Street Fighter V

Isn't Laura supposed to be half Japanese?

Yeah her and sean. or partial Japanese, not sure if half. There's a sizable Japanese population in brazil actually,

But considering how sean is, it does reek of But Not Too Black to make the "hot sister" way lighter complexion. It's not totally unrealistic and two mixed race siblings can definitely have drastic differences in complexion, but given the conventional beauty standard for women in Japan involves light skin it's not unreasonable to suspect that Capcom purposely avoided giving her a darker complexion in favor of a lighter one simply for sex appeal...yeah Unfortunate Implications galore .

Had she not been related to Sean(though to be fair his family is pretty varied looking) it wouldn't even be a factor and probably wouldn't have bothered anyone but the fact she's supposed to be his sister, yeah it looks pretty suspect and feels like a cop out somewhat. .

I realize I'm in the minority, but my favourite newcomer is actually Abigail (ABIIIII-GAIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRL). It's not just that he's a Big Guy-type character, although more of those never hurt. I just love his cartoonishly-proportioned design and overly-goofy mannerisms. Especially the way he does Finger Guns when he backdashes. I ought to play him again now that he's no longer a total Game-Breaker.

As for the other newcomers... Zeku is probably my second-favourite. I never actually play him, but his gimmick is cool and I like the twist on expectations by making his younger self really uptight and obsessed with tradition, while his older self is more laid-back and cosmopolitan.

I'm not the biggest fan of Menat, but I can see why she's so popular. I can easily see her being SFV's 'breakout star' and the most likely to reappear in future games, much as Juri was for SFIV. Rashid is another character I can see coming back, if only because he was central to the cinematic storyline (to the point that I'd call him the true main character) and he's also pretty quirky.

I agree that Necalli is wasted potential, though as an addition I also find his moveset a little uninspired, for some reason (easily the best thing he does is when he drags his opponent's face against the floor in his CA, because it reminds me of Yamazaki :V).

Ed is also wasted potential, if you ask me. I knew he'd be made playable eventually, but I was expecting him to be this kinda fragile guy who tosses people around with telekinesis like Psycho Mantis, and I certainly wasn't expecting him to dress up as a Nazi stormtrooper-themed JRPG hero. I find Falke really boring, frankly; if Ed wasn't here she'd just be a filler character. There's nothing else I could say about her I haven't said before. :V

Kolin is... I dunno, I'm neutral on her. Same with F.A.N.G. They got their good sides and their not-so-good sides.

Laura is easily my least favourite, for reasons I've alluded to previously. Like Falke, she seems so much like a 'filler' character. Her intro pose makes me queasy, the camera moves around so much. Her character story plays out like she's the main character of a bad self-insert fanfic (complete with being related to a canon character, Sean!)^note To be honest, I feel the character stories are pretty underwhelming across the board, hers just stands out to me :V And of course, she's another female character who has tacked-on magic powers. Kolin, Menat and Falke all do it too, but at least they all put their own unique spins on it. Her powers just seem forced on for no reason, and it's never even vaguely explained how she got them. Why not just let her be a Badass Normal like Makoto? And that's not even going into the 'shouldn't she have darker skin?' debate. Individually, these things aren't big deals, but when stacked together like this, it really does not endear me to her.

And that concludes me reviewing all the newcomers because I had nothing better to do. :V I have a pretty good feeling about G, by the way.

Rashid, Laura and Menat are easily the most popular characters in SFV.

My personal favourites are Rashid, Menat and Abigail (fight me)

Laura is pretty damn beautiful.

But it was surprising to find her brother and her were made that way.

This game just made me into a Zekux Laura shipper. I have to admit Zeku aged finely.

Got cody, turns out I was only about 20 minutes of story runs away from having enough FM to get him. He feels different but I still enjoy using him.

I totally forgot about Rashid, but he's pretty cool. I don't like the jetpack or his social media obsession but he's got a nice personality and fighting style.

Um, how are Laura's powers tacked on? Virtually everybody has super powers from martial arts training. No one asks how Charlie and Guile learned to throw energy blades from the USAF or how Rashid practicing parkour gives him airbending.

Hell, I'm not even sure if any character besides Crimson Viper counts as a badass normal.

