I could like Rose, so long as her V trigger was soul illusion and she could just be knocked out of it. She’d really be able to capitalize on chipping normals.
Well considering Street Fighter is about martial arts fighting with some slight addition of supernatural elements (Bison’s Psycho Power for example) and few fireball users (shotos, rose, Poison, sagat,…) - I would say Yamcha from Dragon Ball Z could be a nice pick. He is relatively weak compared to 90% of his respective universe characters, he doesn’t really use any projectiles apart from the energy sphere he can guide manually, and he’s primarily a fisticuffs fighter. That’s just an example, though
Also considering wear talking about a Japanese company and a series that mostly took inspiration from anime tropes and such - an Anime guest character would be very probably the most logical way (and Yamcha is exactly that)
Dude the Akuma hate is real. Seemed to have come out of no where too. Now i want him in because he’s my favorite SF character. But right after that i want him in just to spite all the “durrr he’s a clona guuuuyyyys” crowd. Ridiculous.
His moves? Copy of Ryu.
His appearance? Copy of Ryu.
His story? Pretty much stolen from Bison.
His bossness? Also stolen from Bison.
Now over 20 years later and he is STILL mostly a clone character. Even though he has been training and perfecting his style solo since 20 years prior to SF2, yet he shares the majority of his moves with other shotos.
The introduction of Oni while ridiculous in and of itself, is the only original character development Akuma experienced since inception. I personally like what Akuma could be and see great potential for the character story wise but what he is, well he’s just a clone right now.
Necalli’s addition also fills the whole SNH crazy character slot already. So Akuma really needs to up his game if he wants to stand out.
Because KI pulls from so many different directions I feel like guest characters work in it better. Same with Mortal Kombat. KI has cyborgs, ninjas, dinosaurs, werewolves, the undead, and aliens. IIRC Mortal Kombat’s story takes place on it’s own dimensional plane which pulls fighters from other dimensions so guests work there too.
The only universes I think that SF could pull a character from and not have it feel weird/wrong is Rival Schools, a couple of chars from Powerstone might work, Hayato from Star Gladiator or Strider are like the only ones I think they could do. They could also try to put Captain Commando or one of the other commandos in, it’d feel weird but technically he is in the futuristic version of Metro City thus part of the SF universe in a roundabout way way. Personally I’d prefer it if they made CapCom’s universe a spin off type thing where it’s not actually part of the SF universe just shares the names of some locations/people by coincidence.
I’d prefer them to leave guest characters to spin off games like SFxT, CvS, ect.
Getting the rights to an anime character, especially a DBZ character, would be a huge hassle. DBZ licensing rights vary from region to region so you need to get the rights from different people depending on what region you publish the game.
The reason Rash is in KI is because Battletoads is a Rare property just like KI is. Microsoft is just putting another character they already own into the game they made.
That said, I’m always surprised at the guest characters NRS is able to get for MK series. WB is publishing the game which helps with some but Fox owns Predator AFAIK.
From a gameplay standpoint Akuma functions nothing like Ryu or Ken. If we are to judge but his latest iteration in SF4, Akuma is a vortex character. Ryu and Ken are not. Yes, he has Cr.Mk, Fireball, SRK and Tatsu, but that is all. His St.Hp, St.Hk, Cr.Hk are all vastly different to the latter two. With his sweep having a different animation but the same startup as Ryu’s (5F).
You’ve seen already how they’ve revamped Ken. The same, if not more is definitely possible with Akuma.
Regarding his story: Isn’t Bison’s to take over the world? Akuma doesn’t desire that at all. Again, going back to SF4, Akuma just wants Ryu to embrace SnH.
Originally Bison was meant to be the one who offed Gouken after the SF1 tournament. Bison was (and still kinda is) a martial artist first and foremost and is concerned with being the strongest. World domination is the inevitable byproduct of this ambition of course. This was likely heavily inspired by the character of Raoh from Fists of the Northstar, down to the shoulderpads and leg armor.
When Akuma was introduced he became the one who killed Gouken and became badass by simple virtue of killing the original badass of the series. All of this has been thankfully retconned though and Akuma’s story made some effort to grow out of that mold.
Akuma needs a more radical change than what happened to Ken IMO, otherwise I don’t want a slot wasted on him in the starting roster. I would much rather have characters like Urien, Alex, Oro, Necro, Gief, Sim, Rose, Juri, Karin, Mika, and many many more original concepts.
To you Akuma may be different to Ryu and Ken playwise, but to the casual observer he is a headswap clone. The casuals are the ones who are paying for this game, not us.
Akuma always felt like some half-baked 2edgy4me dark shoto, like a self-insert fanfiction character dreamed up by a 13-year old after binge watching bad shonen anime. There really isn’t all that much to his character. I won’t complain if he makes it into the initial 16, but he’s not much of an antagonist compared to Bison.
