Vega (Street Fighter)

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Vega (Balrog in Japan) is one of the bosses of the Street Fighter fighting game series.

The style Vega uses to fight is loosely based on Zipota and Savate, both used as a means of self-discipline and defense by unarmed Spanish noblemen, sailors and honor guards of established families.

Contents

1 Story
2 Appearance
3 Gameplay

3.1 Techniques

4 Actors
5 Character basis
6 Name change
7 Trivia
8 Appearances

Story

Vega was born to a privileged Catalonian family in Spain. For reasons undisclosed, their status dwindled, causing Vega's mother to remarry for financial security. As he matured, Vega studied bullfighting, a cultural tradition. Afterward, he went to Japan and learned ninjutsu, a style he believed meshed well with his natural grace and agility. Combining bullfighting with ninjutsu, Vega went into an underground cage fighting circuit, and quickly became one of the best. His stepfather murdered his mother because he felt she did not respect him, and Vega killed him in return. The incident warped his mind, and he developed a dual personality: honorable nobleman by day, sadistic murderer by night.

Due to Vega's superb fighting ability and remorseless nature, the criminal leader known as M. Bison instated Vega as one of his three personal grand master bodyguards in the Shadoloo organization. Vega oversaw assassination operations for Shadoloo as well, and was associated with Cammy and the Shadoloo assassins known as The Dolls.

Despite his savage and brutal fighting ability, Vega failed to protect Bison's secret Psycho Drive project, and did not prevent his master from being destroyed by Akuma.

It is unknown what Vega has been doing since the fall of Shadoloo, although it's assumed he still continues his murderous rampages.

Appearance

Early sketches suggest that Vega was going to resemble a medieval knight wearing a full suit of armor. This idea was scrapped because Street Fighter was about fighters from all over the world, not time. Remnants of this concept are apparent in Vega's final design including a mask and a sharp metal claw.

Vega is one of the few Street Fighter characters to constantly carry a weapon, and the only character to do so in Street Fighter II. This claw is three-pronged with bent tips, resembling outstretched fingers. This claw is useful for both stabbing and slashing attacks.

Vega does not wear his expressionless mask to conceal his identity; he removes it after fights, during his win poses, as well as in certain character-select images in various games he appears in. The mask is purely to protect his face from scarring or bruising during battle, since he believes himself to be impossibly beautiful and is obsessively narcissistic. This mask is not particularly sturdy; it is smashed in during Vega's lose portrait in Street Fighter II, and Vega himself will crush it to dust with one hand if he loses due to a time over in Street Fighter Alpha 3.

Vega wears the ceremonial pants, sash, shoes, and leggings of a matador, suggesting his involvement with bullfighting. This decorative garb also offers matadors ease of movement, and is ideal for Vega's acrobatic maneuvers.

In the SFII series, he was depicted as having brown hair (as seen in the artwork on the top right of the page). Since SFA3, however, he has officially had blonde hair (as seen by his fighting stance, on the top left).

Vega has a purple snake tattoo on his chest, which also circles his arm. This shows him to be a villain to a Japanese audience, where body tattoos are usually worn by Yakuza members.

Gameplay

Wikibooks has a manual, textbook or guide to this subject:

Vega is one of the fastest characters in the Street Fighter series, but also one of the most delicate; his defensive rating is unusually low compared to other characters, to balance his incredible speed. Vega's swiftness and flying special techniques make him well-suited for multi-hitting combination attacks, confusing cross-ups, or long range poking attacks with the reach-advantage provided by his claw. It takes exactly fourteen blocked hits for Vega to lose his claw. This reduces his attack range significantly, and prevents him from doing certain super attacks. Since Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Vega can pick up the claw. In Street Fighter Alpha 3, he can lose his mask as well, though the effect is only cosmetic. In , Vega cannot lose his claw. In the Street Fighter EX series, Vega may reinforce or recover his claw with a super move.

Techniques

Vega possesses a unique technique in the back flip, making him leap away from an attacker, instead of countering them with an anti-air attack. In certain games, Vega does have the anti-air attack known as Scarlet Terror, making his playing style even more based on offense than before. Vega's Rolling Crystal Flash/Tumbling Claw has him roll forward on the ground and end with a fierce claw strike, a move integral to Vega's offensive posturing, as the move allows him to move forward after he has pushed himself away from the opponent with other attacks.

