Rolento

"To challenge me is to challenge my army."

- Rolento

Rolento F. Schugerg (ロレント ・ F・シュゲルグ, Rorento F shugerugu), more commonly referred by his first name, is a video game character from both the Final Fight and Street Fighter series. Like Sodom before him, he first appeared as a boss character in the first Final Fight, but later evolved into a playable fighter in Street Fighter Alpha 2.

Appearance
Rolento is a muscular, athletic and acrobatic German-American man with solid white eyes (depicted as pupil-less in most official artworks), pronounced jaw and cheekbones, and a scar running down from his forehead through his nose bridge and into his left face. He wears a yellow military outfit with a red beret on his head, a red scarf on his neck, leathery weapon belts (where he keeps his knives and grenades) going over his shoulders, brown militia leathery boots and fingerless gloves, and fights with a green staff and grenades (these changed into a brownish-green hue in Street Fighter Alpha 3). His current outfit is a complete change from his appearance in the original Final Fight, in which he wore green tiger stripe camouflage fatigues, and his staff and grenades were brown in color.

Personality
Rolento has a few similarities with Guile as both are elite members of their respective special forces and combat-hardened war veterans; psychologically, however, Rolento can be described as a somewhat "twisted" (but not truly evil) counterpart of Guile, as he consistently bases his entire life, dialogues and behaviours in the "strict military veteran" stereotype with a rather fanatical zeal, praising absolute order and discipline and despising any rebelry or "inadequated" behaviour - this is made quite evident in his interactions with his Street Fighter X Tekken tag partner, Ibuki. Having been fighting countless battles in many worldwide wars, mainly the Vietnam war, Rolento is an expert in warfare and guerrilla-related stuff such as psychological tricks, strategies, equipments, vehicles and firearms, all which he uses in deadly ways during his combats, making him a dangerous ace-on-sleeve opponent.

His greatest dream was always been to build an utopia-style military nation with himself as its supreme ruler but where people would be happy, live their plain lives and have freedom to carve their own fates - these leadership features make him somehow akin to a would-be "benevolent sovereign" much like Street Fighter III series boss Gill -, unlike any traditional totalitarian dictatorship - such as would be with Urien, Gill's evil brother and another SFIII boss. This might be the main reason why Rolento takes no interest in a Shadaloo machine known as Psycho Drive, because it brainwashes people and makes them unable of reasoning for themselves, further opposing his "noble" utopic ideals.

Even in his early days working for the Mad Gear Gang (and having full conscience that they were a street gang comprised of the worst criminals), Rolento never lost sight of his "grandious" goal and would have gone extreme lengths to acheive it - such as trying to recruit and train former Mad Gears such as his loyal foot soldier El Gado (who believed that Rolento was the responsible for his family's death and thus wanted boldly to find and kill him) and former crime and buddy and declared "blood brother" Sodom (despite their contrasting views) into his cause and becoming dismayed as seeing his former enemies Cody and Guy, respectively, turned into a prison convict and having no more interest on ever fighting him again. Interesting enough, Rolento never seemed to truly hate his former enemies, even after being continuously defeated by them in his past Mad Gear days or if they oppose the rise of his beloved nation.

Upon discovering about M. Bison's plans of world domination, Rolento intended to gather (mostly via infiltration and theft) as much armaments, technology and information possible from Shadaloo in order to build up his own army aiming to overthrow the diabolical Psycho Power-wielding dictator and finally make true his military nation dream - but, once again, completely disconsidering the use of the Psycho Drive for brainwashing innocent citizens to turn them into mindless guinea pigs.

Final Fight series
Rolento made his first appearance as fourth stage's boss in the original Final Fight. According to his original backstory, Rolento 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 armory-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. After being defeated by Guy, he gained a scar on his face caused by a shuriken thrown by Guy.

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 enemy characer besides the Andore from the original game. As an in-joke, the Game Boy Advance version named Final Fight One (which included all of the stages and the Alpha sprites of Guy and Cody as bonuses) had an interaction with Alpha Cody and Rolento, where Cody says that he "doesn't remember going to this path" as a reference to the Industrial Stage's omission in the SNES version of Final Fight.

Street Fighter Alpha 2
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, no longer content with being a lackey for the Mad Gear gang, he sought to create his own utopian nation. He fights Sodom, who tries to convince him to rejoin Mad Gear. Rolento refuses, saying he has no need for them anymore. Sodom brands him an "arrogant moron" and instead challenges him to a fight. Rolento then has an encounter with Guy. Rolento realises Guy still remembers him as his "leader". Guy insults Rolento, saying he hasn't learned his lesson and that he hates slow learners. Rolento makes one last threat, saying he will have to rebuild his empire on Guy's face. In the end, he makes his move and attempts to start his new nation in Metro City, driving a tank through the business district. Mayor Mike Haggar is called to stop him.

Street Fighter Alpha 3
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 about his defeat at the hands of Guy when he was a member of the Mad Gear Gang. 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 defeates 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 Shadaloo 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.

Ultra Street Fighter IV
Rolento's role in the game is currently unknown.

