular strategy emerges.
Gameplay
Seasoned Warriors is a one-on-one fighting game with four attack buttons. These attack buttons are Light Technique, Heavy Technique, Light Weapon, and Heavy Weapon, but pressing both technique or both weapon buttons at the same time will trigger a Mighty Technique or Mighty Weapon attack respectively. This is thought to be the designers' preferred way of fitting a 6-button game on a standard controller's 4 face buttons.
Taking or dealing damage fills your Flavour meter, which gives you small bonuses and can be spent to use more powerful attacks. As well as the Flavour meter, every character also has a Stamina meter that determines how long you can keep your opponent in a combo for. Each hit of a combo drains the Stamina bar slightly, and the player must stop attacking for it to recover. Each character has a different number of Flavour meter segments and a different Stamina bar length, and there are some character-specific meters on top of these.
The player can also use special attacks by moving the stick a specific way as they press an attack button (for example, quarter-circle-forward Heavy Heapon (or 236HW in Numpad Notation)). Many of these special attacks have similar Light, Heavy, and Mighty versions (with the latter also costing a quarter of the Stamina meter and one segment of the Flavour meter). In addition, there are Super Attacks which cost two segments of the Flavour meter to use.
Characters
Walter
A small restaurant owner entering the competition to use the prize money to renovate. Simple rushdown character with super armour on grounded Mighty attacks, but very few aerial options.
Benedetto
Celebrity chef forced into the competition to market a new TV show. Can throw lots of questionable seasonings at the opponent, applying a wide variety of debuffs.
Caitlin
Assassin planning to poison the final round's guest judge. Stance character who repeatedly switches between chef and assassin movesets, with transformations caused by almost all of her special moves. Chef moveset has much longer range but is slower, while assassin is fast with multiple grounded overheads but much smaller reach. Players can never agree on how you 'should' use her.
Soupy Sid
Crazy old man who loves soup. When asked why he entered the competition, he replied "soup". Plenty of moves that leave bowls of hot soup on the ground that hurt when knocked into or dashing past, can easily create an overwhelming quantity of soup to destroy his opponent. Only character in the game to have a theoretical infinite combo consisting of stamina recovery soup, hazard soup setup, and the strange upwards knockback of Counter-Hit 2MW.
Centurion of Egg
Mysterious man dressed as a Roman centurion (aside from the motorsport helmet). Doesn't seem to be an official contestant. Egg-throwing zoner that can modify their eggs with special moves, shown in the 'egg queue' above the Flavour meter. Notable for having either amazing or terrible matchups, with no real fair fights outside of Caitlin.
Warwok
A man who sold his soul for cooking skills, wielding a wok containing a demon. Mix-up focused rushdown character with numerous high, low, and crossup options as well as delayable high/low projectiles and setplay in his Rice Toss (236T/214T) and Burner (214HW) moves. Generally the most hated by the playerbase.
Sir Robern G. Odin
Final boss, unlocked after first completion of arcade mode. Odin is very slow, with most of his movement coming from special moves. Aside from this and a moveset very reminiscent of Walter's, Odin is set apart by his 'breakout meter'. This meter is filled by blocking attacks (or your opponent blocking YOUR attacks, to a lesser extent) and when full, unlocks a new set of moves for the next 20 seconds. These moves include meterless reversals, an unblockable that on counter-hit causes stagger upon the combo's end (essentially giving a free setup for almost anything Odin wants to do next), and variants of basic moves with more damage, armour, or range.
John Meat
Secret final boss, only playable in certain releases of the game and fought when finishing arcade mode with no lost rounds and with a high enough score. Being the inventor of meat, John Meat has two stances. The main stance has simple but powerful broadsword attacks, while the secondary stance has unique moves mostly used for combo extension, with high vertical knockback allowing you to wait for stamina recovery and a super move that instantly resets the stamina bar. Despite all this, John Meat has only half the Flavour meter of other characters at two segments.