First off, thank you to shoryuken.com, iplaywinner.com, eventhubs.com and Offcast for staying on top of this story. Evil Ryu and Oni Akuma have been unlocked in at least one Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition machine, and I’m hearing they did some shady things in order to unlock them this soon. In any case, a ton of images and video have surfaced from the above sites to confirm that these characters are very much playable.
I was originally disappointed by the announcement of these characters, thinking that they would simply be over-powered rehashes of current characters. However, now that I’ve seen them in action, I’m starting to warm up to them. Both of these characters appear to have some crazy new tactics, while still appearing to be beatable. Evil Ryu in particular has some crazy damage potential, but also has terrible health. As for Oni, he seems to play more like Gouken with an air dash (!) and a dash punch style move that can cross up.
Even with Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and the new Mortal Kombat game waiting in the wings, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition is still my most anticipated fighting game experience of 2011. I look forward to getting the new balance changes, these four new characters and anything else Capcom may want to throw in there as well. Based on what you’ve seen of Evil Ryu and Oni Akuma, what do you think?
In Third Person 