TheStreet Fighterseries is unequivocally the most well-known fighting game of all time. Whether it’s because of theclassic rivalry between Ken and Ryu, the unique artstyle, or the insanely deep gameplay mechanics. Sure, it might not be the most popular game at the moment and each new release has its fair share of problems, butStreet Fighterstarted it all. Unfortunately up until about Street Fighter four, the only “costumes” characters had were the alternate color schemes. So, you’ll notice that this article is made up entirely of costumes from bothSFIVandSFV. But, have no worries, because that is still over 200 costumes for us to look through and decide on. Frankly, we grouped up a lot of our choices, it was the only way, believe us.
10Best: A Couple Of The “Wild” Costumes From SFIV
Starting things off with a controversial opinion, we think the animal skins fromUltra Street Fighter IVare awesome. There’s something just so satisfying about saying “this character would be this animal”. In any case, a lot of the fanbase hates most of these costumes, saying that they don’t match the character or look awful. Personally, we like a fair bit of them but can admit that there are some real stinkers. But, there are also some real winners. Out of all of them, our choices would be the Kappa E. Honda, Wild Bull Balrog, Dragon Fei Long, Goat Gen, and English Bulldog Dudley.
9Worst: B-Boy Ryu And B-Girl Chun Li In SFIV
We’ll point out this pattern before anyone notices it naturally, but there’s a trend on this list that the “Best” costumes are a series of costumes and the worst costumes are one or two at most. That’s because, in all honesty, most of the skins in bothSFIV & Vare unoffensive. The ones that are truly awful really stick out just as much as the great ones. And B-Boy/B-Girl Chun-Li and Ryu are probably the most agreed upon awful skins. They don’t match the characters at all, don’t look great, and were both a promotion for Capcoms partnership with Redbull as well as the Nagoya B-Boy competition. Out of all theStreet Fightercrossoversover the years, this has the be one of the worst.
8Best: The Capcom Reference Skins In SFV
InSFVparticularly, Capcom put the time in to use alternate costumes as a way of showing love towards their ignored franchises.Marvel Vs Capcom Infiniteis entirely different, so maybe this was a way of helping fans “play” as Mega Man or Morrigan who weren’t into hyper fighters.
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In any case, most of them look pretty great! There are a ton that reference theDarkstalkers,Mega Man,Monster Hunter, andDevil May Cryfranchises. But, there are also singular nods in there like Captain Commando Nash and Fiona Cammy.
7Worst: Most Of The “Wild” Costumes In SFIV
We already went over the Animal Skins fromSFIV, but we felt that putting them on the best side was sort of catering to our own preferences. So, in an effort to be fair, we’re going to throw shade at the worst of the worst costumes from this all-character costume pack. Rabbit Sakura looks like she spent 1V dollars on socks and rabbit ears, Mokoto’s “costume” looks like a cheaply made onesie, Octopus Hakan is either the worst or best thing we’ve ever seen, Monkey Dan is a neat idea that just wasn’t modeled well, and Seal Rufus is just as awful looking as any of his other skins.
6Best: Robotic Themed Skins In Either Game
A lot of games like to do a “robot” version of characters for alternate skins. In fact, some of them go one step further and just make them their own characters such as Cyber Sub Zero inMK9or Robo Fortune inSkullgirls. But, the mecha skins forStreet Fighterjust seem to nail the designs better than anyone else.
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Mecha Zangief inSFVis perfect, Mech Juri inSFVis also mechanical without being too much, and Robo Seth inSFIVis a great twist on the character. Plus, we’d also include any sentai or power armor skins in this category as well such as C. Viper’s exoskeleton skin inSFVor Sentai-themed M. Bison fromSFIV.
5Worst: CPT2018 Birdie Costume In SFV
Birdie already looks pretty different inSFV, just look at the guy compared to his Nostalgia costume and you’ll see what we mean. But, even with that huge gut, Bridie isn’t Birdie if he doesn’t let his stomach just hang out. So when CPT 2018 champ Menard got to design his costume for winning, we thought he’d know what worked best aesthetically for the character. Turns out he didn’t. The dude just had Birdie rep his gear in casual clothes and that’s about it. The outfit doesn’t match, it doesn’t seem to match Birdie’s sense of style, and it isn’t at all worth the $20 dollars it cost on release. The trophy being used as the weight on Birdie’s chain is a neat touch, but that’s about it.
4Best: The Halloween Costumes In SFV
SFVhas a lot of costumes, like a real lot. There are Track Suits for every character, holiday skins for most, and Halloween skins for some. And, other than F.A.N.G’s, most of them look amazing! They don’t exactly match the character a lot of the time, but the designs do match the visual aesthetics of the character and don’t completely change their proportions or anything. If we had to pick, Devil Bison, Demon Juri, and Mummy Dhalism would be the best. While, on the other side, the more forgettable ones would include Undead Bride Cammy, Kappa E Honda, and Zombie Nash.
3Worst: All Of Rufus’s Costumes In SFIV
We personally like theStreet Fighterseries from afar. We’ve played most of the games ourselves but we never had a consistent group to play with, so we fell off each one rather quickly. That said, we’ve always kept up with big tournaments and new releases for each game, as well as the general opinion of the community. And, it’s pretty widely accepted that Rufus is both a horrible design and character.
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They were going for a Bob fromTekkenbut should’ve just stuck to what they already nailed with Birdie. And, what’s even worse, is that all of Rufus' skins suck as well!
2Best: The Classic Costumes From Either Game
This feels like a bit of a copout, but of course, the Classic/Nostalgia costumes would be some of the best. Nothing does a better job clouding someone’s judgment that nostalgia after all. It also helps that the devs at Capcom really put the work in to make the classic costumes look as accurate as they possibly can. And, sometimes, they’re a way out for a horrible default design, such as Akuma inSFV. Our personal favorites, once again, are Nostalgia Birdie inSFV,Final FightCody inSFV, and Nostalgia Poison. Now if only we could get style-perfect costumes that replicated the look fromthe beloved animated film, then we’d be golden.
1Worst: Ken and Alex’s Battle Outfits In SFV
Remember how we said earlier that most of the skins were unoffensive or square in the middle of the road in terms of quality? These are rare exceptions. Somehow, Capcom figured out a way to make Ken look even worse in casual gear than he does by default inSFV. And, they really keep dropping the ball with Alex. The guy has such a great design and was obviously supposed to be the next generation “Ryu” and eventually replace the guy. But, they keep giving him little to no involvement in the story and horrible skins, so he’s fallen from grace. It’s a real shame, but we understand that Cacom knows that Ryu is the most recognizable character in Street Fighter. Still, that doesn’t count as an excuse, and Goku should be proof of what can happen when you over-rely on a single character.
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