Job #40
Character Name: Akuma
Character Origin: Super Street Fighter II Turbo (1994)
This might seem like an unusual pick, but there's a method to my madness. Hear me out.
Firstly, while the elephant in the room (in hindsight) would be the PlayStation exclusivity of
Street Fighter V, that game wouldn't release until 2016 - whereas in comparison, the
Street Fighter IV series has been a fairly consistent showing on both Xbox 360 & PS3 since 2009. Additionally, the
Street Fighter series being as big as it is makes it a pretty obvious candidate for a game of this ilk - especially seems as Capcom are presumably already involved if Frank West is sticking around. It's also worth noting that older
Street Fighter titles have also been a consistent showing on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One's storefronts at this point too!
As for why
Akuma instead of
Ryu, there's a couple of reasons. Firstly, they play similarly enough (having their own takes on the shoto archetype, obviously), but Akuma's additional attacks and skills could bring a really unique playstyle to the game - because, bear in mind, we do already have the "fighting game character" archetype represented, so it wouldn't be akin to Ryu's
Sm4sh inclusion in that sense. Additionally, Akuma is an incredibly iconic character in fighting game history (and arcade history as a whole!), and I think he'd be a very surprising - but pretty cool - pick with that in mind. And hey - who wouldn't want to see the Raging Demon attack get used against, uh, Blinx?
(Even with that in mind, it's worth noting that
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition also introduced a new form of Akuma in the form of Oni, so it's not like Capcom would deliberately avoid promoting him in some way like this. And, as
we know, he'd later appear in
TEKKEN 7.)
Discussion Round
I think that's a fair assessment - I will say, though, I think Jack of Blades is iconic enough as a
Fable rep to the point where I think he could stick around without too much of an issue on that front (or at least maybe return as a DLC pick.) Also, that's an interesting point about
Rare Replay - funny how that works!
I reckon that clones would be pretty fun to try and work out, honestly - having maybe two or three of them seems like a good way to bolster our roster given the direct competition that this game would probably have with
Sm4sh. (Which Xbox would probably "win" given the popularity of the Wii U.)
And as for 3rd parties? That's an interesting thought - though as for which one, I think it'd depend, and a voting/discussion round for that seems like a good call.
