Well, this character’s history is something worth noting of…
SF4 Arcade launches - Seth is faced with criticism for being a generic character that carries on the tradition of being a insanely hard boss character.
SF4 Home Edition launches: Same as above and Seth is widely despised and unpopular as a playable character.
SF4 mid span: Poongko takes on Seth as a minor alt.
SSF4 launch: Seth is used slightly more often in the hands of top players such as Arturo Sanchez.
SSF4 mid span: Seth is now liked among the top community.
SSF4 AE: Seth defeats Daigo and gains widespread love from all SF players around the globe.
SSF4 2012: Kazunoko sticks with Seth, and Seth is now a widely used character in Japan.
SSF4 2012/2013: Seth is hailed as the mightiest character in SSF4, and taking the Tier 1 spot.
I used Seth in Vanilla too at the same time Poongko did.
You also forgot some major parts of the story, right after WCG 2009 Justin and Gootecks were on the “ban Seth” wagon right after I came close to beating Justin in Vanilla lol
Seth just seems like another lazy character design (e.g. Gill), which is the reason I dislike him. Keeping the tradition of cloning other characters to create a boss character is certainly an unwelcome return.
I really enjoy playing against Seth. I enjoy fighting with and against characters that are highly mobile and can do a lot of damage with tricks and mix-ups and what not, like Seth, Akuma, C. Viper, etc. They aren’t the only characters I like, but I’d certainly find SF4 a lot less fun without them. High risk/high reward is fun to me.
I remember a few people were talking about banning Seth in the early console days, and then all of a sudden people thought he sucked. I think Seth was underrated early on because he’s so complicated and it takes someone highly skilled and pretty dedicated to show what he’s really capable of. Seems to be a common occurrence. Seth’s probably a bit overrated now as I think a lot of the top Japanese are still under the influence of Poongko’s beatdown of Daigo and now Kazunoko bitchslapping with him, too. I do believe he’s a really powerful character, though, and he could even amongst the top few. We’ll see.
In AE 2012 If you play Seth you’re automatically a Poongko fanboy or someone who’s trying to copy him. Same shit could be said about any character, what about them Tokido fanboys and Sako fanboys?
If it wasn’t for Poongko showing everyone Seth’s true potential and how best to play him we may not have seen this explosion of Seth’s in 2012. Any TOP player picking up Seth now will have been influenced by Poongko’s playstyle.
Seth is arguably the only character in SF4 that has ever had this sort of history. For two reasons
He is a character new to Street Fighter (so you don’t get previous games affecting your particular style. Like how Valle sort of plays Ryu similar to how he plays Ryu in SF2)
Seth was the most extreme example of this sort of story, going from bottom tier to top tier. Even Viper who followed a similar story to Seth was considered “mid” in Vanilla so her climb wasn’t so rapid, and she had a larger player base to begin with (thanks in part to the fact Seth wasn’t playable in original arcade release of SF4)
I’m kind of sad that people feel this way about Poongko, mostly because I used to love watching Online Tony play this smart rushdown mixup Seth, and ever since Poongko showed up he just goes random.
Even if you don’t like the character or his playstyle, you have to admit the dude has got a freaking awesome theme, one of the best in the game in my opinion.
Theme of Poongko
Spoiler
[media=youtube]xHnU4xt9h_4[/media]
Has a great english voice actor too but GODDAMN IS HIS TELEPORT LAUGHING ANNOYING!
