Animus

Animus is an original character conceived, sprited and coded by Andres Borghi and part of the cast of The Black Heart fullgame. Contrasting most of The Black Heart cast which were standalone characters prior to the release of the game, he firstly debuted in the project, to be later released standalone shortly after the release of the full game.

Animus is a horror themed character taking upon the themes of sadomasochism and medieval torture. Taking after this, his abilities appear to hurt him via iron maidens and shards or rusted steel (with no effect to his in-game health). From time to time, Animus will also change genders, his female form's movements resembling a ballerina's. This also is a purely visual effect and has no effect on how he plays.

Biography
In 1605, prince Janos sent his soldiers to Csejthe castle in Transylvanya to retrieve an iron maiden  lying in it's basement. Unaware to them  Animus was locked in there, suffering for more than 400 in immortal torment. The iron maiden was taken to a prison in the other world until the day it opened. After slaughtering the guards a being calls to him as his son and summons him return by his side at the chaos between worlds. Animus, in search for the clarity on his tormented existence, follows the calling.

Gameplay
Animus play is characterized by rewarding predictions and punishing agression by the enemy fighter. His basic attacks have decent range, his special abilities deal good damage and have excellent range but have very little combo potential forcing him to rely on short and predictable combo strings to do damage.

Besides Noroko, Animus is the only black heart character with a counter move, his has a shorter state duration but has a much faster execution, one of his main tools to punish rushdown characters for trying to get uppity. Additionaly he is the only one with a counter Super move which also allows him to tank any projectile thrown at him, a good way to deny a powerful projectile supers and make the enemy waste a power bar in vain.

His Killer Mode cancels him from performing special moves but grants all his normals additional damage the more health he is missing, this allows him to do enormous damage with small combos when in a pinch. Yet another way Animus can punish fighters who try to end the fight quickly via heavy damage.

Despite having great tools for zoning and punshing agression, Animus doesnt have a lot of mobility options going for him and has no real projectile attacks to aid him. His counter and super counter moves are useless against grabs and command grabs, this and the weaknesses previoulsy mentioned  make him horribly vulnerable to Grappler characters, who can bypass his defense mechanisms via either mobility or super armor. Characters like Tizoc have all the tools necesrary to deal with animus without much trouble.

Animus can be a frightening character in the right hands, but requires  excellent prediction otherwise, Animus can be harshly punihsed himself.

Movelist
His cancels work like this: Normals -> Specials -> Supers/Killer Mode

Trivia

 * Given the visual nature of some of his female moves, Animus has a somewhat of an erotic theme going on too.
 * He just speaks Hungarian in-game and in his victory quotes which translate (roughly) as following:
 * I've heard hundreds of girls scream, your pain is nothing compared to theirs!"
 * Just die! Someday I'll follow you."
 * A stream of blood pour out everything."
 * Why can't I die!?"
 * "I hear you, my father. You are the leader, and the pain of my way."
 * "Blood and rotten flesh familiar Buzek(???)."
 * "Rest in the arms of death weak!"