14

I remember reading an article about Tekken 3 once, specifically I remember it talking about the guest character Gon. He's a little dinosaur character, half the size of all of the other fighters, and this article I was reading described him as a "Dog Character". I don't remember anything about the article besides that.

I can intuitively understand what was meant by that term; the character is small so high attacks automatically miss him (unless he's jumping) and he cannot be thrown (not even by King's "throw vs. crouching opponent") because he has the wrong anatomy, but he can throw you. It's a very cheap character that I'm sure everyone who played Tekken 3 hated, at least from a gameplay point of view as an opponent to fight against.

However, this term "Dog Character" was used as though it was a widely known phrase (at least among those within fighting game circles) but I had never heard that term before or since. So my questions are:

  1. Is this even a term within fighting game circles, or am I presuming too much from one throw-away phrase from one article (obviously, if the latter, then the second question can't be answered)?
  2. If this is a known term, where does it come from? Did some really old fighting game literally have a dog as a fighter who was short and couldn't be hit with high attacks or thrown?
Improve this question
6
  • 1
    I haven't tagged this [tekken-3] since the question isn't really about Tekken 3 or Gon specifically, that's just the context under which I originally encountered this term, assuming it is a term used outside that article...
    – NathanS
    Commented Nov 23 at 11:40
  • 5
    This is somewhat unlikely, given it’s in an article, but maybe the term means the character is bad? I’ve heard bad things being called ‘dog’ before (this game is dog).
    – DaemonsMercy
    Commented Nov 23 at 15:53
  • That's quite plausable, I hadn't considered that as I'm quite out of touch with a lot of slang, especially if that's more a common slang word in the US.
    – NathanS
    Commented Nov 23 at 17:08
  • 1
    @NathanS It's short for "dogshit", usually used by kids who don't want to swear
    – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft
    Commented Nov 24 at 3:48
  • Just a thought could it refer to a companion robot player that may both render small aids and cause small problems for the player character - barking or biting at an opportune or wrong time now and then like walking your dog in the park or country trail might?
    – civitas
    Commented Nov 24 at 17:53

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
16

This is entirely speculation, but it may be a reference to Iggy from Jojo's Venture (1998)/Heritage for the Future (1999). Iggy, a dog, has a notoriously small hitbox in his stand-off state that breaks a lot of combos.

Iggy and Jotaro from HFTF. Iggy is about 1/3 of Jotaro's height.

Jotaro's 5m whiffing over Iggy

Heritage for the Future is a pretty old game that had a lot of influence on other, later games. It was the first to feature what we now call a Puppet Character, and is the origin of the term. It was also an early adopter of airdashes, airblocking, Gatling/magic-series-like combo routing, etc. So while I don't have any conclusive evidence for this being the origin of the term, it's a reasonable guess and a good place to start.

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    I will note that Tekken 3 came out before Heritage for the Future. The OP doesn't say when they read the article in question, but if it was contemporary to that game, then this would be too new to qualify. But it's just as possible that the article is more recent and the term was just retroactively applied to Gon.
    – Bobson
    Commented Nov 25 at 8:37
  • 2
    I did also note that Tekken 3 predates this game by 1 year, but the article would have definitely been in the last 20 years, maybe 10 years. My memory isn't great... But this is still a very possible reference that the article could have been making, as you say, retroactively applying the term to Gon.
    – NathanS
    Commented Nov 25 at 10:12
  • 1
    Although I understand this is a speculative answer, and it may well be the case that the person who wrote that article may have meant it as a passing slang term (as per comments under my question), but nonetheless if we assume that it is a term, then I agree that this answer is the mostly likely origin of such a term. Therefore I'm going to accept this answer. At the very least, it's a fighting game with a dog in it, which is what I assumed must have been the term's origin...
    – NathanS
    Commented Nov 25 at 23:01
13

I speculate that the article you read was originally written in Korean.

In Korean, 개캐 (gaekae, "dog character") is an abbreviation for 개사기 캐릭터 (gaesagi kaerikteo, "a cheat-like character") or 개새끼 캐릭터 (gaesaekki kaerikteo, "an SoB character"). Both term refer to an extremely strong character in a fight game.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    It's also possible that the term just comes from the Korean via that etymology, but by the time of that specific article had already become a known phrase in English. In other words, right derivation, but even earlier.
    – Bobson
    Commented Nov 25 at 8:34

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.