How can you mess with perfection?
Fighting game mega-site EventHubs is running a poll to see which Street Fighter characters fans want to see return the most in SFV. Considering SFV is still pretty early on in development, there is the slim, outside chance that polls like these might have a little more sway on Capcom’s roster choices than usual, so I’m a bit more interested in the results than I normally would be.
By which I mean, I want to make sure that my favorite characters make the cut.
As of the time that I’m writing this, my boy Vega is sitting pretty as the 27th most-requested fighter out of the 64 characters in the poll. Respectably above the half-way mark and representing a healthy popular interest in cheap pokes, kara-throws, and looking fabulous. I felt pretty good about that until I noticed that both Decapre and Sodom were occupying loftier positions on the chart. What the shit, people?
Look, if we’re gonna have a creepy masked fighter who cheats and brings an edged weapon to a fistfight in the next SF game, it better be the goddamn original Spanish ninja. If an also-ran pallet-swap like Decapre or an Alpha-nobody like Sodom make it into SFV while Vega is left on the sidelines, I’m gonna be one very unhappy brawler. It just isn’t a SF game to me unless I can bounce off a wall and Izuna Drop a sucker.
Other than my own selfish desire to see my main secure a place in the next generation of SF, the current tally of votes reveals some interesting trends. Shockingly, the top 20 slots are filthy with SFIII and Alpha characters. The Hogan-esque Alex is pummeling the competition as the most-requested fighter by a significant margin, while Alpha 3 darling Karin and the quasi-robotic Q (I approve) trail behind along with oddballs like Oro and Birdie.
Maybe there is some strategic voting at play (people just assume Ken, Guile, Sagat, and other classic fighters are practically guaranteed to be in so they’re not wasting their breath), or maybe people are ready for a change. SFIII took a lot of flak back in the day for snubbing most of the original cast and replacing them with bizarre one-armed old men and dudes rocking overalls, but these are more open-minded times.
Is it time to retire some of the classic world warriors so some of the less heavily featured members of the cast have a chance to shine? Or maybe SFV should try to do what SFIII did and break away from tradition, bring back a bare minimum of classic fighters and introduce a bunch of new and interesting brawlers to learn?
So long as I can bust out a Vega-roll, I’ll be happy.