Final Fight Revenge
After Alpha 3, Rolento then made an appearance in the American-developed Final Fight spin-off game, Final Fight Revenge. His playing style is similar to one he has in the Alpha games and even his storyline is the same (the game takes place between the events of Alpha 2 and Alpha 3).

Capcom vs. SNK 2
Rolento appeared playable in the crossover game Capcom vs. SNK 2.

Street Fighter X Tekken
Rolento is a playable character in Street Fighter X Tekken, where his tag partner is Ibuki.

Allies
El Gado and Holly Wood are the primary foot soldiers in Rolento's "army", both trained by Rolento himself. Both El Gado and Holly Wood are knife-wielding enemies who wear military outfits, are known for their agile movement which they forged by dancing, and have a special technique known as the "Jumping Knife Attack". These two also appeared in the Street Fighter Alpha games as part of Rolento's special techniques and win poses.

Holly Wood is named "namely" after his singing and dancing talents, and never enters a battle without his knives. Another version of him appears in Final Fight to throw molotov cocktails at the opponent, though he's much weaker in this state and wears red instead of the usual orange attire.

El Gado has a prominent role as a playable character in Final Fight Revenge, in which it is revealed that he infiltrated Mad Gear to get revenge on Rolento, who was responsible for the deaths of his family. In the end, Rolento bargains with him (apparently successfully, given he's still alive later on in Capcom's canon) and calls him "E.G." at this point, which may be his nickname.

In Street Fighter X Tekken, Rolento hires Ibuki to join him in the search for the Pandora artifact. During the course of the story, Rolento promotes her from Private to Corporal, and then to Sergeant, much to her annoyance.

Quotes
See: Rolento/Quotes

Trivia

 * According to Seth Killian, Rolento was created by Neo_G (Ishizawa Hidetoshi) and his name was stated to be "Laurence" (arguably "Laurent") when he was in the concept stages or first becoming a character, but due to L and R confusion in Japanese and additions of vowels at the end of words in transliteration, "Laurence" became "Rolento".
 * Rolento's fighting style is similar to Eskrima.
 * Rolento's appearance appears to be heavily inspired by Colonel, a character in the famous manga and anime series, Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star in America).
 * His appearance and personality are also very similar to those of Bayman from the Dead or Alive series and Heidern from the King of Fighters series.
 * The Bay Area theme from Final Fight (later used as his theme in Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold) bears a similarity with Slash Man's stage theme in Mega Man 7. It also bears a striking similarity to Heat Man's stage theme from Mega Man 2, and the two are actually remixed together as Rolento's stage theme for the Capcom-sanctioned fangame Street Fighter X Mega Man.
 * Rolento is said to have played a big part in Doctrine Dark's story in the Street Fighter EX series, as he is the reason that Doctrine Dark was driven mad. However despite this, Rolento is not playable, nor does he make any non-playable appearances in the entire series whatsoever.
 * Yoshinori Ono, producer for Street Fighter IV, has admitted that he liked Rolento's playing style, but he couldn't get into the final game because they needed the Final Fight license from Capcom USA.
 * Oddly, when Super Street Fighter IV came about, two Final Fight characters joined the roster, neither of which were Rolento. However, Rolento did appear in Street Fighter X Tekken. Rolento finally makes a playable appearance in a Street Fighter IV game with the release of Ultra Street Fighter IV.
 * In Pocket Fighter, when Ibuki throws her kunai, her outfit changes to that of Rolento's, referencing his Stinger move.
 * Ibuki would go on to become Rolento's tag partner in Street Fighter X Tekken.
 * Rolento can be considered "Lawful Neutral" because of his strict belief in order and discipline. For this reason, though he envisions a utopia, his methods can be questionable, but he does have noble leanings, such as his non-canon Street Fighter Alpha 3 ending, where he destroys the Psycho Drive because he feels that his utopia is not possible if people do not have their own freedom to choose.
 * Furthermore, he believes peace can be created through his utopia and military-style structure. He is comparable to the character Big Boss from Konami's Metal Gear series, notably with his Outer Heaven philosophy.
 * A character with similar appearance who uses similar tactics, Jack Krauser, appears in Resident Evil 4, another Capcom property.
 * Due to the majority of his attacks being named after the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam, Rolento might have been a veteran in the Vietnam War. His original attire further supports this—tiger stripe camouflage was first worn by the U.S. Army for use in jungle combat in Vietnam.
 * Rolento makes a small cameo at the end of the Sakura Ganbaru manga along with Dhalsim (and his wife), complaining that they never made an appearance (every other playable character in Street Fighter Alpha 2 appeared in either the Street Fighter Alpha manga or Sakura Ganbaru).
 * Rolento also appeared in the Japan-only released Capcom World 2 game.
 * Rolento's Street Fighter Alpha 2 theme is an arranged version of the Bay Area stage theme from Final Fight.
 * Rolento's english voice actor, Dameon Clarke, is best known of voicing Cell and Future Gohan in the Dragon Ball franchise.

Stage Theme


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