Some details in the Street Fighter 6 trailer I wanted to talk about

Thank you to everyone that visited the blog as I went through all of the formerly announced, and leaked characters in Street Fighter 6. I wanted to take a moment, and talk a little bit about some of the other things that were shown in the first trailer. You may or may not know that I am a huge fan of the Final Fight series. I like to remind new fans of the fighting game genre that Final Fight was released after Street Fighter. It was originally called Street Fighter ’89. The success of Double Dragon made Capcom want to make their own version of a brawler. The team wanted to replace Ken, and Ryu with Cody, and Guy respectively. Plus a big wrestler named Mike Haggar to round out the lineup. Arcade owners liked the concept, but they also wanted to see a formal one-vs-one fighting game as well. So the studio relabeled it Final Fight, and started work on an actual Street Fighter II which was released in 1991. Over several games, manga, cartoons, and comics Capcom officially connected the characters, and events featured in Street Fighter, Final Fight, Muscle Bomber / Slam Masters, and Rival Schools games. Having the studio circle back to Metro City in the latest version of a Street Fighter was almost a love letter for long time fans.

In the Luke preview I talked a little bit about Metro City, and how the SF6 trailer began in the Metro City gym. That was the same place where Final Fight began more than 30 years ago. If you had never played the game then let me set the scene. Mike Haggar was a former wrestler, and street fighting world champion. He was born, and raised in Metro City. He saw that it had become corrupt, and run down so he decided to clean it up. He was elected mayor, and no sooner was he settling into his new role than the Mad Gear gang tried to extort him. They kidnapped his daughter Jessica, and told him to stop trying to turn the city around. Instead of negotiating with the thugs he recruited Jessica’s boyfriend Cody, and his friend Guy to literally take the fight to the gang.

The trio fought through every borough on the trail of Jessica, and the ringleader of the gang. They discovered that they couldn’t even trust the cops of Metro City, as one of their biggest officers Edi E. was also a Mad Gear boss. This didn’t deter the heroes as they fought all sorts of memorable characters. The search for Jessica lead them all the way to the top of a skyscraper where they discovered that a kingpin named Belger was pulling the strings. The three defeated the gang, but Cody ended up throwing Belger out of his penthouse office. He would be arrested for the murder of the villain, and sadly there was nothing that Haggar could do to keep him out of jail. Cody spent a few years behind bars. Upon his release he was still a dangerous fighter, but decided to pick up where Mike had left off. He ran for, and became the new mayor of Metro City.

Haggar ended up fighting for the people a few more times. The Mad Gear gang had unfinished business with Mike, they kidnapped Guy’s finance’, and her father. So Haggar was recruited by Maki, a ninja that trained alongside Guy, and Carlos, a South American swordsman to take the battle around the world in Final Fight 2. By the time he returned to Metro City a new gang had set up operations. This time they were run by an evil general named Black. In Final Fight 3 Haggar recruited Guy, a good cop named Lucia, and a mysterious newcomer named Dean to take out the Skull Cross gang. We can assume after all of this traveling, and fighting it was time for the Mayor to retire. The Street Fighter 6 debut trailer featured a shot of multiple areas around Metro City. In on particular scene we saw a statue dedicated to Haggar. A lot of fans online, myself included, were worried that the statue was erected following the death of the former mayor. I’m hoping that the statue was built because he managed to actually turn the city around. He fought corruption, and crime with his bare hands. He made the people feel safe, turned the economy around, and made Metro City a beacon of hope. Perhaps the big reveal in the game was that Haggar was now running for Governor, Senator, or a higher office.

The SF6 developers were shouting out a lot of other Metro City locations in the debut trailer. I have a feeling that a number of them would be used as background stages in the SF6 tournament. For example we saw a subway. The subway took our heroes through the boroughs in Final Fight. But it was also used in one of the memorable stages in Street Fighter III. I’m wondering if players will be able to visit every corner of the city, and whether or not they will have to fight Mad Gear members along the way.

We saw China Town, basketball courts, and downtown Metro City as well in the footage. The studio made sure to give everybody a glimpse of Abigail’s Scrap Metal shop. Abigail was the biggest character in the Street Fighter universe. This was saying something because every member of the Andore family was well over seven feet in height. Abigail was eight-feet tall, and had a bad temper. He was one of the Mad Gear bosses, who happened to run his own small business on the side. I had talked about Hugo, and Abigail in the history of giant fighters.

Even though Haggar had cut off the head of the snake, by defeating Belger, and Retu. The individual soldiers, and generals of the gang were still very much alive, and active. Even if we did not get Abigail as a playable character, it was a great nod to the history of the franchise to give him a shout-out. He was not the only general we saw in the trailer. Damnd / Thrasher was a low-level general in the organization, and the person that called Haggar in the very first Final Fight. He was the first general we had to fight in the game. He was a good brawler, but he tended to hang back, and whistle for reinforcements to do most of the fighting for him. Seeing him in the trailer now in the role as the President of the Mad Gear Gang Motorcycle Club was a nice touch. I had talked about the origins of the Mad Gear Gang, and its members earlier on the blog. Damnd seemed to be in charge of faceless villains taking on Jamie in the trailer. Well to be fair, they were not faceless, these people instead wore boxes over their heads.

The idea of generic people being represented with box heads had actually been done by Hong Kong artist Michael Lau. He had a comic strip in East Touch magazine featuring the “gardeners” they were kids from the street. He eventually made 12-inch figures out of his original characters, and helped spark the urban vinyl movement. He had gallery showings in Japan, and the US with these figures. They went on to influence character design in animation, gaming, and toys. The majority of the gardeners had distinct looks, then there were a handful of generic pedestrians that had boxes for heads. This was over 20 years ago, and I have no doubt had a hand in influencing the generic Mad Gear fighters in the trailer. Speaking of faceless characters, I’m wondering if Street Fighter 6 features a create-a-fighter option.

