While I disagree with some of his points, I can see where Magegg is coming from and I can see where the disagreement from the opposing side comes from.
Yes, the “death” of SF3, in my opinion, isn’t just about the lack of returning, characters, but it doesn’t help. The climate of the arcades weren’t the best to do such a drastic new change. Overall, we may not know definitively what did it.
I remember avoiding SF3 for the longest time, then started seeing the sprites in the Mugen community and got curious, then I finally heard word from people around me that it was fun and years later played and loved it.
I love SF more than any other fighting game out there and want to see the series flourish and grow. I don’t want it to stagnate and like Magegg, I don’t want a rehash of all sorts of past elements. That being said, like Cestus often mentions, the SF2 roster made the series what it is and kept people’s interest. I’m for retooled storylines and temporary breaks for some characters per “arc”, but characters like Cammy don’t need to be shafted. Heck Rose is tied to Bison, but with her fortune teller, overseer aesthetic, I could see her being the narrator of the SF universe (alongside Viper) and function like Uatu the Watcher, being a silent observer of the weird and ominous and be an explorer of knowledge in the more mystical side of SF, become a guru, anything. There’s tons of room to evolve SF. It’s almost 30 years old in its entirety but we circled the drain with a lot of rehashes and non-canon games for a looooooooong time. It’s only recently that they’ve been pushing for something greater plotwise.
I think that because of the series being so old, but, being fixed on the SF2 era without drastic new chapters to the storyline, it made a bigger impact when SF3 showed up. People wanted to know where the old generation was, get some closure, or see them interact with the new guys in a way. Ease into it, rather than throw a flashbang and have a whole new environment.
I like that KoF and Tekken keep around characters but in KoF’s case, allows for different arcs to be headed by different protagonists. I don’t want the same song and dance into SF8+. I love Bison, I get that Shadaloo is SF, but if we don’t move things along in another way, it’ll get boring. You can adopt the halo thing to show that Bison’s dead and keep him playable, but after his inevitable return, I don’t to repeat the rise and fall every couple of games.
You can have Guile sit out a game or two and have him pop up in another entry for another story that doesn’t have to be Shadaloo, you can have Cammy stick around with all the future titles. I mean seriously, MI6 agent, or on the run leader of her own band of former super soldiers trying to do good in the shadows (IF SF5’s events tarnished her reputation) you could throw her into a number of plots and keep her interesting. Look at the Ikari team (my favs) their or rather Heidern’s revenge story wrapped up in KoF95, but they’re still here till this day and got their own arc during the Nests. You can have some of the anti-Shadaloo forces stick around to keep an eye on things without Shadaloo being there and you can have some people stick around, but go in new directions.
Storymodes in the future don’t have to be settled on just one story. Heck lets say SF6 is dealing with an underground tournament and a mysterious band of assassins in China are the main focus. You can have that as the main story, while having a secondary plot thread featuring some characters not in the main story. Their arcade modes could plant the seeds and have them encounter characters specific to their corner of the story while slowly weaving it into the main story.
There’s a lot you could do. Without clearing everything out.
I almost would have preferred him to stay dead.
