Who was your most beloved (and most reviled) Season 2 character for Street Fighter V?

Street Fighter V‘s Season 2 DLC cast was… interesting, to say the least. After giving us Akuma at the end of 2016, Capcom doubled-down on five straight brand-new fighters for Season 2 — and did their best to keep each of them a secret, though leaks put an end to that pretty quickly. While the new fighters certainly added more unique flavor to SFV, denying the fans their past favorites was a questionable move for a game already suffering from a lot of negative PR. Was it a betrayal of their fanbase, or an essential move to push Street Fighter V forward creatively? Arguably: both.

Capcom seems to have learned a bit from the experiment — Season 3 delivers us three fan favorites (or four, if you count Blanka!) and two new fighters, for a better spread of new characters vs. classic — and they revealed them all at once, letting players decide if they actually think a Character Pass is worth their money. But that’s the future… what did you, the readers, think of Season 2? What characters did you love? Hate? Love to hate? Here are the results of our reader poll!

Which Season 2 characters did you pick up as DLC for Street Fighter V?

It isn’t surprising that Akuma outsold his Season 2 followers at 74.92% of the total votes, but it looks like all of the newcomers did relatively well, with the muscle-bound motorhead selling the least, at 53.44%.

Which Season 2 character did you use the most?

The Raging Demon’s popularity will not be denied, demonstrating just how vital it was to the Street Fighter V roster to include him! He’s such a integral part of Street Fighter at this point, Capcom can’t afford to exclude him. Akuma saw more than double the play of any of the new characters, at 36.44% overall. Interestingly, character usage drops off in the DLC release order — indicating that no newcomer made enough of a splash to unseat their predecessor, but also that more time is needed overall to see which fighters in this season really will hold player interest going forward.

Which Season 2 character is your favorite, in terms of overall design?

However: it turns out Akuma is not popularity made flesh, that honor belongs to the new Street Fighter darling Menat. She took the best new character award in our 2017 Fighting Game Awards over all of the new characters in any game this past year, so no surprise she wins it here at 31.54%. This chipper little fortune-teller has really won your hearts — at least in terms of character design! Akuma’s new look and Zeku’s touch of class both have their admirers as well, while the Young Commander’s design didn’t do any favors for Neo Shadaloo recruitment.

Which Season 2 character has the deepest/most versatile moveset?

Akuma appears to be the go-to for those that want to deal their damage with style, while keeping their options open. As expected, age (and moveset) shifting ninja Zeku comes in second place, with Menat following, both of them already recognized as highly-technical characters. It looks like readers feel Abigail and Ed are too simple, or too limited in their options — or both.

Which Season 2 character is the strongest overall?

Wow, there’s not much room for argument here — you folks are pretty adamant that the Demon’s Path is the road to victory. It’s hard to dispute, after Echo Fox|Tokido’s performances at Evo and Capcom Cup this year. Akuma takes a whopping 71.47% of the total votes, with Abigail’s sheer muscle only scraping out 20.18% as second place — and the rest of Season 2 languishes below 4%!

Which Season 2 character is the most fun to use?

At the end of the day, this is the most important question when it comes to DLC. The results are bit more balanced overall — but Akuma is still the favorite at 25.41%. But in terms of fun, Abigail is coming up fast on him at 23.86%! If it isn’t the murderous intent of the Satsui no Hado, it looks like the next-best go-to for a good time is just vroom-vrooming over the opposition with Abigail’s impressive strength (and armored run). For fun factor, it seems poor Kolin leaves most of you cold.

Which character was the strongest/weakest overall in SFV Season 2?

There is a lot of dispute as to what characters had the best tools in Season 2, and who was rendered near-useless. But the power of an Evo win propels Akuma to the top spot in strength, while F.A.N.G is still agreed upon as the lowest of the low tiers. Balrog was seen as a frightening opponent, and the Turbulent Wind’s abilities are being recognized; meanwhile poor Ryu, Juri, and Alex were near-lost causes this season, in your view. Abigail, however, is a point of contention, considered both strongest and weakest respectively by multiple voters!

Season 2: Top Ten Strongest Characters

Akuma (17.83%) Balrog (16.86%) Rashid (11.48%) Guile (10.67%) Ibuki (9.12%) Urien (7.00%) Karin (4.89%) Laura (4.07%) Abigail (3.18%) Birdie (2.44%)

Season 2: Top Ten Weakest Characters

F.A.N.G (23.31%) Ryu (20.31%) Juri (18.68%) Alex (12.35%) Ed (4.71%) Chun-Li (3.25%) Nash (2.92%) Menat (1.95%) Vega (1.87%) Abigail (1.30%)

Which SFV Season 3 character addition are you most looking forward to?

The return of the King of Muay Thai is eagerly anticipated; Sagat takes 28.57% of the total responses — too bad we have to wait until the end of Season 3 to get him. Sakura and Cody both have a healthy fanbase ready for their return, while it looks like we’re not quite sold on Falke or G yet — and why should we be? We barely know anything about them. And at 8.27%, only a small slice of players out there are looking forward to Blanka’s return to Street Fighter… he might be the DLC character we’ll love to hate this year.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our reader poll!