By Jeremy Azevedo

Any Street Fighter fan worth his or her weight in hadoukens should remember the classic 1992 EGM prank about unlocking Ryu and Ken’s legendary master “Sheng Long” in Street Fighter 2...

While it turned out to be an April Fool’s joke, gamers have (for some unknowable reason) never been able to banish Sheng Long from their imaginations.


The original prank in all it's nerd-busting glory:

Now we have word that Sheng Long will finally make an appearance as a secret playable character in Street Fighter 4! Is this some kind of Japanese “September Fool’s” prank or the ultimate fan service? We have uncovered some official looking art, as well as received this suspiciously mischievious comment from SFIV Project manager, Natsumi Shiozawa:

Hello everyone!
Its been so busy here lately, I’m beginning to become a bit absent-minded here.

Today, I am glad to introduce you to a Hidden Character in Street Fighter IV.
Actually, I wish I could formally announce this information, but I can’t show that much yet so this will have to suffice… sorry!

Feast your eyes on this!
This is one Street Fighter IV’s Secret, Unlock-able Characters, Sheng Long!

Though… it’s been blacked-out and a little hard to see.
(I’m the one who blacked it out.)

(Cont'd)

Basically, you can see his long hair tied-up, his bulging muscles, and what he’s wearing. You get the idea.
Looks pretty strong, huh?
He should be! After all, Sheng Long is Ryu’s…
You’ll have to wait until an official character announcement is made for more information.

However, since this I did post this with the title “Secret Unlock-able Characters”, I couldn’t post this without telling you guys something.
For now, I’ll give you a hint on the whole “secret unlock-able” part.

1. Select Ryu as your character.
2. Win every round with a perfect until the last boss fight.
3. During the boss fight, perform a Shoryuken…

Oops, I’ve said too much!

Those who are quick to catch on should be able to do this no problem.
However, since the legendary character Sheng Long is about to come out, I won’t get away with this that easily…
But, this isn’t the game’s only secret though.

From the beginning, Sheng-Long hasn’t been the only planned secret character.
As I wrote the other day, the release is approaching its final stretch and I will be bringing you as much new information that I can.
What?! There’s going to be a special update?!

Don’t miss it!

Hmmm... Seems a bit fishy...

The image above is supposedly a leaked screenshot of Sheng Long, even though any idiot can see it is just a sloppy re-coloring of Ryu by some junior-level photoshooper...

So what do you think? Is this for real or have we been duped again? As awesome as this would be, my own personal bullshit meter is leaning hard toward the latter...