The long-hyped "fifth new character" from Ultra Street Fighter IV was finally revealed this weekend. Capcom chose the "Final Round XVII" tournament in Atlanta, GA to drop the news, a fine choice given its long-standing role in the Fighting Game Community. It turns out the new roster addition is Decapre, one of M. Bison's "Dolls" (brainwashed assassins.) Don't look at me, Street Fighter isn't exactly known for its great storylines.
Decapre (and the "Doll" concept in general) originates from Street Fighter Alpha 3 (where she had a brief non-playable appearance during the Juli/Juni boss battle intro) and was ultimately expanded upon in the UDON Street Fighter comic books. On one hand, the inclusion of what could almost qualify as an "expanded universe" character feels like something everyone should be able to get behind. After all, it worked out well enough with Gouken's appearance in the initial Street Fighter IV release. However, the master of Ryu and Ken is a concept that travels a lot farther than "Bison Dolls." When you consider that the Dolls have and always will be excruciatingly similar to Cammy, it makes me worry about the reaction this news will get from gamers outside of the hardcore Street Fighter fanbase.
Ultra Street Fighter IV was first announced in July, 2013. Even then, it was known that the Street Fighter X Tekken versions of Hugo, Elena, Rolento, and Poison would be added to the roster alongside an all new character. Ooh, the mystery! As the months unfolded, there was a fair amount of "fifth character"-centric excitement and speculation generated. Capcom gave very little information other than the smallest of occasional teases. It was made clear that they wanted to make sure the reveal was as big of a deal as possible. The way it worked out, it took them eight months to finally get around to it. Given how easily Decapre can be dismissed as "just a Cammy clone," even a lot of the more dedicated fighting game fans look to be expressing more "meh" than anything.
As big of a name as Street Fighter is, fighting games are still a largely niche little corner of gaming. That alone is likely why Capcom clung so tightly to Decapre's reveal, hoping to give as much oomph to the release of "Ultra" as possible. After all, this is the fifth update of SF4, leaving lots of room for apathy outside of the existing fanbase. I will always root for fighting games to get bigger and bigger, and as such, I hoped this "fifth character" would be something truly unique to potentially turn as many new heads towards "Ultra" as possible. As it stands, I'm not confident that will be the case.
Still, the tiny bits of Decapre gameplay in the announcement trailer show that she's not strictly a "Cammy clone." Once the game is released and players get to use her first hand, she could very well turn out to be a fan favorite. Just look at Akuma. He started as a late addition to the Street Fighter II series, and was as similar to Ryu and Ken as Decapre is to Cammy (if not more so.) He has gone on to be an overall well regarded part of the franchise. The potential for this to all work out positively for the core Street Fighter fanbase would have been there even without all of the hype and build-up however. It almost gives off a "why bother" feeling.
At the very least, it does appear that the team working on Ultra Street Fighter IV genuinely cares about making the game something wortwhile. I'm sure they've done their best to make Decapre a worthy addition to the cast, and I will remain hopeful that the game turns out to be well received upon its release this summer.
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