F.A.N.G is a poopy pigeon in Street Fighter V

Plus move list because I can be helpful

I know what you’re thinking with Street Fighter V (PS4, PC) less than two weeks from release: everything is mined. There was the big reveal that Arcade mode will have standard text and art stories to be followed by a post-launch DLC (free) story mode with over an hour’s worth of in-game cinema.

I talked to producer Yoshinori Ono and had my dreams of a Third Strike-style reboot (or, dare I dream, a new 2D Street Fighter) crushed. The last launch fighter plus DLC plan was revealed. Here are all the modes.

Oh buddy, lotsa stuff. But let’s rewind to that new fighter, F.A.N.G. I went to a Street Fighter V preview event early in the week with the first chance to test out the new challenger and boy are my arms tired.

You see the above image of F.A.N.G seemingly flapping about with his giant sleeves? He does that. Homie will literally go airborne and carpet bomb the entire horizontal plane with poison bombs like an awkward pigeon dropping shits on businessmen.

Actually I love everything about F.A.N.G’s movement, not just a special that looks like you modded a humanoid character model rigged onto a small bird’s animations. Even his walk is a Looney Tunes style creep complete with hunched shoulders and craned arms like a goofy t-rex or Montgomery Burns.

What I love less is my inability to use the character to annoy people. You see, F.A.N.G is a charge character, requiring second-long maintained button presses in various directions to properly execute moves and my slow ass just plays Ken in Third Strike so I’m screwed. Look at this hieroglyphic shit.  The only “charge characters” I want to know about are the digits of the credit cards I steal.

The good news? I performed admirably with Chun-Li after years of disuse, enjoyed the hell out of Laura (like souped up Yoga Bro Ken and Chun-Li, her kicks are dynamite). Actually, question: is it more or less racist if F.A.N.G isn’t Chinese? Because he looks like an XCOM Thin Man, but when I was playing as Chun-Li she noted that his favorite number, 2, was not written out in proper Chinese characters on his shirt and questioned if he’s really Chinese at all. We might just have a really big Mickey Rooney Breakfast at Tiffany’s fan who really wants to blow Bison for some reason.