CESTUS III

Thanks! So like he does later in SF5 western version

1 hour ago, Darc_Requiem said:

For people questioning how Alex can look like he does at 17. I present to you Brock Lesnar at 15 years old.

The problem with Alex look in SFV is'nt much the muscle mass, is that due game ingame artstyle (and i guess external 3D modellers) face wise he looks older than that, and older than SF3 Alex

In contrast Luke who's supposed to be bit older but still young reflect well his own young age

Same Ed, but of course would prefer use Luke as example as it's hard guess wich is supposed to be Ed's age due the unnatural growth speed and ambiguous timeline

Of course one can say each age differently and that's true, but if Alex was the kind who looks much older that should have been a thing of even older SF3 one too, but there both Kinu and Ikeno gave him way more youthful look

1 hour ago, YagamiFire said:

Enough juice'll do wonders

Well, to be fair Lesnar got freak genetics no matter what, but he seems to have indeed found some magic potion after '95  (delts are usually easiest hint for juice)

But again, SFV Alex could definitely have worked with bit lighter mass (he looks heavier than his older SF3 self, wich is'nt impossible but strange for somebody working on built muscle), but if face was'nt that mess would have been way more acceptable lol

32 minutes ago, BootyWarrior said:

Pre-SFV he was definitely an orphan. In the SFIV movie they show a scene where Gouken finds him, then Ryu talks about Goutetsu and Akuma. But after SFV...

 

It's possible that he is Akuma's son, but they'll leave ambiguous so fans will talk about it.

Yeah i remember that, Ryu looked like around 10 year old when Gouken found him, but that does'nt give us much outside the fact kid is likely born in that area

Btw i think the answer they gave can be either "diplomatic" non-answer if he is'nt or a straight necessity if he is and reveal it is keept as a dynamic for Ryu-Gouki final confrontation

But tbh if he is i think we got possible hints even before

Most insignificant but still dropping here, back to SF3 i remember them say that Ryu-Oro dynamic was straight inspired by Luke-Yoda from SW, wich made me think that if the range of SW inspiration for them was wider maybe Ryu-Akuma may have something of Luke-Vader too. But of course that's 100% speculation, nothing more than a possibility

SF4 i found bizzarre the choice of words in the confrontation between Gouken and Akuma where the latter call Ryu "the cub" (curious to know what's the term used in original japanese version), wich can of course be used simply to point out the age/experience gap between themselves and him, but still feels as ifunder Gouki's pov he and Gouken are two strong beasts (like lions or something) and Ryu while still young is part of same pack... if by blood or not, there's some recognization of Ryu (while at it i doubt Gouki would see Ken in same way, but again may be due blood, due inferior potential or both)

Then we have SFV with all that strange proud dad behaviour lol

Reality is i think we will never have an answer till the day (SF6? SF7? lol) capcom will finally let Ryu and Akuma have their final and definitive clash... that day IF there's something to know we will know. If not even there Gouki pull a Vader, guess we can safe say he's not the father

9 hours ago, YagamiFire said:

Man I want to read this manga now

 

And nope your memory is not tricking you. In Kanzaki's manga Ryu states his hadoken is like 2/3rds the strength of Rog's punch in Rog's prime but that Rog's strength has decayed because he's gone soft from being a wannabe mobster running his Little Las Vegas on Shad island.

Yeah i would love that too, mostly because i love hunt influences Capcom may have used for this or that

The Sagat Ultra2 and possibly Asrafil giving them ideas for Gill were the only i remembered, but just looking some scans is jumped out the Gief-Rog scene done by Ryu lol

I'm sure reading the whole thing somehing else may appear, capcom guys seems to keep at least in consideration SF japanese manga

Same for the Kanzaki one, surely there's stuff there too (example Vega SFV design + one color as specific tribute)

8 hours ago, sKreetFighteZ said:

I thought Ryu was an orphan. 

Correct, canon wise at the moment Ryu is an orphan, but orphans have biological parents too.

Not saying that will happen, but IF they have in mind to make that Gouki is Ryu's father nothing in the current canon prevent them from do it and will explain some strange change of vibes we got in SF4 and SFV

2 hours ago, Hawkingbird said:

Yup. He refused to acknowledge the SF4 OVAs as canon but had no problem saying that Gen and Gouken were zombies. I'll never forget how he got into a fight with everyone over Nash's dogtags. 

Yeah, guessed was same guy given Daemos reaction lol

5 hours ago, sKreetFighteZ said:

Exactly. They always give Rog the short end of the stick for what reason exactly ?

