Don't worry... He got better.

People have been excited over the appearance of Ken and Ryu’s master, Gouken, in Street Fighter IV. Especially since he’ll be a playable character for the first time when the game comes to home consoles later this month. I think it’s cool and interesting, but as always, I’m not so quick to fall into the hype.

I do appreciate that they made him into a much different character than just another “shotoclone“. Much in the sense that Sakura’s character imitates Ryu, but has her own unique style. All that said, I can’t see him adding to the game much more than just a novelty.

Outside of the official Street Fighter canon, Gouken has always had a presence in the manga, anime, and other game-inspired media. The reason why his character generates fascination from fans is that he fills a paternal role for Ken and Ryu’s characters, even though he’s neither of their biological parent.

As Star Wars can serve no better example, the stories that seem to capture the most attention involve a parent/child element, predominantly one of a father and son. Sometimes the villain will turn out to be the hero’s father. Or in some on-going series, we’ll eventually see the hero have a child of his own that we can watch follow in his footsteps. And of course there’s always the typical plot of the hero avenging his father’s death, dealt by the villain.

I think that as a culture–or rather, a species–we’re unconsciously obsessed with genealogy. Breeding and the maintaining of bloodlines are rooted deep inside our reptilian brains. We always want to see just how far the apple falls from the tree.

I, on the other hand, prefer to look at Gouken’s presence from another point of view. Namely the rivalry that he shares with Akuma. To me, that relationship is much more intriguing because it somewhat parallels the rivalry between Ken and Ryu. While Ken and Ryu share a friendly rivalry, the bond between Gouken and Akuma is older, deeper, and much darker by comparison. It’s almost like looking at Ken and Ryu 30 years later after things between them had gone very, very wrong. Perhaps it’s something we could expect from “Street Fighter IX”?

Have no doubt that I’ll try exploring this topic deeper in the future.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 11:00 am 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.