Street Fighter V announced that Zangief would return to the SF roster yesterday; response to the Red Cyclone felt a bit tepid to me, possibly because his outfit and aesthetic look exactly the same, although his moves do look neat. Late last night, though, folks noticed that the Street Fighter gallery on Famitsu also contained a dozen more screenshots of a mysterious new character named Laura. The gallery page has since been removed, but the internet never forgets.
Speculation abounds about Laura; we know she’ll be representing Brazil, just as Blanka and Sean did in previous games. This has led most people to assume that Blanka and Sean won’t appear in the SFV roster (or, at least, certainly not in the first wave). Like Blanka, Laura appears from some screenshots to have electricity powers, but she also has projectiles that look a little like electric fireballs. That’s strange, since both Sean and Blanka relied on roll-like moves, and there’s no evidence as yet that Laura has any somersault-inspired moves at all.
Without video of Laura in action, it’s hard to draw any real conclusions about her play-style; we don’t even know how fast she is, let alone which of these moves are specials or V-triggers or what. All we know so far is that she has an awesome hairstyle and an affinity for bracelets. And also that her hair is clipping a little bit through her arm in that screenshot above. Maybe that’ll be polished in post?
Anyway, this brings the character count in SFV up to 14 fighters, five of whom are women. The game will have 16 fighters at launch; rumors has it that the last two will be Alex and Urien, but I’d much rather see Sakura or Juri or Ibuki. In other words, I’d rather see two more girls than two more guys … plus those three fighters I listed are more compelling to play, anyway! A gal can dream, right?
(via Shoryuken, image via IGN)
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