Of the Shadaloo kings he's the one that fit the brute goon stereotype, and that's the kind of character japanese will ever pick as jobber lol

5 hours ago, sKreetFighteZ said:

 Like it makes no sense and they can never make up their minds. Let's not forget them breaking up him and Ed...THEY WERE MEANT TO BE SUPERSTARS 

That made sense as Ed felt like be a living time-bomb (due PsychoPower/Bison presence), and did'nt wanted Rog to be next to him when will explode

He chosen Falke as companion because unlike Rog she was aready involved in that nightmare

4 hours ago, BootyWarrior said:

  Hide contents

 

Tbh also can't shake off the idea that

1 hour ago, sKreetFighteZ said:

The only justice Rog was given was in SF5 but they fucked that up too 

I think in terms of prestige apex for Rog in SF timeline was and will ever be the very early phase we see him...  so first SF2 where he's one of the not selectable Shadaloo bosses (even if the weakest one), wich made him seem "special" compared to standard characters

Canon wise i think is possible some would think he was stronger before Alpha days when he was a professional boxer, but -unless confirmed by some capcom's piece- it's pretty hypothetic shit... if i have to make up a theory, maybe he used to be even better athletically but now have definitely more experience against non-boxing fighters

In SF5 guess his best moment is easily that he defeated Necalli and made him retire, wich by itself would be very big deal if was'nt that capcom's writing of that character feel very  weak

In SF3 at least they made him have upper hand over Alex for an entire round, but tbh felt like they just disprected his punching power, when he's supposed to be one of the very best of the world at that

ps: i personally don't care, but guess you can edit your previous long quote to not have people be pissed at you

12 hours ago, Daemos said:

So... The great evil has returned. We must be prepared!

Was Vasili the guy who mixed actual canon with his headcanon in one big text thing, then pretend it's all official canon Bible and got mad if people told him his "theories" are not Capcom's canon?

On 1/5/2022 at 1:12 PM, YagamiFire said:

Is it weird that just seeing these images makes me actually more interested in this than anything I've really seen from SF largely of late? It just seems so much more imaginative and crazy. Yeah it's probably really dumb but at least it's kinetic and feels like its taking risks unlike the boring AF SF5 story.

 

The SF story needs new vitality. New energy. It's become...tired and everyone seems to have fallen into static positions...frozen in amber.

 

I'd kill for a Ryu with that much dynamic personality to him (SFII manga Ryu is best Ryu)

Yasushi's Ryu (SF2V manga @Sano posted) was scrappy as fuck

He was also creative and instictive fighter, adapting to the fight or situations pretty dynamically... aside the last fight of these scans he ever win his fights by training+talent+will rather than "magic" ki power-up.

And iirc even in that fight with Asrafil he managed to fight and even win various phases mostly as himself... problem was as i said before that Asrafil was designed to regenerate more powerful each time, so in his last form he simply gone above "basic Ryu" abilities

He still showed empathy (so without go too "edgy" twist of the character) even with enemies that would murder him, example he judo throw Rog from a rooftop but made him land on a parked car on purpose to not kill him, and generally respected his opponents after a good fight

I remember not liking some things about that manga back then (Ryu having long spiky hair and no headband to begin with) but he was an entertaining Ryu indeed

Looked for my old GAME OVER numbers (that i did'nt touched in decades) to take some pics but guess lost them either when i moved in my single home, or when i moved to my woman's one

But i checked a bit the link i posted

Fun thing i found is Ryu pulling a Zangief on Rog, decades before Gief himself did in ASF

The later part with Ryu showing teeth was him telling to Rog  that since he retired from boxing world he must have lost lot of power (as did'nt even broke a tooth) and that he could not have tanked his punches if Rog was in his prime days, iirc also in Kanzaki's one something similar was said (or my memory is mixing things lol)

Wonder if Capcom itself considered that while writing the story of Alex being able in the mma tournament final to tank Rog's punches for 2 rounds and then winning by one single counter-punch

never liked that one much (not Alex winning part, but outpunching Rog) but would be far more acceptable if was canon thing that Rog's power by the time of SF3 had huge decay from his prime days

7 hours ago, martinitolove said:

Yes, I do! And All About Capcom Fighting Games, and SF3, and Warzard.

 

By the way I'm really wondering why since Zeku has a Kenji costume and Alex has a Leo costume the team at Capcom doesn't give Rose a Tessa and Cammy a Mai Ling costume...

