Guy (Final Fight)

Guy (ガイ) is a video game character who first appears in the 1989 arcade beat-em-up Final Fight by Capcom. Guy would later reemerge, along with other Final Fight characters, as a fighting game character in Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams and its sequels. Guy is a red-clad ninpō master of Japanese descent who has been taught the Bushin (武神) form of ninjutsu.The kanji, 武神, written on Guy's top literally translates to "God of War".

In the Final Fight series


Guy is one of three playable characters, along with Cody and Mike Haggar, in the original arcade version of Final Fight, released for the arcades by Capcom in 1989. Each of the three fighters featured their own unique characteristics, with Guy being the fastest of the three due to his ninjutsu skills. One of his most novel techniques in the game is the "Off-the-Wall Kick", a technique which allows Guy to bounce off the wall with a jump kick. Due to space constraint, Guy was initially omitted from the SNES port of the game, with Cody and Haggar being the only playable characters in that version.

Capcom later produced a second Super NES version titled Final Fight Guy, which replaced Cody's character with that of Guy, with the in-game explanation given that Cody was away training under Guy's master in Japan. Later versions of the game such as Final Fight CD for Sega CD and Final Fight One for the Game Boy Advance would include all three characters. Capcom also produced an NES game titled Mighty Final Fight, a parody of the original Final Fight which features all three characters. In the backstory of the original Final Fight, Guy is established to be the 39th successor of the Bushin-style Ninpo, and as such, in his appearances he wears the kanji Bushin (武神) embroidered into his shinobi shozoku.

Capcom later released Final Fight 2 in 1993, a sequel created specifically for the Super NES. In this installment, Guy's sensei, Genryusai and his daughter Rena (Guy's fiancee), are kidnapped by the new incarnation of Mad Gear. In the game's story, Guy is off on a training mission and is unable to rescue his fiancee and master. Instead, the game features Guy's sister-in-law, Maki Genryusai, who has also been trained in the same fighting style, and Carlos Miyamoto, a South American swordsman. Guy only makes an appearance in the end of the game, although the game does feature power-up icons shaped after his character.

In Final Fight 3, released in 1995, Guy finally returns to Metro City and teams up with Haggar to rid Metro City of the Skull Cross gang, the latest gang to try to pick up where Mad Gear had left off. They are joined by Metro City SCU officer Lucia Morgan and former gang member who double crossed the gang, Dean (who wanted revenge when Skull Cross murdered his family). The four succeed, and are able to rid Metro City of the criminals. Metro City is left in shambles, but Guy does not seem to care, and leaves that to Haggar.

In 1998, Guy was featured in Final Fight Revenge, the American-produced fighting game for the arcades and Sega Saturn.

In 2006, the second American-produced Final Fight sequel, Final Fight: Streetwise, reimagined Guy's character was as an Asian crime lord in the Japan Town district of Metro City.

In the Street Fighter series
When Capcom produced the original Street Fighter Alpha in 1995, Guy would be one of two Final Fight characters to be included in the game along with the game's second stage boss Sodom. In this game, Guy's character design was altered slightly, with his jika-tabi replaced by sneakers, although his fighting style mimics that of his Final Fight counterpart. Guy and Sodom would be joined by Rolento in 1996's Street Fighter Alpha 2 and by Cody in 1998's Street Fighter Alpha 3, followed by Maki's appearance in the portable versions of Alpha 3. Guy's new design would be used in the second Final Fight sequel for the Super NES, Final Fight 3, where he teams up once again with Haggar to save Metro City from the Skull Cross gang. This version, along with Cody's Street Fighter Alpha rendition, are also hidden characters in Final Fight One. In Final Fight 3, and only in this appearance, Guy had in his repertoire a "fireball" style attack, although it dissipates a short distance from his palm, not unlike those used by Dan Hibiki in Street Fighter Alpha.

In the Alpha games, Guy's Bushin predecessor is revealed to be a man named Zeku, who would appear in Guy's ending in Street Fighter Alpha 2 to test Guy for his successor-ship. Zeku's presence in the game contradicts Final Fight 2, which identifies Genryusai as Guy's sensei, as designers of the Alpha games did not take into account the Super NES Final Fight sequels when developing the games. Zeku was mentioned once again in Guy's bio in Street Fighter Alpha 3. When Maki was reintroduced in Capcom vs. SNK 2, Capcom provided the explanation that Maki belongs to the original clan that formed the Bushin style and that Genryusai was Zeku's master, who in turn trained Guy and Maki.

Guy appears as one of the new characters in Super Street Fighter IV. In his ending he's shown rescuing an unconscious Rose from Bison. In Rose's ending it is hinted that he might be the only one powerful enough to stop Bison. In Cody's ending he's shown trying to persuade him to come back on the right side of the law. Guy is also hinted to be the one who threw the kunai in Fei Long's ending, since Ibuki has no involvement with S.I.N.

