Poison (Final Fight)

Poison (Final Fight)

Poison (ポイズン, Poizun?) is a fictional character in the Final Fight and Street Fighter series of video games. Created by Akira Yasuda for Capcom, Poison first appeared in Final Fight alongside a similar character, Roxy, later appearing in Capcom-produced games, media and merchandise related to the Street Fighter franchise. She is voiced by Atsuko Tanaka in the Street Fighter III series, and Masae Yumi in SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos.

Originally conceived as a female thug in Final Fight and part of the game's antagonist group, Mad Gear, concerns during the game's development about reactions from North American audiences to fighting women, resulted in the character being redesigned as a newhalf. When further concerns were brought up by a playtester for the Super Nintendo's North American localization, Akira Yasuda pointed out that the characters were actually transvestites. However, that wasn't considered satisfactory and both Poison and her palette swap Roxy were replaced by the male characters "Billy" and "Sid", and have been for every subsequent North American port of the title on Nintendo consoles and handhelds. After the Final Fight series she later appeared alongside wrestler Hugo, acting as his manager, with her schemes revolving around finding a tag team partner for him or developing their own wrestling organization. Poison was also to appear in both Capcom Fighting All-Stars and Final Fight: Streetwise; however, the former was canceled, and she was omitted from the latter as development progressed.

Because of the alteration to the character during Final Fight's development, her gender has been debated by both fans and media alike. IGN described her as one of the most memorable "traps" in video games, "a psychological, Crying-Game mental twist for gamers". Regardless of her gender, she has been noted as one of the most attractive video game characters by UGO.com, and praised for her design by others such as magazine editor Wataru Maruyama and GameDaily.