For Mai Ling Chun li should have been the pick, but Rose-Tessa would have been spot on 👍

The one that pissed me off has been fucking ED getting Demitri Maximoff (Darkstalkers) costume lol

Would have accepted either Bison or Urien

On 1/4/2022 at 9:22 PM, BootyWarrior said:

I like how even the writers at UDON, struggle to come up with a scenario where Ryu and Chun-Li would ever interact with each other outside of forced events caused by *insert evil organization"

All you need is some Pocky sticks, and suddently they're about to fuck

On 1/5/2022 at 4:55 AM, Sano said:

Okay managed to figure out how to toss the images here. This is from the manga based on Street Fighter II V, which was serialized in Bom Bom Comics. The story is very different from the Street Fighter II V anime, was completely unrelated storyline-wise other than having similar character designs. It featured a very early version of 'evil' Ryu, which even predates Masahiko Nakahira's Satsui No Hadou Ryu in his Street Fighter Zero (AKA Alpha) manga. But, Capcom still credits Masahiko Nakahira with creating SNH / Evil Ryu and not this manga. When I discussed this with vasili10, he theorized that it was because the SF2V version was more 'demonic' and less about 'dark ki.'

 

I guess now this is pretty funny given how demonic Gouki AKA Akuma and Kage seem these days LMAO! 

Wow that's a jump in the past for me

I have somewhere at home the italian version of these (was released in monthly volumes called "Game Over" that got that, an ugly fatal fury manga -later replaced by a gundam one- and a short Samurai Shodown chibi comic strip)

Some things i remember of that specific final fight (lot of years passed)

- Asrafil(? Italian version at least), the Gill-looking "demon" is an artificial being created by Bison's (who there had white hair like in V)  Shadaloo labs, and Bison managed to get Ryu there to face it to test the monster fighting abilities

Bison talks about it as if is supposed to be the ultimate form of life or some shit, not sure if considered himself superior to it or not

-The creature was able to completely regenerate, each time it will be evolved changing physical look to adapt against the attack that destroyed him
Iirc -but not sure- phases were
Get wings (for extra speed?)
v
Armored shiny body parts (that reflect hado energy like a mirror), i remember Ryu throwing his own blood on him to ruin the "mirror" effect and inflict damage
v
Greater muscle/strenght wich made him able to physically force together opposed energies like hado and psycho power in one single huge attack... i remember thinking that Sagat Ultra2 in SF4 seems to be inspired by that, pretty similar pose/action.
Iirc Bison boast about the fact that this ultimate creature is the only being able to do such feat, but Ryu (evil version) was able to replicate something similar
v
Evil Ryu trigger in like some sort of Mister Hyde when Ryu is about to get killed by Asrafil final form.
He destroy his artificial heart, wich was the secret of his regeneration

Fun thing is manga was made in 1995, i would not be suprised is some traits of SF3 Gill as Boss even more extreme than Bison came from Asrafil

RANDOM STUFF

- whole series is essentially based on Ryu

- manga was violent af lol, way more than usual SF tone

- there were multiple robots with Ryu appearance, and some with other figthers appearance (honda and Sagat iirc)

-Bison SAVE Ryu at some point from them lol (guess to keep Ryu for the final experiment/duel)

- Ryu fought Vega(in north pole lol) and Rog(in some american city), don't remember who else

- DINOSAURS lmao

- Guile fighting Bison on a plain or something, lose and fall from the plane but for whatever reason still laugh and give Bison the middle finger while falling lol

- Is possible see good chunk of it (in whatever language) here
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=382316761836649&set=a.382316291836696.80767.135004579901203

On 1/5/2022 at 8:07 PM, Sano said:

Yeah it's funny that almost every Japanese game that I can think of that had a sequel they wouldn't move past, have all past said sequel in recent years. 

 

There might be more examples but that's all I can think of.

Well, we have the mighty

🤣

9 hours ago, Sano said:

Last big storyline thing that came out about a month back,  it was revealed that there are parts of Street Fighter V that take place after Street Fighter III Third Strike. Here's a really good YouTube vids about that.  Apologies if it was posted already. 
 

Welcome Sano!

Yeah fun thing of SFV playable Ed with NS uniform is that he's technically non canon in SFV present, both as uniform and muscle mass lol

SFV standard costume in theory should have been his white hoodie one and much less muscular as we seen him with Rog in ASF events, NS uniform should still not even exist (so also playable Falke is not canon in current timeline)

Fun thing is all his quotes on contrary seems to reflect young correct Ed, he never mention Neo Shadaloo

In theory Standard NS costume of Ed should have been his Story costume (wich often represent a different time, usually past), but guess Capcom either thought white hoodie was just too simple/bland to be his official Standard look (style wise many urban clothes have been used as secondary Story costumes in SFV) or maybe they originally thought to add the birth of NS in SFV then they dropped the idea for whatever reason

6 hours ago, martinitolove said:

On this page who are the blonde and brunette girls dancing left of Makoto, and the blonde girl drinking tea with Karin

https://readcomicsonline.ru/comic/fcbd-2020-collection/StreetFighter/7

Brunette surely is Ibuki

Blonde may be SF3 version of Kolin with her asymmetrical haircut

Blond kid next to them is Mel

No idea who's taking tea with Karin, we see too little to be sure

On 1/3/2022 at 6:14 AM, sKreetFighteZ said:

Well i personally think Juni and Juli can hold their own.

