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| “ | Too bad. If you're a genius, so am I. And I try harder! So how could I lose? | „ |
| ~ Robert Garcia |
Robert Garcia is the recurring hero of The King of Fighters video game series. A practitioner of Kyokugenryu Karate, he first appeared as the deuteragonist in Art of Fighting and currently appears in The King of Fighters video game series. Thus far, he has been a playable character in every edition of KOF except The King of Fighters XI (though he was added back in for the Playstation 2 version of the game as a hidden bonus character). He is the first known foreign practitioner of Kyokugenryu Karate, earning the title "The Raging Tiger" or "The Mightiest Tiger" (最強の虎, Saikyo no Tora).
Character design
In the first Art of Fighting, Robert sports a black t-shirt with short sleeves, a sleeveless brown jacket and a gold medallion around the neck. He also wears white pants, white and black shoes and black gloves. He has the same outfit in the following Art of Fighting but without sleeves in his t-shirt. This costume is also featured in the first two The King of Fighters as well as The King of Fighters XII. In the third Art of Fighting game, Robert has a light blue jacket with his top uncovered and does not wear his medallion. He also sports white gloves and brown shoes, but keeps having his white pants.
History
Robert is descended from a millionaire family belonging to the Garcia clan, his father Alberto García met Takuma Sakazaki on a business trip and they became good friends, there Takuma agrees to train Robert and teaches him the difficult discipline of the Kyokugen. Robert trains with Takuma's eldest son, Ryo, and with the younger sister Yuri, Ryo and Robert train hard to master the fighting style and each person manages to perfect this style in his own way. Robert is considered until Art Of Fighting 3 as the "powerful tiger" but later he perfects the Dragon style.
After a few years of training, the main smuggler of the black market of South Town better known as Gesse Howard of Fatal Fury asks Takuma to join his organization, but this rejects his offer, Gesse gets angry and asks Mr. Big to kidnap Yuri, Takuma's younger daughter, Mr. Big does so and threatens Takuma with ending his hostage if he does not accept the offer, Takuma is forced to act for Gesse, there is born "Mr. Karate". Robert finds out what happened and in his red Ferrari goes in search of information about the whereabouts of Yuri, there he meets Ryuhaku Todoh and he tells him that he does not know anything, that maybe Jack Turner knows something, Robert manages to get there where Jack and asks the bad where Yuri is, Jack tells him that he would not do that but that in Chinatown is rumored something about it, from there leaves directly where Lee Pai Long and returns to question about the whereabouts of Yuri Lee is unaware of all this happening but tells him that in the Lamour tavern the bodyguards know something.
Robert is renegade but quickly arrives at the tavern and asks King to stay away because he could get hurt, she tells him not to underestimate her for being a woman so she sets out to fight, Robert defeats her and she tells him that Yuri is friends with her but has no idea who or why they kidnapped him, Robert decides to go into the slums of the city and runs into a frustrated former boxer Mickey Rogers and asks for information, Micky as expected not give it and After a bit of the Kyokugen style she informs Robert that she is at the air base, Robert immediately arrives at the base and realizes that John Crawley does not have it but that if he knows where he is, John speaks and tells him that his boss Mr. Big has her kidnapped in a factory, Robert goes there and confronts Mr. Big, the fight is very hard because he does not fight cleanly, but in the end Robert comes out victorious but very hurt and interrogates Mr. Big this mind that she is in the doj or of the family and when they arrived they would find a big surprise, Ryo who had also been investigating by his side goes to the dojo and fights with Takuma, there Ryo defeats him with the Haoshokoken and when he is about to give the coup de grace Yuri goes out to protect his father and tell the truth of his kidnapping, Robert arrives at the dojo and finds out about that, and there ends the game "Art of Fighting". In his sequel, Robert is resting in his mansion in South Town when Gesse summons many ruffians and underworld crooks for a kind of tournament, the Sakazaki are on the sidelines, but they are also involved, in addition, many fighters like Temujin and Eiji Kisaragi enter the city, Yuri and Takuma also participate. Here Garcia faces many, including little Yuri which is something comical-dramatic. When he arrives where Mr. Big again confesses that there is a power greater than the one behind all this, that Gesse Howard dominates the city and that there is nothing to do, ROBERT goes and confronts GESSE, but by defeating him Gesse He escapes and heads towards his private plane. A servant informs him that there is a man who is following at his heels and that it can be a big problem, Gesse orders that you have to finish with that guy named Jeff Bogard (adoptive father of Terry and Andy). While Robert is celebrating at home, Yuri arrives, she is very beautiful and congratulates Robert for his victory, Robert tells him that thanks, Yuri tells him that she was worried about him, Robert is happy and says: one cares about the ones you want, this says it with double meaning, Yuri hits him with a lot of pain and tells him to stop bothering, not to joke, Robert is knocked out on the floor; at the end of the story by Yuri she is in the gym very happy when Robert suddenly appears and congratulates him for his victory in the tournament, there a large group of Yuri fans (all women) arrive and congratulate him and they ask for autographs, they even take it away and leave Robert lying on the ground again; In the end of King, Ryo and Robert appear with Jan, King's younger brother, who is very happy and thanks them, (this causes King to retire from the underworld).
