The Inevitable Street Fighter V Story Thread: ARCADE EDITION!

(Just kidding).

:anguished: look what You did… :get_outta_here: okay I’m lurking again…

Were you expecting anything else to happen here? It’s inevitable for this type of topic. I wouldn’t be surprised if this thread soon gets nuked as well.

Except that it most likely won’t, but most will believe that it does regardless.

Vega is a Matador first and foremost. He’s flashy and about theatrics, probably even more so than Ken Masters, but he has a sadistic tendency. Even if he managed to finish an opponent without the claw, I feel he would probably want to make sure his victim is truly finished with it. Especially an opponent who manages to scar him. He would show them even less mercy than the bulls he puts down. Vega loves the sight of blood, just not his own.
Its debatable whether or not Vega would become more or less focused in a fit of rage, but more often than not the archetypes for a character like Vega usually revolve around their vanity leading to their undoing. Fallen Balrog is non canon, but even so the guy doesn’t seem to be too keen on the whole beauty aspect like his canon counterpart. He just seems to be even more psychotic and sadistic without worrying about vanity, which would make sense.

This would actually work better, at least when you’re going about it from a story perspective. Some of the fighters naturally have aspects about them that would be obvious advantages in a fight. I loved the fight in the Ryu Final manga with Dudley because they pointed out simple fact’s, like Ryu’s physical range compared to that of Dudley’s. Because of Dudley 's speed and arm reach advantage, he was able to utterly obliterate Ryu in a fist fight. Ryu couldn’t get the one good hit he wanted on him, so he devised the clever plan to target Dudley’s striking fist in an attempt to cripple his range and end the fight. A lot of the characters that fan’s say Ryu ranks above in plot tiers, have some obvious physical advantages over him. Some which could play into a story based fight like I stated above. Not to say that Ryu couldn’t manage to beat all the characters ranked below him, but I don’t think he’s one-shooting any of them even being “top tier”. Ryu is meant to give everybody a good fight against him, he’s not meant to completely dominate anyone. It’s just that in story he’s supposed to have cray amounts of potential so we all rate him automatic top tier plot wise. He hasn’t reached that potential yet in story, so why have him so uber powerful as of now? That’s why I think having the whole alphanumeric tier list for plot devices is just tedious. It doesn’t really do any of the characters skills or power sets justice. It just becomes a pissing match as to who’s better than who, but save for a couple obvious candidates you can’t really say for sure. Then it turns to the debacle that has become this thread this past page.

Vega is a new man now. He’s come to realize he didn’t need the claw at all. He can take on anyone.

I’m still recovering from seeing Sodom in the same tier as Evil Ryu and Fuerte in the same tier as Guile. Da fuck?!

Damn, I miss this thread.

All this debating and no one even discussed the most important tier…

Trenchcoat tier. Based upon his elusiveness Q is seriously styling. The real reason for his elusiveness is that when near others, they fly into an insatiable envy of his Trenchcoat and all want to get a piece of it, but regretfully, Q, a man of Tenchcoat-Brand Peace, has to break his oath and stomp others into the ground. Secret governments wish to unpack the secret of his curious cloth, his dynamic dapperness. Will Q be able to save the world while killing the Bogard look? Only Ono can answer that now.

…what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, Tier lists.

I believe that they can be an interesting insight into how characters function, but they bother me because they can end up being a “Ryu and Ken can beat Guile no matter what, anyday and everyday so everone else sucks, so why focus on them, let’s only EVER focus on them” pov. It’s the reasoning I’ve often seen behind focus on other media projects and it irks me.

I get that some people without some extra mcguffin help are not going to beat way above their weight class, but I don’t think that things should be so rigid that certain victories can never be possible. I don’t like the idea that if Guile for example, really studied Ken, fought him in a different terrain than what he’s used to or other X-factors it would still be impossible for him to win. I like some wiggle room and don’t like designated protagonists being invincible unless the newest bad guy shows up. At the very least, I like when people are challenged. It’s the misaimed Superman fallacy of the never losing hero – people claim Clark’s never challenged…which is wrong, dude gets challenged all the time mentally and physically and triumphs, cause, y’know general structure of good vs evil-- but if you have it that Ryu never gets beaten unless it’s by Bison or the newest bad guy, it’s boring.

It’s like how someone in this thread mentioned Dudley and Ryu’s fight in the SF3 manga, it wasn’t one-sided and could have gone either way. I like that and hope Street Fighter dips a bit back into that pool rather than DBZ.

I love DBZ, but I suffer power level and “super form fatigue”. The main heroes keep getting mcguffin’s to elevate their tiers to match the impossibly strong villain of the week, but the rest of the cast suffers because they’re not the chosen one(s).

That’s part of why I don’t want Ryu to score the final victory against Bison. Sure he’s his target, but if he does win, it not a thematically earned one. One of the anti-Shadaloo squad, should do it with or without Rose’s guidance.

