Capcom Cup 11 came and went, but despite many people expecting a teaser trailer for Elena, we didn’t receive any news about the final DLC character for Season 2 of Street Fighter 6, who’s scheduled to be released in the spring time.
Elena is one of the most infamous and hated characters in the entire franchise, and a lot of the reason for this revolves around her Healing move, which has been a difficult thing for the developers to work around for over a decade.
Back during the location tests for Ultra Street Fighter 4, held in Japan in late 2013, competitors left feedback on the game and how it was shaping up. This particular line stands out: “A lot of people were also worried regarding Elena’s Healing ability.”
“We’re still in the evaluation stage, but we’re definitely taking these strong opinions to heart, and not just thinking about balance, but also the fundamental abilities of each character during our development process,” wrote Capcom’s development team at that time.
Elena would later go on to become a character countless numbers of professional Ultra Street Fighter 4 players would use, and her ability to heal her damage became a heavy point of contention among viewers and players during the rest of that game’s major competitive lifespan, for its dominance in matches.
Ultra Street Fighter 4’s producer, Tomoaki Ayano, would go on to describe Elena as a tricky character with a lot of unique attacks that changed heavily between test versions.
“Elena’s normal attacks are all so unique that we’re trying put time into fine-tuning her accordingly. She was a character we changed pretty drastically between the location test versions, so we’ve gotten a lot of feedback for her specifically. Our current aim is to make her the same kind of tricky character she was in Street Fighter 3 and Street Fighter X Tekken,” Ayano said.
The fact that this character’s Healing ability can be a major nuisance isn’t lost on the developers of Street Fighter 6, as they specifically mentioned that they’re very conscious of this attack, and fans shouldn’t worry about it.
“During Ultra Street Fighter 4, I saw a tournament which had Rose, Yun and Elena and the matches became extremely long,” said Street Fighter 6’s director, Takayuki Nakayama. “We’re very aware of this in our development, so please don’t worry about Healing,” he concluded.
It’s worth pointing out that despite Elena possessing the ability to heal in Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, she’s generally regarded as mid-tier in that game, and fairly rare to see in high end tournament matches.
So while Healing has the ability to be extremely dominant — it’s not always the case.
Previously, the developers of Street Fighter said they needed to put time into Elena to fine-tune her, and given Capcom’s awareness of how strong this move can be, it’s possible it’s causing some headaches for the current development staff as well, which could be why we didn’t see a teaser trailer for her during Capcom Cup 11.
However, given that every character has access to Drive Rush — the roster’s horizontal movement isn’t as limited as it was during the Street Fighter 4 era.
Regardless, there’s plenty of cause for concern when it comes to Elena. We have a lot of history to look back upon, and it’s not unusual for DLC characters to be released in states where they’re extremely strong.
Couple Elena’s unique ability to heal her life bar in Street Fighter, with her standard very strong leg-based attacks to frustrate the opposition, and you have a potentially high impact scenario unfolding.
While there’s been no direct word from Capcom, it’s possible that the combination of these things may mean the developers need more time to fine tune and balance Elena before she’s released in the spring time of this year for Street Fighter 6.
Source: Event Hubs
