SFV Character Request/Anticipation Thread

Street Fighter V
2761

Re: Akuma/Gouki

Yes his name has always been Gouki (in Japan), and Akuma is more a nickname or a title overseas. There’s a gray area here, but the general assumption is that when he began to shed his humanity, he became Akuma. Eventually he would become Oni when he completely loses it. The names colloquially began to represent the different stages of Gouki’s journey.

Re: Assassin’s Fist

No it isn’t canon until Capcom formally adopts it in one of its games, the same way they officialized Nash’s full name as Charlie Nash in SF4. The way Akuma killed Goutetsu there (and all of the Gouken/Gouki backstory really, right down to Goutetsu’s appearance) is heavily inspired by the Street Fighter Alpha Generations film. I highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it yet.

Re: Akuma’s redemption

There is no redemption for Akuma as he currently is in the SF universe, there is only death waiting for him, a meaningless one at that. What I am suggesting is one way to flesh out the character and give him more dimensions, make him more connectable to anyone who isn’t a 13 year old kid who wants to be a ‘ermgawd SHOOSH badass’. This is the same way some EU stories chose for Akuma’s character to give life to his otherwise monotonous story.

2762

And Bison is a cartoon villain, of the evil overlord variety rather than the snidely whiplash, but cartoon nonetheless. They’re different types, and neither is especially inspired.

Really that’s not a strength of SF as a whole, nor do they intend it to be.

2763

All SF characters are cartoony, that’s not an argument against them. But Bison has more than one layer to him, has inspired numerous popular interpretations of the character (from the super cartoony to the downright sadistic) and has generated more story potential than any single character in the series. Hell, Bison was in Wreck-It Ralph! Therein lies the difference between them. Akuma is hardly anything more today than what he was when he first appeared.

2764

@Daemos what is this EU you keep mentioning in your posts? Udon? European Union?

2765

Lol. Expanded Universe. All the non-canon animes, comics, shows, movies, books, etc. could be potentially classified as Expanded Universe.

2766

I’ve already mentioned elsewhere, but Vega isn’t the longest range character in the game yet he has the most range that we’ve seen so far. So this probably means we’ll see either Necro or Dhalsim in the original 16. Either that, or the animated cards are for SF in general, and not just in this particular game. If Vega isn’t the longest range character in the game then there is someone else who will play the long range style coming soon.

As for this Akuma discussion, why do you guys consider him a villain and focused solely on murdering people? AFAIK, all he wants is power and to become the strongest. Akuma wanted Ryu to embrace SNH so he would have someone capable of challenging him, and possibly, to end his life as in his view, the strongest survive. Considering his base form isn’t his real form, and when he fights, he holds back, I’d say he isn’t evil. If he was evil, he would just destroy opponents for the sake of doing so, but that isn’t at all what he does. He respects strong fighters, even if he knows he seriously outclasses them. Outside of Goutetsu, who has he killed? He attempted to destroy Bison, but failed. Apparently he failed at killing Gouken as well. In all cases that has him killing someone, both characters were in a fight that was life or death. He’s fought opponents weaker than him and allowed them to live. He’s a master of his mind and body, he controls “the killing intent” not the other way around. If he was a pure villain, it would be a killing intent that controls him, like E.Ryu.

Akuma has had a lot of character development. We’ve seen him be merciful, we’ve seen him train, we’ve seen him taunt Ryu in hopes he’ll embrace SNH, we’ve seen him reflect on the powerful fighters he’s come across. This is especially true if you factor in that Capcom USA basically tried to make him a demon, and nothing more, when he was first introduced.

The day Akuma finds happiness in life will probably be the day Ryu completes his training under Oro and fights him on equal terms, without having to hold back. If Ryu surpasses him and kills him out of a choice of life or death, I’m sure Akuma will die with a smile on his face.

Bison is definitely the villain in the series, with a selfish desire for existence at all costs and world domination. Akuma is more like a force of nature, the embodiment of it, with no evil or good intent, only that of being a force behind his fists and true mastery over power. Akuma will make it in because, like always, he’s become a main driving force in Ryu’s story. He’s also quite different from the usual shoto clone. I’m sure in SF5 he could be even more so.

