I think we can delve into history more than we already have, but*** without*** digging up another hadou user. I get that capcom could make him different, but really, Goutetsu coming back would be potentially problematic:
1-How did he survive? Where’s he been all this time? Holy crap, Akuma sucks at killing people
2-How different can you make him without straying from of what it means to be a Hadou /Anatsuken fighter? If he’s playable in a flashback, non-canon mode, then you can’t really make him better than Akuma and Gouken NOW (Akuma alone has waaaaaaaay surpassed what anyone could previously do and he’s formed new techniques). We’ve seen all sorts of variants with their style through Ryu, Ken, Sakura, Gouken, and heck Dan and Sean. He could have different mechanics like how Gouken was a charge shoto, but after awhile aesthetically, it gets tiresome. God-help us if they ever decide to bring back Goutetsu and bring back the concept of Gouken’s daughter.
I’m a storyline and lore buff for all the games I play, but I’d rather play Rufus or Fuerte than another dug up Anatsuken character. This is the world warrior, there’s a ton of amazing characters from a design standpoint and playstyle standpoint. I don’t want to keep seeing people in similar looking Gis doing similar moves, with storylines mining similar aspects.
Capcom’s made some interesting characters that are unplayable that could be rather interesting. If we want to pull more characters from existing characters’ backstories, there a couple places we could go. I’m not saying it’s a good idea to do this when we could make new characters, but it’s just a point on how it’s totally possible to expand on the world without needing more shotos:
-Charlie and Guile aren’t the only ones who learned Charlie’s style. If we’re desperate to get more background, bam, who else learned? Guile evolved the fastest, but what if others who struggled incorporated different martial arts to make their overall style stronger.
-Delta Red is rife for the picking. I wanted Ultra’s 5th character to be Luwanda. She wouldn’t play anything like Cammy since she never was taught the Shadaloo style. Wolfman, McCoy and any other random member they could throw in could potentially be interesting too.
-Viper had other partners who were killed over the course of this Blece saga investigation. We know of the scrapped concept of Smart Raven (the pompadour guy in a similar looking suit that one of the Capcom dev blogs showed off)
-Tons of Illuminati/Secret Society characters could be underlings to Urien or Gill. That corner of SF is barley touched upon.
-Shadaloo has a ton of members, but only a few have been seen, the 4 Heavenly Kings (Boxer, Claw, Sagat, Dictator) there could be elite grunts or even any of the crap-ton of Shadaloo Dolls to select.
-Speaking of Shadaloo, there was the ooooooold concept that Bison had a master and trained with 2 other students, sooooo there’s that.
-If we really want more, there’s a ton of ex-Mad Gear members just wandering around who could get boosted up for a modern generation.
-Slammasters was a lot of fun and is part of the SF universe, there’s an entire series just waiting to get resurrected, and they could easily make more characters.
Am I saying Capcom needs to do all this or any of this? NO. I’m just saying we can do so much more, but if we really wanna see Goutetsu, I’d rather animated movie, or storymode flashbacks. While Ryu and Ken are main characters, we still have Chun li, Cammy, Guile and the whole Anti-Shadaloo squad. It’s like Resident Evil where there’s a few groups of “Main Characters”; RE 1/Anti-Wesker side, the RE2/Leon and Claire side or even the Chris/BSAA side.
We’ve done enough developing for the Anatsuken side’s history, if anything, it’s time to make some jumps, move forward, have Akuma just stop messing about in the Shadows. Have that hinted-at climactic battle between him and Ryu. Heck Dan’s developed more than Akuma. Dan stopped looking for vengeance and went into doing the self promoting thing, then reunited with Blanka and “mentored” Sakura and now the three of them have carved out their own little path. It’s not grand, but it’s something.
Y’know, I used to say I didn’t like Shotos, but with the adaptations, and Assassin’s Fist, I think they can be interesting. I’ve had a change of heart. Capcom just needs to move the chess pieces forward in my opinion.
