Game-Art-HQ

Shion with his Qiang spear by Matsunoki

“As someone who grew up to fighting games I’ve always been into female characters who uses some form of chinese martial arts in their moves but do not go totally overboard with it being some make believe martial art (Chun-li, Xiangfei…)

When Shion appeared on KOF XI I was extremely elated coz here’s a character who uses legit looking forms of barefist, a spear and even a rope dart!

Although I was a bit disappointed that SNK made him canonically male my love for chinese martial arts persevered through and when this King of Fighters Tribute was announced I went to do a piece for him since it’s been a while since I made art of him.”

Shion with his Shěng Biāo by Augustoflores

“I like using Shion in KOF XI. He has many options, to approach an opponent and he has a really good Leader Super with summoning Meteors (though I still prefer Geese to have Leader Super).

Unfortunately, Shion was trapped away at the end of KOF XI taking Magaki out with his last bit of time left so he can’t return in any future game as far as I know taking his moveset with him.

King of Fighters is a series I’ve long played in arcades until I finally played KOF XI on PS2 (why isn’t it available on PSN/XBLA yet!?) I love it’s fast paced gameplay. It reminds me of SSB Melee actually, but that’s just me.

The character selection is always a treat opting for true variety in character design and movesets for the roster of each game.”

Shion was introduced as a mid or sub-Boss in the King of Fighters XI and seems to work for Magaki there but eventually he kills him while he himself is caught in a sort of a dimensional rift. He is still living during the KOFXIII Tournament and can be seen in the Intro of the game but did not return as a playable character.

Shion can use two very different weapons during a fight while he also has lots of strong Wushu based attacks and specials. In the Playstation 2 version Shion is unlockable via beating him in challenge 5.