Edited by windleopard on Jun 27th 2018 at 12:59:52 PM

Well, alright, I'll give you that. I guess it's more about how it feels. Guile and Charlie's Sonic Booms feel pretty unique, as does Rashid's airbending. Laura's powers feel like they were thrown in as an afterthought because they didn't know Blanka was going to be added and they needed to reference him in some way. She's not the only character with electricity powers, but other characters who use them besides Blanka (being the series' 'original' electricity-user and therefore the baseline) all seem to have their own spin on it; Necro combines it with stretching abilities and his wacky appearance and mannerisms, C. Viper's come from tech and are probably derived from stun guns so she can only use it up-close, Urien's Metallic Spheres look visually distinct and he's got other distinct powers besides, like Aegis Reflector, turning his skin metallic, and so forth.

Granted, I appreciate Laura's projectile, in that that's also visually distinct and I don't think I've seen another projectile move that works like that. One thing I've always loved about Fighting Games is how they take the basic concept of 'character throws a thing' and puts so many unique variations on it. There's even series-wide trademarks; SNK characters seem to prefer projectiles that skittle along the ground. :V

I realize all of this makes it sound like I'm unfairly bashing Laura, so I just want to clarify I don't hate her, I just think she's overrated. Visually I feel she's passable, though her Premium costume is definitely her best one (her default is kinda unremarkable and her Story costume is okay but maybe a little too heavy on the Fanservice). It was nice to see a character who uses a more 'pure' version of Sean's Jiu-Jitsu style, and I feel I'd like her a lot more if she just used that without any unnecessary powers.

For the record, in the context of Fighting Games, I define a Badass Normal as a character who only uses, at most, Charles Atlas Superpower (e.g. Alex, Clark Still, and the aforementioned Makoto). If we counted Super-Toughness as an out-of-the-ordinary ability and compared them to baseline humans, not even C. Viper would count, since she can still take a Gigas Breaker and live. :V

Ah. Okay then.

So has anyone played Cody's story yet?

There are theories that Marlowe could be a disguised C.Viper (We never see her face after all)

Cliche but Menat, Rashid, and Kolin (if she counts) are my favorite newcomers so far. They all have very distinct designs and gimmicks, and I like all their personalities too. I just think they're the most memorable, and I feel like they're all characters with a future in the series. Which kinda hurts characters like F.A.N.G and Necalli for me.

I wanted to like Necalli, Ed, Ice Lady, and Laura but there's too much that irks me about all of them. Zeku, Abigail and Menat are probably the best realized newcomers but I don't particularly care for any of them even then, I just think they fit their particular archetypes well.

You think they'll add another story mode when G is released? I mean, G looks like boss character material, and I know I'm not the only one who thinks that; assuming he is important in some way, it'd seem a little weird if he was just released on his own with no context. Also, I remember back in Season 1 when the Story mode was first added, the final two characters (Juri and Urien) were playable in a limited form - and since there's only two characters left in Season 3, I can see them doing the same with G and Sagat.

Now that we have a proper Arcade Mode, yeah, Ono is still owing us a second Story Mode.

Why? Season 1 Story was incredibly lacking. Most of the World Warriors were getting their ass kicked for the majority of story. The only who did anything right were Ryu & Zangief. I say Juri but she's not exactly a good guy. I will say one of the few things I like was the ending between Ryu & Ken.

Going somewhat back on topic I want to give my take on the new cast.

• Necali: I really want to like this guy, but his speech impediment can get annoying. Especially since it turns out he can talk normally anyways.

• Rashid: He's likable but other than that there still not much to say about him despite being the other (or at least having a lot of screentime) protagonist. I will say it's just nice having a straight up nice guy that isn't over doing it with his heroism.

• Laura: I always like characters like her to begin with & her being related to Sean is just a nice bonus. That being said I'm still disappointed that she doesn't do much with Blanka.

• FANG: Kinda hard to take him serious, but unlike the rest of the internet I don't hate him with a passion or anything. I like the loyal subordinate archetype. He still has too much focus though.

• Kolin: Could've done more with her, but I wouldn't know what that would be. I still like her design though.

• Ed: I'm so disappointed with the way Ed turned out. His character design looks too similar to Cody & Abel. I thought it would've been neat to have an antagonist that in his early 20's but they went a completely different direction than I was hoping for. His Neo-Shadloo outfit isn't doing any favors either. I like the way he plays at least but at the end of the day he still comes across as a fail Rock Howard

• Abigail: Jesus Christ, could they lay out he's a Dumb Muscle any thicker? I like big guys but his personality can be too much to handle at times. They might fixing this problem if Cody's story is to go any by. I'm not expecting Iron Tager or Professor Hulk here, but they really couldn't just make him a big dude that likes automobiles? He still really fun to use though.

