Goh Hinogami

Goh Hinogami is a fictional character in the Virtua Fighter series. He was introduced in Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution, an update to Virtua Fighter 4. He was one of the two newcomers in the release, along with Brad Burns.

Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution
J6 is an evil organization, therefore, there have been times when an informant from within aims to expose them. But within J6 exists an arm whose speciality is exterminating such traitors. In there, orphaned young boys and girls are captured and trained as perfect assassins; moreover, multiple assassin forces have been built up in this fashion. Serving under his commanding officer is an Asian youth - Goh Hinogami. His father was a judo expert chosen to go to the Olympics, but a jealous friend whose career aspirations were unsuccessful murdered him, and Goh became an orphan. Soon after, the Organization found him, and trained him in assassination arts. Orders have come down to him from above. His latest orders are to infiltrate the World Fighting Tournament.

Virtua Fighter 5
This hulking, scarred assassin spent much of his youth in a J6 training facility perfecting his fighting techniques. Before the Fourth Tournament, J6 called on him to eliminate several esteemed fighters, but he failed completely. While he tried to explain to his superiors that the interruption of the Dural had ruined his plans, they did not hide their disappointment in him. He knew the Fifth Fighting Tournament was his last chance to redeem himself or he too would be eliminated.

Gameplay
Goh's fighting style is in some ways accurate to real world Judo, but is highly stylized to fit both the sadistic nature of the character and the striking-heavy fighting model of the Virtua Fighter series. His playstyle revolves around slow and situational strikes and his ability to parry punches and grapple. He has the ability to use ground throws, as well low throws, and has a grab move which can be turned into several throws. He is considered one of the most difficult characters to use in the game and will often turn someone new to his type of gameplay away from him, due to the slow pace he runs at and how difficult it can be to learn new moves for him without looking at some form of command list.

A legitimate example of this would be his Kumiteharai~Tsukami, a move in which he uses Kumiteharai to deflect a punch and then with exact timing, pressing the throw command will turn it into Tsukami. Many wouldn't guess it would be able to do this, considering it is one of only two ways to go into Tsukami and it gives no hints it is capable of this, and it can't happen so easily through trial and error due to the exact timing requirement. If a player masters Kumiteharai~Tsukami's timing, the move leads into nearly two dozen throw options, based on directional commands. Though all the options do comparable amounts of damage, the throws can be very difficult to counter due to the number of options, where an opponent has to guess correctly which direction commands will counter the throw.

The recovery times for many of his moves last more frames than most of the other cast, and in turn, make it harder for a Goh player to cover up for mistakes because its harder to link into another move once a current one has missed or been guarded in some form. Knee strikes are a good option, as the recovery is quick, and can open an opponent to a tsukami or guillotine lock immediately following the knee.

This is further made harder by the fact most of his non juggle combo chains are not only few in number but in almost all cases made punishable due to their really poor recovery time and the lack of options he has in a striking game, further encouraging you to make use of his grapples and Tsukami in order to keep the playing field even. He has over thirty five different grapple themed techniques, obviously leaving little room for options to mindgame in a striking game.

Some of Goh's most basic strikes, however, make for fast prevention moves. The tradeoff is the fast ones do little damage, and new players should practice using them to move in past other character's defenses and close for a throw, rather than relying on them entirely (most of them are 2 hit combos at best). Goh's throws are definitely the way to go, as some of them pull off so fast that counter grapples are extremely difficult. His most basic stand up throw (just hit throw, no directionals) is a perfect example.