Follow TV Tropes

Following

Video Game / Street Fighter V

Go To

Spoilers for all previous games in the franchise up to Street Fighter IV may have been left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sfvcover.png
Rise Up!
Street Fighter V is a 2½D Fighting Game developed and published by Capcom as the fourth Numbered Sequel and sixth main entry in the Street Fighter franchise. It was announced on December 5, 2014 and was released on February 16, 2016 for the PlayStation 4 as a console exclusive as well as Windows PC, with crossplaying avaliable for both platforms. Capcom further clarified that the game would not be released on Xbox One due to a development partnership with Sony Computer Entertainment.

The game takes away the Focus and Revenge mechanics from Street Fighter IV and replaces them with a new Variable system centered around a V-Gauge that is filled using character specific V-Skills. The V-Gauge in turn can be used to power moves called V-Reversals and V-Triggers. The game also features interactive arenas, with special animations when a player is defeated in a certain part of the arena.

Storywise, it marks the debut of a more thorough Story Mode. Characters have their own individual prologues in the style of visual novels with fights in-between, similar to what Arc System Works are known for; Bengus is providing the artworks for the character prologues, this being his return to the series 18 years after his work on Street Fighter Alpha 3. A free update released in June 2016 adds a cinematic Story Mode (think more along the lines of NetherRealm Studios), titled "A Shadow Falls," which bridges the gap between Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter III.

As for future updates, Capcom will forego their usual practice of updated re-releases. Instead, all gameplay updates will be free. Characters can be unlocked either with earn-able in-game currency called Fight Money or bought with real money.

Capcom plans to support the game with additional characters and content for at least five years, with Alex, the first character of "Season 1" of downloadable characters, being made available a month after the game launched.

On October 5, 2017, a new version of the game was announced; Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition, both as a new release and as a free update for those who already have the game, allowing new players to hop in with all of the extra content and also keep their promise of players only ever needing to buy the game once. Arcade Edition not only adds in arcade mode, but six different arcade mode styles, each one themed around a past Street Fighter title.note  There's also Extra Battle mode, where players fight against unique NPC enemies for Fight Money rewards and special costumes. Additionally, there's now an art gallery, a complete revamp of the UI, and each character is now has a second V-Trigger that can be chosen before the match begins. Arcade Edition was released on January 16, 2018.

On November 17, 2019, yet another new version of the game was announced; this time titled Street Fighter V: Champion Edition, similar to Arcade Edition, it will be both a new release and a free update for previous owners of SFV. It will be released on February 14, 2020. This version also added a second V-Skill in the form of V-Skill II, which was made available in a December 2019 update. Champion Edition included 40 characters, including the latest DLC characters Gill and Seth, 34 Stages including the new stage Sun Chase Moon, and over 200 costumes, with the exceptions of Fighting Chance, Capcom Pro Tour, and Brand Collaboration costumes not included and either have to be unlocked or bought separately. Champion Edition was made available both physically/digitally as its own individual product, and through a slightly lower priced DLC bundle labeled as an Upgrade Kit.

The same year Championship Edition launched, an arcade port of the game co-developed by Taito, titled Street Fighter V: Type Arcade, launched in Japanese arcades.

On May 27, 2020, it was announced that the game will receive a final season of content. Billed Season V, it features six additional characters and three new stages for a grand total of 46 fighters — the highest seen in any previous iteration of the franchise. Of the six characters, three of them are returning from previous titles: Dan Hibiki, Rose, and Oro. The remainder consists of Akira Kazama, the first character from Rival Schools to make a playable appearance in a Street Fighter installment, Luke, a brand new original fighter connected to the future of the series, and a mimic character named "Eleven" that takes the random fighting style and form of a member of the cast each match. The cast of Season V was released over time between Winter 2020 and Fall 2021. Season V also introduced another new V-System mechanic called "V-Shift", which allows a character to use their V-Gauge to evade an opponent, either to counter at range or to strike back with a V-Shift-specific move.

The game has since sold 5.2 million copies as of December 31, 2020.

On February 20, 2022, Street Fighter 6 was announced.

Not to be confused with Street Fighter II V, an anime by Group TAC based on the series.

    Playable characters 
Italics indicates DLC.

DLC Releases:

  • Season 1:
    • Alex: March 30th, 2016
    • Guile: April 28th, 2016
    • Ibuki: June 1st, 2016
    • Balrog: June 1st, 2016
    • Juri: July 26th, 2016
    • Urien: September 22nd, 2016

  • Season 2:
    • Akuma: December 20th, 2016
    • Kolin: February 28th, 2017
    • Ed: May 30th, 2017
    • Abigail: July 25th, 2017
    • Menat: August 29th, 2017
    • Zeku: October 24th, 2017

  • Season 3:
    • Sakura: January 16th, 2018
    • Blanka: February 20th, 2018
    • Falke: April 24th, 2018
    • Cody: June 26th, 2018
    • G: August 6th, 2018
    • Sagat: August 6th, 2018

  • Season 4:
    • Kage: December 16th, 2018
    • Poison: August 4th, 2019
    • E. Honda: August 4th, 2019
    • Lucia: August 4th, 2019
    • Gill: December 15th, 2019
    • Seth: February 14th, 2020

  • Season V:
    • Dan: February 22nd, 2021
    • Eleven: February 22nd, 2021
    • Rose: April 19th, 2021
    • Oro: August 16th, 2021
    • Akira: August 16th, 2021
    • Luke: November 29th, 2021

The game provides examples of:

