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Rock is the son of the
most infamous crime lord of Southtown,
Geese Howard.
Although he knew of his father's existence as a young boy, Rock lived a modest
life with his mother in a small apartment. He often wondered about his father
and was excited about potentially meeting him someday. When Rock was seven,
his mother contracted a mysterious disease and he tried his best to nurse her
to health. As her illness worsened, Rock went to Geese Tower and met his
father for the first time in his life. Though the boy pleaded for medical aid
and told him that Marie desperately wanted to see him, Geese wanted nothing to
do with the matter and sent him away. Marie died that same night, and Rock
formed a deep grudge against his father ever since.
A year later, Rock met
Terry
Bogard,
who recently settled his personal vendetta against Geese. Rather than hate his
father's enemy, Rock felt a mix of loneliness and joy knowing that his father
died. Rock decided to follow Terry and attended his street fights. Terry soon
became somewhat of a father figure to Rock, and began teaching him martial
arts. Rock soon became a formidable fighter, fighting similarly to both Terry
and his father, Geese.
About ten years after Geese's death, Second Southtown was established. During
this time, The King of Fighters: Maximum Mayhem tournament took place, which
Rock joined to find his purpose in life. By the end of the tournament, Rock
faced Kain R.
Heinlein,
who revealed himself as Rock's uncle. After defeating Kain, Rock discovered
that the tournament was orchestrated by Kain to bring Rock to him. Kain was
aware that Geese Howard's will held presumably valuable secrets but was unable
to discover them without assistance. Kain earned Rock's aid in working through
the document by offering information regarding Rock's mother, whom Kain
claimed was still alive. Terry accepted Rock's decision to become Kain's new
partner, as Rock promised to return.
  
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Page Updated:
Oct. 10th, 2023
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Rock
is a damn cool design. Firstly, because he's a mix of Geese and Terry. In late 1999,
it wasn't easy to measure up in "coolness" with the many existing SNK
protagonists, but Rock Howard pulled it off with flying colors. Rock has style,
charisma, and a unique fighting
style that stands out among others. Seriously, his moves makes some other 2D fighting game characters look BORING. Rock
has appeared in several games since his debut in Garou, and he
even acquired some cool new moves over time. Most of his later appearances were
solid, too. Rock's epic cross over to Capcom VS SNK 2 wasn't short on
badassery, and he was great
in Neo Geo Battle Coliseum as well! His jump to 3D in KOF: Maximum Impact
2 wasn't terrible either, although some of his alt. outfits in MI were pretty bad (like most outfits in that game, so I won't lower Rock's
score just because of that). Thankfully, Rock finally made his debut in a
proper 2D KOF game... KOF XIV! Welcome back, Rock! At the end of
the day, Rock is easily one of the all time best protagonists from SNK.
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| Fighting
Style / Moveset |
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| Personality
/ Charisma |
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| Outfit(s)
/ Appearance |
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| Effectiveness
in series |
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| Overall
Score |
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