Mai’s gameplay trailer may have dropped a hint
Mai’s Street Fighter 6 gameplay trailer was very telling in that it revealed a lot of what the upcoming DLC character can do in battle and answered some questions many of us had about her gameplay. While we learned more about her various special moves, her supers, and saw her unique Flame Stocks mechanic in action, there were also a handful of subtle things that may not have been readily noticed by everyone.
You probably spotted her Fatal Fury-esque lane change during one of her target combos, but did you also notice anything different with her pre-fight intro against Chun-Li? While it is currently just speculation, Capcom may have dropped a hint at special fight intros between characters coming back in Street Fighter 6 during the Mai trailer.
About 20 seconds into the official Mai showcase for Street Fighter 6, we see Mai’s pre-fight intro play out, then Chun-Li’s. They got me in the first half because nothing looks unusual or out of the ordinary up until this point, but what follows is certainly not how things usually work in-game.
The announcer calls out “Round 1,” and before the inevitable “FIGHT!” happens, we see Chun-Li and Mai engage in a Drive Impact clash that sends them both flying back across the screen in opposite directions. The announce calls “FIGHT!” when the two Drive Impacts clash, which is a point of interest for several reasons.
For one, if you’re familiar with how Street Fighter 6 matches (and many other fighting game matches) begin then you know that the characters cannot move until after the announcer says fight. But here, with Mai and Chun-Li specifically, we see them clearly engaged in a clash much earlier than they should be able to.
And speaking of Mai and Chun-Li in particular, these two characters have a history and Capcom has made special fight intros for them in the past as well. Looking back to something like Capcom vs. SNK 2, fighters who are connected in some way (either through similarities in how they fight, lore, or both being the most popular female character their franchises have) received unique interactions if they came up against one another in a match— and this was indeed the case for Chun and Mai in CvS2.
Capcom has not been subtle about adding references to past games and Easter eggs into Street Fighter 6, not only with characters like Akuma and M. Bison, but also for the franchise’s first outside guest character and fellow SNK alum, Terry Bogard. It could be interesting to see special intros come back with the Mai update, and Mai and Chun-Li would be a great start on that front.
However, on the other side of the coin there are also some arguments that could potentially debunk the potential for special intros in Street Fighter 6. The first of which is the obvious — strong editing skills.
This particular scene from the trailer could just be some slick video editing, or it could just be something Capcom put together on the programming side of things to make the trailer a bit more cinematic.
In addition to this, Mai and Chun-Li are seen flying very far back as a result of the Drive Impact clash, and this does happen normally when two Drive Impacts hit each other on the same frame with any characters involved. It would be odd to see them move so far back on the screen at the start of a fight considering the round start position is not only always consistent, but also very important.
Mai Shiranui is set to join Street Fighter 6 as a Season 2 DLC character on February 5. It will be at that point that we likely learn whether not this was actually a special pre-fight intro in action or simply some quality video editing.
You can see Chun-Li and Mai’s pre-fight clash by clicking the video below.
Source: Event Hubs