That’s what I’m saying, you can have S-F tier, 1-2 tier, Red -Blue tier, it wont make a difference when you’re talking about the story. It’s still going to be used to project a bias towards one or another character without even looking at the in story evidence that’s already been presented.
I hardly agree with the sentiment, but just to play devils advocate you **could **make an argument that Sodom would be in the same tier as Evil Ryu when using his Katana’s. They both have the potential to kill you pretty viciously. Sodom’s ranked pretty highly in the Mad Gear gang being one of the bosses. He and Rolento would’ve ranked higher than Hugo in Mad Gear, but a tier list would hardly reflect that because of Hugo withstanding a Shin Shoryuken later in the story. I remember the old tier list from the plot guide listed Hugo, Rolento, and Sodom all in the same tier which would mean they would all give Ryu a run for his money. The only thing Evil Ryu has on Sodom is his ability to dodge bullets, which would be far faster than any blade strike.

This comment kind of made me realize that maybe feats shouldn’t be as weighty when deciding canon tier lists as they currently are. It looks like these feats are so much more about the matchup than some sort of abstract measure of power. For example, in the SF2 movie, Guile attacked Chun-Li and was humiliated. Yet in the Juri OVA, he put up a much better fight than Chun did. For all we know, Chun beat angry Vega because she is one of the few quick and agile enough to keep up with him, and Guile would’ve lost in that situation. It’s so much more up to the matchup than it is to some loose measure of strength. Then again, Chun beat Juri in their rematch…

Street Fighter lore is stupid.

Doesn’t matter; a Japanese guy wrote it, so it’s legit.

Looking like Capcom unity in here. Got Cipher in here defending head canon then actual canon.

Yes, you could make an argument for Sodom. But when making an argument for Evil Ryu, you should factor in:

1- Evil Ryu’s body is so strong that it has the potential to become host to the most powerful form of one of the most powerful characters in the SF universe (Bison).
2- Evil Ryu is so strong that one of the most powerful characters in the SF universe views him as a worthy opponent (Akuma).
3- Evil Ryu is so strong that his power is considered is able to unlock the maximum potential of an advanced weapon of mass destruction that is based entirely around fighting chis. This implies that Evil Ryu’s chi is the highest of all, a sentiment that was echoed by another character (Bison) in the Alpha era as well.
4- Evil Ryu is so strong that Gouken himself saw it fit to find Ryu and seal the SNH away before it is too late.

All these are indirect testaments to the potential power within Ryu. Anyway you want to cut it, Sodom is a dead a man, and the idea that he is remotely stronger than Ryu or Evil Ryu isn’t just near impossible defying all we know about the character - It’s ridiculous.

For reference (and since this seems like the appropriate time), this was the inferred guesstimate from the previous thread of what SF power tiers would look like, based on my understanding of the canon. If you don’t like it, remember my Japanese friends actually wrote it and I just translated. I also read ‘magazines’. :how_interesting:

[details=Spoiler]
VERY HIGH LEVEL

SS - God Tier, Beyond Powerful

Ingrid

S

Final Bison, Oni

HIGH LEVEL

A+ - Most Powerful, Extremely Strong

Gill, Bison, Oro, Akuma, Gouken, Goutetsu, Evil Ryu, Gen (Pre-Leukemia), Ryu Final, Necalli

A

Urien, Gen (Leukemia), Juri

B+ - Very Powerful, Stronger Than Most

Ryu, Sagat, Seth, Cody, Master Lee, Twelve, Rose, The Dolls (Together)

B

Ken, Vega, Guile, Nash, Chun-Li, Guy, FANG, Haggar, Balrog, Alex, Dhalsim, Zangief

MID-LEVEL

C+ - Powerful, Strong

C.Viper, Cammy, Hugo, Rolento, Abel, Karin, Adon, T.Hawk, Necro, Dudley, Retsu, Sodom, Sakura

C

R.Mika, E.Honda, Blanka, Eagle, Fei Long, Maki, Birdie, Yun and Yang (Together), The Dolls (Separate)

D+ - Above Average, Moderately Strong

Hakan, Laura, Makoto, Geki

D

Yun and Yang (Separate), Ibuki, Elena, Dee Jay

LOW LEVEL

E -* Average*

Remy, Poison, Rashid, El Fuerte, Rufus

F - Below Average, Relatively Weak

Sean, Dan

  • The differences within each tier rank are much more blurred and open to interpretation. Therefore the order of names displayed isn’t necessarily significant.
    ** In line with tradition, I kept Q’s power tier a mystery.[/details]

Any idea why Retsu was placed so low? I would put him in B tier. Gouken’s friend must be good to be his friend! Otherwise, this tier list is spot on I would say.

I would’ve put him in B-tier as well, but I remembered an old story about Gouken sending Retsu to be some sort of ‘Final Test’ for his pupils Ryu and Ken to see if they are ready or good enough. I believe both SF1 Ryu/Ken beat Retsu and passed the test. This made me hesitate to place him so highly since Alpha Ryu/Ken were definitely weaker than their present day selves. However, I can’t confirm if this story is 100% accurate as it is old and information from that time period is very foggy. So I just went with my gut on this one.

