Fighting Games Friday: Poison, Deadly, Getting Hit Low
There’s a good chance that Capcom really wanted to provide a gameplay trailer for A.K.I. for Street Fighter 6 at Evo 2023. The character was simply not polished enough to show in full action at the time. Their second-best choice involved providing a video displaying her personality, just enough to push the internet fetish fuel types into a frenzy. Now that Capcom has released a gameplay trailer showing her move set in a quick fashion, it’s clear she was just on the cusp of being ready. She just wasn’t all the way there, for a development team very concerned with animating and polishing their characters in meticulous fashion. It didn’t help that this will be the first and only brand-new character coming as downloadable content for the first season, leaving them few reference points.
I’m saying “few” reference points and not “none” because it’s clear she’s a successor to a prior Street Fighter character. It’s easy to observe A.K.I. and conclude that she’s a sexier version of Street Fighter V new face F.A.N.G., who came with a moderately popular design but was seldom used online. She was already a bigger hit than him among a certain audience right from the teaser , proving that evil female Street Fighter types don’t need bare feet to achieve that popularity level. I also said “few” above because, well, her move set looks almost entirely different from F.A.N.G.’s, despite her being his apprentice. That works, because the team wants players to actually use the character this time.
Among A.K.I.’s techniques is the Nightshade Pulse fireball, which she can pop before it hits an enemy, a Cruel Fate backflip where she can attack enemies with her nails while airborne, and a Sinister Slide that looks eerily similar to The King of Fighters character Chin Gentsai’s ground shuffling attack, though this one doesn’t look as controllable. The most common element between the two characters involves the poison-tipped attacks, where toxic liquid will drain an opponent’s health until A.K.I. gets hit. Her Super Arts are also different from her master’s. It’s tough to tell just how fun she’ll be to play from this trailer, but the eventual Character Guide should help clarify that. At least she’ll be different.
Most Street Fighter fans and even some outside them like her design from the comments I’ve seen. The only criticism (not from me) has come from her hair, which looks like a mushroom. That’s somewhat intentional. A.K.I.’s hairstyle takes inspiration from the “kasa” Japanese umbrella-style straw cap design, one used by assassins during the samurai era. A.K.I. unsurprisingly incorporates this given her profession, even though she, like her master, is Chinese. The hairstyle appears integral to her design, which means it’s unlikely that future alternate outfits will change it. The one revealed alongside this character’s gameplay video, wherein she dons an elegant dress, keeps it.
A.K.I. will arrive on September 27th for owners of the Character Pass, and owners of the Deluxe and Ultimate Editions. She should be shown in action further throughout this month. Ed and Akuma will be the final characters released as part of the first year’s DLC crop, set to arrive in winter 2023/2024 and spring 2024, respectively.
Nexon, Neople, and Arc System Works provided a teaser for the second character coming as part of DNF Duel’s Character Pass: Brawler. Calling this a “teaser” is putting it lightly, because you could blink and miss a good chunk of it. New characters are coming to DNF Duel at a slow pace, after the game didn’t receive any significant DLC support for a year. Spectre (not named after the Bond villain organization) was the first character to release on July 12th, more than a year after the game launched. No date was provided for the Brawler, but this process should ensure that the character will be polished upon arrival. Don’t message me if that doesn’t happen, please.
El Tigre from the semi-titular El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera was the newest character confirmed for Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2. I know little about the character, to be fair, as the series aired between the time when I stopped watching Nickelodeon and started doing so again. But he looks like a fun character with a good personality. El Tigre was indeed on the leaked roster list, in case anyone doubted the legitimacy of it. It’s tough to think of a recent fighting game that didn’t have a roster leak.
This was another week of surprise fighting game news. I’d fully planned on skipping the feature today, but I’m not complaining about having another one to write. This pace could be maintained with Mortal Kombat 1 being due for release in a little more than two weeks, before NetherRealm Studios shifts their focus to highlighting the DLC characters.
About The Author
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
