Editor’s note: Breaking news! Make sure to read what Luke has to say about all the bosses in the Street Fighter series. Hilarious stuff. -Shoe
I’ve been dragon punching since you could say “Street Fighter” without being asked, “Which one?” — and I’ve collected some vital data:
Are you looking at me? I have a 50% chance of spotting that.
Sagat‘s balls are beyond question: Go Hibiki gouged his eye out in a fight, and his only response was, “Try that again!” Someone punches half your ability to see clean out of your face, and you give him another shot? Lesser men wouldn’t have the stones to do that, but Sagat kicked the dude’s ass next time around. To mere mortals, he’s un-punchable: Sagat is three meters tall and incoming fists can’t reach escape velocity as they pass the gravitational zone of his enormous testicles.
Street Fighter 2:
M Bison in his deadliest form.
Bison‘s balls, however, are beyond biology. He spent his entire criminal career pissing off the most lethal people in the world and then held a tournament saying, “Just try to kill me!” Avoiding one-on-one fights is exactly why most crime bosses have organizations — and why they keep them shadowy. And this guy’s not only giving the murderous revenge-fueled heroes a chance, he’s challenging the rest of the world while he’s at it.
Bison’s bastardry was something we only appreciated later: With his Psycho Crusher, scissor kick, and “I’ll stomp on your face then punch it” all running at mach 15, it was like being caught in a tornado and getting beaten up by an F16.
But that was fine! He was as overpowered as a lamp connected to a lightning bolt, but every time he hit you it was YOUR FAULT, because you were doing the wrong thing. (Just a pity he started firing off fabulous little pink hand flares in 4.)
Alas, after this point, Street Fighter boss balls were diminished. And by “diminished” I mean “surgically removed to make glorious flowing blonde hair possible.”
Street Fighter 3:
Gill was so fantastically cheap, gamers were suprised they still had to pay for the game. Hit-you-anywhere-on-the-screen moves? Health regeneration?
It’s like everything that made Street Fighter good had been written by the programmer’s wife, and she’d left him that morning. Instead of an epic struggle against evil to cap off a brilliant series of fights, you played the game all the way through then had to clear this catastrophically designed chore. It’s like climbing Mount Doom, only to find you have to scrub the floor before Sauron will let you throw the ring in.
But even this second-rate X-Man clone, tiny testicles hidden behind a tissue-paper thong, wasn’t the genital low point. Behold…
Street Fighter 4:
The only ball Seth has is the stupid cyber yin-yang he’s jammed in there instead of a gut. This action-man crotch molding may explain why he’s such a hateful merciless cheap-striking git, as well as having the worst plan and powers in any game yet:
1. His plan
Seth’s plan is to live forever, assimilate data from other fighters, and defeat everyone. That’s a retarded plan for someone who needs a base full of machinery and scientists to stay alive — I’ve seen old women on dialysis more immortal than him, because at least when their stuff breaks you don’t need five PhDs in Wierd Shitology to fix it.
2. His “limitless power”
The first time you KO Seth he declares, “Witness my limitless power!” and stands back up. This is a genuinely scary moment, because if they’ve really repeated the regenerating boss, you’re going to have to stop playing and go kill a Capcom employee. Which is hassle. Then you find out it’s just Round 2, which makes it less “limitless power” and more “something every single fighter can do.” Hell, Dhalsim can get back on his malformed feet after a quick power nap (or, as I’m sure he calls it, a “yoga yoga.”)
3. That goddamn move
I don’t need to tell you. The cheap one. The stupid one. The one that turns what’s meant to be the ultimate boss of the best fighting game ever into a combination vacuum cleaner/washing machine. One that pisses you off for five seconds then stands with hands on hips and Dragon Ball pees you into the camera.
It’s the stupidest looking anything since we last saw Necro and couldn’t take you out of the game harder if it was your Xbox being stolen. If Dhalsim tried something like that, it’d look stupid. Hell, if Dan tried that I’d bollock him for sacrificing his dignity.
The real problem with Gill and Seth isn’t their ridiculosity (and you couldn’t get stupider looking creatures if you spiked a furry convention with mutagenic ooze) — it’s how lazily they were put together. We’ve always known that the computer could beat us if it wanted — it’s the goddamn computer! It can react before it even draws what we’ve done on the screen!
A good boss is cunningly designed to provide an entertaining challenge. It is NOT throwing four characters’ moves into a mannequin and programming it to perfectly annihilate you, then turning the speeds down a tiny bit.
So there you have it: Street Fighter boss coolness is directly proportional to testicle diameter.