Yeah, fuck reboots. For Street Fighter 6 just combine 5’s Story and Arcade modes, so each fighter gets a path in arcade mode for every game he’s been in, canon prologue and endings for where they were and where they ended up at the time, with rival cutscenes sprinkled in here and there for their most relevant opponents. Then just have the Cinematic story for the present, preferably post SF3.
Of course, for the complete experience have every prior character in the game and for ‘new’ characters just use the SF1 ones, who are blank slates and prone to reworking and finally bring the missing Final Fight protagonists too.
Sure, there will be a ton of retcons and it would probably ultimately end up as a soft-reboot, but it’s better than just starting all the way at the beginning, when things are finally picking up the pace.
SF6 should be a proper sequel to SF3 in terms of canon. They’ve been beating around the bush in terms of progressing the narrative of the story by not progressing past SF3. I can deal with SF4 and 5 being in between 2 and 3 but they’re running out of story room and ASF basically sets up for SF3 story so anything storywise in SF6 has to be after or even during SF3 canon.
Before turning the page into a “SFIII sequel”, I rather prefer them to tie loose ends. AKA: finish off the Neo Shadaloo storyline, as well as the Kage storyline (if any).
Then we can go to a “SFIII sequel”; and don’t ever bring back the dolls, Shadaloo, Juri’s character arc or anything.
If old characters (like Bison, Vega, Juri, etc.) come back, just have them in ‘guest-like/tribute’ appearances, not tied to the storylines at all. A la Gouken or SF3 Akuma.
Count me as another that would be fine combining Arcade and Story together.
As much as I enjoy win quotes, I’d like things to be more fleshed out like this:
One of the things I loved about SNK Vs Capcom was that everyone had unique opening dialogue with each other. There weren’t as many unique win quotes, but I feel like the opening dialogue more than made up for it.
King of Fighters XIII had unique opening dialogue between all characters and unique win quotes for all characters in Arcade Mode:
Yes, even Classic Iori has entirely different dialogue than Normal Iori.
Even better, XIII’s Story Mode had it so everyone on the team talked shit to each other during the opening dialogue. So between Arcade and Story, there was tons of unique dialogue exchanged amongst the entire cast.
Win quotes only give us insight into the outcome of the battle. I’d like to see unique interactions between all characters prior to the fight to make the fights feel much more complete. A feature like that along with endings would give Arcade Mode a ton of replay value.
That’s fine. I don’t personally believe everything has to be a direct tie-in to the story. Some of us like to see interactions between characters that otherwise would have no chance of happening.
As for a re-canon/reboot/new version, I would bookend the first Street Fighter tournament to have Bison as a “secret final boss”, he brings Ryu to his island and offers him become one of his general but Ryu rejects him and they fight, Ryu wins with difficulty, tapping into the Dark Hadou power.
Then the next chapter would combine the Alpha and II storylines (something that Alpha kind of did anyway, since all the SF2 characters ended up joining), with Guile and Chun-Li being the protagonists and fighting a psycho-drive empowered Bison, and Ryu finding out the truth about the Dark Hadou and confronting Akuma as a secondary plot.
Then Street Fighter IV which could be more or less the same as the game, only centered in Seth, C. Viper, Decapre and Juri (no Bison resurrection), and Street Fighter V with Neo Shadaloo replacing Shadaloo in the center, Rashid being the protagonist, and Ryu fighting Necalli.
If we’re discussing fan-fic, or fan retellings, I wanna ask you about one thing that’s been on my mind for some time. What do you think if during the SF1 events Mike and Joe aren’t part of Ryu’s journey, but contestants in Ken’s American Tournament? There’s still plenty of characters in 1 to test Ryu and ultimately only Sagat is of any importance. If need be you can even add some Alpha or even 2 characters early, like Honda or Fei Long who aren’t relevant to 2’s story in any way and fit the random ‘obstacle’ role Ryu’s story hangs on.
I’d rather give some… identity to the SF1 contestants. These characters are nothing but a big question mark, with practically no characterization, no background and no motivation.
A big work of rewriting would have to be done with them, and then maybe they can create a memorable interwined storyline.
The main thing I’d like to see is Gen’s SF1 tournament experience.
I always saw him dropping out of the tournament because his illness rendered him unable to compete. He also met Ryu for the first time in Alpha 3. Had Gen participated all the way through, I could see him cleaning up the competition with ease.
They’re barely introducing this arc in SFV, they certainly can’t finish it yet, it’ll be an important part of the sequel’s story.
Capcom most probably realized these modes turned out somewhat underwhelming on their own, so I think it’s a given they’ll make a giant arcade mode experience instead.
I want this to conclude that before going “into the future” with a SF3 sequel.
I simply want a new fresh start (like 3 was in its moment) and not be dragging past storylines all along for a very cluttered storyline. A “SF3 Sequel” entry should have ties with SF3, but no other games.
That’s part of my point. Alpha ultimately made SF2 redundant.
Storywise, SF2’s primary purpose was to introduce a bunch of characters, give these characters a chance to meet each other, and give some of these characters a chance to go after Bison. Ryu presumably beats Bison and wins the tournament.
By the end of the SFA series, those previously new SF2 characters have been introduced at an earlier point in the timeline than SF2, have been given a chance to meet each other before SF2, and those that would go after Bison in SF2 have had a chance to go after Bison in SFA. Ryu beats Bison.
By the end of the SFA series, SF2 serves no real story purpose. What there is of SF2 could easily be folded into SFA. That would also cut down on the Bison losses/deaths. SFA would lead straight into SF4 without issue, with the Shadaloo crew hanging around for Bison’s return and “final” death in SF5.
That’s essentially what the SFA3 = SF2 merger came from. Aside from a few minor subplots like Ken marrying Eliza, SFA3 made SF2 redundant, and SF4 can easily pick up after SFA3.
