Trivia / Fighting EX Layer

• Company Cross References: Shirase is also the name of a rather infamous super-speed Tetris: The Grand Master 3 mode. The TGM series is also developed by Arika.
• Creator-Driven Successor: To both the Street Fighter EX series and to Fighting Layer, itself a successor of sorts to the first EX game that featured Allen and Blair among its lineup.

• The Other Darrin:
  • Hokuto/Shirase and her Bloody Hokuto form are now voiced by Yuka Igarashi, rather than Yuri Amano. With the later reveal that "Hokuto" is actually the modern-day Nanase, with Sanane essentially being her Body Double, one could say Megumi Ogata's role was likewise Darrin'd.
  • Due to the death of Kaneto Shiozawa in 2000, Kairi is now voiced by Yoshitaka Kure.
  • Naoki Sagawa provides the voice of Garuda instead of Osamu Hosoi.
  • Hosoi's other role in the EX series (and Fighting Layer), Allen Snider, has been recast to Daisuke Yokota.
  • Like Allen, Blair's previous VA in EX1 and Fighting Layer, Hikari Tachibana, has been replaced in favor of Rui Tanabe.
  • Jack goes from Banjo Ginga to Yoshimitsu Shimoyama.
  • Similar to Kairi, Shadowgeist's voice is provided by Tobby Uehara, as his original VA Iemasa Kayumi passed away in 2014.
  • Hayate is voiced by Takuma Terashima. The Hayate in EX2 was Toshiyuki Morikawa. Technically a subversion, as the two are considered separate characters, with one being the descendant of the other.
• Role Reprise: Whereas the majority of the EX cast have new voices in this game, there are four characters to date who retain their original VAs from that series: Skullomania (Issei Futamata), Darun Mister (Takashi Nagasako), Doctrine Dark (Wataru Takagi), and Nanase/Sanane (Megumi Ogata). That last example would later turn out to be a Red Herring, as Sanane is an Identical Stranger of Nanase's hailing from their clan's branch family who just so happens to share Nanase's appearance (and voice), and even had Nanase's memories implanted in her. The real Nanase is this game's Hokuto.
• Sequel Gap: Though it is more of a successor to either title featuring most of the original faces than an outright sequel, Fighting EX Layer's release comes a little over 18 years after Street Fighter EX3 and about 19-and-a-half years after Fighting Layer.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Fighting EX Layer was originally supposed to feature battles taking place on a 3D plane, just like in Fighting Layer, but was changed later in development to 2½D.
  • Fighting Sample was pitched as a 3DS followup to Fighting Layer.
• Working Title: The game was known as Mysterious Fighting Game for a while until Arika decided on the new title.

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