The release of Terry Bogard in Street Fighter 6 next month is going to be an important event not only for the game but for the franchise as well since the character who starred in the Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters franchises will be the first guest character to appear in any entry in the series by CAPCOM. As such, it was not surprising to learn last week that he is likely going to make a big splash, having the potential of being among the best characters in the game.
During Gamescom, I had the chance to try out Terry before release, using him in a few matches against CPU-controlled opponents and fighting against him using other characters (mainly my mains Blanka and M.Bison). While the testing environment wasn’t the best, as I really felt the input delay on the PlayStation 5 version as opposed to the PC version I have played since the game was released, and the available time wasn’t long (around 30 minutes), I feel Terry won’t take long to shoot high on the tier list of most players due to a few reasons.
Even without being able to explore the nuances of the character due to the lack of training mode and its ever-useful frame data meter, it’s clear how Terry is a very strong character. He has every tool that a Street Fighter 6 character needs to be top tier: cancelable crouching medium kick, overhead, invincible OD reversal, some long-reaching normals, including some that make the character advance forward, and explosive damage, although not on par with that of M.Bison, the first Season 2 character. Like a few other characters already in the game, some of Terry’s special moves change depending on the strength of the button, which makes the character a little more complex than others but potentially more deadly. One of these special moves, Crack Shoot, reminiscent of G’s wheel kick special move, felt plus on block, something that could grant the character the oppressive pressure most of the game’s top tiers can dish out without spending meter. Even some of his supers are pretty unique, as his Level 2, Power Geyser, has multiple follow ups, including one that uses Drive to increase its power.
What truly stood out, besides his potential, is how great of a recreation of the original character Terry in Street Fighter 6 is. One of his target combos, Passing Sway, allows him to jump into the background ala Fatal Fury and then return to the front with two different attacks. I couldn’t test how much mix-up potential this has, but I’m sure it will be a pretty disorienting technique in the first few days of the character’s availability.
Without more time with the character, it is difficult to say if Terry will be able to hold his own against the likes of Ken, Cammy, and Akuma, but there’s no doubt that the potential is definitely there. While he’s definitely another shoto type of character, his unique fighting style and mechanics will make his addition to Street Fighter 6 a worthy one on September 24th. The Pao Pao Cafè stage will also be released on the same day.
