4 Attachment(s)
Street Fighter/Sheng Long
Some of you may already be aware of this story. But I need some help, so for those that don't know the story, I'll sum up.
When the original Street Fighter two was released, one of the things Ryu would say when he won was "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance". It sounded like he was referring to a character. But what was actually going on is doofy translation. Apparently the Chinese pronunciation for Shoryuken is Sheng Long. And somehow a Chinese translation got mixed in with the Japanese -> English translation.
Apparently the April issue of EGM at the time, decided it would be funny to fool gamers into thinking that Ryu really was referring to a hidden character. Then went on to tell gamers that if they spent some time in the final match with M. Bison without touching him, eventually "Sheng Long" would come out and kill M. Bison and you'd have to fight your former master. (i.e. they convinced gamers they'd have to fight Ryu's former master "Gouken" tranlsated to Sheng Long)
Apparently they even published a doctored screen shot with the article depicting a Ryu-esque character (like those are uncommon [these days]) in brown robes and long gray hair.
It eventually became known as a hoax, but apparently prompted Capcom Japan to create Akuma as the hoax had such a huge impact on their sales (people went to arcades in droves to try to unlock Sheng Long) and everything about Akuma fits the description EGM gave about Sheng Long.
It even changed the canon Street Fighter story where M Bison killed Ryu and Ken's teacher, to a much more detailed story about two brothers, Gouki (Akuma) and Gouken ("Sheng Long" [note: this is not his official name]), and their teacher Goutetsu (who Akuma eventually kills). After gaining dark powers from their art Gouki challenges Gouken in front of Ryu and Ken during a training session and loses horribly, and leaves, vowing to master the darker sides of their art and return to kill him (which he eventually does).
The rest of the story I'm not sure is canon as I only heard most of it through EGM. But it fits with everything else I've read right up to the death. The second confrontation between the brothers was while Ken and Ryu were off competing in the tournament, Ken managed to return home in time to see his master killed. (Also of note, Gouken apparently had a daughter who witnessed the whole thing) Ken tried to avenge his master but Akuma shrugged him off pretty easily
Now comes the second EGM hoax. Their claim that Akuma killed Gouken on a cliff and his body fell into a river and was never found. Leaving it open to the possibility that he might have survived somehow. And then they tried to play the same SF2 hoax in SF3. Printing an April issue article about how to unlock the hidden boss Sheng Long, who's a very Ryu/Akuma-esque character (this time in gray robes) with long gray hair. And again with the doctored screen shots. Even character art to go with it, which looks supsiciously official.
I never saw the original article, or screen shot. But I have the EGM issue with the SF3 hoax. Unfortunately I can't scan it. But I have found sites with pictures. There's a full body image of Sheng Long in the issue, but the only picture I found online was a crop of his face. I have found a few of the doctored screen shots
What I'm hoping is that someone around here is really in the know. Hopefully someone can find a pic of the original SF2 fake screen shot (I've looked all over the web). And can hopefully explain where the character art came from, and who/what they used to splice the doctored screen shots to come up with really convicing depictions. I assume Akuma's body is the base, but that bald head had to come from somewhere. I'm attaching the images from EGM's SF3 hoax article.
