The prospect of bringing Elena back was a scary one for players who spent a lot of time in Ultra Street Fighter 4, but that’s a reality we’ll all soon be living in — though the developers appear to be keenly aware of fan concerns.
Following the reveal of Season 2 DLC also including M. Bison Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui, Street Fighter 6 Director Takayuki Nakayama and Producer Shuhei Matsumoto recently had an interview with Japanese publication Famitsu where they talk about the first Street Fighter 3 character coming back to the roster and her infamous healing powers.
Thanks to the talents of our own Nicholas ‘MajinTenshinhan’ Taylor, we now have a full translation of their discussion to provide more insights on the team’s thought process for the upcoming DLC.
Famitsu: You’re also adding Elena from the Street Fighter 3 series. Was there any particular reason for bringing her back?
Nakayama: First of all, we didn’t have a capoeira user at the moment and we also wanted to have someone who was from Africa, which were two big reasons for including her.
We were thinking about making a brand new African character, but we felt like if we did that’d leave no room for Elena later so we chose to bring her back instead.
Famitsu: You’re working hard to not have overlapping nationalities and fighting styles, then?
Nakayama: That’s right. We’re always trying to bring in nationalities or martial arts that aren’t represented yet. In Street Fighter 6, we added Snake Kung-Fu on our poison user A.K.I. and Drunken Fist with Jamie when we made new characters.
Although the interviewer brings it up, the Director himself doesn’t specifically mention her being a SF3 representative as part of the reasoning to bring her back.
This is quite interesting since SF6 is the first entry to fully take place after Third Strike, but it seems we won’t be getting caught up with basically any of the New Generation era cast until almost two years after the game came out.
Famitsu: As usual, she’ll be mostly fighting with her legs?
Nakayama: Yeah. We’re right in the middle of developing her right now, but please look forward to further news down the line.
And then there’s of course what all USF4 players were wondering about.
Famitsu: I’m quite curious about Healing… ?
Nakayama: During Ultra Street Fighter 4, I saw a tournament which had Rose, Yun and Elena and the matches became extremely long.
We’re very aware of this in our development, so please don’t worry about Healing.
Everyone: Hahaha.
Nakayama: For some inside info, the idea of “how about she heals her opponent instead?” was raised, but obviously this was rejected, haha.
This does certainly make it sound like Elena does have Healing again in SF6 though they don’t plan on it being quite as strong.
Back when she was re-introduced in Ultra Street Fighter 4, Elena became something of a menace at most skill levels because of her Ultra 2.
She could easily and consistently knock the opponent down and send them flying basically full screen with moves like Spin Scythe and Scratch Wheel to give her an opening for Healing on their recovery.
Most characters didn’t have a consistent punish to this tactic, so she’d often get it off for basically free and force the opponent to do enough damage to basically KO Elena 1.5 times to get a win — and then she could just do it again the next round (or sometimes twice in one round if she recovered enough).
It also certainly helped that it only took her Revenge Meter, so she was still free to use her EX moves and Super without a tradeoff.
As the Director mentioned, this could slow down and draw out matches longer than basically any time in SF4’s history, which of course drew some ire from the playerbase.
If we had to take a guess, Healing will most likely be Elena’s level 2 Super Art in SF6 judging by how the developers tend to set up the characters in this game. And maybe it’ll refill her Drive Gauge instead or at least give her the option to.
On top of that being a fairly expensive cost, SF6’s mechanics like Drive Rush and almost no hard knockdowns presumably would make healing much riskier than SF4.
Elena already had Healing in SF3 too and wasn’t really good there, so it was largely how Ultra SF4 was set up that led to her being more of a menace.
Famitsu: In the trailer, she really gives off a kind of a big sister vibe, so are we to take that as her growing up from her previous appearance?
Nakayama: Of course, time has passed for her just like the rest of the characters, so she has grown. She pets a hippopotamus in one scene, and that’s also going to be related to her story.
Previously, the Director talked about how players would probably be surprised and say things like “what are you doing?” in regards to SF6 Season 2, and he certainly seems to be right by bringing Elena back plus the series’ first guest characters.
Players will likely be waiting many more months until we actually learn more about Elena in detail and see her in action considering she’s the last character scheduled to release in Year 2 all the way in Spring 2025.