Guile (Street Fighter)

Guile
Street Fighter series character
File:Super Guile.jpg Guile in Super Street Fighter II by Bengus
First game	Street Fighter II

Guile (ガイル, Gairu) is a video game character in Capcom's Street Fighter series of fighting games. In the live action Street Fighter movie, Guile is given the full name of William F. Guile with the military rank of colonel, which was also used in the US Street Fighter cartoon, but was never adapted into the video game series. In the Udon Street Fighter comic book, Guile is the character's first name.

History

Street Fighter series

Guile made his first appearance in Street Fighter II (Template:Vgy) as one of the eight selectable characters featured in the original version of the game. A Major in the United States Air Force, he leaves his country and family to enter the World Warrior tournament to avenge the death of his friend Charlie, who was killed by M. Bison, the tournament's sponsor, sometime before the events of the game. In his ending, he defeats Bison, but is dissuaded from killing him by his wife Jane (Julia in the Japanese version) and their daughter Amy (Kris in Japan). Guile spares Bison and returns home to his family.

Guile's war buddy Charlie would appear in the later prequel series Street Fighter Alpha, although Guile himself did not appear in this sub-series until the console versions of Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Template:Vgy). Originally Guile was a hidden character in the initial PlayStation version of the game, subsequent versions made him part of the initial roster. In his storyline in the game, Guile is an Air Force lieutenant ordered to track down Charlie, who has gone missing. Guile eventually fights Charlie, as well as Bison as his final opponent. In his ending, Guile infiltrates Bison's base with Charlie and sets explosives on the Psycho Drive, only for them to be caught in the act by Bison. Charlie holds off Bison while Guile escapes and the base explodes with Charlie still in it.

Guile also appears as a playable character in Street Fighter EX (Template:Vgy) and its two sequels, Street Fighter EX2 (Template:Vgy) and Street Fighter EX3 (Template:Vgy). The storyline of the EX series takes place at the same time as Street Fighter II. In addition to tracking down Shadaloo to avenge Charlie, Guile is also hunted by a mercenary named Doctrine Dark (another playable character in this sub-series), who is actually a former subordinate named Holger. His relationship with Ken as brothers-in-law (with their respective wives being sisters) is mentioned for the first time in the games in Ken's ending in the Japanese version of the original EX2.

Guile is one of the returning characters who appears in Street Fighter IV. He seeks authorization to conduct a rescue mission for his missing comrade Charlie, but his request is denied by his superiors. During the tournament, Guile faces the amnesiac, Abel, who claims that he has seen Guile's moves elsewhere. Guile becomes convinced that Abel means Charlie, but it transpires that he was in fact referring to Seth, the game's primary villain.

Though he makes no direct appearance in the Street Fighter III series of games, a character named "Remy" appears in the third installment. Remy uses moves reminiscent of Guile's (including his double crouching sweep). Unlike Guile, though, Remy can control the height of his projectiles (similar to Sagat). In the story, there has been no connection made between the two. Remy also has special and Super moves that are not drawn from Guile.

Other games

Guile appears in both the arcade and home versions of Street Fighter: The Movie, which were two separately-produced fighting games that used digitized footage from the live-action Street Fighter film, in which Guile was the lead character. Actor Jean-Claude Van Damme posed for Guile's animation frames in the game. The Alpha 3 incarnation of Guile appears as a selectable character in a few fighting game crossovers which includes Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Template:Vgy), Capcom vs. SNK (Template:Vgy), Capcom vs. SNK 2 (Template:Vgy) and Capcom Fighting Jam (Template:Vgy). He also appears in the SNK-produced installments of SNK/Capcom crossovers in SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium (Template:Vgy), SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos (Template:Vgy) and the SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash series.

Character design

Early Street Fighter II sketches and notes suggest that Guile was developed specifically to appeal to American fans. His physical appearance is strikingly different from the many Asian characters in the Street Fighter series, with light blue eyes, a chiseled jaw, and a particularly tall flattop haircut. The length of Guile's hair varies greatly from appearance to appearance. It is relatively realistic in Street Fighter II, and impossibly tall in SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom. Capcom sourcebooks suggest that Guile's famous hairdo is styled with a special-order army hair spray to keep it up (though he ends up fixing it quickly after a match). Contrary to the character's design, Guile's hair length would not be authorized according to U.S. Air Force regulation, AFI 36-2903.

Another way Guile's image differs from the Asian combatants in the series is his Flag of the United States tattoos. Currently, he has one on each deltoid. Finally, Guile's Military fatigues complete his all-American look.

Guile wears Charlie's dog tag alongside his own, as he searches for Bison.

Stage

In all versions of Street Fighter II Guile's stage is set on a United States Air Force airbase with an F-16 fighter jet in the background and a large, smashable wooden crate on either side. It is assumed the developers designed the stage this way to reinforce the fact that Guile is in the United States Air Force and not in the United States Army Aviation Branch of the United States Army. The F-16 was chosen in particular due to the real-life presence of F-16s on USAF airbases in Japan, therefore making it one of the most recognized planes in Japan.

