I might be a little biased…
With only four newcomers each year, the value of real estate on the Street Fighter 6 character select screen has definitely become inflated, but even so I have a particular fighter I’d like to pitch for the game’s third season.
We have seen this character on a playable roster just once before, in Street Fighter 4, but his story actually begins back during the early days of Street Fighter 2, when a translation in Ryu’s win quote led arcade goers to believe a hidden master was tucked away in some background files, and an April Fool’s joke from a gaming magazine put Capcom developers on track to actually bring the character to life… albeit nearly 20 years later.
If you haven’t put it together already, the character I’m speaking of is none other than Gouken. Brother to Akuma, and master to both Ryu and Ken, Gouken is directly tethered to one of Street Fighter’s most central story lines.
Developers clearly had no intention of featuring him in the early days as Gouken was originally said to have been killed by Akuma a la Raging Demon before the events of the first Street Fighter game, but that narrative was retconned by Capcom once they decided to add him into SF4.
The year was 1991 and fans had noticed an oddity in Street Fighter 2 after winning with Ryu. The franchise poster boy was supposed to say “You must defeat my Shoryuken to stand a chance,” referencing his trademark uppercut attack (Dragon Punch) as the key pillar of his arsenal, but the English transition wound up tripping over “Shoryuken” and ultimately read “You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.”
Arcade Ryu said one thing (left) while console Ryu actually got the translation correct (right)
People instantly started wondering who exactly Sheng Long was, and just about a year later Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), a magazine that’s still in operation to this day (albeit online only now), decided to run an April Fool’s joke that would echo for decades to come.
The magazine rolled out a faux article detailing the process of unlocking “Sheng Long,” a.k.a. Ryu and Ken’s master. The bogus requirements surely had tons of players frustrated as they required users to play through the entire arcade ladder without taking a single hit from any fighters. Once you had reached the final boss, M. Bison, you had to go 10 consecutive rounds with him without either of you taking damage.
If you succeeded in checking both of these boxes, EGM claimed that only then would Sheng Long emerge, toss Bison away, and engage in a timer-less duel to the death. They even created a fake in-game model to really sell the lie:
Mind you, this all took place before Super Turbo’s 1994 release, which means that Akuma very well may have been inspired by this gag as well. Akuma follows a somewhat similar (albeit much easier) pattern for unlock as players must finish the game without losing a round and within a certain time limit (which is almost certain if you’re not losing rounds) to cause Akuma to appear, take out M. Bison, and fight you instead.
This joke resonated so well that EGM came back in 1997 with a follow up Sheng Long hoax for Street Fighter 3, creating yet another article, character model, and list of ridiculous requirements that fans were still intrigued to try out, but surely did not expect to work this time.
Sheng Long would go on to be referenced in subsequent Street Fighter games and even made it onto top Street Fighter character lists despite not actually existing.
It would be another 11 years before mention of Sheng Long popped up in EGM again, though, as Capcom’s Yoshinori Ono gave an interview preceding the release of Street Fighter 4, and directly brought up the hoax as it was connected to a brand new character they were releasing.
The year was 2008 and Street Fighter 4 was in the oven. In the Januray issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Street Fighter 4 producer Yoshinori Ono stated, “Let’s just say that [jokes] that your magazine have reported in the past might find their way into the game as fan service,” and would eventually go on to unveil Gouken a few months later.
Indeed, when Street Fighter 4 dropped onto consoles in 2009, Gouken was the last of the many characters you could unlock by playing through the game. The old master’s design was clearly inspired by shotos like Ryu, Ken, and Akuma, but still functioned widely unlike any of the three.
Gouken’s tatsu, for instance, went vertically instead of horizontally; he did not have a standard Shoryuken, though was able to perform a two versions of the move through his Super and Ultra combos; and he had the relatively uncommon ability to counter incoming attacks.
Gouken tosses fireballs at various angles in Street Fighter 4
Perhaps the most defining trait of the old man was his fireball game. Where Ryu and Ken could throw horizontal fireballs, Akuma could also leap into the air and cast them at a downward angle, and to iterate on this Capcom gave Gouken the ability to chuck plasma at an upward angle to thwart airborne foes.
He could also toss them horizontally, and had the ability to briefly charge his projectiles to enhance them with a second hit. Though he hit like a truck with powerful combos, Gouken’s nuanced fireball game would ultimately classify him as more of a zoner than anything else.
With varied timings and angles, Gouken could litter the screen with a maze of fireballs that opponents would have to try to navigate. Both his counters as well as his upward-moving tatsu worked to fend off those who got too close and immediately shoot them back across the screen to restart their mission.
To date, Street Fighter 4 is the only game Gouken has been playable in. He admittedly wasn’t the most popular amid players, though he was often regarded as exciting to watch whenever a rare high-level Gouken was sighted.
We do already know the final two characters coming to Street Fighter 6 in Season 2, but Gouken could make for an absolutely killer addition to the game.
First of all, Street Fighter 6 only has two characters that you might consider zoners (Guile and JP) and both of them have a notable ability to also start rushing down.
The game will have 26 characters by the end of the current season, meaning fewer than 8% will be zoners. One more fighter amid this archetype might do SF6 some good, and seeing how developers decide to handle his abilities to counter (Street Fighter 6 already has a handful of such techniques despite its universal parry mechanic) and combo off his back throw would be interesting.
Correctly predicting the height of incoming attacks with Gouken’s Kongoshin counter led to big rewards in SF4
Of course there are other characters who rank higher on popularity charts, but Gouken deserves another playable shot to garner more fans and prove he can live up to the lofty titles of master of Ken and Ryu, and brother/equal to Akuma.
Seeing how these three interact here during SF6’s later position on the franchise timeline would be fascinating, as would other potential confrontations such as Gouken vs. JP: battle of the old man zoners.
Gouken may or may not be among the names on your wish list for future Street Fighter 6 DLC characters, but what do you think about his being part of the growing roster somewhere down the line?
Before you answer, give this best of Bullcat (one of the top 3 Gouken mains on the planet) showcase a watch and see if you aren’t roused at least a little by the razzle dazzle:
(Video credit to 0ShinAkuma0.)