30 years of Street Fighter: 30 years of Characters #11

In the 30 years since Street Fighter was created there have been many characters that have come and gone. One of those that remains timeless is Guy. The origin of Guy and his friends was the stuff of legend. The short version goes like this; Street Fighter wasn't a smash hit when it debuted in 1987. Technos on the other hand had ruled arcades with their game Double Dragon. When Capcom decided to create a sequel for Street Fighter they went in the direction of making a better version of Double Dragon. With three playable characters named Guy, Cody and Haggar, who were supposed to replace Ryu and Ken as the stars of the game. This new brawler would be called Street Fighter '89. Arcade owners didn't like the shift from one-vs-one fighting game so Capcom relabeled it Final Fight and started working on Street Fighter II instead. Guy was supposed to replace Ryu, as Cody was supposed to replace Ken in the series. This time around the Japanese and US fighters would look and play completely different.

The DNA of Final Fight could be seen in SNK's Fatal Fury. Takashi Nishiyama and Hiroshi Matsumoto helped create the original Street Fighter and had a lot of notes about a radical new sequel. One which featured three main characters instead of two. They never got to start work on this new fighting game at Capcom. The duo left the studio and went to SNK where they developed the King of Fighters universe. The trio of characters they created turned out to be Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard and Joe Higashi. The reason why Guy worked in the lineup was the same as why Terry worked. These were the new fighting archetypes. Instead of looking like a character from an old martial arts movie they had cues from modern heroes. Guy looked like some sort of classical ninja until you noticed that he was wearing sneakers. It was a subtle but stylish upgrade to the classical look. It was Bruce Lee that we had to thank for this shift in thinking. Lee pulled the action movie genre into the future. He didn't have to play a master in ancient China when he could be a present-day hero. He could wear sneakers, sunglasses and ride a motorcycle while still being a realistic fighter.

Guy's red solid-color uniform and sneakers had the same level of coolness as Bruce Lee's yellow outfit in the movie Game of Death. It wasn't hard to imagine that he could easily dethrone Ryu as the main character in the Street Fighter universe. The fact that his lightning quick speed, leaping kicks and backhand punches easily made the transition from Final Fight in 1989 to Street Fighter Zero in 1995 showed that he was always ready for the spotlight. Throw in a mysterious master named Zeku that only recently became a playable character and you had all the makings of a Street Fighter Legend. Guy was just one of the many reasons why the series has lasted for 30 years. The game had now multiple generations following it and it showed no signs of slowing down. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!