Vanilla Ice

Vanilla Ice (ヴァニラ・アイス) is a minor antagonist of Part III: Stardust Crusaders. He is the last vampire created by Dio Brando and one of the most powerful of his minions.

Personality
Vanilla Ice's defining characteristic was his extreme loyalty to Dio Brando, to the point of death. This was illustrated when Dio required blood to heal his wounded body, and Ice summoned his Stand to sever his own head. After decapitating himself and filling an urn with his own blood, Dio had become so impressed with his loyalty he decided to grant Vanilla the power of immortality. This was done by pouring his vampire blood into Ice's wound, transforming the Stand Master into a vampire.

Vanilla also fanatically revered Dio's very image, becoming infuriated when Iggy created a sand statue of Dio using his Stand. This ultimately is what led to him killing the dog, and later facing off against Polnareff.

Overall he displays a complete disregard for his surroundings (he completely destroyed the doors to Dio's chambers, as well as the entire bottom floor of the mansion) and cares only to defend the honor and well-being of his master, Dio.

Stardust Crusaders
Vanilla Ice is introduced as a human, and proves his loyalty to Dio by cutting off his own head. Dio, amused with this, poured some of his own blood into his body, healing him and turning him into a vampire; a fact Vanilla Ice was not aware of when he went to fight with Iggy, Jean Pierre Polnareff and Mohammed Avdol. He instantly kills Avdol with his stand and then trounces Iggy to death for making him attack a copy of Dio created by The Fool. After a long and gruelling battle, Polnareff avenges his comrades by taking advantage of vampire's weakness to sunlight, and Vanilla Ice disintegrates.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future
Vanilla Ice appears in two "forms" in Heritage for the Future. The first is the standard character which can be selected on the main menu for Story Mode or versus play, and the second functions as the 'Mini-Boss' which occurs before the final battle with Dio.

These two "forms" are more or less identical in appearance, but the Mini-Boss version of Ice can use alternate special attacks and super moves that do greatly increased damage.

Vanilla Ice's Story Mode starts after the Joestar party has infiltrated Dio's personal mansion in Egypt. The Vampire is able to eliminate one hero after another, until he fights Jotaro himself, to the death. Afterwards, Ice kneels before Dio in his chambers, where he is congratulated for his victories. According to his ending, the vampire blood which transformed Ice took complete control of him afterwards, and he became Dio's slave forever.

Strategy
Vanilla Ice is predictably one of the most powerful fighters in Heritage for the Future, arguably much more deadly than his Mini-Boss appearence if used by a skilled player.

Aside from commanding powerful array of physical attacks, Vanilla's specialty, much like in the manga, is to use the powers of the "void" to crash into his opponents and damage them. He can take the form of the void ball while on the ground, in mid-air, and even change directions in the middle of a charge. This allows a player with quick reflexes to counter an oncoming attack, juggle an opponent into the air with careful timing, or even retreat in the face of danger.

Caution is advised however, because unlike the manga, Vanilla Ice is vunerable while in his "void ball" form, and can be hit by projectile attacks (or even certain physical attacks, if the angle is correct).

Ice can also take the full form of his Stand Cream, who possesses very powerful and far-reaching attacks, but it comes at a steep penalty in speed.

As noted before, Ice really shines in the hands of experienced players, as he benefits greatly from the Tandem mechanic. Unlike other fighters, who can attack faster when using the Tandem, this ability allows Ice and Cream to attack the opponent simultaneously for long and brutal combos. While this takes careful timing to execute properly, Ice is more than capable of depleting half of the opponent's energy in a single flurry of blows.

All of this gives Vanilla Ice the tools to be one of the most deadly characters in game, when played properly.

Trivia

 * In the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fighting game by Capcom, his name is changed to Iced, to avoid a possible lawsuit from the rapper of the same name.
 * He is the last vampire to be created by DIO.
 * He is the antagonist in Part III with the most amount of kills having killed both Iggy and Avdol, whereas DIO only killed Noriaki Kakyoin (but came dangerously close to killing Joseph Joestar).
 * In the game Heritage for the Future Vanila Ice can use his stand even after being de-aged by Alessi, implying he either was born or developed his stand ability at a young age.
 * In the same game, the boss version of Ice faced in Arcade mode has a largely different set of moves from the playable version.
 * He and Enrico Pucci share the same voice actor in different games, Sho Hayami, who voiced Vanilla Ice in Heritage of the Future and Enrico Pucci in All-Star Battle.
 * How he killed Iggy in the manga was changed in the OVAs; In the manga he manages to make Iggy over exert himself to death fighting  by him, while in the OVAs instead he cuts him in half using Cream's ability and proceeds to kick him to death.
 * Vanilla Ice & Pucci both share the deepest relationship with DIO as they've dedicated everything for, or the memory of DIO and in turn DIO has shown his complete trust in them by reviving Vanilla Ice as a vampire after he chopped his own head off to show his loyalty and he gave Pucci one of his bones when he realised Pucci was completely loyal to him.
 * He and Anasui are the latest DLC-characters from the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure francise to appear on the PS3 game (with Baoh being a DLC character from Araki's past work). In some sense, Diver Down and Cream have a similar ability but with different effects, with Diver Down being able to dive into anything without damaging them and Cream being able to do the opposite, diving into something to destroy it by consuming it.