Even the simplest videogame characters required significant thought behind their designs. Mario’s famous mustache came about because it was the best way to show the divide between his nose and mouth in 8-bit graphics. Lara Croft being British seemed like an obvious way for Core Design to appeal to their home audience, yet she began life as an American man and then as a Hispanic woman before becoming theTomb Raidereveryone knows today.
Related:Character Designs That Drastically Changed
Then there are fighting games likeStreet Fighter. With multiple characters with varying different moves, it was bound to have a lot of prospective designs that fell by the wayside. Some lament their loss, while others are perhaps gladly forgotten, then more may have been reworked into later games. Let’s go throughthe characters that almost made it intoStreet Fighter.
10“The Baz”
Street Fighter 2’s original World Warriors are iconic, but even they went through rigorous redesigns. Blanka started offas a cavemanbefore becoming a green monster. Vega originally looked like a medieval knight, then like a ninja, before becoming a matador-ninja combination. Yet he wasn’t the only bullfighter planned for the roster. In fact, the name “Bull Fighter” was used for a character concept who’s since become famous on the indie game scene.
“Bull Fighter” looked more like an extra fromThe Road Warriorwith his spiky gloves, face paint, and a T-shirt that said “Zubaz” (despite them being pants). He became a popular running joke on the Super Best Friends YouTube channel as a guy who kept getting rejected from the big games. It caught on enough to make “The Baz” a key character inShovel Knight,Divekick,The TakeOver,and more, but not in any of theStreet Fightergames—yet.
9Mr. Par
Birdie is another character who’s gone through a lot of changes, which can be seen in their in-game appearances. He debuted in the firstStreet Fighteras a white, clean-shaven punk. Then he became black with an epic mustache in theAlphagames before becoming a reason to make unfunny fat jokes inStreet Fighter 5.
Inspired by Cecil, the young boy who hangs out with Huitzil in theDarkstalkersgames, Birdie was planned to have his own kid sidekick inStreet Fighter Alpha 3. He would’ve been called Mr. Par (because golf pun), dress similarly to Birdie, and help him out in fights. While he didn’t make it in, he may have inspiredSF5’s Ed’s origins as Balrog’s protégé.
8Velociraptor
Speaking ofDarkstalkers, it’s a little-known fact that most of the development team for theStreet Fighter 3games came from Capcom’s horror combat classic. Though it becomes more obvious when people see its character concept art. As odd asStreet Fighter’s characters can get (a fire-breathing Indian yogi with stretchy limbs), they never went as far as including literal dinosaurs.
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There’s no lore to the design. The “Violent New York cop” next to it gets described as an “American Ryu”, and the “Jujitsu Fighter” has a note saying he has a “beautiful wife”. But the dinosaur is just a straight-up velociraptor without any context. The cop would get reworked intoSF3protagonist Alex, while the “Pankration” muscle man likely became theinspiration for Gilland Urien. The dinosaur and the jujitsu fighter just vanished into the ether.
7"Poison Hand Man" and “Genie”
It’s hard to top a literal velociraptor, yet the designs don’t get any less strange. Next to the more generic likes of the “Ninja” and “Doctor” are a spiky skater called “Rollerblade” and a giant monster called “Martin” that resemblesDarkstalkers' Sasquatch.
The most interesting duo of the bunch are the “Genie” and “Poison Hand Man” As big and as stereotypical as the former looks, he does resembleSF5’s Azam, the bodyguard for Rashid. While the gimmick and outfit for the latter aren’t too far away from FANG,SF5’s own poison-using fighter.
6Marionette Master
The weirdness doesn’t stop there, as there were also sketches of a guy with wings and a Raiden-esque hat, a breakdancer who fights while standing on his head, an assassin who fights with illusions, and an ordinary Japanese salaryman. The biggest of the bunch was Marionette Master, a Huitzil-like robot that was bigger and broader with arms as long as its body.