The trailer has a nameless, faceless fighter walking the streets of Metro City. It was inferred that SF6 would be the first open-world Street Fighter game. Yet instead of walking around as Ken, or Ryu we actually see a guy in a hoodie wandering around. The trailer made sure to hide the face, and identity of this person, but I could see from the corners of his face, finders, and ankles that this was a Black person. I’m pretty sure this is not supposed to be Black Cobra, but instead a generic fighter.

The thing about this generic person is that we see a number of them in the opening scenes at the Metro City gym. While Luke is punching a heavy bag there are a number of male, and female fighters sparring, stretching, and exercising as well. The thing about all of these background characters is that they are almost all the same build. They are the same height, and weight. They do have different skin colors, heads, and are barefoot or with shoes. I don’t think these models were created only to be background people. The gloves, striped pants, and sneakers of the person we follow around on the trailer were also used on the gym members. I have a feeling that players will be able to customize their walk around character as well.

The other thing that I thing that I think was leaked, or suggested in the trailer was that this character can learn things from the various named Street Fighters they came across. Or they pick up new moves by completing side missions. It looked like the character climbed a ladder in China Town, and came across Ken Masters. Then in the next frame we see the character performing a Dragon Punch. Maybe the person in the background was some random long haired blonde, and not Ken, but that’s what I made out. Did you see anything different about this? Street Fighter 6 wouldn't be the first time in the series that you could have a character learn moves. The Cycloid cyborgs in Street Fighter EX had moves from every character in the game. The character ACE in SF EX 3 could copy moves as well. The Cyborg in the Street Fighter II Movie game could also steal moves. Twelve in Street Fighter III could copy an entire character. Of course the boss character Seth from Street Fighter IV could also copy moves from the cast. 

There were countless other call outs to Final Fight, and Street Fighter games of the past. The back alleys, China Town, downtown, and playgrounds all looked very familiar. Other web sites pointed out that stage backgrounds in SF III were recreated in parts of Metro City. Many people inferred that some of the levels took place in New York City, but Capcom might have been retconning it to take place in Metro City instead. There were plenty of shop signs, and billboards that made direct reference to characters like Hakan, Hugo, Gill, and Marisa. Did you notice any other details that piqued your interest? I’d like to hear about it in the comments section. As always if you 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!

The greatest fighting game boss returns to Street Fighter 6, a look at Gouki

Gouki / Akuma is slated to return in Street Fighter 6. Of the countless fighting games that have come out over the past 40+ years there is one boss character that I consider the greatest of all time. I’m certain that many would agree that Gouki is the bar by which all fighting game bosses are measured. There have been many great boss characters throughout history. Revenge against Geese Howard drove the plot in the Fatal Fury series. Then there was the villainous Heihachi Mishima, and his attempts to kill his own son in the Tekken tournament. Plus Bilstein set the galaxy on fire in Star Gladiator, and his ghost came back to continue his path of destruction in Plasma Sword. Despite all those great titles Gouki was still head, and shoulders above the competition.

I’ve written a lot about the origins of this character, and his impact in the series. I considered Gouki the third most important character in the franchise. If you are new to the Street Fighter franchise Gouki is a master of Ansatsuken a fictional fighting art known as “Murder Fist.” He killed his brother Gouken, and their master Goutetsu to claim the title as the best in the world. Ken, and Ryu, the stars of the game, were trained by Gouken. So you can guess that his appearance helped motivate the lead characters. Gouki’s look was based on the mythological Nio, the guardians of heaven, and hell. Their statues can be seen at entrances to Buddhist temples. Not only that but he was created using the features of a lion. The flat nose, the sharp teeth, and red clay skin was all done to make him look like a supernatural being, while still being a plausible real person.

This animal look was expanded in Street Fighter V. The studio went ahead and grew out his hair, and gave him a beard in order to make it look like a full fledged lion’s mane. He was still wearing a rope belt, rather than a traditional black belt. His hands were wrapped in cord, rather than punching gloves. Plus he wore the beads of his master around his neck. Every design element placed on the character meant something, including the type of knot used on the belt. These were all very important details whether the audience knew it or not. For Street Fighter 6 the designers at Capcom decided to remove his top, and give him a cape of animal fur instead. I can almost imagine him training in the mountains of Japan, surviving in the harshest of conditions with this new getup. He looks less like a spiritual being, and more like a caveman now. Not that this was necessarily a bad thing. He is still has a physically imposing presence, and looks like he could break any returning character in half.

The latest version of Gouki looks amazing, but diffuses all of the design elements that made him iconic in the first place. If the newest version of Gouki were the one that first appeared in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, then I don’t think his impact would have been as big as it originally was. Gouki’s black gi was the opposite of Ryu’s white gi. His hair was red, and fiery. He wore a rope belt, and oversized prayer beads. This was a karate master that was as close to demon as we could get. Once the character was established the studio could adjust his appearance. Previously it was simple things, like streaks of white hair in Street Fighter III. Then it became a beard, and longer hair. Now it’s the mane, and streaks of white hair. I think by moving away from the karate uniform it breaks the best elements of his original design. Not to mention that the animal fur was almost the same shade as his skin. Thus muddying his primary colors. I’m not completely on board with the new design team at Capcom steering all the original World Warriors away from their original costume designs, and colors. Some appear better, like Zangief, Dhalsim, and Blanka. But changes to Ken, and Gouki seem to diffuse the impact that they used to have. That’s what I think anyhow, what are your thoughts on the newest look of Gouki? Do you care how the characters appear at all? Or are you more concerned with the game play? Let me know in the comments section please. If you 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!