Well, to each its own taste, as for me yes, I think I would need at least a couple surprises to be truly excited.
And I mean mostly unexpected returns, not a bunch of entirely new characters (it all depends if they’re good or bad characters).
If they finally bring back some more Street Fighter 1 characters or we get Haggar or someone from Muscle Bomber, I’ll be freaking pumped.
Bringing back Lucia wasn’t a bad idea, in fact it was good, I actually had her in some dream wishlist back in the day.
The main problem is that they make her design and personality suck, as well as the oversaturation of blonde characters, which made her feel much more unnecessary. A pity, but well
Probably Dean or Carlos will be back in the next chapter.
It’s a little sad to see how devaluated the KOF franchise is, nowadays it’s somewhat ubiquous in any cellphone game since the new Chinese overlords pretty much exploiting the license anywhere they can and putting the KOF characters as guest in every existing mobile game.
Back in the day we had reached the conclussion that KOF was a product of its time and there was no chance they could rise again, so it is kind of miracle the fact the franchise is sort of still alive and popping up everywhere every now and then.
Anyway, KOF was never a serious competitor (not in the level of Street Fighter) in the West.
The 90s rivalry (Eastern market): Capcom and SNK
The 90s rivalry (Western market): Capcom and Mortal Kombat
The present rivalry (Eastern market): Capcom and Tekken
The present rivalry (Western market): Tekken and Netherealm
Lucia did’nt bring anything useful to create a greater cast
We had another female cop, another blond waifu, another 'merica char, another char that have generic american kickboxing as base style
Playing on cop gimmick they could have reinvented her as full tonfa char, would have gave her at least some smell of uniqueness (still better than fucking maki), but not even that outside a small VT
Nothing of her gave SFV anything new in terms of variety, she just bring the “hey people, a FF char is coming” gimmick
She’s the quintessence of the “surprise” effect i don’t need in SF
I wish they focus on create the best, organic SF cast possible instead of keep struggling on teh internet to understand wich dick is better to suck
Season V at the moment is
Fucking Dan (who i like a lot, but does’nt deserve the slot)
Rose (good)
Oro (good)
Fucking Akira (who’s sneaking in because polls)
That’s mediocre
But i give them is about last DLC season of a game with an huge -good- already existing cast, so i can consider it cherry on top even if half rotten cherry
For a start cast would be a completely different story
But tbh my guess is cast wise SF6 will be pretty similar to SFV:
Not giant kinda solid cast -> seasons of needed chars mixed with fanservice bullshit
I don’t think that was the case, since she became barely recognizable compared to who she was in Final Fight.
I don’t think Lucia didn’t deserve a place in Street Fighter. It was only matters of the timing (“Blond Fighter V” wasn’t a good time for her to hope in the franchise) as well as the redesign, with sucky default and alternate costumes, sucky concept and sucky personality and voice acting.
They pretty much turned her into a generic Valley Girl cop fetish fantasy, and made her look much more like a Mortal Kombat reject than a Street Fighter character.
The “surprise” her wasn’t really the return of Lucia; the bigger surprise was how much they fucked her up for this new iteration.
But in hands of a good design team, she could have done well.
And speaking of bad redesign surprises, Franken-Nash was pretty stupid, and plotwise don’t even make me start with him
As for Akira, she’s an awesome design, an awesome concept, a nice personality and brings a new fighting style to the table.
She’s literally 5th veryyoungjapanesegurl of SFV, and most of Karin’s Kanzuki-Ryu despite being descibed in badly written profiles as giant mix of stuff, already does mainly the bajiquan/hakkyokuken thing
Different gameplay no doubt, but still
Speaking straight about cast variety some other characters would have gave more to SFV
Random example, Elena would have been 2nd african char of entire SFV cast (from a very different area than Menat while at it) and bring a famous martial art (Capoeira) nobody else portray at the moment
Again, polls said many -declared- would buy, so Akira is here
This does’nt make Akira a much needed piece of SFV cast, make her ca$h cow
But again, in a fifth season of huge cast game, it’s ok
On dead end SF4 had the audacity to pull a fucking decapre and oni back then
New start cast i hope they show same good taste and balance of SF4 and SFV ones
SFV+S1 was a good start, aside the criminal lack of Sagat/Muay Thai rep
I aalready made an example, even just in waifus realm Elena would have been a more needed piece in terms of design, world and martial arts variety
I still think best formula for SF is to build a cast that push for maximum physical/nation/style variety as possible
I honestly believe a Ryu-Ken would be much better than a Ryu-Ken-Akuma-Sakura-EVilKageryu-Dan, as it would offer to variety 4 shining slots
I take these 4 and give them to Fei Long, Abel, Elena and Retsu
v
Me happier
I think Gouken deserved a spot on the SF 5 roster.