In other media
He makes a cameo appearance in Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation as one of the warriors who have agreed to accompany Ryu, Ken and Chun-Li to Professor Sadler's base and rescue Shun, Ryu's alleged brother. At the base, he is seen briefly fighting Dhalsim, on whom he attempts a Bushin jump-kick, only for Dhalsim to teleport himself away and seemigly hit Guy from behind. He is last seen in a cell along with the other fighters, where Ken and Chun-Li break them out before going to rescue Birdie.

Guy makes an appearance in Udon's Street Fighter II Turbo comic, in which he was given an invitation to fight in the Japanese branch of the Street Fighter Tournament by M. Bison. Dan tries to take Guy's invitation from him by force, yet is quickly defeated. At night, Dan breaks into Guy's house and steals his invitation. Guy witnesses the whole event, but decides to give Dan a chance, as he was not planning on joining the competition in the first place.

Guy is a playable character in the Japan-only tactical RPG Namco × Capcom, released in 2005. In the game, he is paired with Sho (Ginzu the Ninja) from Captain Commando as a single unit. Because of this, he also participates in the Multiple Assault attacks that involve all of the Commando Team. The in-game story depicts Sho as his future Bushin-ryu successor.

Guy also appears in the Street Fighter Alpha manga by Masahiko Nakahira, which depicted him as a well-known vigilante ninja who goes around bringing an end to several criminal organisations. Guy disguised himself as a member of Shadaloo to face M. Bison, but he is forced to reveal his identity when Vega tries to kill both Adon and a possessed Ryu. After making quick work of Vega, Guy kicks several oil drums at Ryu (a nod to the Final Fight series), then proceeds to fight Ryu. Due to Guy's superior speed and training to fight multiple enemies at once, Guy was able to block every attack from Ryu's Shun Goku Satsu and defeat him. Guy is last seen watching over the battle between Ryu and Sagat. His silhouette is also seen in Nakahira's Sakura Ganbaru! manga, when Maki talks about the Bushin style.

Guy appears in the American Street Fighter animated series in an episode titled "Final Fight", which adapts the plot of its namesake. In this episode, Guy and Cody befriend Ryu and Ken, who aid them in fighting the Mad Gear Gang to save Jessica.

Guy, along with Cody, makes a cameo appearance in one of the 2011 trailers for Street Fighter X Tekken. However, it is unknown whether either Guy or Cody will be confirmed as playable characters.

Gameplay
Guy's fighting style can be described as a fusion of traditional ninjutsu with modern street brawling, and is also the only Final Fight character in the Street Fighter Alpha series not to use a weapon (though he can throw a close-ranged burst of ki and shuriken in Final Fight 3 and Final Fight Revenge respectively). According to Street Fighter IV developer Taisaku Okada, Guy is a character that does not use "ki" and thus has no use for fireballs or projectiles. Guy's main fighting style is to throw himself right at the enemy, and since he's fast and can really turn up the speed. The player using Guy has to focus on stringing together normal attacks to make combos. In Street Fighter Alpha 2, Guy was one of the few characters who could perform chain combos after they were removed.

Reception
Since his debut in 1989, Guy became a popular character in the fighting game fandom. In the Japanese coin-operated video game magazine Gamest, Guy was ranked second in the Top 50 Characters of the Year poll for 1990 (with Cody at seventh, Poison at 26th, Sodom at 33rd, and Jessica at 40th) and ranked at 26th place in the same poll for 1996. In 2001, an editor of GameSpot named Guy as his personal favourite and called him "the best character in the world". In 2002, Guy was voted the 16th most popular out of 85 Street Fighter characters in Capcom's own poll for the 15th anniversary of Street Fighter. IGN ranked Guy 24th in their Top 25 Street Fighter Characters list in 2009, while in 2010 UGO.com ranked him 30th on a similar list of Top 50 Street Fighter Characters and The Guardian ranked him the high seventh place on the list of Top 20 Street Fighter Characters according to Ryan Hart, the UK's top SF player.

Guy also became often one of the characters most requested to be added to the Capcom games' characters rosters. On the official Capcom forums, he was most requested Final Fight character to be added to the roster of Street Fighter IV, as well as the 2nd most requested character overall to be added to the game. In 2009, GamesRadar too included him in the list of 12 fighters they would like to see in Super Street Fighter IV. According to the game's developers Takashi Tsukamoto and Taisaku Okada, they have "compiled a list of characters that players wanted to see in the game [and] Guy was one of the names on the first list" in both Japan and America ("he's pretty popular overseas as well") and the development team "also wanted to get Guy in the game". He also ranked tenth on the list of top 55 most requested Marvel vs. Capcom 3 DLC characters in a poll by Nico Nico Douga in 2010.