fighting games

mentally i tend to lump in the first season of sf6 dlc with the starting roster, in part because i didn’t pick up the game until after ed hit; in part, because they are all part of the original plan for the game

like, capcom had only announced four characters when the other 18 leaked in one lump

structurally much of the base game is clearly built around the knowledge that at least rashid, aki, and ed are meant to be there—they’re just delayed a bit, for reasons

same as kofxv with its first season, or what’s happening with cotw, talking about 22 base characters—albeit five of them being dlc

emotionally the sf6 roster also kinda feels weird without the energy of rashid, aki, and ed—they feel like core characters as much as the other seven new guys, plus juri, deejay, and cammy

i get the sense that, like kofxv, they lightly carved out the least-crucial characters to hit the launch date

i mean, akuma is easy to push back because of the way he’s always served as a sort of elite post-game bonus element—but i can see figuring they needed all eight original world warriors on day one as a security blanket, and wanting to show off as many of their new creations as possible…

so it’s mostly that zone between sfii:tww and the new cast, where there was room to trim

i can see keeping in cammy and deejay again for familiarity, even as they have been totally redesigned—leaving just akuma and the three select sfiv-v characters

and then i can see swapping out aki for juri

like, if we’re talking an 18-character launch roster, and feel constrained to use eight of those slots on the sfii cast in order to reassure the easily-stressed and elder Gamers, to balance off and provide symmetry for the eight new guys, that just leaves two other “wild card” slots—which, if we go with the super sfii guys again serve to defer to relative familiarity, while showcasing the game’s ability to make the old altogether new again

i can then see that same totally justified “we need people to accept this immediately” impulse to pivot with a frown and say, “okay, juri is probably our single most popular character of the last 20 years; how can we squeeze her in at launch?”

and if we’re gonna tinker with the symmetry to make sure foot-girl is there on day one, then aki makes a natural sacrifice. even if she’s an important new character, there’s so much conceptual overlap, right?

like, juri has always been dlc until now and i can see how at first thought she likely was a strong candidate to hold back along with akuma and the two sfv characters—but she’s just that strong a draw, swapping her into the launch roster makes that much stronger a first impression and sales pitch

anyway, the season 1 dlc is clearly all scrambled up in the initial development of the game. it’s not extraneous tacked-on content, it’s the rest of the game as originally planned.

season 2 is where shit starts to get wild, as they start to build and riff off the now-established base

there’s this clear “act break” of sorts between [launch+s1] and s2, and the energy is so different, so much more confident as of last summer, just a few months after i finally got on-board

it’s almost like a soft reboot of a now-proven success, restating the original pitch with new flair and spark

so, long way of saying, i tend to kinda forget that rashid, ed, and aki technically aren’t launch roster. since they are so clearly of a part with the rest of the game and elements of its *core* roster. it’s just, part of that base core had to be held back a bit to get the game out the door at all 🤷🏻‍♀️