So? At what point was this discussion limited to only talking about SF3?
Three things are terrible about Gill’s design. His coloration, his hair, and his outfit.
Urien fixed the first two in 2I, and fixed the third in SF5. Urien’s entire existence is fixing what’s wrong with Gill.
Fighting Games: “This is a series about martial artists fighting each other.”
Japan: “How fast can we put robots, clones and demons in this?”
To be fair, very few FG series start out with purely martial artists, most prominent examples being Street Fighter, Virtua Fighter, and King of Fighters. Even Tekken had a big ass robot, half-man/half-leopard and a cyborg ninja in the very first game
My initial post was about my preference for Gill as boss character over Urien. Gill is the boss character of SF3. That said, I don’t find a guy wearing a business suit to be iconic. Especially when Rugal did it first and better IMO. So my opinion remains the same.
KOF has been doing it since the beginning as well. Not as bad as the later entries, but 94 did have the Sports team.
I agree with him.
Ok, I fully agree on coloration, half agree on the hair, and disagree on the outfit.
The red and blue colors are essentially because they wanted to demonstrate their new technology, same as Necalli’s hair is stupid because they wanted to demonstrate their new engine. Choosing design for this reason provokes fast obsolescence in design.
King did it first.
King wasn’t AoF’s boss.
Neither was Rugal 
I was just nitpicking in any case, as it wasn’t clear to me that you referred only to boss in suits.
I think that ‘boss material’ comes essentially from the circumstances. Rugal is no better than Orochi in my opinion, but he is remembered because he was boss of the very first KoF, then of the second one, then of the dream match and so on.
I also think (sorry for hurt feelings) that Bison is piss poor material as boss (but then so are all boss of SF except Sagat) but he’s famous because he was the boss of the most important game of the genre.
Given the chance Urien would have been a very good boss, naked or not.
If he would turned into something powerful that he is it might be another additional elemental that would make his appearance along with the appeal of Gill.
So what ever criticism in Gill visual design would be the same with Urien if added another elemental power up.
Unless thats a power up boost that likely Gill will also have.
Probably we were intended and supposed to explore more about the secret society but SF3 didn’t pan out.
Thats why we will probably see Gill defeat then Urien and another for later introduce to other top official of Secret Society then their elders that Gill and Urien succeeded. Then Gill would return like that.
Thats why the character personality were divided rather than creating a singular idealized main anatagonist.
Agree thats why Capcom need to handle and plan things with longterm perspective.
By making things flexible and manageable from characters interaction, brand and usability in future titles. Since in a fighting game the priority is for the player base to be familiar with the character they used before.
And it was a mistake that they killed Geese instead of making him assumed dead because the body is missing.
That they omit the events in Fatal fury for the sake that he could return in KOF.
What made Fatal Fury effective was it was trying to stick with the theme of like 80s trendy martial art film like a protoganist seeking to avenge his mentor.
Yet everything became sell out and casual later in mid 90s.
The original Fatal Fury was like the original SF since they have the designer, that they are meant to be played as for the story not as PVP but the difference in Fatal Fury you can choose 3 while in OG SF it’s just Ryu then Ken in some conditions.
The Terrible things on Gill design are what makes him fit the criteria as delusional and brainwashed leader of a ancient secret cult.
Urien is more of an ambitious, jealous and self serving that fits more of a secondary character.
Its not because his first. That was more of Bison being first and being iconic.
Rugal standout for many reasons even lack of publicity compare to Bison.
Rugal presentation was very good and ruthless using a few panels.
A guy that turned defeated warriors into stone collection.
Has his own airship and would commit suicide after defeat.
Bison was just a a villain that want world domination back then before Alpha.
Even Samsho Amakusa and the general has a better introduction and presentation than Bison before Alpha was introduce.
Bringing up King was pointless though. We are discussing boss characters, King never was one. Now if we were talking about the best kickboxing characters or best female characters, King would be relevant to the conversation.
Ain’t this the truth
KOF 94 and 95 express plenty of character for Rugal. He has hot secretaries (even if they are Goenitz’s spies, and you don’t quite see how hot they are until '96). He has an aircraft carrier for a home base. He’s a really big probably German. He has a pet panther. He’s not out for world domination or even to increase his own power. He sits there in his fancy suit drinking wine while telling people that the whole reason he ran the 94 tournament was to beat the best martial artists and turn them into statues for his collection. (Side note: His existing statues include Guile, Zangief and probably Akuma.)
In '94, I feel SNK nailed the whole “real power” reveal. For the first round, Rugal is just a wimp in a fancy suit. Even his music is meh. Then you win the round and get the cutscene where he decides to take you seriously. He takes off the jacket, the background palette shifts to redder colors, his real BGM starts playing, and he most likely proceeds to dismantle your entire three-person team. He starts doing his little mocking laughs, even his dodge is a bit of a taunt.
