Well, there was Kenshi but, like Quan Chi, he's essentially a retconned Trilogy character now due to him being in the Outworld tournament. lol

Nah, Street Fighter 3 was a risky roster. At launch, it was Ken, Ryu, and a bunch of brand new guys you'd never heard of. THAT is a bold move.

SF 5 is pretty safe. Ken, Ryu, Chun-Li, Zangief, Vega, Bison, Dhalsim, Cammy. Except for Guile and Akuma, this is pretty much the main cast of Street Fighter, and there's no way Akuma isn't getting in.

Half is original characters. 4 are returning characters we haven't seen for quite some time. 4 are completely brand new. DLC might bring in even more brand new characters. I doubt it though. Id say its even. Not risky, but very fresh. I love the characters so far in it. Except for gief and sim, never cared for those 2.

It is not bold to leave out many staple characters, sure early in the franchise you can get away with it (mk3, which was a horrible follow up to mk2), but later on you just need to have some base. MKX would've been fine with a lot of original characters IF they hadn't included all those descendants, had more balance in terms of evil characters vs. SF / earthlings and actually included more of the recent games we hadn't seen in a while like Shinnok.

This is a grass is greener on the other side situation. If SFV was MK, the complaints would be there isn't a single of the newer characters from SF3 or SF4. Fans will always be more critical of their favourite series.

By the way, many fans on the net are screaming for some serious staple characters like Sagat and Akuma. SF5 is definitely bold since he will not even be DLC. I know Ryu and Ken are like Scorpion and Sub-Zero but since both are virtually the same, I'm shocked Akuma is not the staple evil side of Ryu by now (even though there's evil Ryu).

Threads like this are really fun to read in retrospect. Now that SFV has confirmed Karin, Urien, Birdie AND Alex from your list of 8, I'm guessing I did have a point afterall...

In all seriousness, the SFV beta was tremendously fun, it is such a distinct experience from SF4 and a lot of that is due to the cast diversity and completely fresh play styles that brings.

Still holding out hope for a decent mix from KP2 to redress the poor roster balance in vanilla MKX.

...if it's released.

I love all of this "IF it's released" crap people are spewing over different forums.

I mean, people DO realize the only thing MKX related that was cancelled was the one thing NRS was NOT responsible for......right? In fact, I'm pretty certain the MK team has never put out a press release for something that never actually happened for MK ever.

Sorry, the doom and gloom talk about KP2 is getting incredibly old just because people have to suffer through a few months of waiting before they know anything worth knowing. It stinks of entitlement. People HAVE to know what's going on with everything in game development or they throw a hissie. It's one thing if you pre-ordered KP2 and want to know what you spent your money on but considering no one's tossed them a dime for this yet.... In fact, I'll go one step further and say that without MKX selling as much as it did we wouldn't even be getting 4 more characters in the first place so we should all sit back and relish the fact they're going the extra step when they could easily enjoy their successful game and call it a day and move all remaining employees to Injustice 2.

As for the Street Fighter leaked cast, am I correct in understanding their entire roster (DLC included) is only 22 fighters? That seems a bit on the low side and already stinks to high heaven of Super and Ultra editions being released down the road which, if my hunch is correct, is exactly why I won't be purchasing. Which is a shame considering I've never owned a SF game and was highly considering making this my first but I'll just hold off and wait for the inevitable re-releases.

Street Fighter V needs Q.

MKX needs Baraka.

Your move, Future.

My main complaint with the roster was and is the abundance of Special Forces characters. There was no fucking need for Cage, Sonya, Cassie, Jax, and Jacqui to be all in the game. Should have made Sonya, Cage, and Jax cameos and later on DLC additions and instead Fujin, Sareena, and Reiko/Havik should have gotten a roster spot.

The SFV roster currently is.... well interesting. I was sure the initial roster would contain Akuma, Sagat, and Urien given their popularity, or at least one or two of these and it doesn't.

Re: KP2 doom - Right or wrong, it's understandable some posters have concerns or are sceptical KP2 will be released. It was announced months ago at the peak of the "we want a KP2 delirium" and some fans now think it was a tact to quash attention away until KP2 demand began to cease. It's unfair to blame the fans. The trust issue some fans have with Boon and NRS is a construct of their own making - long periods of blank, vague hints to highly requested characters which never made the roster, cancelled ps3/360 port, endless prods and trolling on twitter. Questioning whether we'll get a Kombat Pack 2, despite the announcement, was totally inevitable. All said and done, there's no way in hell I'd touch an Injustice 2 if anything untoward happened to KP2 after all this.

Re: SFV cast - yes it's a smaller roster, but look at the diversity they've crammed into 22 characters - incredible. I don't see any of the sort of complaints they had about MKX. Also, SFV is pitched as a constantly expanding game, so new characters for at least the next 2-3 years to come - no "super", "ultra" etc editions, and you can unlock all of them for free as you play in the game.

I'm still adamant that there are zero "roster risks" in SFV. While I think it's great that Alex and Urien are finally included in the game, they should have been part of the base roster and have a huge following and demand.

The only remotely unsafe choice was Birdie and the fact that so far, there seems to be no sign of Akuma.

Not once has the SF or even fighting game fan base screamed "WOW I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY PUT THAT CHARACTER IN THE GAME CAPCOM YOU CRAZY MOFOS" ...because all the characters have huge followings, even Dhalsim.

