Revenge & Noodles: Street Fighter V Is A Great Mix of Intensity & Fun

She has style. She has grace.

As the Capcom Cup 2014 Ultra Street Fighter IV tournament (wherein sixteen of the year's most successful players from the "Capcom Pro Tour" circuit faced off) drew to a close, series producer Yoshinori Ono took the stage to make several announcements. Of note, he mentioned that the Street Fighter V development team has paid close attention to the feedback and analysis generated by the gameplay trailer from last week's PlayStation Experience event. Even so, there were no major confirmations regarding fan-driven topics such as a possible Guard Crush or other features.

Despite not wanting to reveal too much, the event closed with the first publicly played match of Street Fighter V. Popular SF player Mike Ross and Capcom USA's "Combofiend" took control of Ryu and Chun-Li, giving us a solid extended look at the gameplay. Lifebars, EX Meters of varying lengths, and the new Revenge Meter (which likely works similarly to the Ultra Combo Meter from SFIV) were in full display alongside fun new reveals like humorously interactive stage elements. After Ryu knocks Chun-Li into a wall at the end of a round, a bowl of noodles falls onto her head and stays there when the fight picks back up.

You want some screenshots? Have some screenshots:

The basic early start menu.

Chun-Li's intro quote.

Ryu's intro quote.

Basic gameplay in action.

Why can't these two just get along?

First round K.O. screen.

Ryu wins. What a twist.

Chun-Li strikes a pose after taking a round with a stage transition.

The wonderfully goofy "noodle bowl hat" shot.

The noodles stay firmly in place during the next round.

Ouch.

Chun-Li's noodle-ridden win pose.

Update - Here's an official video upload of the corresponding footage if you'd like to see the game in action:

An alternate version of the gameplay trailer was also shown, this time with a new character tease at the end. Most fans feel the shot must be of Charlie from the Street Fighter Alpha series given his glasses and spiky blonde anime hair. While that character is meant to be dead canonically, it's not as if some crazy resurrection would be an unheard of plot point. Here's the reveal:

Ono even cosplayed as the guy for his stage appearance.

With an unedited and uninterrupted display of gameplay now behind us, you can be sure the early hype train for Street Fighter V will continue on in full force. Yoshinori Ono shared the hope that the title will become the biggest bridge for ushering fighting games into greater mainstream notoriety. He followed this by proudly announcing that the SF team's new partnership with Sony will allow them to offer even more support for the burgeoning competitive scene with a $500,000 prize pool for next year's Capcom Cup, ten times the amount from 2014.

It looks as if Capcom is putting an awful lot of eggs in the Street Fighter basket, and I sincerely hope it pays off.

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