Street Fighter X Tekken adds Final Fight, Soulcalibur characters

Who was there: Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono took to the stage to talk about various projects he has been working on, including Street Fighter X Tekken.

What they talked about: Ono began his talk with a slide that said "Darkstalkers are not dead." He mentioned that he went back to his bosses in Japan with evidence that there was support for a Darkstalkers game in the form of a picture of Comic-Con 2010 attendees holding up dollar bills, pledging their support for a new game in the fighting series. Ono said that wasn't enough, so he asked Comic-Con 2011 attendees to hold up a $10 bill (or even a $20 bill) so he could take another picture and show it to his bosses. The crowd obliged.

He then went on to the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network versions of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, both of which feature GGPO netcode (a preferred method for online play among the fighting community) as well as a new tournament mode and the usual assortment of visual filters. Ono thanked the fans for helping to make that happen. Ono then discussed Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition and said that based on the Comic-Con audience's reaction (or lack thereof) to him talking about it, he was guessing that fans are not entirely pleased. But he was ready with a slide that asked fans to send balancing and retuning comments to Capcom-Unity or to Ono's Twitter feed.

Before getting to Street Fighter X Tekken, Ono showed a single slide of a Hello Kitty dressed as Chun-Li. He said that he couldn't mention what this project was by name but that fans could probably guess what it's about.

As for Street Fighter X Tekken, Ono detailed some of the gameplay mechanics. The first he showed was called cross rush, which is basically a combination system that lets players tag into their partners, who will then complete the combination. He also showed switch canceling, which lets players switch characters at will. Additionally, Ono said that all characters would have super art moves like Ryu's "Shinku Hadouken," but all of the Tekken characters would have completely original super art moves since the Namco franchise has no comparable technique. The final two gameplay mechanics were for super charge and cross assault. Super charge lets you charge a special move up to three levels, but at the third level, it automatically turns the move into a super art without using any of the cross gauge that normally depletes with the use of a super art. Finally, cross assault is like the dramatic battle mode from the Alpha series, only Ono claims it's more strategic, but he failed to elaborate on what that meant.

Ono then gave a glimpse of the new characters announced for the game this week, including Dhalsim and Poison from the Street Fighter universe, as well as Steve and Yoshimitsu from the Tekken universe. Interestingly, Ono also showed a trailer with other characters that have yet to be officially announced as part of the roster, such as Mike Haggar, Guy, Cody, and Hugo.

The takeaway: In talking about Street Fighter X Tekken, Ono took a lot of time to highlight his "feud" with Tekken producer Harada via a skit that showed the two battling through 13 challenges to determine whether or not Harada would be included in the roster. Still, it was good to see Darkstalkers is still on Ono's mind and that he has a sense of humor about his work.