Bakumatsu Rouman: The Last Blade: Lee Recca

Recca is, I suppose, the "token" Chinese character. ^_~ And yes, as several people have pointed out, I am aware that he's very much based on the martial artist Jet Li. (Whom I also adore.) Recca is very cool.. he has super long hair all bound up in a tight braid that he flicks over his shoulder when he wins, a sweet voice and a very disciplined way of fighting. For the most part, in fact, he only relies upon his hands and feet to fight his opponent. None of this hiding behind your weapons stuff.. he's right in there smacking the opponent to hell and back. I find Recca truly enjoyable to play.

Recca is another who's quite fast on his feet. For the most part, he's best to get in close, because he has a great number of kicks and punches that you can chain together -- even in power, I think -- to beat the hell out of your opponent. Not only that, he's doubly cool because when he does weild a weapon, it's a tessen. (A metal fan.) And a flaming tessen, at that. He does some wonderfully nasty tessen/kick jobs that fry his opponent. His flaming special takes in the whole screen and can be quite difficult to block. He kicks butt. Literally.

In the second game, Recca is very similar to the first, with only a few changes to his gameplay. He's learnt how to run properly, though, which is always a useful skill. ^_~

Last Blade 1 Story: Recca does not come from Japan; he learnt his form of martial arts elsewhere. But one day, he saw a red shooting star falling in the East, and he felt that an evil presence was about to ressurect and cause such destruction that it would soon affect his lands and people as well. So he journeyed to Japan, to stop the evil before it had a chance to spread.

Last Blade 2 Story: Feeling that the evil was not properly dealt with, Recca stayed in Japan; he trained at a temple, making his living at a farm that was nearby. He began to finally feel his true strength burning inside him. Then, one evening, he saw another evil star burning bright in the night sky. He abandoned his training and set off to pursue the star.

Useless but fun facts: Recca's birthdate is February 16th, 1843, making him 20 years old at the time of the first game. The kanji for his name means plum (for Lee) and raging fire (for Recca). Very appropriate!