Top 10 Street Fighter Characters

Top 10 Street Fighter Characters

Written by Zeromage 30 Comments
Last Updated:: January 21, 2009

Street Fighter was arguably the most important fighter series ever made. It’s either Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat; it’s useless arguing which one was more important because how how much they both influenced the fighting games that came after them. Street Fighter has always had a place in our heart and we wanted to celebrate all the best characters to come from the series. There are many great characters from Street Fighter 2 all the way through the later editions, but not everyone can be listed in a top 10 of all time. We could easily make a top 10 worst street fighter characters also, and put characters like DeeJay and Guile on this list for their lack of fighting skills and the goofy disposition of the former. That’s for another list though. Right now, we’ll focus on the best characters in the Street Fighters an arguably the best characters in fighting game history.

10. Cammy

Beyond the gamer’s perverse dreams for getting this British beauty into their own beds, came a fighter as tough as any of the men in the game. Gameplay-wise, she doesn’t fit in a neat little pigeon-hole. She’s good for the same kind of fast, hit-and-run tactics most players used with Chun-Li, but she also has an interesting set of close-range moves that don’t seem all that obvious at first glance. She can take out opponents with a nasty leg grab or using her kicking techniques (such as the Cannon Drill). Cammy is a quick, close range fighter. She lacks any projectile or long-reaching attacks, and therefore hurls herself at the enemy relying on speed and priority. Despite not having any long attacks, Cammy is still one of my favorite SF2 characters.

9. E. Honda

8. Chun Li

Chun Li is one of the most iconic female characters in video game history. One of the reasons that she is so popular is that she wasn’t just included in the game just to appease feminists, or to simply be eye candy for lonely gamers. She was actually a pretty effective fighter, and on top of that, she also had a great back story. Like many popular heroes she is fixated on getting revenge for her dead father, who in this case was murdered by M. Bison. Game play-wise her character actually evolves throughout the series. She starts out with powerful kick attacks, but soon adapts an effective fireball technique as well. Her moves have become an icon in fighting games, in the same way as Ryu’s. In addition, Chun-Li can also leap off nearby walls; while performing a wall jump, she is able to backflip and stomp on her opponent’s head. She’s perfectly balanced. Not only is her speed just right, but her power as well. Finally, just look at her. Not to mention she kicks high.

7. Dhalsim

I’ve always felt like Dhalsim was modeled after Gandhi, although that doesn’t make much sense since Gandhi was non-violent. And Gandhi couldn’t spit fire, and he couldn’t stretch his arms either… Or could he? Anyway, Dhalsim is the original long-range fighter of fighting games. He could project his arms and legs outward in order to deliver attacks that would be out of the range of normal limbs. Dhalsim’s fighting style involves keeping the opponent at bay with distance attacks and projectiles, and optimally, only getting close to strike with a surprise aerial attack or sliding kick. With his combination of offense and defense, Dhalsim is one of the best fighters in the game.

6. Vega

5. Ken

4. Sagat

Have you ever had to play against a 12 year old in mortal combat that does the same a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a punch move and beats every challenger in an arcade? He is considered cheesy. Sagat was the computer version of that kid. He always seemed to use the same uppercut over and over again, effectively becoming one of the most annoying characters to beat in any video game ever made. Besides his uppercut, Sagat utilizes a swift kickboxing style, with several other Tiger moves and he had a certain nimbleness that made him a tough opponent. Not only that, but he also wore an eye patch. All other things being equal, a character with an eye patch is usually a lot cooler than a character without one, and Sagat is no exception. Not only that, but his eye patch switches from eye to eye. Because of that he deserves a spot on this list.

3. Blanka

As intimidating as Zangief may have been to look at, you really can’t beat a green guy with orange hair and fangs. Which is why Blanka is #3 on our list. I would imagine that anyone who had to fight Blanka would cry foul, and who could blame them? This isn’t Mortal Kombat after all. I highly doubt that Ryu and Chun-Li signed up to fight four-armed monsters or half-human half-horses. Street Fighter sounds to me like it should be humans fighting other humans. And if you think Blanka is just a hairy guy, think again. While Zangief has the spinning piledriver and E. Honda can slap you, this guy crouches down and shocks you with lightning! How is anyone supposed to compete against that? And more importantly, how is that even legal? I know that this is “street fighting”, so anything goes, but you don’t see Balrog pulling out a gun and shooting you in the forehead. Still, the lightning was one of the easiest special moves to master, and it could easily be abused. All you had to do was hold down and Y and you could shock your opponent to death.