Then he’s such a bad sport that, upon losing, he blows up his aircraft carrier in an attempt to kill the team that beat him.
Then he comes back, seemingly unharmed, with his “break a spine” invitation for a '95 tournament. He brought Saishu back just to mess with Kyo. When you do fight Rugal, he goes straight into the Omega Rugal reveal, and his animations carry a more serious feel than the casual taunting that peppered his 94 fight… You also see that SNK didn’t completely cop out on the revival; with his corpse-like body with cybernetic parts. Then you win, and he promises to return as his body cannot handle the new power he’d obtained. Which sets up the Orochi arc… The power that consumed him was Orochi’s power granted by Goenitz, and the skull imagery used for Rugal’s death would return in future moves of Orochi characters.
And he never returned, at least not until the end of KOF XIV. It didn’t stop SNK from using the character, though. He returned as the boss for the dream matches of 98 and 2002, as a console exclusive character for the often forgotten Neowave, and Capcom’s crossover games. (But not the SNK-created crossovers, interestingly enough.) SNK passed Rugal’s moveset to his son Adelheid, while Rugal’s daughter Rose seemed to inherit his personality. (But, as I’ve said before, these characters were somewhat wasted.)
Though Rugal’s future, like much of KOF is currently up in the air. He is apparently one of the trapped souls (along with Goenitz) that was revived with the defeat of Verse in KOF XIV.
Orochi is just…kind of a stereotypical generic SNK boss… Overpowered, full-screen super, feels half-finished… He’s interesting in that he’s arguably not a villain. He’s not insane. He’s arguably not even wrong. He’s a supernatural entity that has decided the way to save the Earth is to wipe out humanity. But Orochi works best as a looming danger, with the immediate risks being the Orochi bloodline humans that either serve his causes or just cannot always control themselves (like Leona and Iori). The personality, plotting, and conflicts is in their interactions, not the extremely straightforward Orochi. He had his big appearance, and he was beaten, and returning to be beaten again will only weaken him. It doesn’t necessarily help that his '97 incarnation was a bit of lazy work on SNK’s part. SNK cut so many corners that they didn’t even give him the ability to crouch. (I think that was added in a console port?) If he did return, he arguably should look different? His '97 appearance was based on possessing Chris.
Writing too much about Rugal, while previously discussing Gill, has made me think again about just how much hardware limits affect boss design.
Gill’s ill-advised color scheme derived from an attempt to show off the potential of the CPS-3 board. And then Capcom apparently doubled and tripled down on the bad idea by switching from black/white to red/blue and nearly stripping him to show as much skin as possible.
Meanwhile, Rugal would have been a move copying character if SNK hadn’t had to rethink his design due to resource limits. Apparently an early plan was to show off just how much of a martial arts savante Rugal was (and possibly show off the large MVS cart sizes) by having him fight with the moves of his opponents, but it was deemed impractical due to the size of the game’s roster. Cloning moves would become a cheap tactic for 3D fighter design.
Anyone remember Shang Tsung?
Honestly, for me, Shang Tsung owes his notoriety to Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa
Yeah, well, I meant he lost his transformation powers because of technical limitations.
Rugal and King’s outfits are more tuxedos than business suits.
Strictly speaking Rugal’s outfit is more of a ringmasters outfit
Which makes sense considering him orchestrating the entire tournament and being a weapons dealer that “shows off” weaponry
STREET FIGHTER PLOT GUIDE PROGRESS “REPORT”
So guys, it’s been awhile since @bakfromon granted me access to help update the plot guide, and since then there have been very few updates here and there. Yes, things have been slow both from my part and Capcom’s.
The deal is that what is being done, isn’t in the online version of the guide yet. I downloaded a copy of the guide and did some MAJOR changes. I still kept the same format @bakfromon did with the present guide. However, there are a few changes:
So, what was translated/added you might be wondering?
Well, not that much:
That’s mostly it. Oh, to be easier to separate the japanese translated text from the international one, I’m planning to color them. Red for jap and blue for international version.
So, while I’m organizing this material, I’m thinking of posting them here so you guys can read, discuss, and even point mistakes and errors. I’ll surely need the help of @bakfromon and @Midgardsorm, since there are a few translated sentences that I really would like one of them to take a look.
Then while the texts are being posted here, after a few of them is done, I’ll ask @bakfromon to take a look at the revamped format of the guide for his approval, although he gave me total freedom to mess around with the guide, I think I owe him this.
WHEW! I think that’s it for now.
Like a Kronika in MK11. An overpowered character with SNK Boss Syndrome maybe?
In the beginning (1991), the final 4 were basically equals.
Also, you guys wanna see boss god-mode Urien? Then check this:
Was Akuma ever a normal-looking person, that got corrupted by the SnH, or has his appearance always been more or less the same?