Both Bison and Akuma want to be the strongest and mightiest, but the means they employ and the ends they strive towards are different. They both started out similarly though, with the whole mastery of a martial art through sheer discipline, followed by the killing of their teachers/peers as a demonstration of a power and ambition that did not want to be restrained.
As for Akuma gameplay, I think he needs something more dramatic, that probably involves him losing a move or two from his shoto kit (I nominate his DP and Tatsu since his fireballs have become his thing since ST) and be replaced by new stuff like what Oni got. Stuff that reflect his training in the dark arts. They keep adding to his super move repertoire in each game but he needs new specials to replace old/clone ones.
Physically speaking, give him white hair or the white streaks from SF3, and remove the tear off the top part of his gi. This is one of my favorite art of Akuma that I feel really captures his madness and anger.
Well I’m just saying that if Capcom tried to experiment with guest characters in SF - Yamcha serves ONLY as an example. Obviously there’d be a mess of a licensing because of Namco, Toriyama, Toei Animation, and which ever studio is responsible for western releases (mainly US) and local dubbing. But you get the idea of a fighter that COULD possibly work in a Street Fighter game
Akuma as a character needs the Vader formula, it’s the only way he can ever become meaningful in any way in SF. Other writers in the EU picked up on this and had him become the biological father of Ryu (something I am almost certain Capcom will eventually adopt into the canon). They did this because like you said there really is nothing much to the character, he’s a caricature of a dark shoto.
What exactly is the Vader formula? Well in a nutshell, it means he is a villain that ultimately must have redemption and see the error of his ways but only when it’s too late, probably after a series of cataclysmic events or heinous acts that they do. The father/son angle can help bring about this redemption, but there is also the sibling angle now that Gouken is alive (for now) and the potential of another character that can be added (transferring the child angle from Ryu to a new fighter in the story).
The anime, Street Fighter Alpha Generations is easily the best portrayal of Akuma and his backstory, leading all the way to his inevitable first encounter with Ryu. I foresee Capcom heavily borrowing from it.
Can this really work with Akuma though without rewriting the character? Akuma hasn’t shown a single good thing about himself and there were no sings of good left inside (if there was any to begin with), his sanity slowly but surely vanishes with time, his character is nothing but pure intent of murder with some control still left until he loses his mind completely and becomes Broly Oni
Besides, Vader’s redemption was when he felt his own son, Luke, at the danger of death by the Emperor, and killing the old bastard. I am not seeing Akuma doing the same, and even if we assume that Bison (or Gill, in possible case of SF5) is at the verge of defeating Ryu and taking his body - the ONLY reason why Akuma would save him is to let Ryu finally unleash Satsui no Hado within to achieve Akuma’s strength level, otherwise Akuma won’t just give a shit and casually kill Ryu himself
Before he was Akuma, he was Gouki, he had a brother, parents, a childhood, and in the EU he also fell in love. He allowed himself to be dragged by the undertow of the SNH. Remember, the first time we ever ever introduced to Akuma in ST he has already been a practitioner of SNH for over 20 years and was neck deep in it.
In the official canon, the exact details of Akuma’s childhood and the events the transpired before his murder of Goutetsu are left open ended, so there is no need to rewrite, only flesh out.
You’re also taking the Vader thing a little too literally. There doesn’t need to be an Emperor for Akuma to be a Vader-type villain, the parallels between the two are more personal rather than interpersonal.
Wasn’t he always Gouki though? I mean he is only known as Akuma outside of Japan
Does that mean that we can take Assassin’s Fist as possibly canon material? I kinda liked how they told the story of Gouki killing Goutetsu
I still don’t see how could Akuma be redeemed at the very last moment of his life though, that would literally require a miracle, temporary sealing of SNH, awakening Gouki’s conscience, and doing something good
I wonder if they’ll do something like 3S where Akuma has awesome offensive pressure and mixups but no EX moves. Like idk, he has the best SRKs like something out of SF4 but no V-Reversal.
Just some mental masturbation before work, nothing serious.
I think subtlety is the key. 3rd party characters work for other games but Street Fighter is and should remain very self contained. Final Fight and SF have a very woven history and the inclusion of those characters is aptly fitting. Typically, the ‘dreammatch’ inclusions should be reserved for cross-over games or other IPs. Street Fighter’s approach (in the past anyways) was to pull from pop culture and have their designs as almost exaggerated or inspired personifications ie. Ryu’s original design emulating Ken from Fist of the Northstar, Fei Long is Bruce Lee, Barlog is Mike Tyson, Q is Mr.A/Question etc.
However, in the interest of freshness and longevity, I believe the only existing Capcom IP that fits Street Fighter as well as Final Fight is Rival Schools. Sakura’s cameo in Rival School/Project Justice suggests that they exist in the same universe and many of the character designs could show up as older versions or re-designed incarnations. I would like to mention the EX series, but since Capcom does not retain ownership of those IPs…it could get messy down the line when considering re-release or alternate versions.
