Allen Snider

""Alrighty!" よっしゃー! Yossha! (Street Fighter EX series)"

- Allen

Allen Snider (アレン・スナイダー) is a character who appears exclusively in the Street Fighter EX series by Arika. He debuted as a hidden character in the original ''Street Fighter EX.

Appearance
Allen is a tall and muscular young man with orange hair, huge sideburns and blue eyes. He wears a dark purple karate gi (held together with a red string), red undershirt and handwraps.

In Street Fighter V, his karate gi is blue and he wears a red short sleeve fitted shirt.

Concept
Allen's design is based on a young Chuck Norris, just like the looks he had when he co-stared in the film Way of the Dragon (猛龍過江) along with its own director and producer, the legendary Bruce Lee.

During the development of the original Street Fighter EX game, he was named Cashew Snider and had blond hair and a red gi.

Story
A martial artist once reputed to be the greatest living Karate master in the United States. Allen was the favored contender in the All American Martial Arts Tournament, but lost on his first match against a then-unknown Ken Masters, who told Allen that he was still "a frog in the well" (a proverb similar to the saying "a big fish in a small pond").

Misinterpreting and motivated by Ken's words, Allen though he said he had incredible springing legs like a frog. Allen renewed his training and developed new techniques based on Ken's such as the Soul Force and the Rising Dragon to "leap out of the well" and began traveling the world to prove that he is not only the "biggest toad in the well", but also the "biggest in the world".

Other appearances
Allen also appears in the Arika-developed non-Capcom fighting game Fighting Layer along with Blair Dame.

Comics
In the Street Fighter EX2 Plus manhua comic, Allen appears in the middle of the volume. He was cursed and controlled by the wicked evil mask that was worn after Garuda and face his battle on Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li. However, Allen was saved by Kairi and the cursed mask fell into the deep sea.

Allen also appears in both Ryu Final and the The Twin Dragon mangas.

Gameplay
Allen's moves are similar to the ones used by the Ansatsuken practitioners, like Ryu and Ken. His Soul Force and Rising Dragon are his counterparts to the Hadoken and Shoryuken, respectively. Though he lacks a Tatsumaki-esque move, he has the Justice Fist, a move where he advances forward and delivers a powerful punch, and the Vaulting Kick, a command grab.

His Super Combos are the Fire Force (a stronger and fire-based version of the Soul Force) and the Triple Break (a series of kicks that launch the opponent up in the air).

In his Fighting Layer appearance, he also gained the Galaxy, a combination of attacks that has to be continued with different inputs once innitiated, with each input costing an additional power bar.

Trivia

 * Before Ryu's 3D model was developed for the EX series, Allen was the first character model created for the game with a moveset similar to Ryu's.


 * In a way, he can be seen as the parallel to Ken as Dan is to Ryu; both use techniques copying the Hadoken and Shoryuken, wear an undershirt inside their gis, sport unorthodox gi colors (purple for Allen, pink for Dan) and they're both voiced by Osamu Hosoi. However, Dan is a parody of Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia from SNK's Art of Fighting series.


 * Though Allen does not return in later games, Ace has access to his moves in Street Fighter EX3.

Fighting Layer
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Other
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