Game:

Dead or Alive 6 (2019)

Duration: 1:33

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NiCO is the code name for a MIST scientist and Pencak Silat fighter debuting in Dead or Alive 6.
A master of tech and weaponry, NiCO is an intelligent and somewhat immodest scientist who fights with electro-shock gloves.[2] She was recruited by Victor Donovan to helm the latest project for M.I.S.T., and had enough fighting prowess to be a threat to the ninjas, although she had her own personal reasons for undergoing the project.

Owing to her status as one of MIST's top researchers, her primary attire depicts her with a white overcoat and top, as well as an ID card on her left breast. She also wears blue shorts and has a blue shirt underneath her white top, as well as white socks and arm braces. She also wears white thigh high boots with blue trim on the heels. She also wears blue-colored electro-gloves that cover all except for her fingers and thumb, which she uses in battle. She also has teal-colored hair, and wears teal-framed glasses.
Like most of the other fighters, her hairstyle will change if she is the victim of a break blow. In her case, her glasses are removed and she loses her hair pin, making her bangs fully cover her left eye.

Despite her young age, NiCO is a scientific genius, but is also shown to be asocial and somewhat arrogant, as evidenced by her stating to Christie that she has no reason to explain herself to the latter when she attempted to question her motives for doing MIST's experiment. She seems to show very little emotion, remaining composed and very calm in various situations seen thus far. The only instance where she demonstrated any emotion was when Helena called her out on trying to revive Maria, where she ends up stammering in shock, anger, and sadness and even attacked Helena with her lightning gloves when the latter tried to restrain her. She is also somewhat snarky, as she can be heard saying "Too bad." when she successfully holds an opponent's attack.
Although working for MIST, she has absolutely no loyalty to the organization, and only saw them as a means to an end regarding her experiments. Her motive for working for them in reviving Raidou was because of her family history: she never knew her mother due to the latter abruptly abandoning her, and her father died while she was still young, which ultimately crushed her enough that she desired to find a way to revive the latter. She seemed to show a level of empathy for those who had suffered the same, pitying Kokoro for her sadness over her mother's abrupt departure.

NiCO's codename is likely an allusion to NiCO, or Nickel Carbonate, which is used in electronics and electrochemical processes such as electroplating. Her teal hair color is also the same color as certain NiCO3 reactions such as precipitation in a solution.
Dead or Alive 6 producer and director Yohei Shimbori stated in an interview that NiCO was supposed to have Russian nationality instead of a Finnish one, but they changed it halfway trough the development of Dead or Alive 6. NiCO's Japanese voice actor Sumire Uesaka was originally chosen for her language skills in Russian, who sadly didn't end up being used according to Shimbori. NiCO was also cited to have been created primarily for the Japanese and Asian market (while Diego, the only other new character in the game, was created primarily for the Western market), and similar to Honoka and Marie Rose had largely been inspired by anime/light novel tropes (in NiCO's case, her cool "chuuni" atmosphere)

Nico is an easy character to pick up and play, specializing in alot of important areas of play. Being amongst the fastest characters, shes a good character applying pressure and poking at her opponents, having alot of good mix ups and ways to apply pressure on opponents playing defensively thanks to her electrical abilities. She's also very adept at high crushes, having a multitude of tools she can use to avoid high strikes while starting her own set ups. She's also mostly safe, having more than enough strikes that are safe on block, and she can easily gain frame advantage via charging specific attacks. Her holds do decent damage and her throws as well, even having a grapple throw that can put her behind her opponent for guaranteed set ups to make the most out of her good damage. Her damage output and wall carry are also good, having very easy combo set ups and juggles with high reward for their simplicity.

While she's a solid character, she does struggle in range as she's a character who mostly is more suited to mid close to close range and she doesn't have many safe ways to move in bar certain moves that carry risks. She also lacks tracking attacks and the ones she does have tend to be easy to avoid. She also suffers from lacking a large moveset so she can become predictable and linear if she's not played carefully. Besides these shortcomings she's regarded as being a fairly solid character and can easily hold her own in fights.

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