2. M. Bison

M.Bison was a beast of a character and was usually the final character of the Street Fighter Series. He had one of the most powerful moves in the fighting game history with his Psycho Crusher. This move would turn Bison into an electric bolt would whip across the screen and run through anybody. All you could do was evade this electrical power unless you were E. Honda who’s hyper sumo-chop could stop Bison dead in his tracks. Along with this, M.Bison showed off an agility only matched by Vega, by head bouncing on opponents’ heads with his arms folded like he wasn’t even trying to be as agile as he really was. M.Bison was very difficult to beat. You needed to have your character mastered to be able to defeat Bison in th final fight of the game. If you didn’t, you would be left trying to replay him over and over again until all your continues ran out, making you start the whole game over.

1. Ryu

Usually dressed in a traditional white gi, red headband, red fingerless gloves, and a black belt, Ryu is the face of Street Fighter. He is the most used fighter in the whole series and has all the powers to take on the best fighters in the game. The basic fact of the matter is that Ryu was a black belt in Karate, and not just any black belt, a Street fighter black belt, making him more important than anyone else who calls themselves a black belt. Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s we all knew that no one would mess with you if you knew Karate. How many movies do you see with tough dudes thinking they can beat someone smaller than them and then those “tough dudes” get dominated by someone with the knowledge of Karate? But despite taking karate for ten years I was never able to master the art of throwing fire balls. This ability, along with his dedication to practicing his art, are the reasons why Ryu was the most powerful fighter in the Street Fighter series. M. Bison only feared one person in the fighting world, and that was Ryu.

30 Comments

#1 The Mountain says:
March 15th, 2010 at 11:52 pm

Fun article…brings back memories…WHERE’S THE NEW BANNER!?

#2 meow says:
March 15th, 2010 at 1:40 pm

ryu is one of the most over rated characters ever, and where are the alpha and street fighter 3 characters ?
poor article

#3 Chase357 says:
March 15th, 2010 at 1:46 pm

No characters from the Alpha series or the Street Fighter III games. SF2 fanboys…

#4 Weeji says:
March 15th, 2010 at 6:02 pm

I was definitely looking forward to some Alpha characters…

#5 The Mountain says:
March 15th, 2010 at 6:22 pm

Alpha can suck my ****

#6 wild bill says:
March 15th, 2010 at 6:29 pm

had to expect no alpha characters…this is OLD WIZARD after all.

#7 NadaNuff says:
March 15th, 2010 at 8:47 pm

This article should have been entitled “Top Ten Street Fighter II Characters”

Also, the SFII series topped out at 17 characters. So you picked your top 10 out of 17? Huh?

And there’s no way that Honda should be on this list. Both Balrog and DeeJay were top-tier–they easily knock Honda (and some others) off. The rest of the choice are very debatable.

#8 Zeromage says:
March 15th, 2010 at 8:54 pm

Haha…So we picked 10 out 17 and the choices were debatable. Right…

#9 The Mountain says:
March 15th, 2010 at 9:16 pm

Balrog and DJ? What are you racist?

#10 roberto says:
March 15th, 2010 at 10:59 pm

here’s my list of favorite characters:

1. ryu
i mastered the dragon punch bichez. ken was essentially the same character. his hurricane kick was faster, but ryu’s took more damage. ken’s dragon push also had wider range.

2. chunli
she’s the babe all the other characters wanted to bang.

3. guile
he had some cool jab combos, powerful kicks and an annoying double roundhouse sweep.

4. sagat
low fireball, high fireball, repeat til your opponent jumps forward then slap em back with a tiger uppercut.

5. m bison
his scissor kick was a great finish to any combo.

6. blanka
his electric attack would start a real fight if u were caught using a controller with auto-fire.

i think sf2’s popularity peaked after the release of the turbo edition. super sf2 was an insult to the game and marked the decline of the sf2 era. capcom milked that cow for all it was worth. i lost count of all the different editions. i played one of the alpha games on an emulator once. dont think i’ll do that again. however, i have been counting the days til the release of sf4 for ps3. its gonna be badass.

nice list old-wiener.com

#11 NadaNuff says:
March 15th, 2010 at 11:38 pm

Almost all of Balrog’s moves had no lag on them if you used them right, and he had that cross-up grab thing goin’ for him.

