Right, that’s because Capcom decides to give the spotlight to the likes of Rashid.
I can understand your frustration, but as you say… that’s not Rashid’s fault. Capcom could’ve given Rashid the protagonist slot without cannibalising other characters’ roles - AND perhaps giving some other characters a much needed resolution. Where the heck is T. Hawk, just to name the most blatant one? Why not to use Honda’s SFZ3 ending, canonising him saving some dolls (I don’t know, Satsuki? After all she’s Japanese) just to have some motive for him to return (Satsuki once again disappeared, as Juli did)? Yeah, it’s predictable and kitsch, but it’s still better than nothing. Three games in and the best Dee Jay has done is… being Elena’s bro’s favourite musician; and on top of that, all said in a supplemental material, not even in the game.
Not that he has to do something: I mean, a character doesn’t have to be relevant to the story. After all, we’re speaking about a series where we have… some fighters. Some could have personal motives against others, but a vast majority would still be bound to have other motives to fight, stupid or not. And there could be a tournament, or there could be someone “trying to conquer the world”. The stupidest ones would be trying to conquer the world by hosting a tournament; or having a character without personal motives beating up the big bad; and guess what does appear to be the preferred storytelling at Capcom…
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This! I know T. Hawk isn’t liked by most of the fanbase (which I never understood why), but he had one of the most tragic stories in the series and he needed to be in this (along with Rose). SFV was his game.
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Sodom is the only character I want.
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So found this site which contains all of Capcom’s secret files:
http://www.zachd.com/mvc2/pictures/Capcom%20Secret%20Files/
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I think T.Hawk’s main problem is just having to live in Zangief’s shadow as the big man of SF2. Zangief came first, has a concept that is more universal (Russian Pro Wrestler vs Native American), and the difference in exposure since then only exacerbated the problem.
In the grand scheme of things, Rashid is all right. He was part of the solution, actually had to struggle, got character development through ASF, and can be inserted into any other game without raising too many questions. I think he did his job as “new game protagonist” way better than Abel and Alex. Out of the SFV newcomers, I’d place him behind FANG and Menat (maybe behind G if we learn more about the character).
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Thawk is one if my fav sf charcters. Deserve much better.
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At this point, he’s basically the only Alpha character to not come back in the modern era of SF. Well…him and Eagle.(not going to count Juni, Juli and Ingrid)
I do count them, as well as Maki.
Interesting but almost unusable due to the scans having their resolution too low. Luckily @Lord_Vega has supplied us with better scans.
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I can agree with what you say, except this part. Ryu was not necessary for SF2 and that was by design. Ryu and Ken had less to do with SF2 story than any of the other 6 initially, it was later retconned.
Some of those are good, one of them is even certainly the main inspiration behind Charlie’s new design.
I love T Hawk, but he was rushed. His fighting stance is ridiculous. Tizoc is what T Hawk could have been with a little time to mature.
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I see no problem with Rashid, and he IS stereotype, just a modern one
Dude is not a random middle eastern guy who love science.
Rashid is essentially a rich as fuck UAE prince/whatever who love modern techy stuff (and have fuckton money to buy it), show off on the internet and looks happyfunnyeasygoing
Essentially any “Dubai lifestyle” vid on YouTube (something Rashid LOVE) is Rashid
In his stage dude literally fight on top of his private jet flying over Dubai with great emphasis on it’s modern skyline
Only because he does’nt ride a camel and does’nt have a geenie of the lamp (he still got one as butler lol) does’nt mean he is’nt a stereotype
Btw i got zero problem with stereotypes in SF, are part of the charm design wise
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“SF story revolves around Ryu even when Ryu himself is barely part of the story.”
Ryu is Capcom’s champion, a position that trumps story. Ryu will be present in a Street Fighter game because Street Fighter is Ryu more than it is anything else. Ryu will either be or become the strongest, because that is his role. Ryu doesn’t need story-specific motivations or reasons to get involved in any game, as Ryu’s simple character story automatically gets him involved in situations where strong fighters gather.
SF1 doesn’t have much of a story. Ryu (or Ken, though really Ryu) travels around the world to challenge other fighters. Ryu defeats them all, and becomes the best Street Fighter in the world.
SF2 has different stories for each playable character, and multiple characters have stories that revolve around boss M.Bison. Those various character stories don’t matter though. Ryu is Capcom’s champion. Ryu shows up, wins his fights, defeats Bison, and wins the tournament. As I said, my guess is that Capcom always planned for Ryu to “win” SF2, from the moment they decided to put Ryu into the game.
Akuma’s arrival in SSF2T pushes forward the whole Shotokan story. This world/plot that is tied to and revolves around Ryu will continues to recur, to be referenced and expanded. As such, it becomes an increasing part of “Street Fighter” even though it never the main story for any game.
