Quote: “Every man must walk his own path. Are you certain you have found yours?”
First of all, the dude’s name in Japanese means “Victorious.” How awesome is that? Second of all, he’s a ninja who wears sneakers. What a brilliant idea! It’s also because he’s quite the runner, apparently. According to Capcom, Guy can run a 100-meter dash in 10.2 seconds. As you can probably surmise if you read my Super Street Fighter IV writeup, that game is largely the reason he’s on the list, but I was actually a Guy fan as far back as the original Final Fight. I was pretty upset when he wasn’t included in the original SNES version of Final Fight, but at least Capcom made up for it later by making Final Fight Guy so you could play as him because he was the best one. He was the fastest, and he had the wall jump kick, which was great.
I also really liked Guy in the Street Fighter Alpha series. I used him a lot there, which is part of the reason I was so excited when he was announced for Super Street Fighter IV. He’s a lot of fun to use, and he fits the way I like to play fighters. I like to be aggressive when I play fighting games (probably too aggressively), so I like how you can play rushdown with Guy with his run moves. Plus, I like how you can play misdirection with him since he has three different run moves: One that stops without doing any attack, one that hits low, and one that hits high but hits overhead if you block low. I also like his vertical Hurricane Kick type move, which can be a good anti-air move if you can time it correctly. And of course, I love flips. And flips. And flips. And flips! They’re good for aggression and mind games as well, since you can try to use them to fake out your opponent to trying to anti-air you while you either land in front of them or fly right past them and get behind them. Probably the main drawback for me with Guy in SSFIV is that I’m no good at landing either of his Ultras since you have to be really close to land either of them (one of them is a grab move with an unusual input, which makes it worse), and they’re not good for countering stuff for the most part unless you have someone who’s dumb enough to let you hit them with a wake up Ultra (which occasionally happens…!).
I also like Guy’s rivalry with Cody. It’s pretty interesting for a beat-em-up/fighting game story, I think. In the original Final Fight after you beat the last boss and rescue Cody’s girlfriend Jessica, instead of staying around to make sure she’s okay and to generally be there to comfort her and stuff, Cody decides to just…leave. Of course, Guy realizes he’s being a complete moron and punches him in the gut so Jessica can catch up to him and not let him get away. Their rivalry in the Alpha and SFIV games brings a new twist to it now that Cody’s become a prison inmate, and Guy has a hard time accepting that his old friend who used to help him fight crime has now sunk to the depths of becoming a criminal himself. They have some cool interactions in the games, such as Guy commenting that he can still sense some good and justice in Cody when he notices that he only seems to pick fights with criminals and people like that, who tries to blow it off as just being a guy who likes to fight. Cody essentially tells him, “I’ve changed. You’ve changed. These things happen. Deal with it.” So they have a pretty neat dynamic, I think.
I also like that Guy is an honorable fighter who only seeks to use his skills when they’re needed to help someone. He’s a very stoic person in general and takes things very seriously. I’m sure that comes across as “boring” to some people, but he’s a ninja who’s hardcore into being a ninja, so that’s cool with me.
Bonus Question: Who is your favorite fighting game character?
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