Read more about Rufus at: Wikipedia

Official Site: Capcom

is a fictional character in the Street Fighter series of video game. Designed by Daigo Ikeno for Capcom's development team, he first appeared in the arcade version of Street Fighter IV and later in related promotions and media for the title. A very large, overweight martial artist, Rufus seeks to defeat Ken Masters, angered by his claim of being the "number one fighter in America". Along the way he instead fights many people he confuses for Ken due to similar attire or hair color, regardless of gender. The character is voiced by Wataru Hatano in Japanese, and Chris Kent in English.

Since Rufus's introduction, the character has received a mostly positive reception. Sources such as IGN praised him as the best of the new characters introduced in Street Fighter IV, while Anime News Network described the character as engaging. Though some criticism has been made over the character's design and aesthetic, the majority have praised the character as exceeding expectations based solely on his appearance.

While previous Street Fighter titles relied almost solely on Capcom's Research and Development branch, the development team instead allowed other branches of the company to give input on the design of new characters, due to the influx of fan requests from outside of Japan. Rufus was designed based upon marketing research on what sorts of characters an American audience would enjoy playing, and was one of several characters considered for inclusion during the game's development.

Designed by Daigo Ikeno, Rufus was initially intended to be a bald slender African American male wearing martial artist robes named "King Cobra", meant to be a more acrobatic counterpart to series characters Ryu and Ken and voiced by Wataru Hatano. His fighting style was intended to be "breakung-fu", mixing elements of kung fu with breakdancing, which they perceived as a fad in the United States at the time, and Ikeno developed the character's concept around it. Midway through the process of recording the character's lines however, art director Takashi Kamei proposed that they have the character be overweight, an idea Ikeno agreed with. As a result, the design was gradually changed completely, becoming more obese and turned into a blonde, long haired white male, a design which Ikeno later admitted was in fact rushed. The changed appearance surprised many of Capcom's staff members, including Hatano, who remarked "Wait, is that my character?" Rufus final appearance was chosen over his initial design because the developers felt he would "freak people out". Street Fighter IV s executive producer Yoshinori Ono likened his inclusion to that of Blanka in Street Fighter II, noting that the character's "over-the-top" design was intended to help set the game apart from Tekken and Virtua Fighter.

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