Well, if anything at least Juri by her own words thought they was worth use a "special move" for them, while as far we seen she wiped out rest of the Dolls with normal fighting techniques (we did'nt seen Decapre fight though)

but biggest factor there was that they were attacking her together and she recognized their team work represented a threat.

Kinda worth notice whole Dolls squad apparently could not make Juri struggle as Guile or Cammy (great fighters, but far from the top in main cast food chain) did by themselves 1v1... and tbh Juri did'nt struggled much with them either

20 hours ago, N-Tactix said:

I think the Dolls are strong enough that they could easily tackle the normal martial artist/Dan tier but getting to the tier of characters like the major ones (Zangief, Cammy, Rose etc) they wouldn't win out.

 

I think the Dolls might be one of the few cases of "minion" type characters who actually are competent somewhat and don't get beaten at every little thing. Closest Capcom example is probably Bass.

Yeah, that's how i see it too

Good parallel may be other members beside Cammy of the Delta Red squad

To use one more time Final Fight as scale for a more "normal" world beyond SF cast, i think Wolfman, Luwanda and McCoy can probably unleash hell on Mad Gear Gang if they were asked to operate in Metro City streets, but i'm not confident at all they can take some of the bosses or even some strongest minions (some of wich got elevated to playable cast) in a 1v1

19 hours ago, martinitolove said:

Hey, SF-fans!

For many years I've been a Street Fighter games and Udon comics fan, posting at the Shoryuken forum. Latly the forum died off. Now I'm searching for another forum, where fans discuss UDON's Street Fighter comics, and maybe even the creators visit from time to time. Do you know of such thing?

There are big plans by Udon for 2022, so it's a good time to kick start a discussion!

 

First there was alt.games.sf2, then www.mmcafe.com, then SRK, then forums.streetfighteronline.com. Can we start a thread here? I've seen Chun-Li_Forever somewhere here. But no Sano...

Welcome dude!

I'm not fan of Udon stuff, but as others said i see zero problems discuss it even here

Only possible interference may be with our eternal search (lol) of what's canon and what not, but not big deal as i guess everybody here knows Udon it's a completely separate thing that on canon level is basically "fan fiction"

Guess up to you if post stuff here or open new dedicated thread 👍

14 hours ago, YagamiFire said:

To be 100% fair, however, it seems like the Dolls are the Elite of the Elite at their vocations within the Doll division. Aprile, for instance, would appear to be the elite of the elite for medics so she is the best medic of the Dolls and surely a competent fighter but it is possible non-Calendar dolls could be stronger warriors than her.

Yeah, it's like Dolls are made of 2 layers

Base: a standard minimum level of physical/athletic prowess and hand-to-hand fighting skill that as enhanced soldiers they ALL possess, including Aprile, Marz and Enero.

So NONE of the Dolls is weak, but at same time that make just them superior to average goon. To use an example i did before, Marz(probably the weakest) can still be dropped in Metro City streets and alone beat up bunch of basic FF goons, who are still supposed to be stronger/tougher than average man

Advanced: the actual specialization they're truly elite at, and those who have it about actual fighting (hand-to-hand or weapons) may be able/decent chance to beat lowest levels of main cast... but again it's big question mark as Birdie seems weak af in SFV canon and still defeated 2 of them in the only two fights he got, one of wich against Fevrier who's a "battle type" kind of Doll.

To be fair Fevrier being a firearm user is'nt at her best playing close range/direct type of fight, but at same time it's not like they started the fight grappling, she even got free shot to fire at him and he just blocked bullets with chains... from there was up to her keep fight at her comfort distance, wich she failed

Given what ASF gave us, to guess how Dolls measure next to SF cast good question would be if/wich Dolls would haved decent chance to defeat Birdie in a "fair" 1v1 fight, my guess is probably less than half of them

14 hours ago, YagamiFire said:

I do definitely agree that No seems to be up there as far as the Dolls go. Juli & Juni are probably the two strongest (behind Cammy, naturally) and are even stronger as a team combination.

