The History Behind Street Fighter 6’s Crossover Characters

On the 7th of June 2024, Street Fighter 6 revealed the characters to feature in season two of the game. Fans worldwide were shocked when they saw that Street Fighter 6 would feature two characters from the SNK universe in Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui making them the first characters to ever star are guests for Street Fighter outside the Capcom characters. 

They were by no means the first ever guests as Street Fighter has featured characters from other Capcom titles such as Final Fight and Rival Schools. But, with an existing rivalry, most fans were surprised to see two of SNK’s most prominent characters coming to the game. 

Why Capcom And SNK Were Rivals

Capcom and SNK were at the forefront of the fighting game revolution of the 90s which saw the release of some iconic games including Street Fighter II and King Of Fighters. This put the two companies at war as they both needed to make sales at the arcades and on home consoles. In a Youtube video by Yoshiki Okamoto, who was a developer who worked with Konami and Capcom, he outlined how both companies worked the same way causing them to rival each other in sales a lot of the time. 

A major point in this battle was the defection of Takashi Nishiyama to SNK. Nishiyama was one of the original creators of Street Fighter and a lot of his expertise was instrumental to the creation of The King Of Fighters. Eventually, Capcom won the battle as SNK went under and were eventually bought out, but Capcom had suffered as they found themselves behind in the fighting game battle and this did a lot to lead them to almost quit making fighting games.

Who Are Terry Bogard And Mai Shiranui?

Terry Bogard is the main character of the Fatal Fury series and a major character for The King Of Fighters story. The interesting thing about Terry is that he features in two timelines with the one in Fatal Fury focusing on him and his rivalry with Geese Howard.

In a recent interview with Famitsu, the Street Fighter 6 developers talked a lot about the season 2 characters and it seems from that discussion that they will be using the Fatal Fury continuity in terms of Terry’s story. When asked why they went with Terry and Mai, they explained that Takashi Nishiyama, one of the original creators of Street Fighter and that he was intimately involved in Fatal Fury which led the development team at Capcom to want to focus more on that. 

Terry’s story really starts with the death of his adoptive father, Jeff Bogard, who was killed at the hands of Geese Howard, a crime boss who controlled all of South Town where Terry and his brother Andy grew up. 

The siblings swore revenge against Geese and then separated for a decade to hone their skills. While Andy went to Japan to train, Terry remained in South Town and tested his skills there as a street fighter (get it?) and when the 10 years were over, they faced off against Geese Howard and Terry was able to get his revenge, defeating Geese and apparently killing him. Terry would go on to fight Geese’s brother and the villain also returned leading to Terry killing him for good. 

Terry would later adopt Geese’s son, Rock, and raised him hoping he’d be a better man than his murderous father. 

Mai Shiranui is the granddaughter of Hanzo Shiranui, a master of Ninjitsu and Koppoken. She is in love with Andy Bogard and the two are thought to be in a relationship, but he mostly acts normal towards her. She has been a staple character in both Fatal Fury and King Of Fighters and her addition to the Street Fighter universe makes a lot of sense. 

How Will Terry And Mai Integrate Into Street Fighter 6?

One of the intricacies of having a guest character in a fighting game especially if they come from another fighting game is finding a way to make that character’s movesets work within the game they are coming into. 

For instance, Akuma, who was in Tekken 7, was a weird character as he is a person who can shoot fireballs, and do some other crazy stunts that are typically not seen in a Tekken game. Making him feel like a Tekken character was really difficult and many will argue that it was not successful. 

Terry and Mai should be able to fit into the Street Fighter world for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Street Fighter and SNK fighting games are somewhat similar in how they play meaning that the moves the characters in both games possess could easily translate. An example is Terry who has a projectile called ‘Power Wave’. It travels across the ground and hits the opponent. Street Fighter has had a few characters that do that and even have one in Juri who has a low projectile that travels across the ground. Necalli from Street Fighter V also had such a move. 

Terry also has a punching move that advances him forward and the Power Dunk which has some similarities to Marisa’s ‘Phalanx’ move which is also a neutral skip tool. 

As for Mai, she also has a few moves of her own that should work pretty well for Street Fighter 6. For one, she has a lot of fake out moves which is excellent seeing as Dee Jay in Street Fighter 6 has a lot of moves like that and Cody from Street Fighter V also had those. She has a projectile and a sort of dp. Also, she has the Musasabi no Mai, a move that is very similar to Lily’s Condor Dive. 

All in all, the two characters are a welcome addition to Street Fighter and should be a lot of fun to use and watch. They will be available to play over the next half a year with Terry available in the fall of 2024 while Mai will come early in 2025.