Fighting Games Friday: The Missing Faces of Street Fighter 6
The starting 18-character roster for Street Fighter 6 is respectable in terms of its size and variety. It’s not as large as fans who found Street Fighter V’s 16-character starting roster size lacking, but the number is fine enough for the start. Seven new characters are remarkably debuting this time around (including Luke, originally meant to debut in this game before essentially cameoing in SFV’s final season), a step up from the previous game’s starting lineup that included four, all representing a variety of styles.
I’m not saying there isn’t anything to criticize. There are peculiar omissions in the first Street Fighter game that will advance the overall plotline since the late 1990s. Street Fighter III and Final Fight characters are surprising in their absence thus far from the playable roster.
Capcom previously played with ages and timelines to include some SF3 characters in Street Fighter IV and, to a lesser extent, SFV. High school-aged characters like Ibuki and Elena were included in SFIV’s upgraded versions, with Ibuki returning again in SFV, in… younger high school forms, perhaps? Capcom tends to stop caring about the ages of characters for downloadable content upgrades over time to ultimately justify including fan-favorites in their rosters. But this would have been a prime opportunity for Ibuki and Elena to return yet again now that they’ve aged, along with others like Makoto, Alex, Necro, and even Q.
Not a single SF3 representative will be present for the starting roster, nor will any come in the first season. SF3 characters will inevitably arrive in SF6, but they’ll come later than for SFV, considering the latter’s first season included Alex, Ibuki, and Urien. In the meantime, SF3 fans will simply have to be sated with mentions and references, like those for twins Yun and Yang from Jamie. This could — perhaps — be a tease that the Lee brothers could return in a future DLC update, though they’ll be at least a year off. If that comes to pass, I’m crossing my fingers that Yun will be as broken as he was in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike and the early versions of Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition. Some traditions must be upheld.
Final Fight representation is similarly absent from the known SF6 roster thus far. This is despite Metro City being a featured location in the single-player World Tour mode, with Final Fight itself being playable in the in-game arcade. The franchise and Street Fighter share universes, after all. (The first Final Fight and Street Fighter titles take place simultaneously.) Yet, all that we’ll have for SF6’s start will be cameos.
Granted, those will be of characters who’ve never appeared in playable forms in the Street Fighter franchise, including Damnd and Carlos Miyamoto in the World Tour mode itself, Andore Jr. and Roxy appearing in the Metro City stage background, and detailed statue of Haggar. Their character models don’t look anywhere near as detailed as those on the playable roster, but they can be modified.
It’s fair to note that Kimberly is a Bushin-ryu practitioner, following in the footsteps of Zeku, Guy, and Maki. Her move set takes cues from the three of them, Guy especially. But the Bushin-ryu characters are all neatly distinguished by having unique spins on their running and dashing techniques. Kimberly’s appearance means there’s a bit of Final Fight representation on the roster already, but not enough to entirely count.
I can’t get into the development team’s collective mind, but my best guess is that they’re saving the SFIII and Final Fight characters for their own seasons. An SFIII-centric team could include some of the characters mentioned above, alongside others like Dudley and — just to throw this out there — Necro’s Harley Quinn-inspired girlfriend Effie. If Kolin could make her first playable appearance in SFV after only appearing in Gill’s intro and Dudley’s endings in the SFIII titles, Effie could receive a similar fate. Another season, before or after the SFIII collection, could have Final Fight characters. Damned, Carlos, Roxy, Andore Jr., and Haggar have all yet appearances as playable characters in Street Fighter, after all. Haggar would be a senior citizen by this point in the timeline, but here’s the opportunity to play with the timeline. They could bring Maki too, as a favor to me personally.
Capcom supported SFV for years, and has already promised further commitment to providing updates for SF6 through plans to expand the character roster and World Tour mode over the next several years. It’s a case of “when” Street Fighter III and Final Fight characters will be added, not “if.” Yet, it still would have been nice to have clear representatives from both among the initial roster for continuity’s sake with the former, and a deeper connection to one of the World Tour locations for the latter. I like the idea of having themed seasons, so anyone from Capcom reading this highly-rated blog is free to use them. I won’t mind.
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Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
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Excellent work, Sir Geo of Dio! This will undoubtedly convince Capcom to add more Haggars and to the roster. If not, then the game shall be declared unplayable… dead at launch… worse than Street Fighter: The Movie the arcade game.
If Capcom doesn’t announce plans to put Haggar and other characters in the game before launch day, I… I won’t play it. I am putting my foot down!
Street Fighter III comes out in 1997, fans hated the game and characters. 25 years later, they are loved and demanded to be in SF6 in the future. Got to love it
The passage of time heals all, as I think they say.