It’s been a bit quiet on the SFxT front of late – Capcom went through a period of unveiling a couple of new characters on a regular basis, until I guess they realised they were going to run out of characters before the game was going to be released. There were odd bits of information on the new gem system, but while I was excited for the game a couple of months ago, the hype had since died down and I had gone back to worrying about other things in life. It does make me wonder why developers are so eager to release information so early – but perhaps it just gives them time to judge the public’s reaction and work on things. Which is good, I guess.
A week or two back, Xbox Live’s gallery leaked a screenshot that showed M. Bison and Ling Xiaoyu’s portraits as tag partners, which sparked some new hype for me and Garv – some of our favourite fights being between Ryu and Bison, and Xiaoyu being a childhood favourite of mine from playing Tekken 3.
Anyway, this week rolled around and Capcom suddenly announced that they would be unveiling 6 new characters, as well as 2 “secret” announcements – and now, here’s what they announced on Tuesday morning:
Street Fighter
Juri – Introduced in Super Street Fighter IV, this is her first time participating in another title – C. Viper having beaten her to a spot in Marvel vs Capcom 3. Bringing her Feng Shui Engine powered fighting style into SFxT, I’m looking forward to seeing what little changes or new moves they’ve implemented into her style. She’ll also make a fine partner to Bison – evil purple auras for the win!
Vega – One of Street Fighter’s more iconic villains, Vega’s claw weapon is infamous – as well as his unpredictable fighting style. Good to see him included as he’s a personal favourite of mine, and I’m glad to see his Bloody High Claw move makes a return from Street Fighter IV. I’m personally going to team him up with Poison for one hell of a crazy team.
Balrog – Not totally unexpected, what with him and Vega completing the set of classic Street Fighter villains – and a perfect rival for Tekken‘s boxer, Steve. Balrog is one of Street Fighter’s heavyweight characters, and with projectile-free move-set I’m sure he’ll fit nicely into the mix with all the Tekken melee fighters joining the fray.
Tekken
Xiaoyu – No surprises here, with the leak and all – but a welcome addition for me all the same. Xiaoyu is a quick-hitting character with the capability to create long attack chains. She’s looking good and seems to be having a bit of a rivalry with Juri going on, as well as her old friendship with Jin – more on that in a minute.
Law – With Street Fighter’s Fei Long and Tekken‘s Law both being very obvious homages to Bruce Lee, I was wondering how Capcom would handle them. Would they both be included for some epic Bruce Lee fight-offs? Would they pick only one? Or would they ignore both. Well, we’ve now got Tekken‘s Bruce Lee in the game, and I must say he is looking very similar to Fei Long in terms of fighting style (which isn’t a surprise, of course). I do hope this doesn’t mean that Fei Long is out of the game as I’m a big fan, but I doubt they’ll actually include both. Either way, Law is looking awesome, and I can just stick a “Fei Long” name sticker on my screen.
Paul – Competing for most hair gel with Guile comes the hard-hitting American from Tekken – who I can also see being confused with Ken Masters by a certain overweight warrior. He’s seen tagging with Law and reminds me a lot of Ryu now he’s rendered in Capcom’s style – albeit without the projectiles. His super punch move (I forget its official name, it’s been a while since I was into Tekken) has been shown in his super art, but otherwise I’ll be very interested to see what tricks he has up his sleeve to turn the tide on his projectile using rivals.
While there were only 6 characters “announced”, the latest in the series of full CG trailers has also been released, featuring M Bison and Jin squaring up to one another, while Juri and Xiaoyu also fight. Both Jin and M Bison have been hinted at already in the past, but this pretty much confirms the two of them (unless Capcom are insane), so that’s looking good. Check out the trailer below – looks like Devil Jin will be making an appearance in this game, too.
Last but not least, at the end of the gameplay trailer (featuring the 6 officially announced fighters, shown below), there’s a short section about the Vita version. At the end of that, there can clearly be seen the silhouettes of Pac-Man, and what appears to be the terrible old box-art version of Megaman. I seriously hope this is Vita exclusive, as I’m no fan of these characters that are neither part of Street Fighter or Tekken – with the Sony exclusive characters already pushing me into going for the Xbox 360 version to avoid Cole, Kuro and Toro. And if that really is Box-Art Megaman… I have no idea if Capcom are actually trying to troll Megaman fans (or perhaps they actually are insane).
All in all, it’s been a good announcement and it’s got me excited for Street Fighter X Tekken all over again. A nice batch of characters, and hopefully Capcom will keep the info coming over the next few weeks.
- Leon
