Usually when we talk about character strength it’s in relation to competitive tier lists, but this week Catalyst, MajinTenshinhan, and myself decided to dig into the canonical lore of Street Fighter and discuss (debate) which fighters from over the years are technically the most powerful within the world Capcom has created.
There are a ton of potential potholes to step in here as the franchise story has been told over the course of 35 years by different people and out of chronological order, and is beholden to the not-so-conducive-for-storytelling fighting game format that tends to be filled with a ton of non-canonical “what if?” scenarios. Needless to say, we don’t exactly see eye to eye on some of our picks.
As long time fans of Street Fighter lore, Catalyst and Majin both came up with their respective top 10 lists. We go back and forth as they offer their picks and proceed to discuss why each powerful character lands where they do, citing major fights and accomplishments from Street Fighter history.
We should also start things off by noting that neither Ingrid nor Oni were considered as neither is official canon. For what it’s worth, however, these two would all but certainly take the number one and two spots if they were deemed valid choices.
One of the easiest calls for these lists was Oro, the old hermit who first appeared back in Street Fighter 3 and also made it to the Street Fighter 5 roster.
Oro is designed or written to fulfill a particular wise, old master role. This is highlighted by the fact that he literally binds one arm when he fights because he’s both worried he won’t experience much of a challenge and that he might kill his opponent if he uses both hands.
This surely causes him to stand out from most of the rest of the pack, but how does he compare to the likes of the supernatural Gill who has the power to resurrect himself from death, or the apocalypse-causing G whom we know so little about?
Give the full video below a watch (or a listen) and feel free to share your thoughts, opinions, and reactions in the comments section. If you enjoy the discussion we’d greatly appreciate it if you’d subscribe to our YouTube Channel to help us continue to create more content like this.
Timestamps are included below so you can jump around to parts of the conversation concerning specific characters.
Timestamps
00:00 – Intro
01:18 – Oro
05:50 – Gill
11:00 – Ryu
17:04 – Akuma
20:45 – M. Bison
27:09 – G
32:08 – Cody
40:45 – Ken
49:27 – Rose
54:05 – Dhalsim
57:54 – Alex
01:03:57 – Sagat
01:07:34 – Gen
01:08:40 – Guy