Stardust Crusaders
Vanilla Ice is introduced as a human, reporting the defeat of Telence T. D'Arby to DIO, outside the door to his chambers. After being allowed to enter, Ice was told the reason for D'Arby's defeat was because he was unwilling to give his life for DIO. He was then asked if he would surrender his blood in order to heal DIO's neck wound. Without hesitation, Vanilla Ice proves his loyalty by cutting off his own head and allowing his blood to spill into an urn for his master to drink.
DIO, amused by this, refuses to take the blood of such a devout servant and decides to heal using someone else instead. Vanilla Ice is brought back to life from the blood his master poured into his body. After his revival, he was dispatched to take care of the Joestars. He activated his stand; Cream, before leaving to do DIO's bidding. His first targets were Iggy, Jean Pierre Polnareff and Mohammed Avdol. Though he was aiming to dispatch all of them at once with a surprise attack, he only manages to kill Avdol who shoved Polnareff and Iggy out of the way before the attack hit.
In a rage, Polnareff retaliated with a barrage from Silver Chariot, wounding Vanilla Ice's shoulder and demolishing the wall of the room he was in. After nearly being killed by another of Ice's attacks, he and Iggy fled. Vanilla Ice waited in the front door, expecting them to run straight into Cream. But as they were going for DIO instead, he gave chase, destroying most of the mansion with his Stand's powers. After getting ahead of them, Ice erases part of Polnareff's foot to prevent him from running away again. Thanks to a distraction from Silver Chariot, Iggy uses The Fool to hide and to create a replica of DIO to trick Vanilla Ice.
Vanilla saw through the ruse because of the sunlight in the room and because he knew DIO would not have interfered due to his unwavering trust in the servant. Enraged because he had to destroy something bearing DIO's resemblance, Vanilla Ice viciously beats Iggy to the point of near-death. After turning his attention to Polnareff, he was skewered in the mouth by Silver Chariot's sword after using the sand in the room to track Cream's movements. Due to Ice's newfound immortality, he survived the attack and destroyed part of Polnareff's left hand by drawing it into Cream's mouth.
He then wounded Polnareff in a quick succession of attacks, breaking his right arm and absorbing part of his leg and cheek. He then began moving in a spiral movement around the room with Polnareff and Iggy at the center. Vanilla Ice would kill them despite the fact that he could not see or hear while he was in Cream's dimension. Unable to escape, Polnareff told Iggy to use his powers to escape and warn the others - but the dog's pride caused him to save Polnareff instead. This caused Iggy to die from over-exertion.
Deducing that Vanilla Ice was turned into a Vampire by DIO after having inflicted several fatal blows (stabbed through the brain stem, stabbed again through the head and subsequent cervical fracture while impaled), Polnareff avenges his fallen comrades by taking advantage of Vanilla Ice's newfound fatal weakness to sunlight, using Silver Chariot to slice a nearby curtain and flood the room with sunlight which vaporizes much of Vanilla's right arm and left leg. After curtly goading Vanilla to attack him, Polnareff uses Silver Chariot to nudge the crippled Vanilla Ice into the light - disintegrating him instantly and putting an end to DIO's line of vampire servants.
Vanilla Ice appears as the game's penultimate boss before DIO. As a boss, Vanilla Ice is the second most difficult character to beat, as he has a large amount of health. He uses his Stand to attack.
The main difference from the original story is that all 6 heroes battle Ice at once and that he does not kill Avdol and Iggy straight away. Both stay alive for the remainder of the game.
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. As a CPU boss, he uses his Stand's void more often to attack, generally by either moving in a straight line on the bottom of the screen or sweeping from top to bottom in an arc. His supers both involve more drastic movement. One super has him void-warp around in a spiraling circle.
Vanilla Ice's Story Mode starts after the Joestar party has infiltrated Dio's mansion in Egypt. The Vampire is able to eliminate one hero after another, until he fights Jotaro himself to the death. Afterwards, Ice reports his success to DIO. According to his ending, the Stand 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 vulnerable 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.
Vanilla Ice returns as DLC character on the PS3 title. He was confirmed along with Anasui for the 4th campaign. He, DIO, Old Joseph, Johnny and Gyro are the only characters to have two different styles (Stand and Vampirism Powers in the case of Ice and DIO). Most of his attacks from the previous game returns, but made slower to balance him out. He now has the ability to drain blood which he does by grabbing his victim up from the nick, whilst also whispering "Lord Dio..." (much like DIO did to Joseph Joestar. This is also the first time in any Jojo media that Ice is seen draining blood).
His HHA has him use his Stand, Cream, to devour his victim before spitting them out, reminiscent of his devouring of Avdol's freshly severed arms. His GHA is using Cream to carve a violent closing spiral on the opponent before thrashing them (in exactly the same fashion he did to Polnareff and his earring as well as the Capcom game).
Vanilla Ice is also the only character whose Stand's activity has a time limit, at first Vanilla Ice had a bar over his HHA/GHA bar representing the time limit for Cream to be active, due to recent DLC fixes, the bar now fades away confirming the amount of time the player uses Cream to attack . After using any attack that requires Cream's special ability, Vanila Ice's face will appear outside Cream's mouth looking for the opponent (representing the "weakness" of the Stand).
Vanilla Ice has special intro dialogue with Part III DIO before the fight starts, wherein both men acknowledge this fight as a training match. When Ice wins, he pledges eternal loyalty to DIO.
Although his default hair colour is dirty blond in ASB, his unlockable Color D changes his hair color to white and his clothes to pink, the same ones seen in the Capcom games and the OVA.
In the English dub of the game, the subtitles of his default opening line read "Let's kick it on time...", a clear reference to the opening lyrics for his namesake's, Vanilla Ice's song Ice Ice Baby.