The Four Shadoloo Bosses RETURN (Street Fighter IV)

Posted by Gary Hodges at 12:00 AM May 01, 2008

Not shocking, but great news anyway: Capcom has released photos of the original four bosses from Street Fighter II - Balrog (or Bison, depending on your nationality), Vega (or Balrog, depending on your nationality), Bison (or Vega, depending on your nationality), and Sagat (or... actually he's Sagat everywhere, I just got into a rhythm there) - in full 3D and mixing it up in Street Fighter IV.

I'm busting. I love it. I can't wait. Some people are disappointed that Capcom is dumping most (i.e., seemingly all) of the Street Fighter III cast for part IV, but those people are crazy and should not be listened to. The gameplay was brilliant, but with only a few exceptions (Makoto, Ibuki, maybe Dudley), the SFIII roster was ass. Complete and utter ass. And I don't mean Jessica Biel ass... I mean goatse ass. Google it, and you'll get the picture (in more ways than one).

I admit, as a purist I was skeptical and dismayed when I heard SFIV was going to be 3D rather than traditional 2D, hand drawn animation... but I'm really liking how it's turning out aesthetically. Now if only they could get those backgrounds to look as good...

Pics of all four after the jump...

Balrog (M.Bison originally):

Vega (Balrog originally):

Sagat (Badass Motherfucker At Large originally):

Bison (Vega originally):

Oh, and if you're scratching your head over the name discrepancies and have somehow missed this bit of Street Fighter trivia:

The disgraced boxer character known as Balrog in the West was originally named "M. Bison" by Capcom, i.e. Mike Bison, i.e. a thinly veiled Mike Tyson (much like Fei Long was a straight Bruce Lee caricature). When it came time to localize Street Fighter II, Capcom USA got nervous about the reference, fearing it could result in a lawsuit. So they just switched names around.

The real mystery is why they felt the need to do this naming musical chairs with three characters rather than just two: the masked "Spanish ninja" character Balrog was renamed Vega, the red-garbed dictator final boss Vega was renamed M. Bison, and the Tyson lookalike became Balrog.

What do you mean "who cares"? Fine, forget it. Just look at the pretty pictures and leave me alone.