Oro (Street Fighter)

Oro (オロ) is a video game character created by Capcom. He appears in the Street Fighter III series of fighting games. Despite appearing only in the SFIII games, Oro gained significant notability due to his unusual and controversial character design.

Concept and characteristics
Oro is a hermit of Japanese descent who is over 140 years old, having mastered the secrets of immortality. He lives in a deep cave within the Amazon. Although he may not seem very strong, his lack of attachments has allowed him to exceed his fighting skills beyond those of an ordinary person, though he does seem to have a weakness for cute girls. He attained such extraordinary abilities through the mastery of an extreme fighting style known as senjutsu (仙術). He sets out on a journey to find a worthy successor of his secrets in order to kill time. Through the use of magic, he sealed one of his arms in order to even the odds in favor of his opponents.

In his ending in the original game and 2nd Impact, Oro decides that the only martial artist he met worthy of inheriting his secrets was Ryu. In 3rd Strike, Oro's boredom has reached its limits. Many young fighters have come to him in trying to become his disciples, but no one has lasted his training long enough. One day, he heard rumors involving a "mysterious organization" and the "master of the fist" and he decided to investigate. In his ending, Oro is shown trying to make Ryu, who is unaware of Oro's presence in his training, his disciple again.

Gameplay
To date, Oro has only appeared in Street Fighter III and its subsequent expansions, Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. He is described as being a fighter more suited for patient players. He is also noted for his unorthodox fighting style. As UGO Networks writes, Oro "can deal some serious damage to the player that can wait for the right opening on an opponent."

Reception
Adrenaline Vault called Oro one of the more exotic characters in Street Fighter III and Computer and Video Games called Oro one of the more appealing characters in the game. Allgame called Oro the "strangest creature of them all" in Street Fighter III and compared him to Quasimodo. IGN cited Oro as an example of the new generation of Street Fighter games which feature "genetic mutants and oddballs", as he "didn't come close to normal".

UGO Networks listed Oro as one of the top 50 Street Fighter characters due to his "unorthodox, powerful, and unique" design. GameDaily named Oro the 22nd most bizarre fighting game character. IGN wrote that while Oro, along with the rest of the Street Fighter III cast, is not as memorable as the characters from Street Fighter II, he was "nicely designed". Heavy.com named Oro one of the characters wanted in Super Street Fighter IV, adding that Oro would work better in 3D than in 2D. Despite appearing only in SFIII, Oro was voted 35th most popular out of 85 Street Fighter characters in Capcom's own poll for the 15th anniversary of Street Fighter.

On the other hand, GamesRadar named Oro one of the worst Street Fighter characters. IGN's Martin Robinson named Oro one of the five Street Fighter characters that he does not want in Super Street Fighter IV, describing him as "ugly" and "ungainly" as well as the "oddest character to have ever appeared" in the series, yet noting that "some people adore him".