Rainbow Mika, a Street Fighter character not seen since 1998, was revealed as a playable character in Street Fighter 5 just last week, boasting a considerable gameplay redesign. In Street Fighter Alpha 3 (her first and last appearance before her announcement for SF5), Mika’s gameplay was a bit of a mixed bag, making her a somewhat niche character. Now, she has been given several modern wrestling moves popularized in the WWE such as the “‘Stone Cold’ Stunner,” the “Gorilla Press,” the “giant (Cesaro) swing,” and even more. With all of this pandering to wrestling fans, her V-Skill (Mic Performance) is the icing on the cake.
In Street Fighter 5, every character has access to a V-Skill move, which serves as the only way for the character to build their V-Meter resource aside from taking damage. For most characters, this is either an attack or a defensive option. Offensively; Necalli can pound the ground ala C. Viper, and Cammy’s classic spin knuckle attack has been re-purposed as a V-Skill. Defensively; Ryu can parry moves to avoid damage, and Nash can grab projectiles out of the air. Then there’s Mika; for her V-Skill, Mika pulls out a microphone and starts cutting a promo, which powers up her grab-based attacks in levels. Mika is completely vulnerable in this state; however, she does gain a single hit of armor, meaning that she can take a single direct attack before her speech will be cut short (Note: the animation can only be cancelled after a short period, meaning that the player cannot constantly use this skill as a free and consistent source of armor).
Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez (of “Excellent Adventures” fame) confirmed via this reddit post that if the speech is allowed to finish in its entirity, Mika’s next throw attack will be an instant KO. It is not yet documented exactly how much each level of charge boosts the power of her attacks, but if this news is anything to go off of, it seems that this V-Skill may just be worth the heavy risk it entails.
Khaos Gaming was able to record footage of the speech in its entirety (Unfortunately, it seems that Mika prefers to teach children to be big and strong rather than throw shade).