  • Actor Allusion:
  • All There in the Manual: The Capcom Fighters Network website is a godsend for fans who care about the history and lore of the Street Fighter franchise. It includes profiles for a vast majority of the characters, telling what they're doing during the time frame of SFV. For example, Geki is revealed to be a Legacy Character, while Crimson Viper is said to be investigating Q.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: Clearing Survival Mode earns a character a new color for the outfit they wore when they won. Unfortunately, you have to do this with every costume on every difficulty to get all the variations, not just once per character.
  • Anti-Rage Quitting: Disconnecting from a ranked match several times in a 24-hour period will result in a loss in LP.
  • April Fools' Day: The CFN website tends to celebrate the holiday with minigames:
    • For 2017, it was a Street Fighter themed trivia game set in a high school, with Ryu, Chun-Li and Juri in school uniforms acting as opponents. The outfits they wore in this mini-game ended up in Street Fighter V proper shortly after.
    • For 2018, it was a game called "Hado Stone", a luck-based card game with Ed acting as a spokesperson and taking on a role similar to Yugi Muto. Bison, Sagat, Vega and Balrog acted as opponents, and defeating them rewarded the player with a "Face of Defeat" picture, which is a (usually poorly drawn) picture of the opponent, with 100 to collect. Collecting them all rewarded the player with a sensual looking Ed wallpaper.
    • For 2019, it was a Shoot 'Em Up game starring G called "2019: World President Challenges A STG". The game is introduced by the characters from High Score Girl, and features G battling against the forces of Shadaloo. Balrog, Vega, Sagat and Bison act as bosses. Doing well enough causes Bison to be replaced by Akuma, and doing well enough against Akuma leads to an additional stage, with the final boss being a giant Mecha-F.A.N.G.
    • For 2020, it was a puzzle game called "Neco Drop ~Cat Friends Nation~", where the player collects cat versions of the Street Fighter V cast by solving puzzles unique to each character.
    • 2021 continued the theme with "Neco Drop 2", a slightly expanded version of Neco Drop with eight new cats, slightly easier puzzles, and the ability to earn extra moves or special items by watching clips of Street Fighter V. The game returned in April 2022, and is still up as of August 2023: https://game.capcom.com/cfn/sfv/necodrop2
  • Arc Welding: V basically ties the Shadaloo plotlines of Alpha, II, and IV to the events of III by revealing The Illuminati has a major role in engineering's Bison's downfall.
  • Armed Females, Unarmed Males: The two playable members of Neo Shadaloo are Ed (male) and Falke (female). Ed is a Boxing Battler while Falke fights using a staff.
  • Art Evolution: Bengus being back made many fans cheer, though his current art style has evolved in ways that made some discontent; the characters are more expressive and the action seems more dynamic but the level of detail on the characters is of arguable quality. It seems that Bengus sacrificed detail for flow.
  • Art-Shifted Sequel: As opposed to the inky style IV had, V has a more creative art style (some of the moves being highlighted with watercolor-esque particle effects and the characters looking like they're made of clay).
  • Asset Actor: Not all of the fighters throughout the series are present, so the closest equivalents had to be used for the Nostalgia Levels.
  • As You Know: In the story, Balrog wonders why the other moons haven't gone off yet, so F.A.N.G gives him a refresher on the events leading up to it, conveniently filling the audience in as well.
  • Ascended Extra:
    • R. Mika's tag team partner, Yamato Nadeshiko, actually dates from the Alpha days, too. She is seen in an artwork for Capcom Secret File, where her name is given. It also states that she and R. Mika are from the same promotion, and they occasionally work together.
    • Zeku originally appeared in Guy's Alpha 2 ending, and that was it. He was onscreen for a mere few seconds back then, and now he's a fully-fledged character here.
  • Ascended Meme:
    • For you, the day Bison's official character reveal was posted by Capcom may have been the most important day of your life. But for him, it was Tuesday. Charlie Nash, Cammy, and Birdie were also revealed on a Tuesday (Charlie's trailer hinting that Bison would appear), and the release date itself was on a Tuesday.
    • The in-game currency for Street Fighter V is Fight Money.
    • The premium currency Capcom initially planned to implement was Zenny, depicted by a coin bearing Bison's image.
    • It would seem that "Hot Ryu" has officially gained traction over at Capcom. There is a special edition of the game exclusive to Japan, that comes with both Ryu and Chun-Li's alternate costumes, as well as a new box cover that features both of these "hot" costumes prominently. What's it called? The Hot Package. Ryu's Pop Asia figure that features this costume is just straight up called Hot Ryu.
    • At one point during Ryu's story, Ryu is hesitant to fight. Gouken quips that Ryu always says, "The answer lies in the heart of battle," which was his IV intro.
    • While it's done in a roundabout way, part of Nash's story involves him effectively telling Guile to go home and be a family man.
    • You know how Guile's theme goes with everything? It's the first to be paired with its character's trailer. Not only that, but the game has two versions of Guile's theme. One that plays when you fight against Guile, and another when you fight on Guile's stage, the Air Force Base.
    • In the cinematic Story Mode, Bison's reaction when he sees his subordinates squabbling with each other is "This is delicious!"
    • In the final chapter of Story Mode, Charlie's Bond One-Liner before attempting to kill Bison is "Game over, bastard!"
    • Players started making videos where they do tricks with Ibuki's bomb V-Trigger. Shortly after, Capcom released Tamaya: Ninja Fireworks Education, an Ibuki-themed four-player online game on the CFN website, where each player must gather the most bombs to win.
    • Zeku's win quote against Juri includes the line, "Your sadness, profound." This references Guy's rather odd defeat cry from IV.
    • Balrog and Ed's V Arcade Mode endings both show Bison Dollars. The ones in Balrog's ending even have the actual face of Raúl Juliá on them.
    • Blanka's story in V has him become the subject of a line of plush toys that look like a Super-Deformed version of him. This is no doubt a reference to series producer Yoshinori Ono's fascination with a Blanka toy that he got from a McDonalds in the Phillipines, which he often takes pictures of whenever he's teasing a future announcement.
  • Ass Kicks You:
    • Some of R. Mika's attacks use this, which is a given considering the fanservicey nature of her character. Her Peach Assault Critical Art even involves her and Nadeshiko inverse-Marshmallow Hell their opponent into a piledriver.
    • Laura's jumping HK has her turn around and thrust her ass at the opponent, rather than perform any kind of kick.
    • Even Seth does this when he copies R. Mika's Flying Peach.
  • Attack Reflector:
    • Bison can perform one now (sort of note ).
    • Urien's Aegis Reflector returns as his V-Trigger.
    • Abigail, when powered up by his V-Trigger, can charge up his Abi Blaster attack to reflect projectiles, including Critical Arts.
    • Menat's V-Skill is Soul Reflect, which reflects projectiles if she is holding her crystal ball, otherwise, it absorbs them.
  • Badass Longcoat: Bison has replaced his traditional cape with a trenchcoat, and also wears it in combat.
  • Bad Guy Bar: The Underground Arena stage. Whilst it's the main hangout of Zangief and R. Mika, who aren't villains at all, some of the characters that appear in the background are a bit questionable, such as the man and woman wearing ski-masks and carrying assault rifles. The more aristocratic looking patrons are apparently involved in illegal weapon and art trading. The main story mode also uses this stage as the meeting place of choice for Helen and the various fighters working for her. Not all of them are bad, but Helen ultimately works for the Illuminati, so she isn't exactly a good person.
  • Big Applesauce: A New York City stage based on Wall Street, City in Chaos, was revealed at New York Comic-Con.
  • Big Good: Karin Kanzuki takes this role in the story mode, being the driving logistical force behind most of the fighters getting together to combat Bison.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Shadaloo is left in ruins, the Dolls have recovered their senses, and Bison has finally been killed. However, Rashid was unable to save his friend and was left with a final message from her, then there's Helen, whose true name is Kolin, is actually working for the Illuminati and they plan to conquer the world. Also, supplemental material says Bison no longer needs a body to survive, having returned as a ghost.
  • Book Ends: The tutorial, and the post-credits fight, are sparring matches between Ryu and Ken.
  • Bootstrapped Leitmotif: Played with. As is par the course for most Street Fighter titles, the majority of the returning characters keep their stage music from II and/or the Alpha series as their individual themes. Even the fighters with comparatively less longevity retain their most recent tunes, such as "Prismatic Stars" being heavily remixed for R. Mika, Alex receiving another version of "Jazzy NYC," and Ibuki's theme being a rearrangement of "Twilight" from 3rd Strike like in SSFIV as opposed to "Sharp Eyes" from NG/2I. The sole exception so far among the vets is Karin, though her new theme sneaks in the opening notes from Alpha 3's "Simple Rating" right before the song loops. At the same time, the retro stages from II and Alpha also use arrangements of the classic themes as the stage BGM, as was originally intended.
  • Bowdlerise:
    • There have been a number of cases of the game being censored throughout development and even post-release, with a lot of inconsistency over what is changed and what remains uncensored. The reason for much of the inconsistent censorship can be laid upon the fact that big tournaments for the game are broadcast on ESPN (and in the case of EVO, it was also aired on Disney XD, surprisingly). Certain outfits and moves couldn't get past the Media Watchdog, leading to some things being changed, but some stripperiffic outfits remained untouched, since they are optional and can easily be banned from TV broadcast.