The creativity on display can’t be denied, but fans at the time hated theSF3series just for replacing the old guard with “freaks” like Oro and Necro. If the team had found a place for Marionette Master and the others, there likely wouldn’t have been aSecond Impact, let alone aThird Strike.
5King Cobra
This one hurt some fans because there was such a big contrast between this design and how he ended up inStreet Fighter 4. Designed byDevil May Cry 3and5character designer Daigo Ikeno, King Cobra was a rival for Ken who’d use a mixture of kung fu and breakdancing. As lighthearted as that sounds, he’d be a serious character, given the kanji on his belt essentially means “the weak are meat for the strong to eat”.
Related:Fighting Game Characters That Were Cut Before Their Games' Release
But Ikeno and his colleague Takashi Kamei decided they needed someone more funny to stand out from the crowd. So, King Cobra was turned into Rufus, the fat motormouth who’d become one of the series’least popular charactersfor his cheap gameplay, unappealing design, and generally being annoying. Some still hope King Cobra will make it into a game, though withStreet Fighter 6’s Jamie taking up the kung fu/breakdancing style, their chances are slim.
4Rita
Unlike the other games on this list,SF5’s unused designs and concept art got released via the Shadaloo Combat Research Institute (basically Capcom’sSF5website). They’d come complete with context provided by the game’s co-director Takayuki Nakayama, like the long path he and the crew took to finalize Menat’s design.
She began life as Rita, a cold-blooded Italian assassin who moonlit as a cheery pizza delivery worker. Then she was a girl who loved delinquent manga and had a crush on “a certain Super Saiya– something or other”. Then she became a magician who’d fight with animal-shaped projectiles, a delinquent magician who threw magic cards, an Egyptian who fought with a Tahtib stick and incense, and then she finally became the magic ball user seen in-game.
3Miss Babo & the Clumsy Cutie
Laura Matsuda started off with promise, though while she’s fun to play, she didn’t quite hit her potential inSF5. It’d be nice to see her return with her brother,SF3’s Sean. So long as they had more going for them to fit in withSF6’s beloved newbies. That said, she’s still a step ahead of her preliminary designs.
One of which was Miss Babo, a big, musclebound woman likeSF6’s Marisa, but with Laura’s dress sense. She only got as far as a name before getting cut. Meanwhile, the Clumsy Cutie would’ve been a happy-go-lucky girl whose clothes would get more tattered as she fought. This was the inspiration for Laura’s original seatless pants look before the designers graciously gave her black shorts under her dōgi.
2Puck Bunny
SF5’s concept sketches also reveal the designers had sports on their mind, yet none of them made it into the final game. Alongside Laura, Brazil would’ve been represented by a soccer-playing fighter until Nakayama and co felt he fought too muchlikeRival Schools’own soccer star Roberto. American football would’ve had its own representative in a girl who was “sexy and loves using her powerful tackles”.
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In turn, she would’ve been joined by “Puck Bunny”, a Canadian ice hockey player who’d contrast her American pal by being more defensive and covered up. The team didn’t think either design was strong enough on their own to make it into the game, so they were combined to create Maple Storm, a Canadian wrestler who grapples off-screen in Rainbow Mika’s wrestling promotion.
1Elizabeth
There are a few odderSF5designs, like a guy who trained so hard he got “lobster arms” (“too fantasy-like for my liking” according to Nakayama), and a disciple of the kung fu assassin Gen who would seek out Akuma for revenge. However, the most interesting of the bunch is Elizabeth. She would’ve been a French savate fighter who’d go into combat with armor on her limbs.
When she wasn’t fighting, she’d work as an art dealer, using those funds to pay for her fancy metal plates. She got cut fromSF5because Nakayama said “Street Fighterhas too many rich people”. He also said he liked the character and their concept, andSF6does have a rich French celebrity in Manon. She doesn’t wear armor, but it wouldn’t be surprising if she was based on Elizabeth’s design.
More:Street Fighter 6: All the New Characters in the Base Roster
