Just a mere month after Akuma dropped, Street Fighter 6 officially kicked off its Season 2 with the release of M. Bison. The iconic Street Fighter 2 villain makes his grand return, though with a little bit of amnesia (not the JP kind), and acts as the fifth DLC character for the game following Rashid, A.K.I., Ed, and Akuma in Season 1.
I’ve spent some time playing as M. Bison in Street Fighter 6 Season 2, both in the lab and in actual bouts, to see what this character is all about. Today we’ll be discussing what you can expect if you purchase M. Bison, and if he’s worth the money.
Presentation:
M. Bison comes equipped with most of the fixings you’d expect from a fully fleshed out Street Fighter 6 DLC character that was developed with love, care, and attention to detail. The former dictator made a giant splash when he was first revealed, literally making his entrance majestically riding a horse without even holding the reigns, but instead striking his trademark arms crossed pose for maximum bad-assery.
That said, there are some design ideas that I don’t feel really hit their marks here with the iconic fighter. For starters, Bison’s story in Street Fighter 6 is that of him being resurrected with the same body he had in Street Fighter 5, but he now has a bad case of amnesia, so he’s trying to figure out what exactly is going on and find his purpose once again.
This plays into his default design, naturally, which now sees a long-haired, disheveled M. Bison wearing a tattered cloak, as well as updated versions of his classic red pants, shin guards, and boots. Fans were quick to point out that Bison’s new look very closely resembles Sagat’s default design in Street Fighter 5, who also wears a tattered cloak over a shirtless torso and even has similar hand wraps.
Bison’s new look isn’t bad, but it doesn’t feel quite as inspired as it probably could have been. The same goes for Bison’s story, which… feels like it takes the easiest and simplest possible route to return Bison back to essentially what he’s always been.
That being said, his Outfit 2 brings his classic Street Fighter 2 look back into the fold and it looks incredible here on modern hardware. The default red color absolutely pops on screen, and Capcom made some design choices to return Bison to more of the slender, fast-moving menace he was in the early days instead of the slow as molasses version of him we saw in Street Fighter 5 or the hyper bulky Street Fighter Alpha iteration — and it was a great call.
Animations and effects look fantastic as well, with him not only having Psycho Power-imbued attacks, but different animations for the same moves when his Psycho Mine is in play. From explosions that splatter Psycho Power everywhere to remade classics like his Psycho Crusher, Bison looks as great in motion as his fellow DLC characters do.
Left: M. Bison in SF6 / Right: Sagat in SF5
Gameplay:
Bison’s toolkit in Street Fighter 6 is where this character absolutely shines. From new versions of classic moves to a reimagined version of a previous concept, this character has some real sauce here in Season 2.
Right out of the gate, you’ll likely notice that M. Bison does incredible damage. The catch here is that it is tied to his Psycho Mine mechanic, which now instead of being a V-Skill is manifested via a new special move called Backfist Combo.
When Bison lands this attack raw or in a combo, it plants a Psycho Powered bomb inside the opponent that explodes after a set amount of time or when certain special moves connect with it. The explosion itself pops the opponent high up into the air allowing for follow up juggle combos, and several of Bison’s special moves gain added properties and get stronger when he activates the mine using them.
As a result, a lot of Bison’s gameplan revolves around setting up the next move, which when done properly can be absolutely devastating. I first noticed just how insane Bison’s damage is by doing his combo trials and finding that the final one deals a whopping 7180 damage without even using Critical Art (the stronger level 3 super alternative that triggers when your health is low) and doesn’t use up his full Drive Meter. The max damage we’ve seen for Bison so far is 8050 with one combo, and it’s actually fairly practical to pull off.
Generally speaking, characters who eek out over 7,000 damage in one sitting do so by using all of their resources, a punish counter, and Critical Art. For comparison’s sake, though Akuma’s shorter burst damage is very strong, his max damage combos with all resources generally hit just shy of 7,000.
Even more wild is that even though Bison can pull off some intricate, harder-to-perform, stylish combos, his biggest damage stuff is actually really straightforward and simple to do. Juggles with Overdrive head stomp and forward heavy punch after a Psycho Mine-powered OD Psycho Crusher really aren’t very difficult to do, nor is a good portion of his more effective bread and butter stuff.