    • One of the beta updates altered camera angles to put a crotch shot of Cammy during her intro and R. Mika's butt slap when using Peach Assault offscreen. Yoshinori Ono stated the changes were due to an internal decision to avoid offending people. However, another source at Capcom said they were changed so the game could keep a Teen ESRB rating. Since then, it's obvious that the change was made on ESPN's request. Since the move is an integral part of Mika's moveset, they can't just tell a player to not use it, since that would put them at a disadvantage. Because of this, the camera angles were changed so that they can more broadcast friendly.
    • When Juri showed up in Cammy's Story Mode, her costume showed a lot of skin, including Navel-Deep Neckline. When she made her playable debut months later, the same costume now had a skintight black body stocking underneath it. This change was made since this is her default outfit, and would therefore need to be seen on the character select screen at some point during broadcast, even if the player switched to a different outfit. This was also deemed to be the case for R. Mika's default outfit, with one player being asked to switch to her Story Costume after playing a match in her default. However, the outfit remains unaltered, presumably because the censors problem lies with the outfit showing off too much of Mika's butt, which isn't visible on the character select screen. This is also a problem for Cammy's default outfit, with one player being asked to wear her much less revealing CPT outfit.
    • Nipples outlines were done away with, notable on Cammy and Chun-Li, with the July 2016 update.
    • When the Temple Hideout stage was released, it was quickly pulled from sale to have the music replaced, since the original track contained Islamic chanting. However, there is some debate over whether this is a case of them being afraid of offending Muslims or if they removed it because it doesn't make sense for there to be Islamic chanting in a level based in Thailand.
  • The Bus Came Back:
  • But for Me, It Was Tuesday: A meta example with the Trope Namer himself. Bison was both hinted at (in Nash's trailer) and revealed in his own trailer on Tuesdays. Some news sites even acknowledged this.
  • Call-Back: Several characters flashback to a vague time period, strongly implied to be around the time of Street Fighter Alpha 2note 
  • Call-Forward: Chun-Li is introduced looking after a young girl named Li-Fen, offering to teach her martial arts. In Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, she's become a martial arts instructor and is looking for a young girl who was abducted by Urien.
  • The Cameo:
    • In the Bustling Side Street stage, a bus in the background drives by featuring a promotion for a new Fei Long movie.
    • The Union Station stage has a banner that features the Final Fight cast, including Haggar, Cody, Guy, and Maki. Haggar also again in both Zangief and R. Mika's V Arcade Mode endings, where it's set up that there's going to be a tag-team wrestling match of Zangief and Mika versus Haggar and Nadeshiko.
    • Gouken appears in the game's prologue, as well as in Rashid's V Arcade ending.
    • Rose makes a cameo appearance as the Queen of Hearts in the beginning of Nash's Story Mode. She also appears at the end of Menat's Arcade Mode ladder.
    • Rashid's Story Mode has him using a chat app on his phone, and he's got a lot of Street Fighter characters in his contacts. Replaying it changes the names that show up. Cameos include Fei Long (FEILONG_DRAGON), Dan (IamSaikyoRyo), Poison (H.W.A_EPIC), Abel (Abel), Rufus/Candy (Galaxy_My_Honey), Guy (NinjaGUY), Mr. Gotch (Mr.UKButler), Necro (FreedomTraveler_Ilya), Hakan (Hakan_Oil), Kolin (honeysunnygilly) and Crimson Viper (effiepurpnight).
    • Crimson Viper appears in M. Bison's story, Juri's story and Urien's story.
    • Dhalsim's Story has him encounter Oro. Karin's Story also makes mention of him, and he shows up again in Menat's.
    • In Alex's Story Mode, he's kidnapped by F.A.N.G and put into The Grid, where he's forced to fight against holographic simulations of other characters, a few of whom are unplayable, including Dan (who would be added later in the game), E. Honda and Hakan.
    • Abel accompanies Guile in his Story Mode, having evidently gone undercover as a Shadaloo soldier, but is left unable to fight after an encounter with F.A.N.G. He appears again in the cinematic story mode, as an informant for Guile and the heroes.
    • Tiffany Lords and Hinata Wakaba from Rival Schools appear in the background of the Kanzuki Family Beach stage. Four of the Judgement Girls from Street Fighter III (Julia, Anna, Rifa, and Tonfa) also appear.
    • Gill appears at the end of the Story Mode, "A Shadow Falls."
    • Necro and Effie appear in the background of the Spooky Arena.
    • Gen is Back for the Dead in Akuma's story mode.
    • Arcade Edition brings back the barrel breaking Bonus Stage, with barrels being thrown by Two P.
    • Abigail's V Arcade Mode ending has him on the phone with Sodom, Rolento and Belger.
    • El Fuerte gets beaten up in both Zangief's IV ending and R. Mika's V ending.
    • Mike, after having been missing since the first Street Fighter, makes a cameo in Balrog's SFI Arcade ending.
    • Geki (or rather, his disciple) appears in Vega's V Arcade ending.
    • The CPT 2019 DLC stage Ring of Justice is a veritable Final Fight festival. Taking place in a wrestling ring in the middle of Metro City, the fight is watched over by every Mad Gear boss (including Abigail if he's not in play), a good chunk of Mad Gear underlings, and even former Metro City Mayor Mike Haggar is there.
    • With the addition of Akira, more Rival Schools characters have made appearances. Edge and Gan appear in the new Rival Riverside stage, and Yurika and Zaki appear in Akira's V Arcade ending.
    • The Ring of Arcade stage added in 2022 includes cameos from a number of older Capcom games. These include Morrigan and Demitri from Darkstalkers, Jin Saotome and Princess Devilotte from Cyberbots, Ingrid from Capcom Fighting Evolution, Kenji from Red Earth, June Lin Milliam from Star Gladiator, Bred from Final Fight, a Servbot from Mega Man Legends, and even Scott and Max, the two combatants from the original Street Fighter II intro. Additionally, images of Mega Man, Captain Commando, Arthur, Blodia and Hauzer can also be seen.
  • Camera Abuse: Balrog is back at it again. Just like in SFIV, he punches the camera in his winning animation.
  • Canon Immigrant: The Capcom Fighters Network website provides profiles that fit characters from other media into the game universes, most prominently the Bison Troopers (who are said to come from Shadaloo's American division) and Captain Sawada.
  • Canon Welding: With Akira Kazama's inclusion in Street Fighter V as part of the final season pass, this firmly connects the Rival Schools universe as part of the canon world alongside Final Fight rather than just being an alternate continuity as originally intended.
  • Cast Herd: Arcade Mode has 6 different paths to choose from based on each game series, each of which has players going against characters who were playable in those respective series, with the ladder themed on this very game having players face off against the entire roster. Due to the imbalanced roster, each path varies in the number of fights and amount of selectable characters, some of which don't accurately reflect the original games:
    • The first Street Fighter has a shorter ladder because only five characters from that game are playable here. Balrog acts as a stand-in for Mike, since the two characters are already so similar. Also, since Street Fighter I and Final Fight took place at nearly the same time, Cody, Abigail, Zekunote , Poison and Lucia are also playable here.
    • The Street Fighter III ladder features Kolin as a possible opponent, even though she was merely a background character there in Gill's intro, and Laura is also featured as a stand-in for her brother Sean. Poison is also here, since she was featured here as Hugo's manager.
    • The herding is also strong to the point that a player cannot choose a character if they aren't an opponent in the designated ladder. For example, Alex and Ibuki are not in the II or Alpha ladders, Balrog and Bison are not in the III ladder, etc. As such, Ryu and Ken are the only fighters to appear in all 6 possible paths.
    • The "bosses" in Survival Mode when the character order is set to random are themed around this. On Easy, it's Necalli (a Lone Wolf Boss), on Medium, it's the Illuminati (Nash, Kolin, and Urien), on Hard, it's Shadaloo (Birdie, F.A.N.G, Balrog, Vega and Bison), and on Extreme, it's the hero team from the game's story mode (Ibuki, R. Mika, Zangief, Dhalsim, Guile, Karin, Cammy, Chun-Li, Ken and Ryu).
  • Casting Gag:
  • Censorship Bureau: Capcom Pro Tour events have had a mandated banning of "sexy" costumes, such as Chun-Li's "Battle Outfit 1", the swimsuit costumes, or any of Laura's alternate costumes. This even includes R. Mika's default costume.
  • Character Shilling:
    • Lots of it in character stories, with almost every hero heaping tons of praise upon other heroes. For example, Alex, Rashid and Laura, despite being outclassed by some of the A-listers in the game, are still given nothing but praise and encouragement even when they lose.
    • Karin gets a mountain of shilling in the Cinematic Story, with her basically assuming the role of Big Good—a role previously reserved for mystic and mysterious characters like Rose, or wise and powerful characters like Gouken. She also never even loses a match, despite other characters who are supposed to be more skilled, motivated and experienced (like Chun-Li) at least taking a few defeats.
  • Christmas Episode: December 2016 saw the release of a set of Christmas themed DLC, available for a limited time only. This includes a snowy holiday version of the City in Chaos stage called Frosty Boulevard, as well as Christmas/Santa themed outfits for Zangief, R. Mika, Laura, Ken, Karin and Juri.
    • 2017 saw costumes for Alex, Cammy, Kolin and Menat.
