Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Street Fighter Martial Arts Styles

One of the joys of Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game is selecting your character's martial arts style, but after playing the game for a while, the list of styles offered in the core rules starts to feel a little slim. This is made worse if you're much of a street fighter canon fan by the fact that the RPG gets so much wrong about the characters and their martial arts. A lot more information is more readily available about the game characters now than it used to be, and the game itself has been expanded quite a lot since the early to mid-nineties, when the RPG was published.

Over the years of playing the RPG, we've added a lot of martial arts styles to fill these gaps. Now I'm thinking about embarking on a redevelopment of our styles, and I thought I'd share the process on this blog.

My first stop will be the street fighter video game series, which will give me a core list of martial arts styles to include. Later I'll fill out the list with major styles that are missing, or just with cool styles I'd like to see available in the game.

Below, I've listed all the characters from the street fighter series of games, along with my notes about their martial arts styles. These notes probably don't line up perfectly with any particular list out there, but they're pretty close. There's a certain amount of room for interpretation in the canon, and these are my current thoughts. I've gleaned this list from strategy guides and artbooks (both U.S. and Japanese), manga, the Street Fighter canon plot guide, and Udon's recent offerings, like the very cool Street Fighter World Warrior Encyclopedia.

I'll talk more about my thinking process on some of these in the comments or in a future post.

Abel: Martial Arts, Judo
Adon: Muay Thai
Alex: Pro Wrestling, Special Forces Training
Balrog (Claw): Ninjutsu, Bullfighting
Birdie: Street Fighting
Blanka: Self-Taught Amazon Jungle Fighting
C. Viper: Secret Agent Training, Gadgeteer
Cammy: Shadoloo Assassin Training, Delta Red Special Forces Training
Chun Li: Kung Fu (aka 中国拳法), Taiqi, Police Training, Acrobat
Cody: Street Fighting
Dan: Saikyo-ryu, claims to teach Judo, Karate, Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do
Dee Jay: Kickboxing, Sonic
Dhalsim: Yoga
Dudley: Boxing
E. Honda: Sumo
Eagle: Stick Fighting
El Fuerte: Lucha Libre
Elena: Capoeira
Fei Long: Soaring Heavens Kung Fu (Fei Tin Kuen 飛天拳)
Geki: Ninjutsu
Gen: Crane Kung Fu, Mantis Kung Fu, Ànshāquán (暗殺拳)
Gill: Illuminati Martial Arts
Gouken: Karate, Ansatsuken (暗殺拳)
Gouki: Karate, Ansatsuken (暗殺拳)
Guile: Martial Arts, Special Forces Training, Sonic
Guy: Bushin-ryu Ninjutsu, Street Fighting
Hakan: Turkish Oil Wrestling (Yagh Gures)
Hugo: Pro Wrestling
Ibuki: Ninjutsu
Ingrid: The spiritual or psychic energy that is purportedly the true source of Psycho Power/Soul Power
Joe: Street Fighting
Juli: Shadoloo Assassin Training, Psycho Power
Juni: Shadoloo Assassin Training, Psycho Power
Juri: Tae Kwon Do, Feng Shui Engine Power
Karin: Kanzuki-ryu Kakutojutsu, Judo, Sambo, Eight Direction Fist (Bājíquán八極拳) all confirmed specifically, also purported to know all martial arts (as noted in Ganbaru Sakura)
Ken: Karate, Ansatsuken (暗殺拳)
Lee: Kung Fu
Maki: Bushin-ryu Ninjutsu
Makoto: Rindokan Karate
Mike: Boxing
Mike Bison (Boxer): Boxing
Nash (Charlie): Martial Arts, Special Forces Training, Sonic
Necro: Biocyber
Oro: Senjutsu
Q: ?
R. Mika: Pro Wrestling
Remy: Martial Arts, (possibly Savate)
Retsu: Shorinji Kempo
Rolento: Red Beret Special Forces Training
Rose: Soul Power
Rufus: Kung Fu, Snake Kung Fu, (Self Taught)
Ryu: Karate, Ansatsuken (暗殺拳), Judo, Tae Kwon Do
Sagat: Muay Thai
Sakura: Karate, Self-Taught, imitation of Ryu’s Ansatsuken (暗殺拳) techniques
Sean: Karate, imitation of Ken’s Ansatsuken (暗殺拳) techniques
Seth: Feng Shui Engine Power
Sodom: Self-Taught Japanese Martial Arts (Sumo, Kendo, Iaido, Kobudo, Judo, Karate, Ninjutsu, etc.)
T. Hawk: Folkstyle Wrestling (Thunderfoot Wrestling)
Twelve: Biocyber
Urien: Illuminati Martial Arts
Vega (Dictator): Psycho Power
Yang: Kung Fu
Yun: Kung Fu
Zangief: Pro Wrestling

A pdf copy of this list is available here.

4 comments:

Greg(ory) Senpai said...

awesome. love me some street fighter. I would love to turn this list into a bunch of different martial style feats for D&D 4e

Ansatsuken said...

I've thought about doing something similar. I actually think the way origins work in Gamma World would work out pretty nicely for street fighter style martial arts. Each origin has a couple core class features, a critical hit, and one novice, utility, and expert power. Between those, you could do a decent write-up of a street fighter style martial art. It's a fun idea to toy around with!

Anonymous said...

Just one thing, Yun and Yang's styles are based off of Bajiquan, not Kung Fu.

Anonymous said...

M. Bison's (Dictator) fighting style is lerdrit, which he combines with his psycho power.