I can’t believe other characters got in and not him. They went through the trouble of retconning his story, making him a powerhouse showing he can block Akuma’s raging demon in Ryu / E.Ryu SF4 ending and for SF5 they just use him in the game’s tutorial ?
Talk about waste of opportunity. The old man deserved way better.
I’ve read an interview where the producer(s) said their intention was to make a “Street Fighter Armageddon” roster.
Find it hard to believe. For having the supposed urge to include every playable game in the franchise, they were quick in the decision to cram in as many new faces in S2 as possible, taking away slots from many classic characters.
Gouken definitely deserved to be in instead of Kage or Dan. He’s more popular than either of these characters, anyway. They missed lots of opportunities when it comes to how the lore needed some characters and not others. S2 was the worst possible selection of characters. They could have given us T. Hawk instead of Abifail and concluded his story. Rose instead of Menat. We all know Rose deserved to be in the game when everyone was trying to stop Bison. Heck, she would work much better as a leader than fucking Karin. Dee Jay or Fei Long instead of the lame Zeku and add the other one in another season to complete the SSF2 roster. But noooooo, we needed Abifail more than anything in this game, which needed to give us some faces people loved at the time S2 was announced.
Now that you say it, its a very valid point. A super missed opportunity indeed.
I don’t hate on Karin but indeed, i do not understand why a 18 year old rich girl was the leader of the world’s most powerful fighters to try and stop Bison…
Karin and Sakura are women in their mid 20’s by the time of SFV, older than Cammy.
Karin’s portrayal in SFV’s overall story is to appeal to the Japanese. R. Mika has no reason to be there at all, but she’s Ono’s fav so he forced her into the base roster and story.
There was too much fodder in the A Shadow Falls, instead of characters that matter in the Shadoloo arc. Everything from SFII is stale, seeing the recent interview gives me hope in SFVI moving past 3rd Strike.
Well, I’m not against new characters. You know, I in fact like Menat better than Rose. And that’s gonna happen for many, they could like new characters instead of some old guys they never cared about.
And for Abigail, it was an obnoxious execution but I love when they rescue an old characters from the forgotten vaults and make it live again.
What I think, and I’m not sure if it’s a problem or not, is that new characters are still designed with that otherwordly ‘Street Fighter style’.
They don’t create new characters to go with whatever is trending with new audiences, and so, they always fail on bring new fans and new generations to increase the fanbase. And old fans practically always prefer them to simply bring back the veteran characters.
There are a couple cases of success, such as Laura, Kolin and Juri, that were well-received by longtime fans. And Necalli at least where I live, managed to catch the attention of the new audience and was well accepted by veterans (at least when he was revealed).
Tbh the fact that they can still design in SF style is only reason i’m optimistic and curious about possible new characters
Also SF fans and their hate on new faces is more a perpetual loud whining gimmick, but when a new character is actually very good, they end up loving it
See the good parts of SF3, Juri and Gouken, G or Zeku etc
Add 6 new characters and something like 2 will get tons shit, 2 be on the neutral gray area from “ok” to forgettable, 2 get love and fans that will ask for them in future games
SF fans are not against new faces, are only eternally pissed that capcom still did’nt put 100% of their fav 24 characters in current sf title and direct that frustration on new faces
I do the same (i’m only a Fei-Abel-Elena from the perfect SF cast) but i blame crap characters stealing slots instead focus on easy target new faces