    • 2018 added costumes for Blanka, Cody, Falke and Sakura.
    • 2019 adds costumes for G, Poison, and Lucia, as well as a new Holly Jolly Beatdown stage set in Abigail's Bay Area auto shop, complete with snow and a smiling inflatable Abigail decoration.
  • Close-Knit Community: The Street Fighter community has become an unusual version of this. In this game, it seems that every fighter knows one another or Knows a Guy Who Knows a Guy, which in some way links them to almost every character in the Street Fighter verse. Further, on the good guys' side, almost every meeting between characters is saccharinely sweet; characters rarely have anything other than kind words for one-another and heap constant praise about how much stronger and more skilled every single fighter has become since their last meeting. The sole exception is Birdie, who has become The Chew Toy.
  • Comeback Mechanic: The V-Gauge works on a similar principle to Street Fighter IV's Revenge Meter in that you must take in damage to power it up. Unlike Street Fighter IV, however, players can also fill up the V-Gauge by landing special moves called V-Skills.
  • Continuity Snarl: Several characters, like Ryu, Ken, Charlie and M. Bison, during flashbacks, use outright versions of their appearance from Street Fighter Alpha, but other characters, like Vega and Chun-Li, use completely new costumes, despite strong suggestions they are remembering roughly the same time period.
  • Cool Big Sis:
    • Cammy's story preview has her protecting Juni, one of the former Dolls, from Shadaloo. She also vows to free the other Dolls from their enslavement, no matter what the cost. Her determination in being such actually leads her to abandoning the World Warriors and going on the run with Juri in order to protect Decapre. Luckily the Illuminati had similar goals to the World Warriors and thanks to Rashid's efforts against F.A.N.G, the Dolls break free from the control of Shadaloo and immediately start fighting against them (though Decapre had broken free earlier as well).
    • Chun-Li's story preview has her looking after a young girl named Li-Fen while reminiscing over the events of the Alpha series, and offers to train her in kung fu.
    • Laura Matsuda's story mode shows her as one to Sean, with her hugging him at the beginning and him wondering where she's run off to at the end.
  • Costume Inertia: The ending of Karin's Story Mode shows Sakura once again wearing her school uniform. This despite the game taking place during a time when the latter should be grown up just like the former.note 
    • Notably, when Sakura was finally playable, she's no longer using her school uniform. She now has a proper training uniform, in a similar style to Ryu, and her primary costume is now a pachinko parlour attendant's uniform, which is her work clothes, with the school uniform being more her iconic look.
  • Counter-Attack: The V-Reversal allows you to block and counter a single attack, similar to an Alpha Counter. It uses up a stock of V-Gauge to do so. Unlike Alpha Counters, though, V-Reversals are not guaranteed and must be used early enough in an animation to catch the opponent's recovery. If you do one with incorrect timing, it can be blocked and punished. Also not every V-Reversal will hit the opponent either (Nash, for instance, just dashes away when you use his V-Reversal).
  • Darker and Edgier: The Street Fighter series has never been that light of a story. Multiple character deaths, the topic of darkness, and let's not get into the Dolls. However, "A Shadow Falls" ramps things up to 200% and doesn't look back. A good example of this is when F.A.N.G melts Rashid's friend within the first 30 minutes of the story and licks the remains.
  • A Day in the Limelight: This game takes place at the height of Bison's Shadaloo Empire. However, it's also the story of how he finally falls before the events in Street Fighter III.
  • Deadly Force Field: G's V-Skill "G Barrier" has him creating a force field momentarily that covers his body. It can deal damage if done at close range, and if he has activated his V-Trigger 1, he can also launch the barrier forward as a projectile.
  • Deathbringer the Adorable: Neo Shadaloo is this. The name makes it look like a revival of Shadaloo, but it is really a group of survivors of Shadaloo's experiments whose members support each other and is not a criminal organization. It was named by someone who is by all rights a child and is a child in mind but was subject to Artificial Aging, giving a child an adult's body.
  • Decoy Protagonist: For "A Shadow Falls," we're led to believe either Ryu, Nash, or just outright both would be the protagonists of the story. Nash does have a central role but ultimately suicide bombs Bison to no effect late in the story and his role amounts to little other than exposing Helen's darker tendencies. Ryu is barely present at all for the story, mostly off-screen training and eventually succeeding in supressing the Satsui no Hado before showing up to deliver the coup de grâce to Bison. The actual protagonist in the story is Rashid. He's the bridge storywise between the Illuminati and the World Warriors and frequently floats between them, his storyline of trying to save his friend (and being too late to do so) and all the emotional beats in-between are a big part, and ultimately it's his storyline that defeats Shadaloo once and for all.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: F.A.N.G, Zangief, Karin, and Dhalsim are considered the most difficult characters to use, but extremely troublesome to deal with in the hands of a master with good knowledge and execution.
  • Divergent Character Evolution:
    • Ken, while still possessing the same fighting techniques as before, has a much different execution and flair to his moves from Ryu.note  In addition, his physical appearance is changed, with a new hairstyle and a new set of threads (a black training shirt with his traditional red gi top just hanging from his waist, similar to Paul Phoenix in Tekken 4).
    • Nash started off as a near direct clone of Guile in Street Fighter Alpha before diverging as Guile was brought back for the console ports of Alpha 3. This time, however, Nash has a much different moveset while Guile sticks to the classic two special moves formula.
  • Double Unlock: Each character has a story-related costume. After beating that character's Story Mode, it's made available to buy with Fight Money.
  • Downloadable Content: Unlike Street Fighter IV, Street Fighter V will deliver all its improvements and long-term additions slipstreamed into the base game. Also unlike IV, V will allow players to unlock most features like new characters, costumes, and stages through use of Fight Money earned in-game; however, players still buy them outright with real money.
  • Dub Name Change: As per all previous versions of the series available outside of Japan, some characters go by different names; Vega, M. Bison, and Balrog, for example.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Of the six initial DLC characters announced, five appeared in the initial version of the game in non-combatant capacity: Alex (at the background of City in Chaos, fixing a car or watching the fight), Balrog (at one point in Bison's story, as well as his statue at the Lair of the Four Kings), Guile (in flashbacks of Chun-Li and Nash's Stories), Ibuki (at the end of R. Mika's story) and Juri (at the end of Cammy's story). Before Urien was made playable, he would only appear in Balrog's story, which had the side effect of making the Illuminati's involvement more mysterious.
    • For Season 2, we have Kolin (as Helen in the general story mode), Ed (accompanies Balrog in his story and in the general story mode), and Menat (appears in Ed's story mode).
    • For Season 3, we have Sakura (in Karin and Ibuki's stories), Blanka (in Sakura's story) and Falke (in Ed's story).
  • Easter Egg: Holding down a certain combination of buttons (LP + MP + HP + LK + Up) before a match starts alters certain costumes in some way. For example, Alex will gain a jacket when wearing his Nostalgia costume, while doing the same with Birdie's Nostalgia costume removes his jacket and sunglasses while also changing his hairstyle.
    • Urien has a special button combination (LP + MK + HP) which changes his character intro and has him burn off his business suit in order to fight in his classic thong outfit.
  • Enemy Rising Behind: Seems to be the end of Nash's new Judgement Saber Critical Art where he dashes at his opponent, causes the world to go black, then appears from behind his opponent through the darkness without them realizing it.
  • Everything's Deader with Zombies: If some of Capcom's concept arts are to be believed, we may end up having an undead mode here too. Or maybe that was done just for kicks. Guile receives a zombie costume for Halloween 2018, as did Poison in 2019.
  • Evil Old Folks: Bison's reveal trailer shows that his hair has finally gone gray.
  • Excuse Plot: Some of the individual story plots are like this, basically having the selected fighter have some run ins and fights with no real advancement on the character's story arcs.
  • Facial Profiling: Something of a first for the series, with the advances in character modeling. Many of the in-game character models exhibit the facial features common to (or at least associated with) the characters' countries of origin. Cammy and Kolin provide a very clear example, and as opposed to being designed as generic, blonde, Caucasian girls, they each exhibit very different facial designs. Kolin has the angular features, feline eyes and large, triangular nose of a Sensual Slav, whereas Cammy has the gentler beauty, dewy, peaches and cream skintone and bee-stung lips of a classic English Rose. Likewise Menat, a young Egyptian woman, sports a subtle, yet noticable aquiline nose, befitting her Egyptian heritage.
  • Failed a Spot Check: In Blanka's story, Sakura only realized the guy causing trouble at her arcade workplace was Blanka after fighting him. You know, given how many people in Japan and elsewhere in the world have unkempt bright red hair down to their knees, oh, and are green.
  • Fanservice Pack:
    • Cammy's gone up a cup size or two in this game.
    • R. Mika is as well-endowed as ever, but her already Stripperiffic Leotard of Power has been altered in a way that somehow bares even more skin than before.