Tbh i'm not sure how we should consider them, but overal i agree with you

One side i feel like canon wise their real threat potential was as team like in their first appearance, and that they got elevated as "worth of a slot" fighters only because... it was easy, all the (mostly recycle) sprite work was done

Like, at that point you created them, they become cheap way to add characters on the console version.

Sure they were unlockable in Arcade too but there were essentially "bonus" characters there if you get what i mean

On other hand as team they did'nt operated as regular opponent, but as SUB BOSS, wich mean that despite their obvious 2v1 advantage they at least offered to your character a challenge higher (not just equal) than normal fight against another from main cast

So question is how they would fare 1v1 against SFers and reality is we don't know... iirc back to SFA3 both missions they got were just about track down characters, no idea if they even officially fought anybody

Skipping to SFV we know that Juli got her ass whooped by a Cammy that was likely holding back a bit (no shame, Decapre is more powerful and got same result), but SF cast offer a decent amount of characters that are weaker than Cammy and may be in her range

To use same example of before i guess Juli/Juni have decent chance of defeat/draw with Birdie 1v1

21 hours ago, BootyWarrior said:

 

Serious or not, I find it weird how Chun-Li didn't get back up and chase him down. With her legs she can out run that out of shape blob with ease.

 

The poster girl needs the SFV Zangief treatment for SFVI. 

Tbh most of character story Win/Loss are'nt actual canon W/L in the sense we should not take the gamplay parts result (everybody win that in their story, even Dan) but we should consider how the story show the outcome right after, for that reason is lot an interpretation thing

In Birdie's case in the Chun fight they were not having a normal fight, more like he wanted to escape and she wanted to arrest him (so likely neither gone all out trying to destroy the opponent), he managed to drop Chun on her ass and run away

No shame in her being temporarily stunned by being run over by Birdie, dude's charge is likely more powerful than a truck and pure toughness is'nt Chun's main trait... keep in mind in ASF even fucking Zangief, probably the toughest char in the game, got stunned enough by Rog's suckerpunch to let Rog and Ed escape

20 hours ago, sKreetFighteZ said:

Hey, this is actually interesting to read bc I never really thought about it like that but this is really interesting.

Fun thing he's not even the only that in SFV 3D model got similar look alike inspiration from real people, but this would be bit longer to take on, we can if you want

17 hours ago, mikros said:

I think it's important for the story to have cool non-playable characters. If you promote all remotely cool npcs to playable status then you'd be left with bland npcs only.

Definitely, and i think SF main cast can benefit immensely from having a "second-tier league" (or even some at same level) of fighters you can still consider dangerous, it make the world feel bigger and don't force Capcom to make them only fight each others over and over to show their skill... too bad ingame we never got that much beyond Dolls and bunch of lesser weak shada-troops

It's implied that in ASF probably Azam fought Cammy well enough to keep her out of Rashid vs Chun (she wanted interfere to help Chun, but Azam blocked her way), and at the end of it he was unharmed

Even just counting ASF you have Byron who probably can give Guile a good sparring, Shibasaki can probably offer decent one too, we know Max got his ass whooped by Alex, but we seen just the end of it, he could have offered a decent scrap before that

Of course we seen former main cast Abel being there too

And this was just with very limited point of view on ASF story, more on general SF lore would offer so many chances to show SF main cast take on NPC fighters... personally would love play shit like Ken doing his martial arts championship, Alex jumping in MMA/interstyle tournaments (maybe the one where he fought Balrog in the final) or Zangief wrecking poor wrestlers(Pulk Hogen!) lol

Hope in SF6 ASF counterpart we get bunch of fights like that, Capcom can recycle from existing movest (or scrapped content, they surely have plenty of that) after all being just story NPC stuff they don't need any balance or over-think it

19 hours ago, N-Tactix said:

@CESTUS IIIWelcome back!

Thanks bro, glad to have found you guys in time to go through SF6 hype together 😺

21 hours ago, DarthEnderX said:

When somebody makes a 30+ image post, do you guy think you could avoid quoting said post in its entirety?

Guess your rhetorical question end up being bit too subtle 😄

@sKreetFighteZif you reply to a long ass post (like mine usually are lol) try don't quote it entirely so people don't have to scroll it twice to go past it, you can cut it and keep just a small part you want reply to 😉👍

10 hours ago, sKreetFighteZ said:

Yeah, in the trivia they said his weight gain is remiscent of wrestlers letting themselves go after they retired and as an avid wrestling lover....i can confirm this. And the outrageous thing is his booger can actually damage a character's health bar, even tho it barely does shit 😭 .

