After testing the waters at this year’s San Diego Comic Con, Street Fighter IV producers are surprised to discover that among the new fighters added to the cast of characters, the fan favorite appears to be Abel. According to producer Yoshinori Ono, the character that they’d anticipated to make a big splash with the American audience is Crimson Viper, the female of the five new characters. In fact, the designers worked closely with Capcom Of America in performing market research to guide her design to specifically appeal to American gamers. Ono intends to take what he witnessed last week back with him to apply to further production of the title.

I gotta say that I’m rather puzzled by this myself. By character design alone, I too was favoring C. Viper, the sexy new hotness wrapped in sharp formal wear. Meanwhile, Abel is a bulky, amnesiac soccer player (maybe?) who is also French. My guess is that while Abel’s design is a clumsy mishmash of lame, in game he’s a titan. I remember seeing many a frown turned upside-down for Abel once gameplay demonstration footage surfaced of him. I’ve always found an appreciation for the short-range, wrestling characters like Zangief and it looks like Abel will be a welcome compliment to the Red Cyclone, should El Fuerte disappoint.

Meanwhile, I’ll not rest easy until I catch a glimpse at the SFIV-incarnated Cammy in action!

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 6:44 pm and is filed under Games, Street Fighter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.