    • Ryu's infamous "Hot Ryu" alternate costume has him shirtless and sporting a full beard.
    • One of Chun-Li's alternate costumes has most of her hair down and puts her in a skimpy Chinese dress that focuses heavily on her well-defined legs.
    • Laura's regular outfit shows some serious cleavage; her Stripperriffic alternate outfits takes it up to eleven and beyond.
    • Added in the June 2016 update is a new stage, the Kanzuki Beach, and Karin was given a bikini costume to go with it. In the background of the stage as well, you can see Tiffany, Hinata, Julia, Anna, Rifa, and Tonfa in bikinis. Swimsuit outfits were added for the rest of the female cast, sans Juri, throughout July. Two years later, the rest of the female cast (Juri, Kolin, Sakura, Menat and Falke) got swimsuits of their own.
  • Flipping the Bird: When Nash stands up after losing the fight against Bison in the latter's story, he fits his glasses with his middle finger.
  • Foregone Conclusion: While Ryu is prophesized to be consumed by Necalli, it's canon that it's not going to stick (considering he appears in Street Fighter III, which takes place after V).
  • Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Almost everybody in at least one of their costumes. It's a wonder how some of them move around without tearing their clothes.
  • Free-Floor Fighting: On several stages, if you perform a hard knockout hit on the edge a special cinematic occurs to rub in the humiliation. For example, on Bustling Side Street, a knockout on the left blows them into a restaurant, or into the kitchen where a bowl of noodles falls on their head if the restaurant is already broken through.
  • Funny Background Event:
    • On Guile's stage, Air Force Base, there is a lady who makes blowjob motions.
    • Certain background characters will have things happen to them if the fighters keep knocking each other over:
      • The janitor in the Union Station stage will fall over and end up with his bucket on his head.
      • In the Kanzuki Estate stage, Ishizaki, the butler who accompanied Karin in the Alpha series, will get smacked with a dinner tray by the maid standing next to him, as she gets more and more annoyed by Ishizaki's excitement over watching the fight.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • The game gives Chun-Li a lot more outfits that emphasize her role as an Interpol agent, such as a beat cop uniform, special forces gear, and a more conservative look called "Undercover Cop".
    • When Nash remembers his past in his Story Mode, Bison appears with brown hair. However, when the fight starts, Bison has gray hair, possibly due to the lack of a model of him sporting brown hair in gameplay. Also, when the fight is reenacted in Bison's story, Nash is sporting his current stitched-up appearance.
    • When Birdie runs into Ken, the latter remarks he recognizes him despite the two hundred or so pounds he's put on since they last met. However, Birdie is obese even during flashbacks to events years in the past, where he was still a member of Shadaloo. However, Ken could be talking about Birdie's appearance in the original Street Fighter, as concept art shows that Birdie's Race Lift between then and Alpha was retconned and that he wasn't fat at the time.
    • F.A.N.G's Cloudcuckoolander traits. In gameplay, his fighting style is very wacky, with some odd winquotes to match. In Story Mode, he is portrayed as a far more sinister and ruthless character with a Social Darwinist mindset.
  • Glorious Mother Russia: Being set there, the Underground Arena stage has numerous hyper-Russian elements: a bar with Russian text above it, a bear wandering around, furry-hatted men doing That Russian Squat Dance atop giant matryoshka dolls... Oh, and two red banners, one with a yellow hammer and the other with green wheat (alluding to the sickle).
  • Got the Whole World in My Hand: The gigantic statues of the Shadaloo leaders in the backdrop of the Shadaloo stage portrays this.
  • Grand Finale: The game is presented as this for the Street Fighter II story arc, chronicling the seemingly ultimate defeat of Shadaloo.
  • Halloween Episode: 2016 saw the release of a special limited-edition Halloween-themed stage variation on the Underground Arena, featuring pumpkins, gravestones, undead Russian dancers, and a giant cauldron being stirred by Necro and Effie. Along with that, six characters received special costumes, with Ryu in Bishamon-like samurai armor, Nash in a Victor-like Frankenstein outfit, Cammy as an undead bride, Vega dressed like a Victorian vampire, Alex as a demon, Necalli as a Wolf Man, and Juri as a sexy devil.
  • Harder Than Hard: Survival Mode has four difficulty settings. The first three, Easy, Normal, and Hard, gradually ramp up the difficulty, requiring you to complete 10, 30, and 50 stages, respectively. Extreme (originally called Hell before an update changed it) has you fight through 100 stages.
  • Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Happens during some story fights. For example, in Rashid's story fight against Ryu, you have to win to advance, but then Ryu defeats Rashid in the scene afterwards anyway.
  • High-Altitude Battle: The Skies of Honor stage, where you fight on top of the wings of Rashid's jet in mid-flight. According to the CFN's release notes, Azam is such a good pilot that the fighters don't even feel any shaken as he flies about with them on top of the aircraft.
  • Hit Stop: Similar to Alpha 3, counter hits with heavy attacks (called in-game Crush Counters) cause a brief pause and increased hitstun to the opponent, allowing for otherwise impossible combos.
  • Home Stage: Most, but not all, characters have a stage or two associated with them. Some returning or remade from previous games:
    • Air Force Base (U.S.A.) for Guile and Charlie Nash.
    • Apprentice Alley (India) for Dhalsim.
    • Ayutthaya Ruins (Thailand) for Sagat.
    • Bustling Side Street (China) for Chun-Li.
    • City in Chaos (New York City, U.S.A.) for Alex and Ken.
    • Dojo for Dan.
    • English Manor (England) for Cammy.
    • Flamenco Tavern (Spain) for Vega.
    • Forgotten Waterfall (New Zealand) for Necalli and Nash.
    • High Roller Casino (Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.) for Balrog.
    • Hillside Plaza (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) for Laura and Blanka.
    • Kanzuki Beach (Malaysia) for Karin.
    • Kanzuki Estate (Japan) for Karin again, Ibuki, and Zeku.
    • Kasugano Residence (Japan) for Sakura.
    • King's Court (Thailand) for Sagat.
    • The Lair of the Four Kings for F.A.N.G and to an extent Bison, Balrog, Vega, and Sagat. note 
    • Metro City Bay Area (Metro City, U.S.A.) for Abigail. And probably to an extent the other Final Fight characters.
    • Port of Genoa (Italy) for Rose and Menat.
    • Shadaloo Base for M. Bison, Vega, Balrog, F.A.N.G, and Ed.
    • Skies of Honor (Dubai, United Arab Emirates) for Rashid.
    • Sun Chase Moon for Gil.
    • Suzaku Castle (Japan) for Ryu.
    • Temple Hideout (Thailand) for Bison and Akuma.
    • Temple of Ascension (Japan) for Akuma.
    • Underground Arena (Russia) for Zangief and R. Mika.
    • Union Station (London, England, UK) for Birdie and Cammy.
  • Hotter and Sexier: Despite the early attempts to cut back, or alter, some content that was perceived as too sexual, as the years went by the game still groomed new outfits and new characters that are quite suggestive, SFV is the easily the most sexually charged entry in the franchise compared to its predecessors.
  • Iconic Outfit:
    • Notably Ryu, Chun-Li, and Zangief are the only returning characters not to be visually redesigned in some manner.
    • R. Mika keeps her old wrestling garb with a slight modification. However, since she's only ever been in one Street Fighter game, changing her outfit might not have turned any heads (or it might, but for the wrong reasons).
    • Cammy has her classic Delta Red look from II and IV (as opposed to her Killer Bee attire from Alpha), with her only differences being the loss of the camo paint on her legs and the addition of gun holsters on her shoulders and right thigh, similar to her appearance in Cannon Spike.
    • Ken is back in his red gi while in his Alpha costume, coupled with a younger face and longer hair tied in a ponytail, of course.
    • Chun-Li's alternate costume is her black evening gown that served as her first DLC outfit in IV, which is probably her third best-known outfit behind the usual qipao and Alpha tracksuit. This time, however, Chun-Li's wearing her hair down.
    • Cody has his prison outfit from Alpha and IV as his nostalgia costume and his classic Final Fight outfit.
  • Impossible Hourglass Figure: Thanks to the art style in all cutscenes, almost every female character that shows up in the game's story mode sport wide hips and large busts with wasp-thin waists. Special mentions go to Ken's wife, Eliza, Laura, and even R. Mika, who is noticeably less muscular compared to her 3D model.
  • An Interior Designer Is You: Dojo Mode. Registering one's account on the CFN website and joining a dojo allows the player access to a special dojo stage. Through the website, this stage can be customized with various decorations earned through Fighting Chance.
  • Interquel: Unlike IV, however, V finally starts bridging the gap between II and III, with M. Bison supposedly being Killed Off for Real, a cameo by Gill, and the addition/return of characters with ties to the Illuminati like Urien and Kolin to the playable roster.
  • Japanese Spirit: Zangief, R. Mika (and Azam) are all about "Muscle Spirit." It's loosely defined as confidence, spirit, and training that one develops which is then transformed into muscle that assures victory. But it's basically just another version of the Japanese Spirit trope substituting "muscle" for "ki."
  • Jump Rope Blunders: Birdie's Super Move involves tying the opponent up in chains and playing jump with it, slamming the opponent to the ground over and over.
  • Lethal Joke Character: Dan, who was added in Season 5. While he still retains the traits that make him a joke character, he gained a number of buffs, including a number of tricky cancels that give him access to good damage and pressure. That's on top of a situational, but damaging infinite combo.