HOLD UP! Bison’s last trial does 7180 damage without CA and doesn’t even burn him out?! Good lord! #SF6_Bison pic.twitter.com/E0BgcP84Lt
— Steven “Dream King” Chavez (@TheKingOfDremes) June 26, 2024
Beyond his combo damage, Bison also has a wide array of what feel like exceptionally good tools. His trademark Scissor Kicks no longer requires a charge input, and like Chun-Li he can now perform one of his best and most oppressive moves with just a quarter-circle-forward motion. On top of this, Scissor Kicks are advantageous on hit for Bison, allowing him to keep his turn on offense, and though they are technically punishable, he can space out every regular version of this attack to make the proper punishes whiff and then get a punish of his own.
Bison has a lot of what makes a character top tier in Street Fighter 6. He has incredible damage, strong corner carry, tricky set ups, amazing offensive pressure, great normals, an overhead, a target combo that is safe on block and has an overhead/low mix up built into it, the ability to go through all projectiles (even supers) with Overdrive Psycho Crusher, side switch combos, and more. So what on earth does this character lack and what is his weakness?
Well, M. Bison suffers most on defense in Street Fighter 6. It might be his only weakness, and when you really look at it closely, it appears to be a serious one.
Being pressured in Street Fighter 6, especially in the corner, can be absolutely brutal depending on what character you’re playing. Some fighters aren’t equipped with an invincible reversal option on the special move front, which means they have to commit much harder with a super if they want to escape intense pressure.
That being said, sometimes their best options for escape aren’t great, and Bison falls into that category.
To put it plainly, M. Bison’s defense is close to on par with Lily’s in Street Fighter 6, though his light attack options are a bit better than hers in that department. As far as options go, he has wake up Drive Reversal and level 1 super, both of which can be baited with meaty normal attacks (especially by characters with faster lights like Chun-Li or Ken). This doesn’t mean that these options can never be used and aren’t effective in many situations, but it does mean that those who understand how to fight Bison will eventually be able to create pressure strings and situations that make it very, very tough for him to escape — which is the key to beating him.
Bison lives or dies by the pressure. He’s either going to pressure you to death or be pressured to death with little in between.
Dream King’s early tier take:
Despite the laundry list of strong traits and abilities Bison has that I just laid out, it seems some people are still on the fence as to whether or not the game’s latest DLC character is among the current top tiers. He definitely has a ton of the makings of a top tier contender, but his lack of defense is definitely the wrench that could end up holding him back and provide some balance to the brokenness we’ve seen so far.
I said similar things about Akuma and his lower health, and right now it does feel like Bison’s defense might end up being a bigger detriment to him than the Shoto’s lower stamina is to Akuma.
I feel that M. Bison does have what it takes to be a top tier character, especially in the right hands. However, what could prevent him from being the best in the game or even top 5 is how the counters to his offense and the exploiting of his defense evolves.
I could see a scenario unfolding where key players, such as Nemo and Problem X, take this character far in tournament while other top players eventually drop him in favor of a character with more solid defense.
With wake up Drive Reversal and his level 1 super (which has 10 frames of start up) being fairly bait-able, we will undoubtedly see pros employ several effective counter plays to keep Bison on his toes at high level.
Closing Thoughts / Is He Worth The Money?
Like Akuma before him, M. Bison is a very welcome legacy addition to Street Fighter 6 here in Season 2. The character is another excellent version of one of the most iconic villains in the franchise’s history, bringing with him all of the love and attention to detail you’d want to see in a returning world warrior.
Bison is a character with a ton of strengths and effective tools for combat, and it doesn’t take a lot to access them and start doing damage in real matches. That said, his overall defense is suspect, and eventually we’ll very likely see players gain a solid grasp on how to properly fight him which should ultimately reduce how overly strong he feels at this very moment in time.
If you’re a Street Fighter fan from back in the day or just a fan of strong, fun characters to play, M. Bison is an easy pick up here. Also like Akuma, you might even want to buy Bison just to better learn how to fight him as we will undoubtedly be seeing quite a bit of him for the next month or so and beyond.
M. Bison in Street Fighter 6 Season 2 is definitely worth the money.