Hiya!

This year’s Capcom Cup tournament is winding down and so is Street Fighter V. The game is almost 5 years old but Capcom has been true to their word (somewhat) that they would be supporting it for that duration. Yes, they have been doing so with incremental updates and, more importantly, new characters. It is sad that most of the new characters haven’t gotten the time to shine as brightly as others but I still am eager to see who is going to be added to Street Fighter V’s roster.

Over the weekend, Capcom did just that. They introduced that Street Fighter V will be getting another expansion, albeit something that we may have to pay for (which sucks). The entire roster will be getting a secondary V-Skill, something that fans have been clamoring for a long time. They also revealed the next new character. I was excited to find out who it was going to be… until they revealed it was going to be Gill.

Of all the characters from the previous games, it stuns me that they thought that they chose Gill. I have a lot of apprehensive feelings at this decision and I’m gonna tell them here.

None of my issues actually deal with the 2 big things that pop into mind when we have to talk about Gill. Those issues would be that he’s basically like his younger brother Urien and that he was overpowered when he was introduced in Street Fighter III. I like to talk about the latter first. I don’t believe that even Capcom would be idiotic enough to make him the overpowered monster he was in his previous incarnations. In Street Fighter III, he was the final and only boss in the game so it makes sense that he was supposed to be difficult. He basically had 3 Super Arts that was active all the time and 1 of them even brings him back to life when KO’ed! I truly hope that Capcom didn’t add this as an Easter Egg because people would exploit this to the fullest online! Gill was the worst and a lot of fans have nightmares against him.

There was basically a tournament level version of Gill and that was Urien. The two have basically the same moveset but with slight alterations in Street Fighter III, with Urien being notably weaker than Gill. Now, even if they depower Gill to a state that he wouldn’t be the powerful boss monster, he probably will be fundamentally different from Urien. For one thing, Gill is taller than Urien so he’ll have a better reach advantage with his normals. His special attacks wouldn’t be charge motions like Urien; he’ll use quarter circle motions and the like, making Gill a character that would be more reaction based. That would change his meta even more. So yeah, Gill will probably not be another Urien, at least gameplay-wise.

I actually have a few thoughts on how to make Gill’s fire and ice gimmick a little bit more useful. For example, maybe Capcom can make it so that the player can choose to use his Pyrokinesis or Cryokinesis projectiles. Perhaps the punch button activates Pyrokinesis, which does extra damage but more pushback, while the kick buttons tosses out Cryokinesis, which does less damage but more stun. I doubt they’ll do that but I just think it would make him more interesting.

So why am I so down on Gill if I do see some potential with his eventual coming in Street Fighter V? Well, there are two reasons. The first one would be his really boring character design. I mean, basically, Gill is a beach blonde dude wearing a thong who decided that painting both sides of himself blue and red looked cool! I totally get that it was cool during Street Fighter III as switching sides gave him both fire and ice attacks. That was unique at the time. It was cool in concept but execution? It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now!

This design is going to look doubly terrible because of Street Fighter V’s way of handling hair physics. Gill has very long golden locks and I can already see in the trailer that it looks like he isn’t adding any conditioner to it as they look really stiff! I know it’s supposed to jut out like that to make it look windswept but I’m afraid it’s going to be like Ken’s banana hair or Necalli’s cornrows. It’s just going to look like it’s super unnatural and really mess me up whenever I see him!

His overall design is actually rather insignificant to my other big issue with Gill being added to Street Fighter V next: there are so many other deserving characters! I have looked at a lot of lists made by a lot of gamers regarding who they would want to see in Street Fighter V next. Not one of them picked Gill. Maybe they still have nightmares of fighting against him in Street Fighter III? No, I don’t think that’s the reason. I just think there are characters that are just more well liked.

Personally, I would’ve loved to see someone like C. Viper from Street Fighter IV, Oro from Street Fighter III and, yes, I would’ve preferred to have seen T. Hawk enter the fray! No one likes T. Hawk but I would’ve wanted to see what Capcom could do with him in Street Fighter V! Maybe they’d actually give him a gun!

I’m not kidding myself, though. I know full well that I will play the heck out of Gill when he’s finally released. Who knows? Maybe he’ll actually be really good and fun to play with. Maybe Capcom will actually do something with him that will entice me to switch over to him. Maybe he’ll be the best thing to come to Street Fighter V in a long while and inject a lot more fresh excitement into the game.

I’m not holding my breath, though.

Byee!

What do you think of Capcom’s choice to bring Gill to Street Fighter V? Let me know in the comments section below!