Street Fighter Alpha/Rolento



Like Sodom before him, Rolento F. Schugerg first appeared as a boss character in the first Final Fight, but later evolved into a playable fighter in Street Fighter Alpha 2. Rolento wears a very militant outfit with weapon belts (where he keeps his grenades) going over his shoulders and a red beret on his head. He has a red scarf under his worn yellow outfit and fights with a green staff. This is a change from how he originally appeared in Final Fight, in which he wore an olive green uniform, and wielded a brown staff.

Rolento made his first appearance as the fourth stage's boss in the original Final Fight. According to his original backstory, he is a former member of the special forces unit, the Red Berets, explaining his military appearance and skills. He was put in charge of the gang's secret narcotic-producing plants in Metro City's industrial area and has great influence. He fights using a baton and his special techniques include a wall kick and his throw. When he's low on energy, he relies on throwing grenades instead. When defeated, instead of fading away like most enemies in the game, he blows himself up with his own grenades.

The Industrial Area stage, and by extension Rolento, was excluded in the SNES version of Final Fight (and its revised rerelease, Final Fight Guy) due to space constraint. Because of this, the developers of the SNES sequel, Final Fight 2, saw fit to include him in the following game to compensate his previous omission. In Final Fight 2, he is the boss of the fifth stage, Italy. His general appearance and fighting style remained unchanged from the previous game and he is the only returning Mad Gear member besides the Andore in the game.

Rolento was the third Final Fight character made playable in the Street Fighter Alpha series. He first appears in Street Fighter Alpha 2, following the first game's inclusion of Guy and Sodom, although he previously made a cameo appearance in Sodom's ending in the original game. He fights using many of the same techniques he uses in Final Fight. In the game's storyline, he is no longer content with being a lackey for Mad Gear gang, but sought to create his own utopian nation. He fights Sodom as a hidden sub-boss (declining his offer to rejoin Mad Gear) and his final opponent is Guy. After defeating Guy, he terrorizes the streets of Metro City.

In Street Fighter Alpha 3, Rolento, remembering Cody as a powerful fighter from the past, searched for him to try to recruit him into his army. When he eventually found Cody in a prison uniform and handcuffs, Rolento became disheartened. He wanted the hero from back in the day, not a loner convict, even though Cody had refused to join anyway. He also sees Sodom and defeated him once more, who then claims the military man had indeed lost sight of what Mad Gear stood for. Eventually, he stumbles upon M. Bison's Psycho Drive after stealing weapons from Shadoloo for his army. He learns the Psycho Drive brainwashes people, and decides against using it. He can't have a utopia if people can't make their own decisions. Sodom, who had tracked Rolento down despite their earlier arguments, hears him proclaim this and realizes that Rolento did not lose sight of Mad Gear's ideals after all. They make up and decide to work together to use those values to make a great utopian nation.