2767

So was a pac-man ghost, but I don’t think you’ll see many people argue that’s a very developed character.

If you’re going into that topic, though, what can you even do with Bison? Even Akuma, as simple as he is, represents an idea (“play to win,” more or less), while Bison is just there to be the villain, optionally the resurrected one. You can’t kill him, he can’t win, and he’s past the point where he could have meaningful interactions with any other characters not named Ingrid, but I get the impression people don’t want that either. Look at SF4 - if Akuma is outdoing you in the story department, you’re not accomplishing much. Granted, after SF4, Akuma’s story is basically also over, unless they want to have him go after someone other than Ryu.

Sagat and Cammy (a couple of the less-cartoony characters) are past their personal conflicts and ties with Shadaloo, and his main role now in SF5 seems to be as a target for Charlie, but even then the illuminati side of it appears to be the real focus.

2768

Bison is like Emperor Palpatine, the fact that he will never win doesn’t make him any less vital to the entire saga (or any less awesome on screen, even in the shitty prequel trilogy!). Do you think it is a coincidence that everyone revealed so far is connected to Bison? He continues to be the character that binds and bridges all others together. That has been his purpose through out the series, he sets the stage for everything and everyone else to fall in place.

To answer your question, ‘what we can do with Bison?’, the only logical thing of course IMO - He has to win. Give him his perfect Ryu body (the one he has been talking about for almost 20 years, or at least a clone of Ryu) and bring about the doomsday that Rose (and Gill?) warned of, things will have to get really really bad (on a grander and more dramatic scale than what we are used to, makes for a more epic stort) before they get good. And just when we think it is almost too late - deus ex machina is invoked (as well as the combined efforts of many characters, good and evil) and he is finally defeated. Such is the fate of all the great villains in stories. It may be cliche on paper because it is a tale that has been and will always be repeated, but execution is the factor that will determine its quality, and nothing else.

Also, Akuma isn’t just there to win - Akuma has evolved into an actual villain in the series with real evil intent. One has to look no further than his dialogue in the canon anime TTTB or his win quotes in SF4 to conclude this. I’m not even gonna bring up Oni, which is a possible future for Akuma who is gambling with forces far greater than he may be able to handle. Unleashing Oni onto the world or just risking to unleash him is a selfish act of evil in and of itself.

2769

Not to be a killjoy, but most of the recent posts belong in the story thread.

2770

Akuma is fine as is, you niggas trippin. Big Boss is the perfect example of too much backstory to a villain, people start liking the good guy version so much shit gets retconned to “hes not REALLY a bad guy, hes just MISUNDERSTOOD”

foh. akuma wanted to achieve the ultimate power and become a true martial artist. if you think thats “not much to him” then that speaks on you. he serves as the lesson to ryu and ken that absolute power comes with its drawbacks and negatives.

2771

Expect that neither of the two seek that “absolute power”

2772

I just want to see more of the 3rd Strike cast interact with the SF2/SFA characters. In SF4’s intro and arcade mode, we saw:
Ibuki vs Guy (intro) and Sakura (rival battle)
Dudley vs Boxer
Makoto vs Fei Long
Elena vs Sakura (not really shown, but could set up a later encounter)

Hugo, Poison, and Rolento all had wasted potential by fighting either each other or Guy/Cody with no cutscene.

I want to see:
Oro vs Akuma (properly shown and hyped this time)
Alex vs Zangief
Remy vs Charlie/Guile/Abel
Urien/Gill vs Bison (or Urien vs Juri aka my dream fight)
Sean vs Sakura
Poison vs R.Mika

2773

Seeing Oro as the old master in V would make my year. Giving him a rival cutscene/battle with Akuma would make Akuma’s inclusion in the game completely worth the slot.

2774

I want to see the Alex and Hugo’s rivalry continued.

