Equipped with a giant Fist of the North Star reference of a horse and a new non-haircut, the Shadaloo dictator M. Bison makes his triumphant return to Street Fighter as he has officially released in Street Fighter 6 as the first character of Street Fighter 6’s Season 2 DLC. After dying in Street Fighter Alpha, then Street Fighter 2, then Street Fighter 5 Bison has finally returned to the franchise after a short break but he didn’t come alone.
Sliding in alongside Bison are some fancy new features, for the competitive among us the most relevant changes are probably the ability to go straight from the menu startup to training mode, skipping a lot of the menu hopping you had to do previously to get to the lab. Alongside that, however, there actually were some minor balance changes of which you can read about here.
From those changes most people have focused on the nerfs to Akuma and Zangief. While the nerf to Akuma’s air fireball is warranted (and honestly the character could use a few more nerfs), Zangief players everywhere are decrying the nerf to Zangief’s standing medium kick, which was basically reverted to its Season 1 version, though Gief keeps the rest of his buffs so I think the Zangief players will be okay.
Beyond that, there are also some fun options added to the New Challenger screen, featuring the “Here Comes a New Challenger” sound bytes from Street Fighter 1, Street Fighter 2, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Third Strike, Street Fighter 4, and Street Fighter 5. So you can further customize your own personal New Challenger screen, just don’t pick Third Strike otherwise everyone will know you’re 40 years old.
It’s exciting to see Capcom be more liberal with their changes. The fun little changes to the Challenger screen as well as the quality of life changes both to the gameplay as well as the menu system on top of a brand new character are a good start to Season 2 after an, admittedly, lukewarm Season 1. Here’s hoping that the rest of the season goes this smoothly.