Frank West - Capcom

"There's gotta be a scoop around here somewhere, and I'm gonna find it!"

TATSUNOKO VS CAPCOM BIO

Sensing the scoop of a lifetime, freelance photojournalist Frank West grabs his trusty camera and heads to Willamette, Colorado by himself to investigate a mysterious disturbance. Franks shows a fortitude and resourcefulness during crisis situations not found in the average person.

CHARACTER ORGIN

Frank West originated in Dead Rising, an early Xbox 360 game with elements of action adventure, survival horror, and even a few RPG elements. Dead Rising's story centers on Frank West, a photojournalist who ends up trapped in a shopping mall in the fictional town of Willamette, Colorado, that is infested with zombies. Frank must defend himself from zombie attacks, rescue survivors, contend with crazed psychopaths, and stay alive while still attempting to uncover the truth behind the incident. 

Gameplay Details:

Frank West may seem goofy, but in fact he is quite possibly the most technical and difficult character to play effectively...at least if you don't take his infinite glitch into account. His normals seem laggy and awkward and he has poor mobility due to his short jump and bad air dash. Frank has a hard time dealing with up close pressure, and his ability to combo might seem flawed at first. However, once a player realises some of the more unique properties of Frank's attacks, he suddenly stops being a joke and becomes a true threat, able to deal incredible damage with his powerful air-to-ground re-launch combos, devious tricks and array of deadly unblockable command throws. Playing Frank requires a sense of creativity and dedication, but like Tekkaman Blade and Karas, the rewards will show themselves to those who are prepared to put in the effort to learn him.

Of course, at high level play Frank probably is going to be using only one 'combo' over and over again. He is able to 'glitch' his launcher by doing a hard Giant Swing as soon as it hits, which will cause his opponent to fall helplessly to the ground where Frank can just repeat the process, juggling them until they megacrash out or are KOed. It's a shame that this interesting character would be limited by such a cheesy tactic but hey! Anything to survive, right Frank?

CHARACTER STATS

Difficulty: advanced

Style: mixed grappler

Defensive power: Has very high HP, and his dive rolls make him a very defensively solid character, but he lacks some key self defense tools such as a fast anti air.

Offensive power: Through the roof. Frank can 0-death just about everyone in the cast even without using his infinite. Actually doing his more complicated combos is another thing entirely, but the infinite is very, very easy.

Approach strength: Very poor. Frank has a hard time landing hits and often needs to rely on his partner to initiate the offensive for him or to cover him if he's on point. His Zombies can be useful but they take too long to set up to be truly reliable.

Combo ability: Very high. Frank has air-to-ground-to-air-to down-to air combos that never seem to end. His glitched infinite also never seems to end, but for an entirely different reason.

Meter Usage: Frank will mostly be wanting to use meter for both his level 1 hypers, which are very useful moves. He builds meter quite fast with his combos and his infinite, so he should usually have plenty to play around with. Due to his high defense he doesn't need to megacrash all that often.

Key Techniques: Learning how to combo off Zombie Spree on a downed opponent is a big part of Frank's combo game. Comboing air D+H into Zombie Spree and dash-under air D+H is also important for those tricky positional nuances Frank needs to keep his combos going. And then there's the infinite, which sadly is probably the easiest combo Frank can do.

Partner Options: Casshern and Roll are Frank's best combo partners, but Frank probably benefits more from a partner who can get hits quickly and then Crossover Air Raid into him so he can start his infinite. Most speedy jab characters such as Yatterman-1 are good for this job.