No, thats every piece of f***ing informations I collected and slowly build Cammys profile with.
The good thing is, they can downvote it, you don’t need more than 5 downvotes to delete it. I haven’t one on it after 2 years and these guys downvote everything that isn’t accurate.

And again I don’t make the list, I wouldn’t even put E.Ryu on this list,he wasn’t relevant since the Alpha series.

Evil Ryu has been relevant from Alpha 2 all the way until Street Fighter 4 (i.e. the present).

Also you should’ve said from the get go that the Cammy profile is of your own making rather than trying to pass it off as official. Your ‘character describtion’ (sic) is sullied with a lot of assumptions that cannot be corroborated and are being passed off as fact. Statements like ‘She can basicly get the same results from one day of training, others would have to train three months for’ or ‘Cammy is holding back in allmost every fight.’ are of your own making. Feel free to source these among other things in YOUR character profile for Cammy (which is not the same as Cammy’s actual character profile) to prove your point though.

Just let it go Daemos. Talking to Cipher seems like trying to argue with an angry girlfriend. They just throw words at you until something sticks

I actually sincerely wouldn’t be surprised if with SF5 Capcom would’ve just said “Fuck it” and retcon the entire SF3 era and reintroduce all story elements like Gill’s uprising among the Illuminati ranks

I mean, we technically had so many story reintroductions in the SF4 era from SF Alpha and SF3 that it would only make sense for them to continue the trend, despite having a possibility to ruin the original plot

Having Alex and Urien appear in SF5 first since it’s before SF# timeline-wise strongly hints at that. So I expect a lot of retconning to be done with this game

Evil Ryu has been relevant from Alpha 2 all the way until Street Fighter 4 (i.e. the present).

Also you should’ve said from the get go that the Cammy profile is of your own making rather than trying to pass it off as official. Your ‘character describtion’ (sic) is sullied with a lot of assumptions that cannot be corroborated and are being passed off as fact. Statements like ‘She can basicly get the same results from one day of training, others would have to train three months for’ or ‘Cammy is holding back in allmost every fight.’ are of your own making. Feel free to source these among other things in YOUR character profile for Cammy (which is not the same as Cammy’s actual character profile) to prove your point though.[/details]
[/quote]

And again they get downvoted if they’re not accurate. One wrong thing and it’s false, gets downvoted and deleted. It is the official description of Cammy on this forum, it is flagged as true.
Yet you still go against it,cause you can’t belive it.

There is a simple reason why I get my informations from there:

  1. They have more informations than the western audience aka america
  2. They actually know each character and don’t put Ryu and ken on the top because they’re the protagonists.
  3. The Lore-List gets updated every 2-3 days, because something has changed.
  4. They downvote everything, and stomp you so fast into the ground that you can’t count up to 3, if something is false or uncanon

That I run this profile now for 2 (allmost 3) years without a single downvote and over 3000 likes, proves just that I’m right.

But oh wait, this would mean other chars are strong and not only the 3 you want to be on the top.

You want Ryu on S-Tier? Prove it that he is worth it. Prove that anything on this list is wrong.
You don’t have the amount of informations they have, everyone in the arcades over there, knows more about the characters than you ever will.
The profile is 100% correct and accurate, otherwise it would be down like the sh** amount of Ryu profiles that said “he is the strongest” or "he is the protagonist and therefore, the most powerfull"
You reaction to Urien is only B, was just another prove that you follow the american opinion and never ever payed attention to others.

Every char has his reasons to fight,every char has is strenghs and weaknesses, their personality, their archtype, they change over the years, change tehir reasons, test their limits, reach new level.

But nope, you jump onto the most easiest road to follow the lore, don’t check something twice, base everything on one thing and then go against everything.

Cammy is holding back against everyone who isn’t on her level. Her Body is Bisons creation, she gains much faster muscles, they have more power than the ones of normal Humans. Bisons strengh does not only come from his Psycho Power, his Enhanced Bodys play a big roll too. Yet Cammy got the same modifictaions all his bodys got.

But you can still ignore this, because it would actually destroy your picture about the lore and strenghs of characters.

Every tried going into KoF lore? 90% of the characters are on a similar level. Ralf who can basicly knock everyone out with 1 hit, Angel who is strong enough to lift up to 10 tones, Athena with her psycho powers, Ryo,Terry and everyone else.
The only weak character in KoF Lore is Shingo and Shingo is a f***ing troll!

SF lore has to much visual stuff that makes some chars look stronger than they are. Or nice quotes like “I’m the strongest woman of the world!” what makes Chun Fans still think that she is the strongest, while she has lost this titel during the SF2 tournament against Cammy. Yeah Chun lost in the tournament against her deal with it.

@Cipher will you shut up about Cammy already?

Jesus christ, you’ve been going on a rant about her not being the way you want her to be (i.e. strongest character in the SF Universe) for two pages straight

So much salt smh