Tbh i may be one of the few that liked the change, one of core points of SF character design is that with subtle or big elements they ever try to give each character a distinctive body type... despite being similar size big body characters fat Birdie have pretty unique build next to Zangief (they was different also back to SFA, but now much more), i like how their build reflect theyr lifestyle: Gief is obsessed with training 24/7, while Birdie still lift (he mention that in one quote) to keep strenght, but beside that he pass time either eating or being a lazy fuck

I'm ok with it, at the end he still looks strong af, to some extent remind a bit some strongmen

But more than that back in the old forum i pointed out that new SFV Birdie is heavily inspired on Bob Sapp, who's a gigantic black MMA fighter (who was ripped af for a 170kg man) super known/loved in Japan and gone through similar body transformation getting older, see below

Even lot of his SFV face expressions and food gimmicks seem to come from Bob

Notice these were commercials in japan, so capcom people were familiar with them

We almost even had white suit alt for Birdie wich could have been another reference lol

Last but not last fat era Sapp became notorious to be the kind that takes a dive and give no fucks about lose, he would essentially accept big pay fights and then just drop at very first minimal hit to call it a day relatively unharmed and still grab money lol.

Would not be surprised if even this influenced a bit SFV jobber Birdie, who does'nt care anymore about being a fighter (or have ambitions, like he was in SFA) but just want take advantage of riches to get his belly full

I find it cool, when SF dive hands in fight world (combat sports, martial arts, pro-wrestling etc) to get inspirations is best SF to me

1 hour ago, sKreetFighteZ said:

I guess this thread proves that Birdie has been getting his ass beat by some 46kg girls, these years haven't been going so well for him lately 😪. 

Well, his body hint that he let himself go since the alpha days (or pro-wrestling days) and his whole character in SFV his about being lazy fuck who can think only about next meal, but i doubt he regressed much... after all his main traits ever been strength/power and with the extra weight he may even improved at these

Adult Karin of SFV is just too good for him, her using him as 24/7 dummy for sparring sounds about right... he can take the damage and he's strong/insidious enough to offer good level of treath for basic daily training, but he's more the kind of exercise that keep her in shape rather than the real occasional challenge that make her improve

Tbh glad he cover that punchbag role because i think that having somebody else doing it helped Zangief get all the long waited and well deserved respect he finally got in SFV, they had Birdie to make technical/speedy/small character shine over a big brute lol

And even Birdie can't complain much, i seen nothing outrageous (beside his belly lol) as while he's being portrayed inferior to characters that are indeed superior to him and he lack a relevant win (like vs a main cast char, unless we count knock Chun on her ass to avoid arrest a serious fight/W, i don't) he did'nt been "sold" much, in ASF only time we seen him get knocked out has been by suckerpunch (kick/knee) from behind... not much shame on that

They even had the chance to use him as jobber vs Ibuki (who's still kinda weak in SFV) and instead they made some sort of draw over it, he really can't complain lol

3 hours ago, Daemos said:

On that note, I'd also like to wish you all a very happy new year. This community within a community has been a part of my life for almost 20 years. To many more together. ❤️ 

1 hour ago, sKreetFighteZ said:

It's my favorite part about SF, however if Capcom does a little exploration of what some of the unplayable can do, i think it would be something great. And yes, i don't mind Azam having a little inspiration from Zangief as it does shows the connection between the two the same way Ryu and Ken have similar fighting styles but have ways you can tell them apart. A little acrobatics won't harm anyone, it's kinda similar to Rashid too.

I said i expected him MORE acrobatic, not that would bother me 😄

Similarity with Zangief does'nt have much sense, yeah they're both pro-wrestlers and are part of same club ("Muscle Soul Fighters Club") but beyond that they should give him his own original stuff, we don't really need a third lariat user after Haggar and Zangief lol

They could have gone for a pro wrestler big dude version of Rashid style, wind powers and spinning stuff

But all of this is really minimal problem, i doubt he will become a playable char in SF6 tbh

1 hour ago, sKreetFighteZ said:

And that's one thing that concerns  me, in the AAC and the wiki, they are portrayed as one of Bison's elites so the fact that they are being shown as weak is a little off given the fact that they have rigorous training sessions and Bison's dislike for incompetent subordinates, this is a litte odd. 