  • Letter Motif: The letter "V" shows up in quite a few places; there's the Variable System with its V-Skill, V-Trigger, and V-Reversal mechanics, the stage and character select is separated by a V down the middle, Necalli has scars which form V shapes all over his body, and so on.
  • Levels Take Flight: Skies of Honor, set atop the wings of a plane.
  • Loads and Loads of Loading: The interface can be a slog to get through. Some of it is legitimate loading times, and some of it is unskippable pomp and ceremony. For example, finishing a match on Ranked takes you through the unskippable win animation, then the post-fight quote/stats screen, then the adding/removal of points, then the option to fight again, and then finally back to the match. If you can't or don't choose to fight again and were in training mode, it then takes you to the Versus splash page, where you have sit through that cutscene until you can at last get back to what you were doing.
  • Long Song, Short Scene: All of the routes in Arcade Edition's Arcade Mode have unique character select themes homaging the games they came from. However you'll probably just roll through the select screens too quickly to hear anything but the beginning of each one. Particularly the Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter V routes have select themes that last over two minutes (the V theme being the original character select from the "vanilla" version of Street Fighter V).
  • Meaningful Name: The cinematic story is titled "A Shadow Falls." By the end of the story, Shadaloo is in ruins and Bison is finally dead for real, setting the stage for the Illuminati.
  • Misplaced Wildlife: The New Zealand level features a tuatara prominently sunning itself on a log next to the sheep herd. Tuatara are extinct on all but a few small islands where there are no sheep (or any other introduced mammals).
  • Mr. Fanservice: Surprisingly, Ryu becomes this a lot in one of his alt. costumes. A Walking Shirtless Scene complete with a beard and all. This eventually led to this alt. costume garnering the name of "Hot Ryu."
  • Ms. Fanservice:
    • R. Mika. Not only is she very busty, her costume reveals a lot of skin, and her fighting style incorporates a lot of Ass Kicks You (plus she slaps her butt right before starting her Critical Art).
    • Laura is also quite buxom and isn't afraid to show it with her top's ludicrous Cleavage Window. The camera devotes a lot of focus to her chest and rear for her intro pose, and Laura's posing before and after battle is very suggestive. Her Story Mode outfit is even skimpier, consisting of a cropped T-shirt with serious Underboobs, a tiny pair of Daisy Dukes, and a noticeably visible pair of black thong underwear.
    • Chun-Li, especially with her black gown alt. returning from IV, this time with her hair down. Additionally, her 3D character model seems to be more curvaceous compared to her Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter X Tekken character model.
    • Y'all we really need to talk about Menat;— her costumes, lithe acrobatic movement patterns and even her crouch pose qualify her, but it's her sashaying Supermodel Strut that led her to pick up a veritable army of new fans.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: Zangief's new Critical Art is just a suplex. A really, really hard-hitting suplex. Aside from the dynamic camera angles and high damage, there's nothing about it to even make it seem less mundane than his normal command grabs.
  • Murder Into Malevolence: Downplayed with Charlie. Back in Street Fighter Alpha, he was murdered by getting shoved off his helicopter by one of his fellow Air Force comrades... who turned out to be a disguised Shadaloo member. Then Urien and Helen, members of Illuminati, brought him back to life (albeit Living on Borrowed Time) with a single mission: to stop M. Bison, leader of Shadaloo. Charlie, who's filled with rage and grudge due to what happened to him, simply obliges; he also becomes a cold and dead serious guy who won't hesitate in killing people if they hinder him and has nothing good to say for his old friend Guile. Despite all that, however, he's still one of the good guys, and later come to the realization that he can't do all this alone.
  • Mythology Gag:
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: When Ryu finally takes control of the Satsui no Hadou, after Bison is done with, when he, Guile and Chun-Li escape the falling base. Chun-Li is lagging behind due injuries and carrying Li-Fen on her arms. She's about to be caught up in the fire but then Ryu throws a Hadouken with unspecified properties that goes past Chun-Li and Li-Fen, putting the approaching fire away and seemly giving Chun-Li the energy to be back on her toes.
  • Nintendo Hard: Extra Story Mode can be living hell to experience, even as early as the first fight against Necalli (in which he has his full powers unlocked from the start). Heck, even the fight against Peter gets more challenging (although you can still get past him easily).
  • Nonchalant Dodge: Season V's new "V-Shift", which allows you to burn a bar of V-Gauge to backstep away from an opponent (kind of a combination of The King of Fighters' Dodge mechanic and the Emergency Evade). From there you can either hang back then retaliate out of range or perform a canned response, similar to a V-Reversal (called a "V-Shift Break").
  • Non-Indicative Name: Each character has a "Story Costume" that can be purchased with Fight Money, but for several of the characters (M. Bison, Akuma, Abigail, Menat, Sakura, Cody, G, Kage, E. Honda and Lucia), they're never shown wearing these costumes at any point in the story. Blanka also never wears his, though his is at least relevant to his story, it being a costume version of the plushies he's trying to sell. Rashid is also only ever shown wearing his in E. Honda's story and Sagat during one of his arcade mode endings.
  • No-Sell: Story Mode takes this to extreme levels:
  • Nostalgia Level:
    • Guile comes with his own Street Fighter II stage, completely redrawn in the style of V. Even the bystanders' movements are the same.
    • Balrog's High Roller Casino stage is another one, also being a recreation of his Las Vegas-set home stage from SFII, and just as with Guile's Air Force Base, most of the features and people are faithfully recreated except for some changes that were induced for Writing Around Trademarks: the Golden Nugget's sign was changed from "Golden Nugget: Nin-Nin Hall" was changed to "Golden Bullion: Shadaloo Hall".
    • M. Bison's Thailand Temple stage from II has been added as well.
    • Vega's Flamenco Tavern stage from II also returns, and it even includes the cage in the background that only Vega can climb.
    • Abigail's Bay Area stage from Final Fight has been recreated inline with his debut in season 2's DLC content.
    • Ryu's Suzaku Castle stage from II returns, which also appeared in 3rd Strike and Super Smash Bros..
    • Cammy's English Manor stage from SSFII returns, complete with twinkling Northern Lights.
    • Sakura's Alpha 2 stage, Kasugano Residence, returns alongside her.
    • Sagat's classic II stage, King's Court, was teased in the Arcade Edition intro and eventually came out at the same time as him.
    • Field of Fate is a classic stage from Alpha 2, and also the setting of the opening scene from Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie.
    • Marina of Fortune, a beautiful reworking of Rose’s Venetian stage from Alpha 2, returns to the series alongside her as part of the fifth season of DLC characters.
    • The entire Arcade Mode counts, as the music reverts back to remixes of themes hailing from each particular sub-seriesnote  and the opponents (mostly) representing said games' rosters.
  • Numerological Motif: The number 5 within Japanese wordplay and culture shares the same pronunciation as karma or destiny, being go. A lot of the game's thematic scheming is based on destiny and fate, as evidenced greatly by sense of change much of the cast presents in the story and their character. Storywise, V comes to tie up loose ends and wrap up the Alpha/Zero, II and IV era, showing where life will now take everyone into the future. When it comes to III, everyone is beginning to pop out of the woodwork as well, helping to also emphasize its installment's theme of "Fight for the future". Additionally, the game wrapped up its post-launch support with its fifth season (fittingly called Season V).
  • Obvious Rule Patch
    • At the finale of Season 1 of the Capcom Pro Tour, Capcom unveiled several changes for existing characters. Though the changes have yet to be finalized, the ones that playtesting fans were most fond of were the buffs to Zangief and F.A.N.G and the nerfs R. Mika. But, contention arose from the reveal of buffs to Chun-Li and nothing involving Nash, who round out the top five of the tier Scrappies.
    • The introduction of the V-Shift mechanic in Season V also inspired Capcom to turn Necalli's V-Trigger into a timed state like other V-Triggers instead of having it permanently enabled once triggered. This is in response to the addition of the V-Shift mechanic, which gives characters a new way to use V-Gauge and Necalli's permanent V-Trigger would make him too weak against characters who don't surrender their V-Gauge once they use their V-Trigger.
  • One Degree of Separation: The characters' various prologue Story Modes reveal that the international fighting circles are smaller, but far more connected, than expected:
    • Due to his new Butt-Monkey role, Birdie meets and/or gets his ass kicked by almost half the cast. This is largely due to him going on the run from Shadaloo and getting hired by Karin. In a nod to the Alpha series, he recognizes Cammy on sight, and nearly gets arrested by Chun-Li when they bump into each other by chance.
    • Nash, Guile, Chun-Li, and Cammy are reunited years after teaming up.
    • Cammy is helping rehabilitate Juni, encounters F.A.N.G, and is being spied upon by both Vega and Juri.
    • Zangief trains with both R. Mika and Laura, is glad to see Karin when they cross paths, and is old friends and possible former rivals with Azam.
    • Azam is in contact with the other fighters' butlers via text messaging.
    • Rashid receives text messages from Hugo and Poison's HWA and Hakan's oil company, and keeps in contact with many other characters in the SF universe through social networking.
