Street Fighter IV Updated Hands-on: Getting to Grips With Gouken

Street Fighter fanatics will probably know the story behind Sheng Long, Ken and Ryu's supposed master who was apparently a hidden boss character in Street Fighter II. Sheng Long, of course, never actually existed, but was instead an April Fool's Prank started by EGM which many took as true, making him the most famous fake character in the series' history. Now Ken and Ryu's true master has finally emerged--no, it's not Sheng Long, but Gouken, one of the new playable characters coming to the console versions of the upcoming Street Fighter IV.

Both the PS3 and 360 versions of Street Fighter IV will contain more playable characters and modes than what's available in arcades, with arcade boss Seth, Akuma, Sakura, and now Gouken confirmed as joining the roster thus far (with more due to be officially announced by Capcom soon). We've played Akuma and Sakura in our previous previews, so we focused on the powerful Gouken in our most recent hands-on session with a PS3 build of the game. In terms of narrative, Gouken is indeed the trainer of both Ryu and Ken, as well as being the brother of the evil Akuma.

As you'd expect from the master of the two most popular characters in the Street Fighter universe, Gouken has a similar move set to both Ken and Ryu, but is significantly different enough to make him much more than a mere clone. Gouken does have a hadoken "fireball" move which he performs using only one hand, but unlike Ken or Ryu, he can send his projectiles out on an angle to strike airborne foes. Performing a light punch hadoken sends one straight across the screen, using a medium punch sends one on a slight angle upwards, while hard punch sends one on a steeper incline. Gouken can also charge his hadokens--holding down the punch button will delay the hadoken and transform them into double-hit projectiles. Gouken also has a variation of the hurricane kick, which goes vertically as opposed to horizontally as is the case with Ryu or Ken.

His two other special moves are different to what Ryu or Ken sport in Street Fighter IV. Performing the shoryuken (dragon punch) move on the controller with one of the punch buttons sends Gouken into a dashing attack which ends with a powerful palm strike move which can knock down opponents. Performing the same move but using one of the kick buttons results in Gouken doing a forward flip that lands into a strong single-leg sweep, which once again can knock down enemies flat. And while the character doesn't have a shoryuken as a standard special move, his super combo is essentially a souped-up dragon punch which deals a ton of damage.

On a control note, our play session with Street Fighter IV session this time around was done using DualShock controllers. In the past, we've never been fans of using controller analog sticks on any home version of Street Fighter, but the system seems to have been impressively tweaked this time around to be more responsive. We had no problem performing hadokens, shoryukens, or any of the other circular-based movements on Street Fighter IV using analog sticks. Bottom line is even without full arcade-style controllers, it looks like Street Fighter IV will be a blast to play using regular 360 or PS3 pads.

From our short play time with Gouken, we're willing to predict that he'll quickly become a fan fave thanks to his strong offensive skills (particularly the ability to send angled hadokens, which makes him a tough opponent to approach via the air). Keep it tuned to GameSpot for more information on new characters and modes soon.