Being weak next to a SF main cast character =/= being weak, SFers are exceptional individuals

Example while very low in the SF food chain Birdie is still immensely strong compared to normal people, dude fucked up a train back to the alpha days lol

For what's worth for the little period he's been in Shadaloo in V, he was likely the physically strongest guy in the whole org

Even Dan is incredibly powerful and tough next to normal people, like you can drop him in some Final Fight street and he will be able to fuck up dozens of hardened criminals lol (most of dolls would probably defeat Dan though, he's still joke character)

For how i ever seen Cammy/Decapre are true SF level ones (meaning they have decent chance 1v1 against main SF cast) and are indeed considered the superior members of the dolls group, rest is at least a step below to various degrees and like ASF showed they're likely to lose most 1v1 clashes against main cast.

Again one of the "weakest" characters, Birdie, defeated two of them... one of wich (Fevrier) was specialized in combat situations

Consider Cammy is clearly superior to all of them, and she's not particular strong in the SF food chain either

3 hours ago, Darc_Requiem said:

@CESTUS IIINoembelu is the "muscle" of the dolls. She's physically the strongest of the group. Based on how they portray her she'd probably beat any doll besides Decapre/Cammy in a one on one fight. Juli/Juni and Xiayu/Jianyu are both implied to be at their best in pairs. After Noembelu it gets kind of dicey on a solo tier list While. Juli & Juni are more efficient as a pair. They'd have to be dangerous on their own, otherwise Bison would have chose different body guards. They'd have to be better as a pair than Xiayu/Jianyu because those two weren't chosen to be Bison's personal guard.

In terms of pure potential i think Satsuki and Noembelu are more or less at same level, or maybe not but so far we have no way to say wich would win a 1v1

She's great with her katana, is said to be skilled also in hand-to-hand and on general she's specialized on fighting

Also Santamu as weapon user seems the fighting type too, but iirc was described somewhere more like a spy, while Noembelu/Satsuki have more "warrior" head on role, so would place them bit above her

4 hours ago, Darc_Requiem said:

 

Edit: @sKreetFighteZEven the weaker dolls have to be competent fighters. Remember there are tiers of dolls. And all of the calendar dolls are at the elite of the elite.

That's true

See Aprile who despite being the medic of the group (and probably one of the weakest ones at fighting) still can make Birdie giant 200+kg ass flying with a single side kick wich even stunned him a bit... even if she attacked him from behind and he was'nt expecting it, it still show ridicolous power, specially considering she's a  kinda little 50something kg girl herself

11 hours ago, sKreetFighteZ said:

All 3 of them had the potential to become something great in SF5, unfortunately Capcom didn't take the chance to show off what they could do in the story mode so their playstyles are left up to our imaginations 😪. However I do recall Takayuki Nakayama posting on his twitter regarding Azam's fighting style. 

 

From what i could get from these photos, it appears that Azam has similar moves to Zangief. It make sense given the fact that he used to be a pro wrestler similar to Zangief.

That's pretty cool, i ever LOVE read info about fighters that are part of SF Universe outside playable cast, make the world feel bigger and not limited to same few characters spammed over and over

Strange  see it's supposed to be some sort of mini-zangief (he's much lighter built), considering he's Rashid's master ever thought about a more acrobatic big dude style, more like T.Hawk

12 hours ago, sKreetFighteZ said:

Also, according to this post, it also appears that Noembelu may have a preference for fighting with both axes and sickles as weapons, so Noembelu has a nice amount of potential along with the twin sisters Xiayu and Jianyu, as Xiayu has her nunchakus and Jianyu has her bō staff.

 

She's ever been my favourite of the dolls (wich tbh i never liked much as group), specially now that T.Hawk seems ever more destined to not be in playable cast she may be SF next native american rep

She also seems quite powerful for how she quickly handled Birdie even if by cheap shot... sure, SFV Birdie is weak (of the cast guess canon wise only Dan is worse) but still he defeated other weaker dolls like Aprile and Fevrier

Gave the impression she's the toughest of the dolls (maybe not counting Decapre)

2 hours ago, mykka said:

I'm not surprised cause they've always been an integral part to SF's lore and Bison, and ASF seemed to focus on finally taking down Bison. Azam definitely deserved a fight, but I guess they werent interested in giving a brand new NPC  moves, unplayable dolls are easier to implement.

They should've, however, is spread the battle towards all the dolls, and not make us fight Marz 3 times. In fact, if anything, she should've been the doll we didn't actually fight since it's clear that is not her duty in Shadaloo.

