[Minister of Silly Walks]

Prepare yourselves for:

THE TOP 5 WORST STREET FIGHTER CHARACTERS

On this vacation, I packed a couple games. Wario Ware Touched, Mario Kart DS, Golden Sun, New Super Mario Bros, and Street Fighter Alpha 3. I have 3 stars in everything in MKDS, I have Wario Ware Touched down to the highest high scores I can possibly achieve. I beat New Super Mario Bros. with 3 stars really early in the trip, then beat Golden Sun halfway through the trip and forgot the sequel at home.

So, that leaves me with Street Fighter Alpha 3, a game that I've rarely played, and therefore have stuff to unlock. I set out in playing it.

I realize how much I love Street Fighter, and I also realize how terrible some of the Street Fighter characters are. I narrowed the list down to 5, and some honorable mentions.

These are based on the character's
A. Story
B. Playability
C. Coolness, or lack thereof (Less important than the former 2)

Here we go.

Disclaimer: I've never played Street Fighter 3. This list is of the characters in the Alpha Series, and the regular series up to 2.


5. Rainbow Mika
"Hey guys, we need another girl in the game. We have Zangief...he's like a wrestler in the USSR. Let's have an American Pro Wrestler to counter that, and we'll make her look pretty stupid."
"She'll have insanely large breasts, right?"
"This is a video game. Of course she will."

Thus was the board room meeting behind the creation of R. Mika. The reason she landed at 5 was because of the fact that they realize what a bad idea she was and they really ham it up with her, and she's actually playable. I'm still not a fan of the butt charge, though (which comes in 2 different forms!).

[Honorable mention for No. 5--Dee Jay. Very lame story, but I really enjoy playing as Dee Jay, he's got some fun moves, like his shaky uppercut deal.]

4. Dan Hibiki
Now, I know that if PenguinMan were still here, he'd disagree with me...But Dan Hibiki is on this list mostly for the same reasons that R. Mika was--He's a joke. Having a good joke every now and then is a good thing, but if that joke has a projectile of one inch distance, his strongest move being easily dodged by ducking, and is an all-around bad copy of Ryu, it's not a good joke. Plus he wears pink. I don't have a problem with pink, but what self-respecting martial artist has a pink uniform?

I realize Dan was supposed to get killed by Sagat or whatever. That would have been just fine with me, actually.

3. Thunder Hawk
Though I do like T. Hawk's story (2 of the puppet dolls for Shadaloo were captured from his tribe, so he sets out to destroy M. Bison and the rest of Shadaloo), that's really his only redeeming quality. Full-circle moves are tough to pull off on a control pad, so that takes out his strong moves. The diving thing is really not useful--When you're going up for Anti-Air, it's at a pretty awkward angle, and is pretty easily recovered from, and if you're going down from the air, the charge-up time for it is too long, so the computer or your opponent can easily block or roll out of the way or something. So, let's see...that's his whole moveset. In other words, not very good. Impossible to fight well with.

And to make matters worse, the computer will whip you whenever you play against T. Hawk. How do they do it? I dunno, they're the computer, they can do anything.

2. Edmond Honda
The reasons for this go without saying, but I will anyway. Unless your really into Sumo Wrestling, E. Honda's rather lame. I mean, come on, his best move involves hitting you with his oversized hindquarters [Sidenote: I edited this to fit the demographic of the current VGFer, which is under 8 years old. Or at least their maturity level being under that of a pre-8-year old.]. "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's E. Honda's Enormous butt coming down to crush you!" Death by obesity...Someone else's obesity, no less, is not a pleasant thing. Nor honorable.

And didn't Capcom make enough characters with "Tap the button repeatedly" moves? A five year old could be a formidle opponent with E. Honda by tapping the B button over and over again. I think Chun Li's kick thing, Blanka's Electricity thing, and Gen's pokey thing were enough, but no, Capcom had to give E Honda the "HUNDRED HAND SLAP! SUMO! RRAAAAAARRRR"

1. Birdie
Those of you reading this probably thought "Why isn't Birdie on this list yet?" Well, I think this is a very fitting place for him at #1.

A street thug trying to make a name for himself by joining an agency that is out for the destruction of earth. Yeah, fun stuff. Much like the board room meeting for R. Mika, the meeting was titled "We need another minority--let's think of one." What happened is that they ended up taking a white guy from SF1 and making him black. Real subtle, Capcom.

That's too bad, they could have had a way cooler minority. A secret service agent on the Shadaloo case would have been fun. Fighting in a suit would be enjoyable. But no, we had to have Hole-in-the-mowhawk, Chain-licking, used-to-be-white-guy, "Oh! I was pale before because I was sick!" Birdie.

Moveset:

Another guy with a full-circle move. Zangief had enough full-circle moves for the whole game, why make yet another person with that in his moveset?
A totally predictable flying-across-the-stage move. At least E. Honda's and Blanka's are somewhat surprising--Birdie makes a little twirl saying "Hey! Block this!"
And once again, that's his whole moveset. Plus, he's not cool. Anybody who licks the chains they have on their hands is not that cool in my book. Birdie gets the "FAIL" award. Well done, Birdie.

Fin.