Vega's Flying Barcelona Attack and Izuna Drop were originally performed by the computer-controlled Vega by climbing on the chain fence that only exists in Vega's stage. For other stages, Vega must leap off the side of the screen. Later games removed Vega's ability to climb the wall altogether, thus making the character react the same way in every stage (except in SFA3 where players had to input a different special move to climb the cage in his stage).

Actors

In the Street Fighter movie, he was played by Jay Tavare. Along with his trademark mask and claw, he has only three lines during the whole movie and utters them while his face is obscured or when he is off-camera.

Character basis

Vega is a common Japanese stock character, the narusisuto (narcissist) ナルシスト, often depicted as a long-haired, effeminate self-lover. Therefore, he resembles many anime and manga characters, including Shura and Yuda from Fist of the North Star.

Name change

When Street Fighter II was released in America, Capcom was afraid of a lawsuit from Mike Tyson over a character with his likeness and a similar sounding name (Mike Bison). They decided to rotate the names of three of the four boss characters in the following manner:

The African-American boxer is known as M.Bison in Japan and Balrog elsewhere.

The Spanish assasin-bullfighter is known as Balrog in Japan and Vega elsewhere.

The evil dictator and head of Shadowloo is known as Vega in Japan and M.Bison elsewhere.

These changes have caused nothing but confusion whenever Japanese and American fans try to talk about Street Fighter.

Trivia

His Japanese name "Balrog" is meant to be ironic, seeing as the balrog is a mythical hideous creature, contrary to Vega's immaculate beauty. "Vega" is the name of a star in the lyra constellation. Vega is also a Spanish word, meaning "small valley"; it's also a common Spanish last name, which helped fit Vega's Hispanic ancestry and matador background in the storyline.
When Vega performs a custom combo, the shadows that trail him are not masked.
It is hinted that Vega may engage in hematophagy; he had a strong fascination with his victims' blood whether or not he actually partakes of it.
Vega appeared as an unplayable boss character in the Capcom/Psikyo shooter Cannon Spike in 2000, as part of an elite group of terrorists in the future. Here he is known as Fallen Balrog, has two claws, no mask, and a sickly palor, resembling the undead monsters present in that stage of the game.
In Capcom vs. SNK 2, during Vega's fight intro he will throw a rose to characters he respects (M. Bison) or finds attractive (the female characters, himself, Benimaru, Kyosuke). He will turn away and shake his head at characters he finds unattractive.
In one of Vega's win poses in Capcom vs. SNK 2, his snake tattoo will come to life.
Vega was given the surname Fabio le Cerna in the anime series Street Fighter II V, but it has many variations in different parts of the world, and is not officially recognized by Capcom.
In his original Street Fighter II appearance, the CPU-controlled Vega had a special attack where he could jump onto the cage wall in the background of his stage, climb it for a few seconds, and then leap, dropping down onto the player from the top of the screen. This gave Vega a rather unique advantage as he was the only opponent that could directly interact with the background of his stage. Because he was not a playable character in the original incarnations of Street Fighter II until Champion Edition, this technique could not be replicated by the player.

Appearances

Street Fighter II (non-playable character)
Street Fighter II': Champion Edition
Street Fighter II' Turbo: Hyper Fighting
Super Street Fighter II
Super Street Fighter II Turbo
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Street Fighter EX 2
Street Fighter EX 3
Capcom vs. SNK
Capcom vs. SNK 2

Street Fighter Characters

Adon – Akuma – Alex – Balrog – Birdie – Blanka – Cammy – Charlie – Chun-Li – Cody – Dan – Dee Jay – Dhalsim – Dudley – Eagle – E. Honda – Elena – Fei Long – Gen – Gill – Guile – Guy – Hugo – Ibuki – Ingrid - Karin – Ken – M. Bison – Maki – Makoto – Necro – Oro – Q – R. Mika – Remy – Rolento – Rose – Ryu – Sagat – Sakura – Sean – Sodom – The Dolls - T. Hawk – Twelve – Urien – Vega – Yang – Yun – Zangief

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