More than new moves they could have given Azam some stuff from existing characters without care much about balancement... a couple of specials taken from Rashid (tornado projectile and spinning one) as he's his Master, then some normals from male cast and one throw (Guile's suplex would have been just fine)

Could have been a nice fight for Cammy, since canon wise they fought

Max could have been made of Balrog and Guile/others stuff with maybe one special recycled from somewhere, same throw as shadaloo goons

Also we missed the legendary opportunity to get at some point a canon Zangief vs Mecha Zangief at Shadaloo base, there they would not even need add moves lol

Wish they gave red hood shadaloo soldiers more specials to make them stand out next to lower goons, they looked cool

16 hours ago, mykka said:

It was such a wasted opportunity. However something tells me we'll see Noembelu again in the future.

Well dolls got already more coverage than any other potential NPC

Before see more dolls, i would have liked see some other characters fight as story-only opponents in ASF

Abel, Azam, Max (Alex opponent in ASF), Shadaloo's robots etc, would have helped variety

Not sure if already debated, but we now know the 4 Neo Shadaloo characters special abilities + the name of the Gorilla

• M. Bison divided his abilities to each member of Neo Shadaloo. Whether or not he knew he'd confront Ryu one day or that he wants to continue fighting as a fighting king even after death is unknown.^[2]
  • Ed inherited M. Bison's ability to eject Psycho Power.^[3]
  • Falke inherited M. Bison's ability to inject Psycho Power into objects.^[3]
  • Baba inherited M. Bison's wisdom and high intelligence.^[3]
  • The unnamed member inherited M. Bison's ability to teleport.^[3]

• In Swahili, Baba Mwalimu means "father teacher" which ties into it's wisdom and intellect.

This is the wiki, here original japanese post from Nakayama's twitter

⬇️

• The name of the gorilla is Baba Mwarim. It's insanely smart. (ゴリラの名前はババ・ムワリムといいます。めちゃくちゃ賢いです。) from Nakayama's twitter
•  
• "There's a reason for splitting up Bison's abilities. Maybe he knew he was going to have a confrontation with Ryu, or maybe he wants to come back in some way and continue as a king of fighting even if his body is destroyed... I hope we can talk about that someday! As for the names, as someone noticed, the initials are B (Baba Mwalimu), E (Ed), F (Falke), and G (I'm reaching Twitter's character limit...). (能力を分けたのには理由があるんです。リュウとの対決がわかっていたとか、ボディが滅びても何かしらの形で復活し格闘王として戦い続けたいとか…その辺はいつか語れると良いですね～。名前も誰かお気づきになってましたが頭文字が「B（ゴリラ）」「E（エド）」「F（ファルケ）」「G（文字数が・・・)) from Nakayama's twitter
•  
• In fact, the members of Neo Shadaloo (and the companions you may find in the future) have inherited the characteristics of Vega. Falke injects psychopower into a substance, Ed ejects psychopower, and those with knives can warp. So the gorilla is in charge of wisdom. (実はネオ・シャドルーのメンバー（と、きっとこれから見つかるかもしれない仲間）はベガ様の特徴をバラバラに引き継いでいるんです。ファルケは物質にサイコパワーを注入する、エドはサイコパワーを射出する、ナイフ持ってるヤツはワープ出来る、といった特徴があります。なのでゴリラは賢さ担当です。) from Nakayama's twitter

Fun thing when i seen concept where the gorilla had a little girl on his shoulder,

i thought she was somehow "the brain" and eventually controlling him somehow

But reality is, now with what we know it's more likely that he's the one teaching stuff to the lil girl lol (maybe she gave him the "father teacher" name?)

-more random theory-

Some post before i said i think it's possible  Luke will face "possessed" Ed, as they seem pretty compatible/specular + even without be high tier canon wise Luke will fullfill his role of "hero" if punch-wakeup Ed, stopping Bison from return walk on earth. Could work as side-story while adults take care of the real BIG threat

If that happen, was thinking we may have a group of 4 "new generation" good guys doing their side mission

Menat could be a good help, like Rose is busy with main Boss stuff but sense Bison's energy and send Menat to help Luke & co

We already seen Menat get interested/warning about Ed's future

And if we think about it Menat and Falke can be perfect specular rivals... both charge objects of energy, former infuse her globe of Soul Power, latter her staff with Psycho Power

If whole NS team will be in that may mean we need rivals for a Knives User who can teleport and a super intelligent gorilla

6 hours ago, sKreetFighteZ said:

Hey Cestus, you know where i can find the English version. 

No, only version i found is this

2 hours ago, YagamiFire said:

Fantastic gallery! Thanks for sharing this

You're welcome dude

Since we are posting book stuff i post here too the SFV concept sketches scans... too bad no recent characters, would be curious to see

HUGE gallery btw

https://imgur.com/a/FcacENG

Most curious still is "monster" G version, curious to know if was only a very early dropped idea or if there's some still untold lore behind that