    • Dhalsim is on friendly terms with Karin and Oro, of all people.
    • Karin knows just about everyone; part of the Kanzuki Zaibatsu's business involves arranging parties, meetups, and tournaments for strong fighters. This extends to talks with Ibuki's ninja clan, sponsoring R. Mika (as established in Alpha 3), and knowing Ryu's exact location. The only people she isn't associated with are those of Shadaloo, but she hires Birdie after he defects.
      • Her network is so great she can call a ton of World Warriors to her mansion within a day. She also commands such respect that she is essentially the de facto leader of the World Warriors against Shadaloo, impressive when you consider both Chun-Li and Guile are under her command when they are also part of the military.
  • Optional Boss: Shin Akuma is an optional boss for both the II and IV themed Arcade Modes; In the Alpha path, players can trigger a fight against a character-specific rival under the right circumstances; In the V Arcade route, G will also fight you under specific conditions, much like how Q served as a Bonus Boss in Third Strike.
  • Or Was It a Dream?: The Arcade Edition intro has Ryu go into a meditative state, where he fights Akuma. He ends up with a scratch on his cheek, and when he wakes up, he's still got the scratch.
  • Our Founder: The Shadaloo stage, called "Lair of the Four Kings," has gigantic statues of Bison, Vega, Balrog and F.A.N.G in the background. When you fight F.A.N.G in Bison's Story Mode (a fight that takes place in a flashback on how F.A.N.G joined Shadaloo), there's a statue of Sagat in F.A.N.G's place.
  • Overdosed Tropes: The Street Fighter series has, in the past, avoided use of the "Parts Unknown" trope (bosses notwithstanding), preferring to assign its characters with recognizable nationalities, and a variety of associated archetypes. However, of the new characters depicted in Street Fighter V, at least six note  have "unknown" listed against "nationality" in their official bios. Whilst some of these characters' designs strongly allude to certain cultures (e.g Rashid = UAE, Kolin = Russia), they have shifted hard toward keeping some characters' national identities ambiguous.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Zangief's Fighting Chance costume is supposed to be a disguise, but it's merely his default outfit but with the addition of a luchador mask. In this outfit, he goes by "The Gief", which certainly doesn't help hide his identity.
  • Parts Unknown: This is rarely used in the series generally, and in the past it has typically been restricted to boss characters only. However, this game takes it to new extremes, with seven new characters (Necalli, Rashid, F.A.N.G, Kolin, Ed, Falke and G) having an ambiguous nationality. Laura, definitively presented as being Brazilian, is an exception. This cycle of ambiguity was thankfully smashed towards the end of the second season of DLC characters, following the debuts of both Abigail (Canada) and Menat (Egypt), who incidentally represent brand new nations depicted in the series. However, it's back again with Season 3's Falke and G, although Falke has extremely obvious German traits and G is deliberately without nationality and considers himself to be above the idea, wanting to merge all countries together into one and rule as President of Earth.
  • Permanently Missable Content: Seasonal stages and costumes are only available for a limited time. This includes the Capcom Pro Tour 2016, Halloween, and Holiday content.
  • Play Every Day: Sort of. There are missions you can complete to earn Fight Money. However, one mission that gives a little bit of Fight Money is updated every two days, while three missions that give large amounts of Fight Money are handed out every week.
  • Playing with Fire: Ken's Fierce Shoryuken and his Shoryu Reppa normally lights foes ablaze but his V-Trigger Mode will give all his special attacks fire properties.
  • Post-Final Boss: The epilogue of the Story Mode has one last sparring match between Ryu and Ken.
  • Power Crystal: In the teaser trailer, Nash is seen with one embedded in his forehead, implying its significance in his return.
  • Product Placement:
    • The special DLC stages released in the yearly CPT packs (Ring of Destiny, Ring of Pride and Ring of Power) feature Capcom logos everywhere, created to commemorate their own Capcom Pro Tour tournament series. During Capcom Pro Tour events, the stages change the logos used in the background to reflect those of the tournament occurring at the time.
    • Ryu and Chun-Li have hip-hop style DLC costumes that feature Red Bull branding, a sponsor of the Capcom Pro Tour, among other e-sports. There was also a promotional where players could unlock special colors through codes on cans of Red Bull.
  • Random Events Plot: Abigail's story consists of him freaking out over his missing car, while characters who just happen to be passing by either mistake his noises for rudeness and attack him, insult him so he attacks them, or in the case of Alex fight him for literally no reason.
  • Regional Riff: As with most games in the series, the soundtracks for the various stages in the game often contain musical nods to the countries depicted (and, in many cases, the characters associated with them):
    • The Brazil stage, Hillside Plaza, has a samba-style, upbeat track in the spirit of Carnaval do Brasil. Laura's theme goes in the same direction, but with a more pop-oriented sound, similar to modern Brazilian pop music.
    • The London stage, Union Station, combines rousing classical strings with a zinging, Iron Maiden-esque rock guitar and the chimes of Big Ben. Birdie's theme is a post-punk rehash of his Alpha theme, in the vein of more artsy English punk bands like The Damned or Public Image Ltd.
    • The game's second England stage, English Manor, is a remake of Cammy's classic SSFII stage and the familiar accompanying score features a medieval-style lute (to complement the castle setting), but also includes nods to England's much more modern punk heritage via a grinding rock guitar.
    • The Kanzuki Estate theme, whilst having a classically orchestral score, also includes the shakuhachi (Japanese flute) and a thumping baseline provided by taiko drums.
    • Both the themes for Apprentice Alley (India Stage) and Dhalsim himself primarily feature the prerequisite Indian sitar, though the prominence of guitars alongside the stringed instrument hearkens back to "Heat Wind," Dhalsim's theme in the EX games.
    • Vega's theme is a rearrangement of his original theme on flamenco guitar, like in IV, but slower and somewhat more threatening.
    • As usual, Chun-Li's theme has a very Chinese sound, even more so than the theme for Bustling Side Street (the Chinese stage).
    • Menat's theme (despite the modern rock guitar) sounds inherently "middle eastern" to Western ears due to its use of the double harmonic major scale, also known as the "Arabic" or "Byzantine" scale.
    • Zeku's theme blends jazz with traditional Japanese instruments, reflecting his status as a modern-day Japanese ninja.
  • Remember the New Guy?:
    • Laura is revealed as a sparring buddy of Zangief.
    • Azam, Rashid's servant, is another old friend of Zangief.
    • Rashid himself has a lot of the cast as contacts on his phone.
  • Revenue-Enhancing Devices: Similar to Compendiums for The International, a portion of the money from purchases of any of the Capcom Pro Tour DLC go towards each year's Capcom Cup finals.
  • Rise from Your Grave: The CGI Trailer features a shot of Nash waking up in a stone casket, before tearing the (already cracked) stone lid apart with his bare hands and sitting up.
  • Rival Final Boss: Cinematic Story Mode ends with Shadaloo defeated. However, after the credits there is one last fight, as Ryu and Ken have yet another rematch.
  • Robot Me: Mech-Zangief returns as an alternate costume earned through Extra Battle mode, but the mode also introduces Mech-F.A.N.G, Mech-Juri and Mech-Abigail as new costumes.
  • Rule of Cool: The downloadable Skies of Honor stage appears to run on this. How else would you qualify fighting on top of a jet plane as it flies around Dubai?!
  • School Uniforms are the New Black: Multiple characters have received school uniforms as downloadable costumes, including Ryu, Chun-Li, Nash, Cammy, R. Mika, Ibuki, Juri, Ed and Menat.
  • Sequel Hook: The addition of Luke in Season V DLC was all about introducing one of the main characters of Street Fighter 6.
  • Series Continuity Error: A very minor one. The tutorial is set at some point prior to SFI, with Ryu and Ken engaging in one of their usual friendly sparring matches after Ryu is defeated by their master Gouken. However, the Uppercut Bros. have the appearances of their Alpha selves, as evidenced by Ryu's lack of slippers and Ken's ponytail. Furthermore, in what may be a case of Hair Color Dissonance, Ryu's Alpha outfit in V gives him brown hair like in II instead of the auburn hair he actually had in those games to signify a gradual transition between his SFI and SFII designs.
  • Shock and Awe:
    • Ryu's V-Trigger which affects any Hadoken and Shoryuken he performs, notably transforming the Shinku Hadoken into the Denjin Hadoken.
    • This is part of Laura's abilities; her V-Trigger adds extra stun damage to all of her attacks, and even without it, the Thunder Clap and the Inazuma Spin Hold already have electrical properties. It is said that she employs chi-infused static electricity (generated by rubbing her hands on her cornrows).
  • Shout-Out:
    • Among Nash's new attacks is the Sonic Scythe, a slashing kick not unlike Rugal Bernstein's Genocide Cutter from The King of Fighters. His Critical Art has the same startup properties of Iori Yagami's Maiden Masher.
    • Chun-Li's Houyokusen Critical Art now does exactly 37 hits, in reference to Evo Moment #37.
    • When Cammy does her Hooligan Combination, she says "Allons-y"note  just like another famous Brit in pop culture.
    • R. Mika's V-Reversal is a Stone Cold Stunner, complete with the gut kick.
    • Ryu's pre-order skin for GameStop gives him a look who resembles the bearded Kenshiro from the first animated movie.
    • One of Laura's colors turns her clothes black, her hair blonde, and her skin pale. Considering her lightning abilities, this is very likely based on Trish from Devil May Cry.