Zero risk to leave out fan favourites in Akuma & Sagat seems pretty bold to me. The new characters are actually new and there's plenty of characters that haven't been in a main game for years. MKX cannot say the same.

Capcom has said numerous times that there won't be Super or Ultra editions. SFV is the only disc you'll ever need. Anything that is added to the game will be available for you to download, either by unlocking it with fight money or buying it with real money.

And the launch roster will be 16 (I'm going to say that at least 1 DLC character will be available during or close to launch so more like 17) with the 6 additional characters coming throughtout the year. 22 is small in comparison to other fighters but when it is all said and done it's a great roster. Huge fan favorites like Alex, Nash, Urien, R. Mika, and Karin all in one game? That's a win.

Well, frankly, I'll believe that when I see it after how they handled SF4 which really, really turned me off. What you two are saying though sounds like a good enough idea. Depending how that goes I may pick it up eventually then.

It doesn't seem very risky to me. A bunch of classic characters, a few lesser known characters, and a couple knew ones. MK did pretty much the same thing excluding brining back a few obscure characters, though Shinnok, Tanya, Quan Chi, and Kenshi could fall into that category if you aren't a huge fan like most of us are. Though the same can be said about SF, characters like Nash, Mika, and Karin aren't really lesser known if you are a big fan.

That's not true at all.
Shinnok, Tanya, Tremor, Goro ( playable without cheats/hacks ), etc were playable last time in Armageddon, excluding Tremor, which is dated 2006, alias 9 years ago.
This, not including the highly likely additions of Fujin and Bo' Rai Cho.

The complains about MK X's roster are stupid, childish and out of place.
The game is still the top selling of the franchise and of 2015.

Call me when and IF SFV will reach at least the same level.

Not talking about DLC. Goro looks badass but doesn't play all that great, not the fierce big guy he's supposed to be. Shinnok looks like a jester and has many moves from different characters. Still, I can give you those 2 guys out of 25! If you want, Tremor & Tanya makes 4 out of 29. That is 13%, SF5 has 25% long time absentees and 25% new. That is 50% classic. Out of 25 there are 2 long absentees is 8% and 32% new ones. That is 40% so 60% classic. Of the new ones though, the 2 daughters have nothing special going for them. The new ones from SF5 are all very unique. If all the quantity does not convince you, just look at the quality and uniqueness. SF5 is very diverse, MKX is not.

Low-mid or just flat out low-tier diagnosis aside, I'm actually impressed with Goro.

Everyone just take a second a think how awful life would be if Goro was like any form of his MK9 self. The butthurt would surely be paramount enough to turn night into day. I'm thankful for that much.

And I said this on stream the other day, but I still feel like all you "low-tier" mains (Kenshi, Jason, Goro, Mileena) should hang in there. With 4 characters coming our way, the balance patches to come are sure to be plentiful. The complaints have been heard, rest assured, and I highly doubt NRS will continue through that process without sprucing them up a bit.

You're deliberately confusing gameplay and look with character recurrence, which is the point of this thread. It's a pointless grasping at straws, considering that SFIV isn't even out and you cannot know right now if some character will be low tier or not.

My point is still standing: 4 risky spots (which are even riskier considering dlc)
8 new characters

Which is 12 out of 29, from which we have to exclude two guests.
So 12 out of 27, almost 50%.

And the number could only increase due to kombat pack 2.

Killer Instinct's impact.

USF4 is still alive, always hype to see the top players play. MK9 unfortunatly already forgotten. Imagine NRS patched the game to balance out the weaker characters, such a damn shame...

Injustice is dead, and should stay dead.

MKX is already bleeding to death. Maybe KP2 will revive the game for a couple months. But i don't see it last long.

SFV will do better than all those games combined, USF4 already outlived those games.

1) we are not talking about the tournament scene.
2) the tournament scene it's overrated. It is important, but not the most important thing. Money is.
3) Mk x is still the top selling game or 2015, and it's still selling well, beating games like batman, witcher and bloodborne. This, without counting kp2 and complete edition.
I don't think that SF5 will be such a hit.
4) Mk X is alive and well, coming to evo 2016.

Sells are overrated. It's misleading aswell. Sure it sold good, But what does it say about the product eventually? Not much, what does matter is that ppl love the game and play it many times after release. It's not the first time a game sold well but ended up catching dust bc it was not what ppl hoped it to be.

Believe me, i want Mk to be better too.

No one is saying SFV is better than MKX. You can put away the sales figures because this isn't about that. This is strictly a roster comparison thread.

And I've said it before that "taking risks" was the wrong word choice. Other than Birdie and Akuma not being in the first year of characters, there's not much risk here.

But I do believe that the SFV base roster is better than MKX's base roster. SFV has 4 characters who haven't been since since Alpha 3. (2 of which only appeared in Alpha 3) MK has nothing like that in its base roster. You can't really count Goro because he's DLC. So the only one you have like that is Shinnok.

Compare Shinnok to R. Mika and Karin.

Shinnok - Playable in MK4 and Armageddon

Karin and R. Mika - Debuted in Alpha 3, never seen again until SFV

That alone makes the roster way more interesting to me. And that's not even counting DLC. If we count DLC SF gets Alex, Urien, and Juri as well. That would be the equivalent of MKX getting Fujin, Reiko, and Havik.