With Ryu’s training under Dhalsim complete, Ryu and Ken
head to Barcelona along with Chun Li and her father, Chief Dorai. Here, they meet the handsome Matador,
Vega. But this ladies man of effortless
charm is more than he seems and he has his eyes set on the beautiful Chun
Li. A deadly game begins as Ken suspects
Vega of sinister motives and finds himself locked in a steel cage match fight
to the death. Even if Ken can survive
and rescue Chun Li from Vega’s clutches, someone far worse is waiting for him,
a man whos operations have been hampered from constant interference from Ryu
and Ken. At last, Ken and Chun Li come
face to face with the man behind Ashura and Shadowlaw itself: M. Bison.
Before I get started with this weeks review, a little
history lesson. Back in the mid 2000’s,
just before Abridging got started, there was a parody group known as My Way
Entertainment. This small group of
friends did their own voice overs for several Anime and 90’s cartoon series
like Spider Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and even Power Rangers. While they’re best known for the infamous
“The Juggernaut Bitch” video, the reason I bring My Way up is because one of
their first (and best) vids was a parody of the beginning of this weeks Vega
Arc. In it, the Spanish death dealer
maintains much of his deadly charms but is also said to be the son of one of
histories greatest musicians, Prince. So
whenever he walks around, My Way has Vega singing various Prince tunes and even
some of the legends famous song cries, always reminding everyone he’s the “Son
of Prince”. If you can track down the
video on YouTube, Kill Vega Vol.1, I highly recommend it and it’s sequel which
parodies the Street Fighter II Animated Movie.
With all that said, let’s move on to the review featuring Ryu, Ken and
Chun Li’s deadly encounter with the Son of Prince…ok that’s the only reference
im gonna make for the rest of the review…maybe, no promises.
This weeks episodes of Street Fighter II V were kind of a
mixed bag. We more or less closed out
the “Grand Tour” first half of the series and got things prepped for a darker
and more intense second half with the full on arrival of M. Bison and his Shadowlaw
organization. And while Bison and his
minions really shined, our heroes weren’t as well serviced. Sure Ken got into a pretty bloody battle with
Vega (and punched a bull so hard he chopped off its horn). But Chun Li spent most of this set of
episodes in a drug induced trance and Ryu…well Ryu stood on a beach and
practiced his Hadouken for three episodes straight. Like I said, mixed results for the halfway
mark of the series.
Vega’s arrival signaled a very different kind of intro
for any of the Street Fighter characters introduced so far. Unlike Guile, Fei Long and Sagat, Vega was a
straight up villain from the moment he gave Ken and Ryu the stink eye after he
put the moves on Chun Li. The man had
charm to spare (I expect nothing less from the Son of Prince ALRIGHT IM
DONE!!!), and its easy to see why women fell for him easily, even Chun Li
before he gave her a Bulls ear as a token of his affection (ewww). But Vega quickly descended into darker
territory planting a drugged kiss on Chun Li before becoming increasingly
psychotic during his duel with Ken.
Plus, lots of shivers down my spine watching Vega cut himself to lick
his own blood. We were looking at a very
different Vega by the time it came to wrap up the cage match. The Prince like gentlemen and hero of the
people was replaced with a lunatic with crazy to spare in his eyes. All in all, Vega’s arc might’ve been maybe an
episode too long but he’s still one of the better served villains so far.
And then there’s Bison.
I know I complained about Ryu and Chun Li basically staying in one place
doing next to nothing this set. But
while Bison did mostly the same, he had way more entertainment value going nuts
over the cage match and letting some of his Psycho powers come out with his
excitement. Bison is just pure insanity
and a lot of fun to watch. He’s powerful
and he knows it and he revels in it. It
kind of boggles the mind to wonder why he needs minions to do his work when few
could probably stand against him (poor Chun Li’s on her way to figuring that
out by the end of this set). That said,
it was cool to see new players enter the SFIIV storyline who will probably be
around for the rest of the series. I’m
not too familiar with Balrog from the games but I do know a little bit about
Cammy. Sure she may not be sporting her
traditional Street Fighter look. But the
ex MI6 assassin still has her drop dead gorgeous looks and confidence (enough
to rival Chun Li) and I cant wait to see if we get a legit match up between
Cammy and Chun Li’s father, Dorai, next week.
Shadowlaw came out of the shadows (pun intended) and made their presence
felt, the game has certainly changed now.
I have to say, the Ken vs. Vega showdown was a little
underwhelming. Yeah, Ken was in bad
shape althrougout and the battle was the bloodiest on the show to date. However, having seen Street Fighter II: The
Animated Movie, I can say that this bout came nowhere close to even matching
Chun Li and Vega’s tussle in that flick.
That showdown was way more cinematic, surprisingly more brutal…and it
gave us a chance to see Chun Li unleased (something SFIIV has yet to really
do). In this TV arc, Ken held his own
admirably but the best part of his fight was the end when he pulled off the
Shoryuken. We’ve seen some good fights
so far in Street Fighter II V from Ken vs. Fei Long to Ryu vs. Sagat. I don’t think Ken vs. Vega is quite near the
goodness those bouts offered, probably because they were tighter, shorter and
more focused. It didn’t help that we got
sent to the land of reused footage as we kept cutting from the battle to see a
dazed Chun Li replay her late night Vega kiss in her mind or watch Ryu try to
pull off the Hadoken hand motions again.
However, my gripes aside, the ending of this set of
episodes got me excited. Bison vs. Chun
Li promises to finally give Chun Li some time to shine in battle (though for
how long against Bison is anyones guess).
And the moving of several Shadowlaw pieces into place promises things
are going to get pretty dirty and pretty awesome pretty fast. Like I said, the Grand Tour is over. Now it’s time for Shadowlaw to take over the
narrative. See ya next week as we see
Shadowlaw unleashed and pray that Ken, Ryu and Chun Li can survive its
onslaught.
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