SFA has various stories. M.Bison is again the big bad and again multiple characters have stories that directly tie to M.Bison. Here, Capcom tries to tie Ryu into the larger M.Bison story. But this arguably is as much to tie the larger Bison story to Ryu as it is to tie Ryu to the Bison story. (Bison may be big, but Street Fighter isn’t Bison. Street Fighter is Ryu.)
SF3 has various stories. Gill is the big bad, and multiple characters have stories that tie to Gill. Alex is the hero, but Ryu is still present because Street Fighter is Ryu. Even if Capcom replaces the rest of the roster, Ryu will be present. (Ken still benefits from the ease of palette swapping Ryu, even though Ken was there from the beginning in SF1, SF isn’t Ken.) Third Strike establishes that even though Alex was the main character, Alex lost to Ryu. Ryu is Capcom’s champion, after all.
SF4, well, by now you should get where I’m going. Lots of characters. Story brings in Seth, but it ultimately is about Bison again. Ryu is Ryu. SFV sees more new characters and a new Bison story. Ryu largely sits out of the SFV story. Necalli is introduced as a new power, jumps Ryu, and Ryu wins. Everyone does everything to stop Bison, Ryu shows up out of nowhere destroys Bison, because of course Capcom is going to have Ryu be the one to destroy Bison because Capcom is Capcom and Ryu is Ryu. Heck, Chun-Li can’t even escape the exploding base without Ryu saving her with his MvC beam attack.
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Old internal Capcom USA SF2 book, I found the personalized logos for each of the 12 characters a nice curiosity.
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Cool find but those logos are pretty awful with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions. I mean look at dictators one. For comparison look at Ryu and Chunlis logo in mvc 1
SF story in general, yes, the story of each iteration, not necessarily.
This might be the case now, it wasn’t always the case, remember that Final Fight was called Street Fighter for a while.
And this is where I strongly disagree. It may have been retconned one way or the other several time but I don’t think the initial intent was for Ryu, or even anyone, to win the tournament. The game was designed since the beginning to have several protagonists, each one as likely to win as the others. I might not have ended that way, it is clear that Chun Li and Guile are more central to the story, then Zangief and Dhalsim, then the other four, but it was designed as a game and not a story, as a consequence I don’t think they even asked themselves the question of who would officially win because answering the question would go the opposite way of what they were trying to achieve.
Individually, yes, some of the team may have their own opinion, but as a whole I don’t think SF2 design ever supported any champion, and if there was one it could have been Guile as much as Ryu.
On some level, yes, they considered SF franchise as a whole to be some sort of story, centered on Ryu and his friend Ken. In this aspect, SF2 was seen as “Ryu and Ken wandering into somebody else’s story”. I have seen interview’s extracts hinting at that. The closest I can think of would be Mad Max 4. Yes, the titular character is part of the story, but when you look at it closely, he’s only tangential to the story, and not the main protagonist.
With Akuma, that should have been the boss of SF3, they wanted to get back at Ryu’s own story, and make him the real protagonist again. They rushed it and it became SSF2T, and yes since then, Ryu’s own story has been tied up with all titles.
Maybe this is one of the reasons they were never able to replicate SF2 success. All other SF titles had 1 main protagonist and a couple of temporary co-protagonists. SF2 was designed at heart to have 8 protagonists.
Juni, Juli, Ingrid, Maki, Eagle… they were bonus characters, sometime copypasted from other games.
Sodom was there from Alpha 1.
Personality, design and gameplay, he was one of the highlights IMO. It’s a shame he hasn’t been back.
North American style guide 
https://twitter.com/takaNakayama/status/1251695264735170560
Nah, in Street Fighter II Complete File released in 1992 they confirm that Ryu was the one to kill M. Bison. All that’s left of M. Bison was his hat just like in SFV which repeated the cycle.
“After his fierce battle with Ryu. M.Bison vanished without a trace. But there is no doubt that he will return one day, as a demon of vengeance.”
It also confirms that Ryu beat Ken in the tournament. A lot of things probably got retconned but Ryu was supposed to win the tournament and beat M.Bison.
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In the same doc we learn that Guile is considered by many ‘the strongest man in the world’ and that Dhalsim won the tournament, so I wouldn’t read too much into it. It is as much canon as the different endings, and certainly supposed to offer as much insight.
Also the artist being this one is SHOEI who wasn’t lead designer in SF2, but was in charge of Ryu’s design, there’s no surprise in him favoring Ryu.
You’re right. Forgot about Maki.
Juni and Juli is a grey area for me. They’re real characters, but they’re, like, half-implimented. Kinda like the Dolls in SF5 are, only playable.
Counting Ingrid is just plain incorrect.