I wouldn’t think too much into the Ed subplot just yet. His ending could be no more of a harbinger than Cammy’s SF2 ending showing Delta Red with her or Hakan’s showing his family. All his ending shows is that Ed managed to make friends and is trying to move on with his life. I really doubt we will see a full blown Neo-Shadaloo organization on the scale of Shadaloo or the Illuminati, certainly not with Ed at the helm.
There are a few months left between the end of SFV and the beginning of SF3, this coincides with the time skip we saw in Ed’s ending. Are we getting another cinematic story that talks about those 3-6 months? It’s possible, but I doubt it. Instead the character stories will fill in that minor gap. There’s not much left to explain pre-SF3.
The only stone left unturned is Tom x Gill and how Gill laid his eyes on Alex. This can be explained away in a character story again.
FFS, I hate that. If they’re going to set it in the SFIII time they should bury all this “Special Forces vs Shadaloo” thing/storyline… no more Guile and Cammy, Rose already accomplished her purpose, Vega and Balrog are not needed they’re too tied to Shadaloo.
They should bring new characters with backgrounds related to a brand new storyline, not old stuff.
At least KOF realized they had to move on with their storylines, Nests was nothing like the Orochi saga and they haven’t keep resurrecting every character from the Orochi Saga (well, we have Rugal as a bonus character and Vice/Mature have returned but they’ve never been prominent in the storyline), instead they have new villains (some of them very interesting) and a lot of things where they could get new characters from (still hoping for the Hizoku or Those from the Past to be playable at some time).
I always found Alex’s story in SFIII somewhat funny, him and Dudley. I only know the very basic details so maybe the actual stories in-game make more sense but, as far as I know, Alex enters the SFIII tournament because Tom got beaten up very badly by Gill.
I imagine Alex learning about Tom being beaten, swearing revenge, furiously making his way through opponents to find the guy that hurt his friend, and then at the very end he finds out that the guy Tom decided to pick a random fight with and lose was no one else but Gill, God-Emperor of the Illuminati, leader of the secretive and arcane organization that controls the world’s fate from the shadows. I then imagine Alex passing the next few minutes asking himself how the hell Tom ended up picking a fight in an alley in New York with the leader of bloody Illuminati of all people and how he himself ended up in this mess.
Dudley’s story instead is about him recovering his family’s Jaguar Gill decided to stole. The idea that the secretive, all powerful and government manipulating Illuminati spend their time stealing people’s cars, and Gill himself is behind it, is hilarious.
Worst thing they could do is do a sequel and start contaminating the SFIII timeline adding a lot of characters from SF2, Alpha and SF4/5.
I could accept a couple of them (for example Juri or C. Viper), specially the newcomers from SF4 (Menat, for example), but don’t make SF3’s sequel (Street Fighter 6?) a retro/Shadaloo fest, we had moved on from that.
If you want a Zangief or Vega or Sagat back, you better just design a new successor.
I think an alternate universe dystopia where Magegg’s ideas happened could be interesting. Not as a game based on the idea, but the fallout of releasing a game that bad within the Street Fighter universe. All the fights are battles for the last remaining copies of the plot guide before the Mageggedon happened.
I’m only replicating the idea of Street Fighter III (starting a new storyline, not bringing back Shadaloo and the old SF2/Alpha characters), dudes. Was it THAT bad? I found it bold.
It’s not that I’m against the return of the SF2 characters (as long as they’re most 2-3 characters outside of Ryu,Ken and Chun-Li), but mostly to do something new with the storyline.
But if they start bringing back characters like Cammy, Guile, Rose and/or Bison, you contaminate the idea of a new storyline.
I agree completely with limiting the SF2 returning roster to like 6 entries (my picks would be Guile, Chun Li, Cammy (just skip the dolls entirely and focus on her being a Delta Red member), Vega, Fei Long and wild pick among the rest), but why cutting alpha or SF1 altogether in terms of heroes and heroines? I would love to see Rose in a non Shadaloo scenario precisely to see how she adapts to it and use her soul powers for a completely different end, kind of gaining independence and no longer be defined by the relationship with Bison. Being a reader of fortune with tarot cards wouldn’t be that difficult to keep giving her a role as an oracle. Adon is still young, Final Fight gang has age immunity be default.
Because canonically they’re even older than the SF2 cast.
So it makes less sense for them to be there, considering SF3 was at least in the beginning supposed to happen in the future (their old age/retirement would explain why most of the 1/2/Alpha cast didn’t come back for SF3).
And Rose I always considered her mostly an extension of Bison, if we talk about background. So, without Bison being there, I think she would be distracting.
A good SFVI roster for me would be:
Ryu (SF1)
**Ken **(SF1)
Chun-Li (SF2)
E. Honda (SF2) - Mostly because they could really change and improve his gameplay; sumo is cool but Honda’s gameplay has never been a good representation of sumo; if he comes back in SFV, though, I wouldn’t need him for the sixth part, or they could add a good sumo successor instead
Sodom (Alpha) - Unless he comes back in SFV
Necro (III) - Better than Dhalsim as the “stretchy” option
Oro (III) - Charge character with a style
**Ibuki **(III) - Great design, has have a couple versions on gameplay, always interesting; a ninja
Elena (III) - Great design and she’s a very nice “straight” fighter period
Sean (III) - He’s always been pitched as a successor so they should give him continuity
Urien (III) - Great character
Juri (IV) - Probably the most interesting character coming out from IV, gotta admit
Ed (V) - Could replace Dudley as the new boxer
-** Alex** (III) - Maybe; just maybe. They should emphasize his “grappler” aspect to make him more able to fill Zangief’s spot. Probably give him a ‘classic Hulk Hogan’ mustache.
-** 5-6 new characters**
It was because of the death of the arcades, the rise of polygon and console fighting games, and because the Street Fighter franchise was already being considered “stale” by most of the gamers.
I don’t think if Street Fighter III had had characters like Guile, Blanka and Zangief it would have sold much better or guarantee more continuity for the franchise in the short term.
CPS3 was expensive and hard to get in many countries, that limited a lot the people awareness for Street Fighter III, it wasn’t because of the setting or storyline or characters.