DeeJay’s triple kick made him formidable in Super Turbo, boosted him above most of the characters.

There’s no way Honda should listed above either of those. Racism (?) has nothing to do with it.

#12 Alpha says:
March 15th, 2010 at 12:11 am

SF2 list…Street Fighter Alpha was in Super nintendo too, doesn’t that count on Old Wizard Standards? noo just boring SF2 characters

#13 David says:
March 15th, 2010 at 3:58 am

NO AKUMA?!!!??!?!? he was in Street fighter 2 ultra turbo championship master edition or something:P:P

#14 Up says:
March 15th, 2010 at 4:17 am

My favorite character is from Street fighter 2 ultra turbo championship master gold platinum edition. Because you failed to mention this character I deem this list not good, even though its funny and well written.

#15 Osama says:
March 15th, 2010 at 5:47 am

A few points:

1. Great idea for a list! As always, you guys tackle the subjects that matter most in life! Keep up the goo dwork!

2. Blanka was intended to be yellow, not green. Somehow people saw him as green and loved him for that and so capcom kept making him greener and greener. I mean, look at the screenshot and tell me if I’m wrong.

3. Ken is #1. Ryu is a close second.

Thank you.

#16 Osama says:
March 15th, 2010 at 5:48 am

Oh I forgot to add, Street Fighter Alpha 1 & 2 SUCKED! Street Fighter III: Third Strike is the best street fighter though.

#17 Andreas says:
March 15th, 2010 at 7:30 am

This article made me want to play some more Super Street Fighter II. Thanks for that.

#18 Gus says:
March 15th, 2010 at 11:38 am

This was a very funny article. Nice job OW!

#19 Cromat says:
March 15th, 2010 at 2:20 pm

Entertaining list. Makes me want to bust out my SNES!

#20 Belialxyn says:
March 15th, 2010 at 12:30 am

Sweet. Maybe do a top ten of super smash bros?

#21 Dice-K says:
March 15th, 2010 at 8:06 pm

Your blog is very interesting, i have bookmarked your site for future referrence

#22 brianc says:
March 15th, 2010 at 4:39 am

Dude, Chun Li only no. 8??? WTF.! she’s one of the most iconic characters (male or female) in video game history. one of the most popular characters in the game. one of the few characters to appear in every edition of the game. only no. 8?? She is easily top 3. come on man.

#23 Dr Wily says:
March 15th, 2010 at 2:37 am

aww come on you gotta put guile on here somewhere i mean hes such a badass

#24 n8n8baby says:
March 15th, 2010 at 8:17 pm

The fact that you even consider ranking MK alongside SF pretty much discredits your entire site. GAME OVER

#25 else3573 says:
March 15th, 2010 at 4:51 am

NadaNuff, I could destroy basically anyone you’ve ever known with E Honda. He’s a ferocious character if you know how to use him.

#26 NadaNuff says:
March 15th, 2010 at 3:36 pm

else3573, you could say that about any character. If I practiced hard enough, I could make Fei Long (arguably one of the weakest SF2 characters) a powerhouse.

I’ve got a pretty ferocious Honda myself, but I still wouldn’t rank him above Balrog.

#27 DoctaCossack says:
March 15th, 2010 at 6:46 pm

No Guile? no Akuma?

#28 Shendrit says:
March 15th, 2010 at 3:50 pm

THE MOST POWERFUL CHARACHTER ARE

1.AKUMA
2.GARUDA
3.BISON
4.EVIL RYU
5.SAGAT
6.KEN
7.SETH
8.BLANKA
9.GUILE
10.ZANGIEF
11.KAIRI
12.DAN
13.VEGA
14.DHALSIM
15.E.HONDA

#29 Johnny says:
March 15th, 2010 at 12:23 am

I think no matter how hard you practiced with fei long he would still suck ass. Ive played hundreds of hours at this game and these are my findings. This is for the ‘new challengers’ edition
1. Vega
2. Ryu
3. Ken
4. Bison
5. Dee Jay
6. Chun Li
7. T-Hawk
8. Balrog
All the rest are tied for last, with Fei Long comming dead last.
Vega was only the best in the new challengers edition, not so much in turbo.

Top 10 Street Fighter Characters

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