I love posting in this thread and I'll admit it , I even love being wrong !
Near the start of the month some 40 odd pages ago I was adamant that the remaining (at the time) returning cast members would include Juri. Now that Rainbow Mika has been unveiled though , I don't think it's likely.
In that same post I outlined capcoms history with both grapplers and women with their presence in SF titles. The highest level of women was actually just barely Ultra SF4 because it has (Chun Li, Cammy, Rose, Sakura, Makoto, Ibuki,C.Viper, Juri, Elena, Poison and Decapre) 11/44 total characters or 1 in 4.
Well, We've now got 3 girls out of 16 characters with , from the sounds of rumors - another girl among the 4 new characters. That means, sadly , we probably won't get another female character among the 3 remaining returning character slots.
I'd love to be wrong again though. I really do like Juri's playstyle in USF4 , heck I'd even be happy with Sakura or Karin but my hopes aren't up that this will be the SF game to exceed 25% representation.
Moving on to grapplers - these beasty characters have never really been the most popular nor the easiest to use and because of that they get pretty small representation in SF games. In SF2 , there was only 1 - Zangief. By the time Super SF2 turbo had come out , only 1 more showed up in the form of T.Hawk. I think the problem might be a lack of ideas on how to make them feel different , T.Hawk was just a bigger slower zangeif (although ken and ryu's only difference back then was speed so ???). This means grapplers and women were about as common as each other. (1/8)
Skipping ahead to the alpha series - the first entry had birdie among it's cast , his SFA version was a pretty traditional grappler type but with added attack range. Sodom was kind of a mixture of rushdown and grappling and for that matter- so was Guy. Alpha 1 was full of these grey areas. By the time Alpha 2 came out though - capcom brought back Zangief and he was the only traditional pure grappler type character. Alpha 3 brought in all of the other SF2 characters over many home ports but by the time the dust settled , of the over 30 characters among it's cast - Zangeif and T.Hawk remained the only pure grapplers , R. Mika , Sodom and Birdie were still there too but even if you count them , you end up with 5 characters , 6 if you stretch the grappler definition thin and throw guy in that mix. It's at best a ratio of about 1 in 6 but remove the grey areas (guy and sodom) and it's more like 1 in 8 still.
SF3 even in it's final edition had Alex and Hugo replacing Zangeif and T.Hawk as Big and Bigger the 2 pure grapplers. None of the other characters really fit the bill , so in SF3's case the ratio actually dropped a little bit to closer to 1 in 9.
USF4 , again with it's giant cast of 44 characters still had the same few as before - T.Hawk, Zangief and Hugo from SF3. It did add a few new grapplers though - Abel , who is kind of split down the middle like an alpha character - he's a rushdown / grappler. El Fuerte who has grappler moves but gets around ultra fast and isn't the traditional huge dude nor does he do traditional grappler damage and finally - Hakkan. Guy is still there as the jack of all trades (seriously , he has so many moves in SF4). So what I'm getting at here - 6 characters out of 44. That's not a very high ratio , it's roughly 1 in 7.
So basically what I'm getting at is that I really don't think we will see another grappler style character unless they are a hybrid like Abel. Necali kind of fits that bill already though so basically I don't think we'll be seeing another one.
So that basically means - what's left ?
3 new characters - Necali being kind of grappler/rushdown means that the other 3 will be something that isn't represented by the current cast - a control character like Dhalsim is possible for one of the remaining 3 , perhaps a traditional straight up rushdown character ? a defensive charge based characer (there really isn't one yet), hell - a new shoto is even possible
3 Returning characters - I've laid out why I feel like it won't be a woman or a grappler so who does that leave ? I'm also going to say we won't see final fight characters yet.
That leaves - Guile,Blanka,E.Honda,Dhalsim , Balrog, Sagat, Akuma , honestly I think the 3 new chs will fill the E.Honda/Dhalsim/Balrog bill and I'm not sure Guile will make starting cast anymore so that leaves Blanka and Either Sagat or Akuma as the 3 most likely from SF2. From Alpha we've still got Adon, Gen, Eagle and Dan (I won't count the dolls) and honestly I don't think any of them stand a chance. I can see Dan being a training dummy again but he won't be a selectable character in the initial 16 (maybe hidden?) Adon I could see but not over Blanka/Sagat/Akuma. SF3 actually has a ton available but Dudley, necro, Oro, Sean, Q, Urien, yun, Yang, Remy , Twelve aren't exactly top of the line popular characters. I can see Urien being the boss for the game but that means he'll be hidden from the main 16. Dudley, Yun/Yang and Sean seem to have a bit of popularity but not enough to beat out those SF2 favorites I think. Finaly, you've got the new to SF4 cast - once you remove girls and grapplers you're left with only Rufus and I really doubt he'll get in. Birdie and R Mika already fill the jokey character bill I think.
I'd love to be wrong here , really , I would. I just feel like those last 2 slots in the upper left of the capcom evo panel will be SF2 characters. Blanka will be one because he fits a fairly unique slot on the cast and I think Sagat will fill the other (akuma may well remain a hidden boss as always). The last slot in that lower right section that it is filled with alpha characters right now , well it could be Adon to keep that section alpha only but it could also be dudley or sean even. Maybe it's not just alpha characters down there , maybe it's just "characters who haven't been in a SF in awhile".
Who knows , I suppose we'll find out as the months go on. Speculation is fun times. For example I'm going to speculate that the next character reveal will be a brand new character. In fact I think the remaining reveals will go as follows - New character, SF2 ch, New Character , Alpha/3/whatever ch, SF2 character , last character, story trailer/boss reveal, mechanics trailer.
