First Look: Sheng Long in Street Fighter IV
I didn’t believe it at first either, but what you see here are magazine scans from Famitsu in Japan, depicting Gouken — who we know as Sheng Long in North America — as part of the cast of Street Fighter IV. This is much bigger news than the inclusion of Akuma (Gouki), because Sheng Long is a mythical being that was born out of a mistranslation and an April Fool’s joke.
For those of you who weren’t fighting game fanatics at the time, Street Fighter II introduced the possibility of a super secret character. One of the Ryu’s winning phrases was “You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.” Everyone wondered about who the heck was Sheng Long, because he was not mentioned anywhere else in the Street Fighter mythology. As it turned out, Sheng Long was simply the transliteration of the Chinese translation of Shoryu (as in Shoryuken), or Rising Dragon. Ryu’s statement was supposed to say that you needed to defeat his Dragon Punch to stand a chance.
It didn’t help that Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) started what has to be the greatest video game hoax of all time. They concocted one of the most elaborate schemes to unlocking Sheng Long in Street Fighter II, telling you that you had to use Ryu to finish the game, but in a very specific manner. First, you had to defeat the first 11 opponents (including the first three boss characters) without getting touched. This is not “no damage”; having a block no-damage attack nullified your chances. Next, you had to survive ten rounds against M.Bison without either character taking any damage, resulting in ten draws. After the tenth round, Sheng Long would come to replace M.Bison. Sheng Long was the master who trained Ryu and Ken, or so the story went.
Well, Sheng Long (known as Gouken in Japan) is finally making a monumental appearance and it’s in Street Fighter IV. Holy crap!
Source: Kotaku
4 Responses to “First Look: Sheng Long in Street Fighter IV”
September 25th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Damn! this is great! it’s been a long time since i’ve been searching for fighting games blog!
Fighting games are just my passion!
Well, here on my country Costa Rica there many players but well, it’s good to find all this information, i hope to get street fighter 4 soon!!!
anyway, everyday i take a break on house, then i play with PS1,PS1 and SNES! Yes SNES!
My favorite one is street fighter 2 turbo! i play it using snes fighting stick! the only way i can fell kind of arcade style! anyway, there so many games i want to check of course VS fighting!
Well, thanks for all this fighting info!
Daniel Matsuyama, from Costa Rica
September 28th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
[...] 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour online with those kooks. Third, I’m looking forward to playing Street Fighter IV and the Wii won’t get that. The Wii doesn’t do much in terms of fighting [...]
September 29th, 2008 at 11:00 am
[...] If you are familiar with the world of fighting games, the you’ve probably heard about the Street Fighter II hoax surrounding the character of Sheng Long. If you’re not familar, you can find out more on Hadouken Online. [...]
September 29th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
[...] Comments Grammar 101: Lost in Translation and Transliteration || Beyond the Rhetoric || on First Look: Sheng Long in Street Fighter IVI Got an Xbox 360 (Now What?) || Beyond the Rhetoric || on First Look: Sheng Long in Street Fighter [...]
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