You Must Defeat Gouken To Stand A Chance..

Ryu and Ken's long-thought-dead master has turned up in Yoshinori Ono's Street Fighter IV as a severe conditions secret boss! A real turn up for the books since the character has long been considered dead as a doornail. A long and muddled pop history has brought us to this point. Allow me to bore you with the details!

Puzzling over Ryu's post-match gloat-screen reference to one Sheng Long in the English localisation of the Street Fighter II arcade prompted many to put 2, 2, and arrogance together to arrive at the misunderstanding that Ryu was referring to some mysterious master he'd bettered.

"If you can't beat that putz, don't even bother!"

Unfortunately, the line was subject to quite the laziest of translation efforts in its move West. Sheng Long was actually referring to Ryu's key special move, the dragon punch. For reasons unknown it was decided to leave the name moored in Pinyin Chinese, rather than puzzle it out for the public. This cryptic oversight was later corrected for the SNES conversion: "You must defeat my dragon punch to stand a chance." A straight translation of the original win quote (昇龍拳を破らぬ限り、おまえに勝ち目はない!) would read: "If you cannot break through the Rising Dragon Punch, you cannot win." See? The line was less about Ryu bluster, and more about helpful tuition!

US gaming magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly ran with the idea for their 1992 April Fools joke, detailing an absurdly convoluted strategy that unlocked this mystery character for CPU battle.



The player had to choose Ryu, not get hit even once, and spar for ten hitless rounds with hyper-aggressive end boss M. Bison. Yikes! This Herculean act achieved, Sheng Long would make himself known- hurling the standard final boss off screen, before pummeling you with Chun-Li borrowed Spinning Bird Kicks and flame-consumed Dragon Punches. Ouch! The 'cheat' was reported all around the globe, the character even making a speedy appearance in an unlicensed Hong Kong comic, before EGM verified it as a hoax in the following issue.

EGM would revisit this idea again for their 1997 April Fools joke, this time recounting implausible conditions to make Sheng Long appear in the recently released Street Fighter III: New Generation.



This attempt didn't have quite the same impact.

This idea of a super shoryuken master was indoctrinated into popular Japanese culture with the introduction of Gouken in Masaomi Kanzaki's 1993 Family Computer Magazine manga Street Fighter II RYU. Disregarding established video game canon, the RYU manga took place in and around a fighting tournament on artificial island Shad. Shad was created as a focal point for international political and economic relations. The man made mass floundered after a global stock market crash, and M. Bison's criminal syndicate Shadoloo eventually seized total control. Rather than compete in a globe-trotting competition, the various street fighters gathered to destabilise Bison's choke hold on Shad, and disrupt his distribution of a potent narcotic called Doll. How civic minded of them! In this continuity, Gouken was apparently killed many years previously in a confrontation with a younger incarnation of Bison.



Gouken's pupils were also attacked by Bison's henchmen to keep them distracted: Ken struggled with ninja matador Vega, whilst Ryu fought Sagat, scarring his chest with an imperfect Dragon Punch - a battle usually depicted as the final of the Street Fighter I tournament. The idea of Gouken's death at the hands of a wildly powerful rival would become key to the still-establishing mythos of this pugilism franchise.

The blag boss idea EGM floated obviously made quite an impression on Capcom staff, the fifth iteration of SFII, 1994's Super Street Fighter II X introduced the wayward brother of Gouken: Gouki (known as Akuma in the West).



As with the hoax, Gouki can only be challenged in SSFIIX if the player meets certain (less ridiculous) conditions during gameplay, these include not losing any rounds, and achieving three perfect victories. Your chances are also scuppered if a second player joins in at any point along your game. Damn them! If these conditions are met Gouki will appear and annihilate Bison in a brief story sequence, replacing him as the final encounter. Gouki would become a series mainstay, featuring heavily in the flashback Street Fighter Alpha (Zero in Japan) series, as well as popping up as a secret character in Capcom's X-Men: Children of the Atom arcade title.

Gouki had trained with his older brother under their sensei Goutetsu. Goutetsu taught the pair an ancient unnamed martial art that specialised in assassination techniques. Gouken shied away from the killing aspects of the discipline, but Gouki forged on eventually mastering the forbidden disaster move Shun Goku Satsu (Instant Hell Murder), which he uses to defeat his master. Gouken fled the dojo, eventually setting up his own school where he trained Ryu and Ken (and briefly Dan) in a diluted defense based version of the death-art until he too was murdered by his brother.

OR WAS HE?



Apparently not.

Thankfully, rather than recycle the basic Ryu moveset again, Ono et al have at least attempted to differentiate Gouken's style from your standard shotoclone. Gouken throws fireballs one-handed, and is able to throw them diagonally upwards at jump-in fighters; his Hurricane Kick is similar to Gouki's Street Fighter III Messatsu Go Rasen super: Gouken step kicks into the move before propelling himself and his opponent upwards; he appears to have Ryu's SFIII side-kick strike manoeuvre Joudan Sokutou Geri, along with a dashing punch variation.



Finally his Dragon Punch is limited to Ultra Move only, bearing a striking resemblance to Ryu's SFIII Shin Shoryuken (True / Super Dragon Punch). This last point is especially interesting, the various manga tie-ins associated with the franchise tend to stress Gouken's indifference to the standard Dragon Punch as a pivotal character point. Gouken apparently dislikes the lethality of the special, considering an over-reliance on it as the first step down his brother's dark road.

To see the master in action, head here.