2775

Oro has potential for an excellent rivalry with a number of characters already in the game. Ken, Bison, Vega, Necalli, Nash would all be decent to great rivalries for him because they don’t have the discipline like he does, or like the mastery he helped Ryu achieve. Of course the Ryu & Ken rivalry is there, and it’s mostly a friendly one, but Ken could be bitter about Oro not taking him on as a student which could explain why Ken has this seemingly more reckless and hostile style about him.

2776

Ken has always been more reckless and hostile. I doubt he’d be bitter about Oro not taking him as a student. He’s probably happy the way he is, after all he’s a cocky bastard. Besides, he’s at the point where he’ll start teaching his son how to fight and won’t have time to train under a new master.

Oro would be a good balance to the “dark” powers in the game. Akuma will be an obvious rivalry, and Bison would probably take an interest in him as well considering he’s cheated death for so long. Throw in Necalli, who, like Garuda, feeds off souls and wields his own sort of power, would probably take an interest as well. Akuma vs Necalli would make a lot of sense, too, and Necalli would probably consider Akuma a tasty treat. Necalli vs Bison also makes a lot of sense, as Necalli seems to possess a more raw and wild type of psycho power.

Oro and Akuma would make obvious choices based on the story moving forward, that is, if this is post SF3. If it’s pre-SF3, then Oro is out. Necalli being a character who feeds on souls fits right in with Bison and Akuma. There HAS to be a Necalli vs Akuma rivalry, both seem like forces of nature outside of the good/evil thing.

Anyone have any thoughts on what I brought up earlier about Vega being the longest range fighter we’ve seen at the moment yet is only a 3 out of 5 for range? It would make a lot of sense if Hugo, Necro, or Dhalsim made it in the core 16. Out of those, Necro and Hugo would probably rate as 4 and Dhalsim would probably rate a 5. If 2 are going to make it, I would guess Hugo and Dhalsim. Someone needs to hit the 4 and 5 points!

2777

I’d love for Necro to be in even though he’s pretty unpopular. I feel like he’d have to have a set of normals similar to his NG or 2I versions where his heavies didn’t go QUITE as far, but were also faster to recover and to come out. And the biggest reason he was effective at all in 3S was because of selectable supers. Since we’ve seen no hint at selectable supers or any variance in super bar lengths, or having more than one super on hand, he’d have to face some sort of redesign when it comes to what his super is and how to use it. I mean say it was Electric Snake, it’d have to do at least 50% stun to make it worth all the meter required, and maybe give it more combo potential such as doing LP tornado hook into it, whereas in 3S this was not good usage at all.

And say Magnetic Storm was the super, it’d have to do more damage for how comparably longer the meter is in SF5 to get super available. Necro would also need the means to do stun regardless of Electric Snake being a super. Maybe if V-trigger enabled more stun on normals, or gave him increased juggle potential, then that’d be a fair balance without having to depart so much from how he worked in SF3.

2778

Man, i would love if we had multiple supers like Alpha 2 or CvS2. That would rock my world.

2779

I totally agree with you. I want Necro in the game as an alt for my Vega (although I wonder if his matchups would be too similar to Vega’s to make it worth learning again. They both struggle mightily with pressure in their face). I think magno storm (that’s what I’m going to call it) should be his super, but they could always make Necro similar to 3s Yang in that his ex moves are far more valuable than his super.

However, I’ve already got my main. So I’m hoping for everyone else’s sake that we get Urien and Karin. Possibly Mika would suffice in place of Karin.

2780

I’d like Sean to be back in, but with more a focus on jiu jitsu. Kid’s from Brazil, a place well known for it’s jiu jitsu practitioners. Make him something like a shoto grappler. Let him keep his DP, Tornado, and Tackle, but add a couple of command grabs. V-Skill would be a counter grab that would toss the opponent back to neutral. Regular input for high, down+V-skill for lows. V-trigger would be one bar and make it possible for him to combo into a command grab. Like, do a DP, pop V-trigger, and during the little time stop, input the grab and it will combo.