Rufus was a surprise to me and I sort of like it. A lot more interesting to me than Zangief getting put in the game. As much as I do NOT like fighting against Rufus I still think the character has left his staple in the Street Fighter series thanks to his dominance in high level play from players like Wong and Ricky Ortiz.
I welcome our returning Rufus overlord
Well, Rufus made the cut for two things: to annoy Ken and to face off Bob in the “epic fat guy fight”! xD And like you said, his addition will power up some great matches, team tags and match ups, because of his high tier status.
Since Tekken is known for it’s pallet swaps. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if Capcom released a character as a pallet swap? Haggar pallet swap for Zangief.
Yup, Panda will probably just be a 2nd costume for Kuma, just like in Tekken.
Just two notes: Rufus/Gief doesn not disconfirm Mika
El Fuerte is a massive Mika fanboy, so a team of Mika/Fuerte wouldn’t be off. Besides, they could be team fast grappler.
And Sodom could be paired with E.honda. Sodom is a massive weeabo and there aren’t things more japanese than Sumo wrestlers. And there’s this:
[media=youtube]hoisa5j_qAI[/media]
4:44
just the fact their american and both have a skill for fixing bikes,o_O
Rufus, just when players thought they were safe from divekicks.
EDIT:
On an unrelated point.
Dropped this on EH.
Why don’t you look @ how Capcom handled MVC3’s character reveals. Akuma, Hsein-Ko, Sentinel and Taskmaster where revealed in January and the game came out in Feb. They’ve been releasing 4 characters a month since E3/June for SFxT, it’s not really a hard pattern to follow guys…
Captivate = 10 (Ryu, Ken, Guile, Abel, Chun + Kazuya, Nina, King, Marduk, Bob)
E3/June = 14 (Cammy, Sagat + Julia, Hwoarang)
SDCC/July = 18 (Dhalsim, Poison + Steve, Yoshimitsu)
Gamescon/August = 22 (Hugo, Ibuki + Raven, Kuma)
TGS/Sept = 26 (Rolento, Zangief + Heihaichi, Lili)
NYCC/Oct = 30 (Rufus, ? + Asuka, ?)
Nov = 34 (bu-bu-but the website shows only 32 slots!!!)
Dec = 38
Jan = 42
Feb = 46
March = Release
Fixed the link.
So what are the characters hinted at but not official announced yet?
Street Fighter: Rufus (trailer), Guy, Cody (trailer), Sodom (vaguely in trailer with neon text “Watch! Sodom is behind you”)
Tekken: Jin (Heihachis bio), Asuka (Trailer), Law (trailer)
Since the story is revolved around Shadaloo and Mishima Zaibatsu and we still got no Shadaloo characters yet (except for Sagat) I suspect that either Bison or Seth will be in this game. If Devil Jin/Kazuya will be in this game then Akuma will too. And if Law is in the game Fei Long got to be too! And who’s up for Seth/Urien team!
Armor King is hinted at in Marduk and King’s bio.
The dolls were hinted at before any game-play was even shown. (promotional artwork)
Only others I can think of.
Seth is SIN though,so probably bison. Also the only one law"s inclusion guarantees is paul. The deil Jin/Kazuya/Akuma thing makes sense though.Still would prefer something like devil gene M. Bison and psycho power Heihachi though. Would love to have a bison/vega team,which would make sense,and then a juri/urien team for fun. On the tekken side I actually think Bryan and Feng would make a great team,am I weird?
Actually, SIN is a subdivision of Shadaloo.
Yes but they broke off,as long as Seth is alive,he isn’t going to let it join back up. Plus Seth is a move thief,so that lessens his chances.
You’re right. I’m just personally disappointed for the first time with this game. I remember when Rufus was first seen by players of SFIV and how much he was disliked. I guess he isn’t that unpopular anymore.
I was really hyped for a Zangief/Mika team but oh well 
Rolento is going to be awesome!
Zangief/Rufus team hasn’t been confirmed yet. So I’m hoping the next two SF characters they officially announce will be R. Mika and Rufus.
Yeah I just kind of like how Seth plays in SF4. But Bison would be more probable than Seth, but to be fair all the characters he stole moves from are in this game ;).
Devil gene Bison and Psycho Heihachi just brings me back to CvS2 days with Shin Akuma and God Rugal :P. But no I think they’ll keep it down a notch in this game.
Bison/Vega would be cool. The most obvious partner for Urien would be Twelve… but I actually don’t know if either character fits this game. I love 3s characters (specially Urien/Oro/Alex) and would like to see them in more games. NO capcom fighting evolution wasn’t good. But we got Rolento so I’m kind of good anyway ;).
Bryan and Feng would be a kick as team. I didn’t play much Tekken but those were the two characters I used the most. Although Sergei Dragunov is also pretty cool.
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Which Marvel is he referring to? Hmm…
God damnit. And here I thought we would only have 6 more characters, considering the gap here:
http://www.capcom.co.jp/sfxtk/character.html