Street Fighter IV: Americans Unsurprisingly Love Abel

Americans prefer new SFIV character Abel over the others.

You'd think this was some kind of shock: Street Fighter fans like their Street Fighter cast to look like Street Fighter characters! This sort of thing always boggles my mind. So many Japanese companies decide they need to make their games "American" to sell, when it's the original feel of the game that attracts people in the first place! Street Fighter II wasn't a huge hit because it was Americanized, it was a huge hit because it was a great game, no Americanization necessary.

Time and again we see this happen. Games like Disgaea, a fantastic series of entertaining, deep strategy games, got overlooked for a US release until Atlus decided to "take a chance" on it. The game became so rare that it was selling for more than it's original price when it disappeared from shelves and other American companies swooped in to snap up other, similar titles from the same developer that were previously overlooked as being unmarketable to US audiences. The games we so successful that the developer shortly opened an American branch so they could cash in on distributing their own releases!

That's not the only instance of such a thing happening. With the success of the wacky Guilty Gear, numerous over the top fighting games, again previously overlooked, are garnering North American releases. Schmups - "shoot 'em ups," long regarded as catering only to a tiny niche audience - are starting to reemerge through console releases and online downloads. More and more obscure (to us, at least) Japanese titles are being picked up, ranging from the long-running Fire Pro Wrestling series, the quirky kissing-based Chulips, and numerous role-playing games, from Magna Carta on down.

So why does Capcom feel it necessary to tailor a character to the American audience, and why are they so surprised when gamers pass on the almost patronizing result for a fighter more akin to what you'd see in Street Fighter?