• Menat: I really like her design, but I'm still wondering why they decided to with an Egyptian theme instead an Italian one for Rose's apprentice. Not that I care at the end of the day. It was still nice to see Oro in her Story Mode.

• Zeku: My personal favorite out of the all newcomers. I was very curious to see how Guy's master would turn it out & it went well beyond my expectations. His dual persona is intriguing to say the least, but I would like to seen more of that flesh out if they're capable of doing so. There's so many times where they teased the idea of Guy having a Strider outfit so I guess they decided to transfer that idea to Zeku instead. Still hope Guy gets Strider as alternate outfit if he ever gets into the game. Granted, the whole reason why I like & invested into Zeku so much was mostly his connection & the possibility of being the 1st Strider ever. Kinda bummed out that he barely mentions Guy, but semantics. I'm still incredibly disappointed how they handle his role in Cody's story.

• Falke: What if Ed has a vagina & a combat stick? Seems to be Falke's character in a nutshell.

Overall, I think this is solid cast of newcomers compare to SF IV

Edited by agent-trunks on Jun 27th 2018 at 8:38:36 AM

Ed being a crappy Rock Howard knock off is right on the money. They saw how well Rock got over with the crowd and tried recreating it, but completely failed to pick up on any of the things that made Rock work so well.

& : I'm not suggesting a second Story Mode is what the game needs, I'm just suggesting it's what might happen given G's apparent boss character bad guy looks. Unless they decided to add a new Arcade Mode which was more like the Arcade Modes from previous games, all part of a new story.

Also, this is making me wish they did something else with Abigail's story mode; I know it was basic comic relief, but if you ignore that entirely and go solely by his winquotes, he seems to be of average intelligence at worst, in stark contrast to how he acts in the story. :V

Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on Jun 28th 2018 at 2:37:20 PM

The animations look far cheaper than Season 1 or 2. If they can't get animation quality up to scratch, how can they fund a story mode?

I'm not suggesting it'd look good or be good or just generally go down well, either.

If you want my personal opinion, I couldn't really care less whether or not they added a second Story, and I found the first one to be lacking in many respects (the way Rashid kind of bumbled through most of it without knowing what's going on and yet got serious towards the end was probably the best part for me; the second-best part was Alex somehow mistaking Dhalsim for a mugger, if only because it was the epitome of contrived reasons to fight someone. :V)

What I suggested about an Arcade mode would be preferable if they had to add new story-based content, but at the end of the day I just hope they put everything into making G awesome. :V

Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on Jun 28th 2018 at 2:42:20 PM

"I really like her design, but I'm still wondering why they decided to with an Egyptian theme instead an Italian one for Rose's apprentice."

TBH only reason I think Rose is Italian is because her of her basis Lisalisa from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Stereotype wise she's pretty much a Gypsy fortuneteller.

So I was going to ask which characters you guys would like to see in Season 4 of Street Fighter V, but apparently we now have information about it. According to Vergeben, the characters we can expect for Season 4 are C. Viper, Oro, Q, Necro, Sodom, and "another character" (Presumably a newcomer). So what do you guys think? I for one would love to see Oro and Necro come back.

I want some Rival Schools characters actually.

Tiffany and Hinata had cameos in the beach level (I believe it's Karin's Villa or something) so why not build it up from there.

Necro I don't see the point of when we have both dhalsim and Blanka. Like I know he plays differently but ehhh. Still I like him so I can't say I'd be mad. OUTTA MY WAY! remains one of my favorite 3rd strike win poses. Oro is a good pick. Not sure about Q :/ I thought G was supposed to be like the Q expy?

Sodom would be glorious.

Viper is expected.

Well, perhaps G will just have some connection with Q but otherwise play completely differently? *Shrug*

I will say that I'd be extremely happy with just about all of those guys; maybe I'd even play some of them. I still have yet to buy a single Season 3 character, they've all kinda failed to really get my interest (I know I gushed about Cody when he was first announced, but between then and him being released I think I had second thoughts about him. I dunno why. Maybe it was just the initial hype wearing off. I like how they handled him, don't get me wrong, but it still wasn't enough to sell me on actually buying him.)

Necro is actually a character I've been hoping they'd add ever since the game was first released; very curious how they might change up his design (since the concept redesigns that were released back in Season 1 haven't necessarily matched up with their actual in-game appearances - Sakura, Blanka and Cody look completely different from how they looked in their old concepts). I also have high hopes for his stretching animations in 3D, since they always were distinct from Dhalsim's, needing momentum and all.