Seth (Street Fighter IV)

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Witness my limitless power!

Seth is an antagonist and boss character in the Street Fighter IV series, also the final boss of the Arcade and Story modes in Ultra Street Fighter IV.

Ever since his debut, he has been rather despised and has received a lot negative feedback from fans, players, and critics alike for his dull & obnoxious qualities.

Why He Sucks

  1. Seth is kind of like other cases such as Azazel, Gill, Parace L’Sia, Onslaught, Mike Tyson, and Brainiac, in that he has rather very cheap and almost overpowered AI.
  2. Seth’s overall design, pictured to the right, is sort of bland: it’s just a muscular silver man with a strange Yin-Yang-like object (Tandon Engine as it's called in-game) for a belly.
    • Speaking of which, his design also rips off the Silver Surfer & Geegus of World Heroes fame by proxy.
  3. Usually, he starts pretty easy, but once the Player Character beats him at first, he pulls a Rugal & goes all out afterwards. This more or less also applies in the Super updates, but does no such thing in the Ultra update where he's all out by default despite the Rugal-pulling cutscene still present.
  4. Due to his AI, he will block many of the Player Character’s attacks, as well as attack them in a flash, and he is fast when he attacks so he will combo you without breaking a sweat.
  5. Being the final boss, Seth has a wide selection of attacks, though he may not have as much moves himself, he can mimic any fighter's abilities (we’re not kidding). Here are some examples befitting of his Frankensteinitis:
    1. Sonic Boom: Guile's projectile that he throws with one hand instead of both. Sometimes, he can throw 2 of them at once. The kicker is that it's a quarter-circle punch input instead of a charge, so he can throw a slew of them no problem.
    2. Shoryuken: The signature anti-air of the Shotos (Ryu, Ken, Akuma, etc.) that he can land up to THREE hits in quick succession, bound to be a momentum breaker at any time.
    3. Spinning Piledriver: Zangief's devastating throw, Seth uppercuts his opponents into the air, then teleports above and slam his opponents by piledriving them to the ground. Just like the Red Cyclone himself, he adores using this move when you get close to him, which can double as a counter, much to his delight.
    4. Hyakuretsukyaku: Similar to Chun-Li's multi-kick move, only the first kick has to connect to be followed by a rapid flurry of unseen force. It's blockable, but he mainly uses it as a surprise counter when either you or him are in the middle of a combo.
    5. Yosokyaku: Chun-Li's trustworthy Head Stomp move. Works just like hers, thus just as effective.
    6. Yoga Teleport: Dhalsim's teleport, only usable on the ground in his case, which he does up the wazoo.
    7. Stretching Arm Punch: Dhalsim's ducking strong punch. He likes using it when you're trying to block Sonic Booms among other tactics.
    8. Tenmakujinkyaku: Akuma's special divekick bordering on Adon's Jaguar Tooth, though much heavier than usual.
    9. Chariot Tackle: Urien’s tackle attack, but with an input instead of a charge, though thankfully this attack can only be used in Omega mode.
    10. Focus Attack: A stunning variant of the Chariot Tackle. Obviously, being a boss & all that, it has a wider range than most fighters. If you retreat from him at that moment, he'll cancel it & spam Sonic Booms & teleports just to keep you over the edge.
  6. Seth does also have 4 normal attacks himself, and they are hard to avoid & cause high damage if connected:
    1. Tanden Engine: Produces a ball of energy to draw you closer towards him a la Moloch, though instead of hurting on impact, he usually follows it with the Spinning Piledriver.
    2. Tanden Storm: A Tanden Engine variant that blasts his opponents away should it succeed.
    3. Tanden Stream: Seth can draw his opponents into his engine, and ejects them into the screen. While funny, its damage ratio may reduce the laughs.
    4. Tanden Typhoon: By twisting his body into an arc, with his feet and head on the ground and his stomach facing upwards, he unleashes the glory that is the Tanden Engine via a violent vortex diagonally upwards from his stomach, the engine.
  7. Being the final boss, he has high health.
  8. As mentioned above, his attacks are hard to avoid and can do high damage.
  9. Just like the previous fighters, you are on a time limit, so if it runs out, you have to re-fight Seth with all of his health back. However, you can turn it off before starting Arcade mode so you can keep fighting him for as long as you'd like.
  10. Some attacks come with Super Armour, meaning he'll bearly flinch from your attacks.
  11. Much like any boss fighter, lose to Seth & you have to start the entire battle all over again.

Redeeming Qualities

  1. Although not the first of his kind, Seth does have a neat concept, being a boss that uses other attacks from regular fighters, basically being the legendary Sheng Long hoax finally implemented into Street Fighter canon!
  2. The arena/stage the Player Character fights him in is pretty cool.
  3. A sweet and decent variety of attacks.
  4. An interesting backstory.
  5. His theme songs are friggin' good.
  6. By beating him in Arcade Mode, you get to play as him in Battle Mode and he's fun to play as. In the updates, he's playable from the get-go, so you can experience the fun early on.
  7. Much more manageable in the updates, as his AI is not as unforgiving those times around, allowing for an easy, but engaging battle. Except if you're Dan should you get the perhaps unintentional joke here.
  8. His voice acting is just delicious, especially in English where his VA gave him the personality of an evil scenery-chewer, which can be exquisite if that's your thing.
  9. He returned in Street Fighter V, so if you're a fan of him, you may be happy that he's back.
  10. That he's based on a then-employee who was a Street Fighter fan long before he ended up working on the series can be very heartwarming when you think about it.

Trivia

  1. As for RD #1, Sheng Long was an April Fools hoax on the April 1st 1992 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly magasine, based on Ryu's famous win quote "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.", Sheng Long actually being a translation error of Shoryuken/Dragon Punch. It talked about how the eponymous master could be fought through ludicrous criteria & that he used several specials from regular characters. This in turn directly lead to Akuma's creation, indirectly Gouken's & possibly Seth's!
  2. Seth is named after and inspired by professional fighting game commentator, EVO co-founder & then-Capcom community manager Seth Killian, who now works at Epic Games after stints at Sony Santa Monica & Riot Games, working on a fighting game for the latter before joining his current employment today. He also inspired another final boss, Divekick's own S-Kill, who's even closer to the man himself.
  3. He was originally going to be named Cain, as Abel's opposite as per Biblical references before Seth came into the picture. Still keeping in touch with said references, the rest is history.