    • The steam locomotive in the background of Union Station appears to be a blue E2-Class 0-6-0T, with a yellow number 5 painted on the sidetanks. Co-incidentally, there's a famous steam engine with almost the exact same appearance...
    • In A Shadow Falls Bison's death at the hands of Ryu may be similar to Shao Kahn's death in Mortal Kombat 9, as both villains are defeated as their bodies explode in a flash of light, leaving behind only their signature cap or mask.
    • Numerous costume colors for the characters act as shout-outs, with the CFN website pointing a lot of them out:
      • Chun-Li's Battle Outfit 1 color 14 resembles Morrigan.
      • Cammy's Battle Outfit 1 color 15 resembles Cyclops, referencing the Marvel vs. Capcom series.
      • Birdie's Battle Outfit 1 is similar to an outfit worn by Freddie Mercury.
      • Ken's Battle Outfit 1 color 15 resembles Frank West.
      • R. Mika's Story Costume color 14 resembles Hatsune Miku.
      • Rashid's Battle Outfit 1 resembles Aladdin.
      • Karin's Story Costume color 2 and Ibuki's Story Costume color 15 both resemble Roll.
      • Zangief's Battle Outfit 1 is reminiscent of Randy Savage, and color 12 resembles Hulk Hogan.
      • Laura's Default costume color 15 resembles Trish.
      • Menat's Battle Outfit 1 color 13 resembles Leloo.
      • Cody has several costume colors resembling characters from Ace Attorney, including his Default costume colors 11, 12 and 13 and his Battle Outfit colors 11, 13 and 14. Cody's Battle Outfit color 8 also resembles the Joker.
  • Sidelined Protagonist Crossover: This game features characters from Final Fight and Akira Kazama from Rival Schools as playable characters, but neither Guy nor Batsu. Downplayed with the former since it at least has the co-star, Cody.
  • Skill Gate Character:
    • As always, Ryu holds this position. As the staple Shoto that fighting game players are familiar with, he can help them get used to the game's mechanics.
    • Necalli is a simple character whose tools are easy for a player to grasp. His V-Skill is simply a ground-based "projectile." His V-Trigger lasts an entire round and upgrades his entire moveset. His moves and combos are also very simple, but require a moderate amount of practice to get down.
    • R. Mika is the simplest grappler in the game. Her throws are either hit-throws or only require a half-circle rather than a full 360. Her V-Skill is simple and her V-Trigger allows her to summon an Assist Character for a sneak attack. Even her Critical Art super command grab only has a double quarter-circle input. Despite this (or because of it), she became the most feared character in the early months of the game's release.
    • According to the developers, Rashid was designed to be this. He is well-balanced and has moves that are easy to learn (none of them even have the Shoryuken motion, for instance), plus his particular dash mechanics allow for command inputs to certain moves. Also, he has two different V-Skills (one of which is performed while he is crouched), and both can be followed up with other moves.
  • Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration:
    • A general tutorial is implemented when Ryu recalls his younger days under Gouken's tutelage, Ryu requesting a sparring session with his partner Ken to review the basics and to reflect on what Gouken just told Ryu that he was lacking.
    • One of Bison's Character Story fights is the fight that originally ended with him recruiting F.A.N.G. As this was before the latter was recruited, in place of the statue that normally bears his likeness is a statue of Sagat. Also, when fighting F.A.N.G in Bison's story, which takes place before his recruitment, his defeated quote of "MY LORD BISON!", is replaced by a generic scream.
  • SNK Boss: For a limited time, players can fight Shadow Lady, who fights like she's in that game rather than in a Street Fighter V game.
  • Songs in the Key of Panic: The trope returns after the Alpha series got rid of it. When any of the fighters is close to losing, the BGM becomes faster-paced and more frantic until it stops at the end of the round. Only applies to stage themes, however; character themes (heard when playing Survival) just get cut altogether when the fight ends.
  • Stage Fatality: More humiliation than Fatality, but on some stages a special cinematic occurs if someone is knocked out at the edge. For example, in the Bustling Side Street stage, you're knocked through a restaurant on the left and taken off in a bus on the right.
  • The Stinger: Gill appears during the credits, setting up the events of Street Fighter III. Ryu and Ken also have a sparring match following the credits.
  • Sucking-In Lines: The world map in the background of the Character Select screen does this just before the battle starts. Bright lines all begin to converge and get sucked into whatever spot of the world the selected stage is located in.
  • Super Mode: The new "V-Trigger" system works like this for some characters, imbuing them with unique properties once the gauge is full (Ryu's Hadoken and Shoryuken attacks become electrified, Chun-Li's basic attacks can add extra hits, etc.), or in certain cases a utility move, such as Nash's teleport.
  • Superpowered Evil Side: In the 16 Launch Characters trailer and CGI Intro, Ryu is shown tapping into the Satsui no Hado when fighting Necalli. Ryu's Story Mode has him struggle (for a third time) to suppress the influence of the Satsui no Hado or find a way to use it for good, with Evil Ryu — who is reverted to his Street Fighter Alpha appearance — acting as an Enemy Within.
  • Super Special Move: Luke's Thermobaric Thrasher is the boosted version of Rock Smasher, a Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs type of move that fires a series of Sand Blasters in rapid succession.
  • The Tag: Gill is revealed at the end of the story, having watched all the events unfold through the butterfly manifested by his powers, possibly lending a hand to Nash's given Illuminati powers as well; Gill expected and bet on Bison's defeat to further the plans he has for Street Fighter III, and the woman who presented herself as Helen was actually Kolin, Gill's trusty secretary.
  • Tag Team: R. Mika will occasionally summon Nadeshiko, her tag team partner, to bring the pain.
  • Temporary Online Content:
    • Arcade Edition has Event Battles, which are special fights that are only available for a limited time. They cost Fight Money to try, and winning can earn you things like experience, titles, or even special costumes.
    • Red Bull Street Fighter 30th Anniversary limited edition cans could be redeemed from November 2017 to April 2018 for Red Bull themed costumes exclusive to the PlayStation 4 version.
    • Several stages that represent the real-life Capcom Cup tournaments were available, all of which fit the naming convention "Ring of X".
  • The Thunderdome: One story-related one and several ones representing the real-life Capcom Cup tournaments were created. This makes sense since this game represents Shadaloo's last overt attempt to Take Over the World and the fighters' response to this including La Résistance that Karin organized, and did not involve an in-game tournament at all.
    • Only one that fits in the story was made for this game: the Underground Arena. It is an arena that is built out of metal. It has an audience area. It is Zangief's Home Stage.
    • Several that use the naming convention "Ring of X" were created to represent the real-life Capcom Cup tournament were created. They obviously do not fit within this game's story. These are all Temporary Online Content.
  • Time-Passage Beard: Dhalsim has grown an impressive white beard in the time since IV, which was probably to be expected, Dhalsim (b. 1952) being the oldest of the World Warriors. Ryu gains one in his alternate costume.
  • Toros y Flamenco: Vega's Nostalgia Level, Flamenco Tavern is a perfect example, being set in a Spanish taverna complete with female flamenco dancers, guitar players in cordobe hats and a huge mural of a bullfight in the background.
  • Traveling at the Speed of Plot: Used a lot in the Cinematic Story mode. Characters just go from country to country as if they were going around a small neighborhood, and they appear at the exact time some commotion is happening almost uninterrupted. This is taken to ridiculous levels when Juri somehow takes Cammy and Decapre from Brazil to England on a motorcycle.
  • Versus Character Splash: Naturally, it returns in the game that codified it. Only this time, it also doubles as the character select screen.
  • Wearing a Flag on Your Head:
    • A subtle variation; the slipstream effect that accompanies certain special moves is colored with the red, white and blue of the Union Flag for Cammy, and with the red and gold of la Rojigualda for Vega, in tribute to the colors of both characters' national flags. Curiously, for Falke (who speaks German and has a movelist written in German) the effect is coloured with the black, red and gold of the Bundesflagge und Handelsflagge, implying her to be German, though this is never confirmed in her bio.
    • Laura, a native of Brazil, has a variant of this; she wears a green and yellow ensemble, with the blue vapor trail seen in her Critical Art completing the colors of her national flag, the Auriverde.
    • Abigail's hair, when viewed from the top, is shaved into the shape of the Canadian maple leaf.
  • Wham Line: Rose's story has her encounter G and get a glimpse into a future that's apparently cataclysmic. After she rest from the encounter, she notes that, if she can't save the world in the future, she needs to do so in the past.
  • Whole Costume Reference: There are a number of costumes in the game in which the fighters basically cosplay as characters from other Capcom games. Most of these are prizes earned in Extra Batte mode, but some are available for standard purchase in the shop. Examples include:
  • Wok Fu: Part of the first unveiled stage takes place in this. As an added bonus, fighters can be knocked into the kitchen and have a bowl of noodles stuck to their heads.

ANOTHER FIGHT IS COMING YOUR WAY!

Alternative Title(s): Street Fighter 5

Top

M. Bison Dies

After he meets his demise at the hands of Ryu in Street Fighter V all that remains of him is his hat.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (8 votes)

Example of:

Main / DeadHatShot

Media sources:

Report