Last week, the game world’s greatest fighting franchise added another notch under its belt with the release of Street Fighter IV. I’m a little bit biased when it comes to this game as I’ve been playing it since I was a wee lad back in the early 90s. Going to arcades just to beat and get beaten on by people of all ages was what started my road to game competition and forced my hand to purchase this game. Now a week later, although I’m still playing it, I’m getting quite annoyed as to what people are saying is cheap in the game, namely my favorite character in the franchise: Ken Masters.

While going through blogs, forums and the official Capcom site, I’ve noticed tiers starting to pop up on who is top, middle and low tier and, sadly while reading the comments, I’m noticing many people crying foul whenever someone says that their going to main Ken. The comments turn to insults as usual on forums, but now it’s personal as Ken has always been the character I turn to. Ever since SFII I’ve always picked him due to his melee attacks over projectiles and the extreme awesomeness of his Shinryu-ken that made itself so prominent in the Alpha and VS series of games. To hear people call this character cheap is the same thing that happened in another one of my beloved fighting games, Smash Bros, when people called Fox cheap for being too fast and having the Shine ability which reflected projectiles. I’ve come to accept that people will always call the person they lose to a “cheating pile of shit” but just because a person is overpowered doesn’t mean that anyone who plays them is a n00b who should learn how to play with a real character. To all my gaming brethren: get the fuck over it!

I don’t quite understand how people can call it cheating or being cheap when this is how Ken has always been since the designers started separating him from Ryu in Champion Edition. It seems like most people think that SF should be all about defense, no offense and a fuckload of Hadoukens being spammed out the ass but in this series, minus a few exceptions, this isn’t the case. As seen with many characters like Guile, Chun-Li and others, a close and personal assault can surely spell victory against a person who normally mains a projectile fighter like Ryu or Sagat. A similar case is in World of Warcraft between a mage and a warrior. The mage is deadly at distances but a three legged kitten up close whereas the inverse is said with a warrior, yet people don’t start bitching that the game is unbalanced, it’s just two completely different styles of playing.

Another reason why this is probably bothering me more than it should is because of all the “new comers” coming into my beloved series that don’t understand the mechanics of it. Focus attacks, Ultras, cancelling and a unblockable moves seem to make these people think that the game is broken and, again, call me a “cheating pile of shit!!” Newsflash! Play the game for almost two decades and you’ll understand all the greatness that this series has to offer.

So, in summary, should you see a player on Xbox Live! with the username Purplelink choosing a blue Ken, don’t you fucking dare call me cheap or I will purposefully destroy you, take some damage then perform a Shoryureppa only to lead in to a Shinryuken, land and then laugh in your face.