Dear Capcom,

First of all, let me congratulate you on Street Fighter IV. For a while there, I thought you might've fucked it up, what with those early screenshots of Ryu's dick and everything. But nope! Turns out you've done a pretty good job. Kudos.

But listen: there's something we need to talk about. It's these bosses of yours, Capcom. They're shit and you need to stop creating new ones.

I was willing to overlook the whole Final Bison fiasco in Alpha 3, because even though Final Bison is overpowered and cheap, he's still Bison. I don't mind being raped by Bison because raping is what Bison does. A Bison that doesn't rape is like a ... pope that doesn't ... pape. Or whatever. The point is that Bison is an intimidating character, so it doesn't feel like a gyp when he beats the shit out of you.

Gill is not an intimidating character. Gill is Calvin Klein's Two-Face for Men. He's a fucking Mills and Boon model as seen through 3D glasses. The dude doesn't have pants. He walks around in a goddamn loin-cloth like that's an acceptable thing to do, like people simply won't mind if they happen to see his balls during a fight. You don't see his balls, of course, but what I'm saying is that it sometimes seems like you might. And that's off-putting. I can't concentrate when I'm thinking about scrotum. I don't think anyone can.

Not that concentration counts for anything. Nothing counts when it comes to Gill: not concentration, nor determination, nor skill. He will beat your arse regardless. He will attack you with kicks and punches and throws that have priority over everything and apparently cannot blocked. He will hit you with special moves that fill up the entire screen and deplete half your energy bar in a single stroke. He will rise again when KOed, with full health, and unleash the fucking WRATH OF GOD on you. He will do all this in your first fight with him.

And when you finally beat him, when he finally lets you win, you will feel no joy nor sense of accomplishment. All you will feel is the dread of having to fight him again.

This is not a good boss, Capcom. A good boss shouldn't make a person hollow and bitter. You think I'm being facetious, but I tell you, when a person loses thirty times in a row to Fabio, it triggers an existential crisis. You ask yourself: How could a just and loving God do nothing while there is so much Gill in the world? What if life itself is like a fight with Gill – an uninterrupted series of crushing blows, one after the other, occasioning a humiliating and pointless death? Many hardened Streeties veterans have sobbed silently over questions like these, I can assure you.

Now Seth – Seth isn't as bad as Gill. So you are improving. But still: he's fucking terrible, Capcom. You had to know this while you were designing him. You had to know that nobody would be excited by, or interested in, another generic ultimate-warrior-made-by-SCIENCE character. That shit was tired when every other fighting game in the universe did it.

Oh, but wait, you put a spinny Yin/Yang ball in his stomach. Well, that changes everything. That spinny thing makes Seth the freshest boss on the block. You certainly don't see any other bosses with a spinny thing! Bison doesn't have a spinny thing. But then again, Bison isn't a DIRTY CHEATING SHIT who knows EVERYONE'S MOVES and has the reflexes of a FUCKING ROBOT. So maybe he doesn't need one.



By the way, did I mention that Seth looks a lot like Gill? And acts like him? Seriously, the guy's an oddly coloured adonis in a loin cloth who talks like Charlton Heston reading The Bible. That's Gill to a goddamn T. All he needs is an extra coat of paint and a blonde wig and they'd be like twins.

Didn't you hear the complaints, Capcom? Didn't you get my previous letters? Nobody likes Gill. Nobody. He is hated. He is hated in the same way that a murderer or paedophile is hated: with pure obsidian fury. And you thought it'd be a good idea if he had a clone. I can only hope that the individuals responsible have already been gunned down in the street.

I don't want us to be enemies, Capcom. I really like your games, even the racist ones. But this shit needs to stop. One cheap boss – okay, fine, you're entitled to that. Two cheap bosses is pushing your luck. But three cheap bosses, Capcom? Three cheap bosses in a row, with the last two among the worst characters you've ever created?

Enough.

Yours in hadokens,
Dan Staines