T5T: New Characters I Wanted for Ultra Street Fighter IV

Top 5 Tuesdays is an article series that focuses on my “top five” anything on a given subject of my choosing that pertains to either gaming, anime, or manga.

Everyone was pretty hype when Super Street Fighter IV was announced since it was the first huge addition to Street Fighter IV, the CAPCOM fighting game that single-handedly ressurrected the genre from its grave.  We are now nearing the premiere of their latest update to the series, Ultra Street Fighter IV, adding five new characters…none of which I am impressed with in the least.

Go ahead and hit the jump to find out which characters make my cut for who I would prefer to be in the latest iteration of the Street Fighter IV series.

Being an avid fighting game fan, it is only fair to assume that I too had my hand dirtied with CAPCOM’s Street Fighter IV goodness and have played EVERY version of it to date (Street Fighter IV, Super Street Fighter IV, and Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition which also includes AE’s individual yearly updates).  Obviously I have my own personal preferences, and while I cannot be too greedy since Cammy White (My favorite Street Fighter character) was voted into the “vanilla” version of SF4 by the very skin of her teeth, to which I was greatful, I still have others I would like to use.

The disappointment that came in Ultra Street Fighter IV’s new character announcement is that we have 4 “New” combatants that were previously seen in Street Fighter x TEKKEN (Elena, Hugo, Rolento, and Poison) and to add insult to injury we get Cammy’s clone, Decapre (Who was first introduced in Street Fighter Alpha 3 in either Juni or Juli’s sequences).  While I will not fully go into why I feel we as players/fans got short-changed by CAPCOM (I am saving that for another article), I will say that I am not happy about the characters that were chosen and want to make my suggestions on who I wanted in the game and why.

Without further ado, I give you the Top 5 Tuesdays listing of my favorite 5 character that I wanted in Ultra Street Fighter IV instead of CAPCOM’s choice of Elena, Hugo, Rolento, Poison, and Decapre.  Also, I will give a brief explanation as to why I want that particular character in.

I only played Alex for a brief moment in time during Street Fighter III: Third Strike, but I always liked his style but never truly got a chance to try him out(I was too stuck on Dudley, Makoto, and Ryu), I also liked his personality displayed in Street Fighter Comics.  He seemed to also fair well in Tatsunoko vs CAPCOM, one of the reasons I really wish they had brought him over to Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds as they did for a few other characters (Such as Zero or Frank West).

Even though I normally like slim characters that have a massive amount of power, Alex looks very cool which offsets that for me.  In turn, Alex has a lot of power and strikes and yet he is still considered to be a grappler, I absoluely love the idea of making him a non-traditional grappler character.

However, I had already figured that Alex was never intended to be in the game after I saw Abel.  Abel is essentially what they aimed for Alex to be to a certain degree, a grappler-based character without being entirely relying just on throws to win (Kind of like Zangief).  Oh well, it was a nice thought while it lasted but I guess I will have to settle for the amensia-mind Frenchman for now.

I first played Sean at one of my mall’s local arcades when I was a kid.  I remember asking my mother for some money while she shopped so I could see what they had, and I loved how he played in Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact (Though, I believe he was nerfed going into Street Fighter III: Third Strike, I used him regardless as he was my first choice in Street Fighter III.).  Regardless he was still fun to use and his yellow gi really stood out compared to Ryu’s white or Ken’s red.

I liked this character primariliy because he was a “Shoto” like Ryu, Ken, and Akuma, but he had a lot of similar moves that behaved and looked entirely different to give him a different feel.  Such as his version of the Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku called “Ryuubi Kyaku” and his version of the Shoryuken called “Dragon Smash”.

Seeing as how he was one of the most requested characters among minority players, I am suprised that he did not make it into the game within the first few installments, I am even more surprised that he is STILL not in the game.  I figure this would be a character that would be heavily welcomed once a few revisions to his moves are present.  There is always hope for the next game installment (If there is one).

Karin is Sakura Kasugano’s biggest rival, she is a rich girl who is use to having her way and has clashed with Ryu’s apprentice on more than one occassion.  This fact is why I figured that a Sakura/Karin pairing would have been better in Street Fighter x TEKKEN to rival Asuka/Lili’s pairing, but unfortunately that did not happen.

She has been requested for a very long time, she was bottom of the A-Tier in Street Fighter Alpha 3 and has been longed for ever since Street Fighter IV has been continually updated with new characters in its new versions.  Many people, including myself, have expressed discontent from not being able to see her around, especially after me seeing more of her personality in the Street Fighter Legends: Sakura comic.

Many people believe that since Karin is a “REKKA” type character (Kind of like Fei Long) that she will not be granted entry as they want to shy away from styles that are similar to others.  No idea if that was the concept behind leaving her out or not, but she would bring an exciting new female face to the front of Ultra.

Rainbow Mika was only playable in the Street Fighter Alpha series (To my knowledge), but she has made an incredible impact on fans since she is the only female wrestler currently able to be played in the SF series.  In addition to this, because she has a more “luscious” body-type and uses moves like “Flying Peach” to emphasis this, she is among the Street Fighter characters who give out the most fan service.

I personally would have liked to have Mika because she is one of the most interesting characters to me (Personality wise).  She really admires Zangief, showing that she has a pure love for the sport of wrestling.  Not to mention in the Street Fighter Legend: Sakura comic, it is shown that Kasugano is a huge fan (They even team up and do a Double Daydream Headlock).  She also seems fun loving and is a female pro wrestler!

Another thing is the female-grappler archetype that all other characters in the SF series seem to be lacking.  There has not been a time where I can really recall using a female character (And I mostly main female chaacters across all fighting games I play) who was based on grappling in the Street Fighter series, so this would have been an EXCELLENT choice instead of Hugo to go with.

Maki is a relative of Guy, she uses Tonfas and has a pretty straight-forward attitude.  She is also the ex-leader of a motorcycle gang, pretty impressive since you do not see many women given a renegade role like that (Even though they censored it out in the English version of the game, go figure).

I like Maki because of me playing her a bit in Capcom vs SNK 2, I had never heard of her before nor knew that she happened to be a playable character in Final Fight 2 (She was also available to play in a later version of Street Fighter Alpha 3 for PSP called “Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX“), and was even more shocked once I found out she was actually related to Guy.  She has some moves out of run attacks (Kind of like Guy) and she has amazingly fun reactions once she wins a round.

Since they already had Rolento in Street Fighter X TEKKEN, I believe they should have had Maki in there since she also uses weapons (Not to mention in Alpha 3 her and Rolento had a special opening against each other, would be a good way to display them as rivals in Ultra Street Fighter IV).  Being able to play her would give me a Ninja-like character I would want to use (Since Ibuki and Guy do not really fit my style), not to mention she looks pretty cool and has a completely badass attitude; nto to mention I am sure the intro vs Guy would be hilarious.  I am hoping they end up patching her in sometime in the future, but I am thinking they will save her for a different game (Maybe that Street Fighter Alpha 4 rumor I was hearing will be true, right?!).

  In Conclusion  

While I am looking forward into getting back into the SF series with Ultra Street Fighter IV, I feel like CAPCOM did a pretty lazy job by putting in characters from their flopped game, Street Fighetr X TEKKEN (They even put in the stages!).  I feel like we, as fans, deserve more and we should have gotten brand new characters we have not seen for a long time.  While it does remain to be seen if more characters are not added later and if this is indeed the last update to this game we will see, there is always a possibility for “Ultimate Street Fighter IV“.