Karen Dyer, cosplayed the character to promote crowdfunding campaign for her live-action series project. Elena is one of the only characters who can heal, which she uses her Super Arts to do. In Ultra Street Fighter IV, she is the only one with both offensive and defensive Ultras, the latter of which can restore half of her health bar. According to Red Bull, Elena earned an infamy during the 2015 Capcom Pro Tour for being an overpowered character "terrorizing" the players at the game's early tournaments, as her "healing Ultra, ridiculously awkward hurtbox, and even more ridiculous range and hit box was a nightmare scenario for many." Prior to the release, TechnologyTell has predicted her to be "probably be the best character for beginners" as well. It was confirmed in the booklet of the official Street Fighter III soundtrack that Elena was based on actress Yuki Uchida during her career as a model. Reception Elena has been mostly very well received by video game critics and writers. According to the Computer & Video Games reviewer of the arcade version of her first game, Elena had "the most animation frames of any 2D hand drawn character in [fighting game] history. Her animation appears to be two to three times smoother than any other character in SFIII." The magazine compared her "incredible" taunt animation to "a particularly smooth cartoon." Electronic Gaming Monthly remarked that her lack of punch attacks make her awkward to use, but she can be an effective fighter for players who get used to her unusual kicks. Ultra Street Fighter IV review by Retro Gamer stated: "We've always been big fans of Hugo and Elena, so they're our favourite additions." On the other hand, Official Dreamcast Magazine UK had listed the "bland" and "a bit crap" Elena among in their opinion the worst aspects of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike at the time of game's release. In 2012, ScrewAttack included her among top ten underrated Street Fighter characters. Elena was also noted as one of the relatively few black female or African characters in video games. In her article on black game characters, game designer Brenda Brathwaite cited Elena as a character who has a stereotypical design, though fellow game designer Seth Smith noted that black players tended to gravitate to such characters. In 2012, Complex ranked her as the seventh best black character in video games, adding "though