If you have not already listened to the podcast of this category, this is the final results, so this will spoil the course of the discussion on that podcast! Be warned!
When it’s time to play games as a group, it’s pretty much always fighting games for Kyrie and I. And then for most of the rest of our friends too by our sheer FORCE OF WILL (going “hey but what if we played Street Fighter instead”). Jen even likes the genre too, but is still mostly along for the ride with how rabid we can be for it. As such, the debate on this category ends up being pretty fierce. Still, I’m really happy with the conclusions we came to this year, and with the contributions everyone brought to the discussion.
The Winner
Jamie (Street Fighter 6)
Don’t underestimate the psychological impact of tier lists, folks: they almost made us make the wrong choice here. All of us left the Street Fighter 6 beta thinking Jamie was the coolest new design in the game. But while it’s not about winning or losing, feeling like your character can’t win really turns you on them. That feeling cut Jamie from the list, and we proceeded without him.
Fortunately, Jen kept history from making fools of us, and we brought him back from the brink. The “drunken master” isn’t necessarily a bad martial arts archetype, but the uses of it in the fighting game genre have been so uncreative. Another creepy old man? You shouldn’t have! No, I’m not being polite, you sincerely should not have. Comparatively, Jamie is a fun dynamic character who’s got style for days, and whose movelist is deep and complicated, but rewarding and fun.
Well, except for the fact that you literally don’t get rewarded because you’re low tier. But fingers crossed that changes.
The Runners-Up
Brawler (DNF Duel)
This guy’s such a moron. He’s such a meathead. I bet his eye’s fine and that eyepatch is just there because he thinks it looks cool. When it comes to style? This man fails. Brawler is on this list PURELY because of how fun he is to play. Throwing that chain around, barrel oki, kicking landmines at your enemy- it’s an audacious and wild moveset that feels great in your hands, and is (literally and figuratively) explosive in play.
I can’t deny any criticism of the guy. This idiot? This no-swag doofus? I know! I know. But mannnn he’s so fun to play.
Ryu (Street Fighter 6)
The boy! Ryu From Streets has had a ton of incarnations, we all know. Donkey kick, metsu shoryuken, spotlight hadouken beam, even invisible hadouken (shoutouts to anyone who remembers that one). But he pretty much always feels like Ryu… for better or for worse. He’s that game’s version of Ryu, literally and thematically.
Street Fighter 6 says… nah. And for the first time, Ryu is not the Ryu of Street Fighter. His new kit is a more sophisticated, thoughtful design. Luke can hold down the straightforward shoto. Ryu, on the other hand, is now like Gouken… but fun. He’s Akuma… but chill. Everything shoto, in a more interesting package. Fantastic.
That’s it for this week of the Gimmick Awards! We have four categories left: two next week, and two the week after that. And then there’s the Scanline Media anniversary, and that’s gonna be a big deal too.* So look forward to the rest of the awards!
*we aren’t doing like ANYTHING for the anniversary, we’re gonna be exhausted from the Gimmicks.
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