Cultural impact

In other media

Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie

Guile is one of the main characters in Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, where he is voiced by Masane Tsukayama in the Japanese original and by Kirk Thornton (credited as Donald Lee) in the English dub. Guile is assigned to work together with Chun-Li in order to take down Bison, whose organization Shadaloo (Shadowlaw in the English dub) has been kidnapping several martial artists and brainwashing them to do his evil bidding. The movie follows Guile's plot from the video game in Guile is tracking down Bison to avenge Charlie's death. Eventually Guile does fight Bison near the end of the movie, although all he manages to do is damage his cape with a Sonic Boom. Bison then finishes the fight by blasting Guile down a chasm and then leaving him to die alone, although Guile survives this, and is rescued along with Balrog by E. Honda.

Street Fighter II V anime series

Guile appears in the Street Fighter II V anime series, where he is voiced by Tesshō Genda in the Japanese original and once again by Kirk Thornton in the English dub. In this TV series, Guile is a Technical Sergeant (E-6) in the U.S. Air Force, who spends most of his time training physically and who has great pride in the Air Force. He faces Ryu in a bar fight after Ryu and Ken beat up some of his men. Guile easily defeats Ryu, only to face Ken, who challenges him in an air force base to avenge Ryu. Despite a severe hangover, Guile is able to defeat Ken, which motivates the duo to start a training journey and improve their martial art skills by challenging opponents around the world. Later in the series, Guile is recruited by Ken's father along with his friend Charlie (who retains his Japanese name, Nash, in the dub) when Ryu, Ken and Chun-Li are taken captive by Shadaloo. He faces Zangief while infiltrating Bison's base, while Nash confronts Bison himself. He is unable to face Bison, but manages to rescue Chun-Li from her brainwashing.

1994 live-action film

In the 1994 live-action Street Fighter film, Guile is played by Belgian actor Jean Claude Van Damme and is the main protagonist. Van Damme's line in the movie "Are you man enough to fight with me?" is straight from the game. His character is given the rank of Colonel. In this live adaption, Guile is commanding the A.N. (the movie version of the United Nations) forces as he searches for General M. Bison. His motivation for searching for Bison is not to avenge Charlie's death, but to end Bison's corrupt organization and to rescue Charlie. Although he receives a great deal of help from Ryu and Ken to find Bison's base, he is the one who ultimately defeats Bison instead of Ryu. Van Damme's hair is spiked and red in the film whilst the game Guile has big blonde hair, even though the character was American, Van Damme's thick Belgian accent was very noticeable. Street Fighter: The Movie is not considered part of Street Fighter canon.

Street Fighter: The Animated Series

Following the storyline of the Van Damme movie, Guile serves as the main character of the series, and leader of an organisation of Street Fighters. Bison has survived the events of the movie, and Guile's sole goal is to destroy Bison once and for all.

UDON Comics

In UDON's Street Fighter comic adaptation, Guile is given a central role alongside Chun-Li, particularly in the first arc but he also is a frequent cast member in later arcs. Similar to the official story, Guile is chasing after Shadaloo to discover the whereabouts of his Army buddy, Charlie Nash. Guile is first introduced to Charlie after his aircraft is shot down and Charlie commands a black-ops mission to rescue him. Like the official story, Charlie teaches Guile to fight. For the first arc of the comics, Guile spends his time looking for Ryu, believing to there to be a connection between him and Shadaloo. He traces him to the US and then back to Japan. While in Japan, he and Chun-Li engage a Shadaloo-controlled Charlie (codenamed "Agent Shadow") and fight him off. At the end of the first story arc, Charlie regains his senses and rejoins Chun-Li and Guile before they're attacked by M. Bison. Charlie unleashes his latent Psycho Power abilities and sacrifices himself to take out Bison (Charlie giving his own life to stop Bison echoes Guile's ending in Street Fighter Alpha 3), leaving Guile distraught and swearing vengeance against Shadaloo. Afterwards, Guile continues to assist Chun-Li in looking for Bison (whom they believe survived his encounter with Charlie) but all the while juggling his struggling relationship with his wife, Julia, and their daughter, Amy. Eventually the family reconciles at the end of the comic's second arc. Guile isn't heavily active during the second series of comics (Street Fighter II) but he is given an invitation to Bison's tournament, which he accepts as his final bid for vengeance.

Promotion and reception

A Guile-inspired costume for players to use in Sony's LittleBigPlanet was released on December 12 of 2008 as downloadable content for the title.

8-Bit Theater author Brian Clevinger once described Guile as "the epitome of everything discussed in The Art of War". IGN ranked him at number two in their "Top 25 Street Fighter Characters" article, stating "there's nothing too fancy about him. He's just your basic, no-nonsense, all-American tough guy." Guile has also ranked tenth in ScrewAttack's "Top Ten Coolest Characters". GameDaily listed him at number ten on their "Top 20 Street Fighter Characters of All Time" article, voicing disproval for Jean Claude Van Damme's portrayal of him in the live action film. They additionally named him one of their favorite Capcom characters of all time, praising his hairstyle as one of the weirdest in gaming by stating "It's not big, puffy and round, but big, puffy and MIGHTY." In the February 1992 issue of Gamest magazine in Japan, Guile ranked at No. 4 in the list of Best Characters of 1991.

External links

• Sonic Hurricane