Technical Currency

Oh God, Now I'm imagining Ryu as a loan shark. The car mini game suddenly makes sense!

@BootyWarrior And @CESTUS IIIThanks a lot for the answers, it cleared a lot of stuff up. I'm glad this board has so many knowledgeable fans on the lore. 🙂 I particularly appreciated learning that Capcom's confirmed Ken's family is actually a source of strength for him as a fighter and Ryu does more than train 24/7. The Goutetsu stuff is interesting because that completely changes my perception of Ryu and Akuma's relationship if he vaguely knew of him as a fellow more advanced student before he "fell." Interesting that he refers to Goutetsu and Gouken as masters but Akuma as only Akuma. Could it mean he was only a student or is it being used to show Ryu's disgust for him? I'm guessing the latter, given he'd have been Gouki back then. Sorry, just spitballing.

This makes sense, thanks. I was under the impression Ken was sent to Gouken because he was a stereotypical rich kid and his family thought he was a leech, but him already having some fighting experience would not be surprising. I also seem to recall Ken being described as having more natural talent than Ryu(which explains how he can still keep up with him despite having a family and job as opposed to Ryu who just trains and travels the world) so this would explain how he'd catch up to him quickly. Interesting, so does this mean Ryu knew Goutetsu and trained with him? I always thought Goutetsu died before Gouken took Ryu in, with Akuma coming back some years later to challenge Gouken and Gouken defeating him but sparing his life. Then he comes back and kills Gouken and defeats Ken in like one blow when the latter fighter happens upon their confrontation as he returns from winning his own tournament. The lore seems convoluted around these parts, or maybe fanon has elevated misinformation. I do agree that Goutetsu is cool but I can't see how adding him to the game would add anything to the story-- we basically know what his role in it was, and anything else could probably be given to one of the other Ansatsuken users with little difficulty.

Huh, for some reason I always thought Ryu was a baby when Gouken found him. Not sure if that was canon or fanon though. Him being found by Gouken later in life might make sense though, and explains a bit about how Ken caught up to him so fast, given they probably started serious training around the same time as opposed to Ryu having a decade head start. While they're not canon I am looking forward to the one shots Udon is apparently going to feature for every SFII character. I don't imagine they'll go to in depth or contain any shocking information but it will be interesting to see what they do with them.