The King of Fighters
One day they were at the Dojo, Takuma and their students when they received an invitation to participate in a tournament organized worldwide, in teams of three, no one signed, only the letter "R" Ryo and Robert were thoughtful but Takuma saw that it would be a great opportunity to publicize the Dojo around the world, this was communicated to all and Robert who is an expert in business knew that he wanted it Takuma was free advertising from the pain and suffering of Robert and Ryo, Yuri very happy she explained that she also wanted to participate but Takuma flatly denied her participation, Robert tried to convince her teacher to let her participate so he would have more opportunity to flirt, Takuma did not want to and he put them to train harder. the day of the tournament arrived and already the Kyokugen team was ready, they were representing Mexico as Japan and Italy were already busy, but to everyone's surprise Yuri had sought another team with King and Mai Shiranui, representing England, Robert is excited and It gives you more strength to see her participating. everyone does a good job but when they arrive at the tournament organizer they discover that it is a black market smuggler who is much stronger and more important than Gesse, his name Rugal Bernstein who very gallantly asks them to join his collection of statues, collection that he has done with the defeated wrestlers (these statues are the characters of Street Figthers), as is to be expected Takuma, Ryo and Robert oppose and defeat him, at the end they appear on the dock watching as Rugal's aircraft carrier vanishes, While this happens Takuma very seriously realizes that they must train harder than before, and when Ryo and Robert communicate, they run away.
In the following year, Rugal returns to show his face but this time his appearance has changed, he had already uncovered Orochi's power and his body could not resist him (which Yagami does) here the Art of Fighting team defeats him again and being on a mountain Takuma confesses that he is too old to fight that a worthy retreat is better, so he tells them that they must train even more because they are now responsible for the Dojo, Robert just covers his face and says: we knew it.
Personality
Robert is the stereotype of the rich partying playboy. He doesn't take life so seriously and always has a smile on his face. He often acts as the reluctant mediator for the Sakazaki siblings though he often sides with Yuri if he can. He is considered to be a natural genius by friend and foe alike.
Robert benefits from his father's wealth. He always wears fancy clothes and drives expensive cars. Despite Ryo and Takuma's constant scrutiny, he sometimes gives luxurious gifts to Yuri. Robert also has an air of cockiness due to his constant wealth, which is seen by his friend Ryo as a sign of rudeness since Ryo's family lives in borderline poverty due to having their finances run the Kyokugenryu dojo.
However, this doesn't mean Robert is a bad person; far from it. He sticks by the Sakazakis' side when they really need it, and is overall a good friend judging from his relationship with the Sakazakis (especially with Ryo, who tends to be his foil). He's also not one to throw down a challenge either, and he works hard for his own karate prowess.
In KOF XIII, Robert is mentioned in Yuri's intro against Benimaru, hinting that despite his nature being similar to Benimaru's, Robert can often show genuine worry over Yuri and can show a bit of jealousy to others who try to get with her. And despite his clashes shown with Takuma in XIII over Robert's proposal to Yuri, even he due to being one of Takuma's students, acts as silly as the Sakazakis at times, as evidenced in the Kyokugen team's ending in XI along with Yuri and Takuma himself.
Trivia
- One of his win poses is him tossing and catching a coin. The coin is a gift from his father before he left the Garcia mansion, serving as a reminder of his roots and to one day return. It wasn't brought to focus again until Art of Fighting 3. The coin was included as a very rare extra along with stickers in the limited edition Neo Geo CD release of the game.
- His older appearance in Neo Geo Battle Coliseum is not intended to be tied with any continuity. It was made to match the older Mr. Karate II and is considered to be an original form of Robert.
- One of his cards from the SNK vs. Capcom card games involves him using the Hyouchuu Wari (Ice Pillar Splitter), a popular command normal that's been used by Ryo. It is likely this is a nod to the ice breaking bonus stage of Art of Fighting.
