After dragging out the reveal for months, Capcom dropped very few hints here and there about the identity of this last fighter until Canada Cup where Yoshinori Ono himself would only give the following hints: (1) This was a character who has NEVER be playable in a previous fighting game in any shape or form. (2) This character would be female.
This news would start even more speculation between players and fans, until after the Grand Finals of Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition ver. 2012 saw Ryan Hart take the crown and Capcom aired the following trailer.
Poor R.Mika and Retsu...
All jokes aside though... I was bloody pissed off about this reveal on Sunday evening. That's one of the reasons it took me all week to get this posted, along with the fact that I wanted to get most of these details correct since things changed for her dramatically from the Final Round XVII reveal trailer and the launch trailer and demonstration for her in Japan over the next few days. Now that I have had a few days to think about it - it's not so bad.
Despite the fact that's recycled resources from both Cammy and Vega, Decapre does bring a few new things to the table. I won't lie though, but I did want the Dolls back into a new Street Fighter game since Street Fighter Alpha 3, but I wanted Juni and Juli back in again as a boss fight before Seth like the 2-on-1 encounter against them in Alpha 3 before squaring off against M.Bison (Dictator) himself at the end of Arcade Mode.
Who is Decapre?
Originally appearing along with the rest of the Dolls during the introduction of Juli and Juni's boss battle in Street Fighter Alpha 3, she has appeared numerous times in the UDON Street Fighter comics. She makes her playable debut in the upcoming Ultra Street Fighter IV.Appearance
Originally from Russia, her appearance resembles Cammy, albeit with the Shadaloo Doll outfit and a blue mask. Her hair is platinum blonde, and is styled in the same long pigtails as Cammy. In the UDON comics, her face is shown to be burned on the left side, hence the mask. Decapre wears a pair of retractable daggers, originally simply claws, that she uses as weapons.
Story
Super Street Fighter IV OVA
Decapre, along with the other Dolls, is attacked by Juri in a secret Shadaloo mountain base and is easily defeated. She is placed in a stasis pod and loaded onto a plane alongside the other Dolls by Juri who takes them to Seth at an unknown location for him to perform experiments on. These stasis pods can be seen later in Super Street Fighter IV and later iterations in Seth's Crumbling Laboratory stage, although the identities of the occupants are not clearly visible.Gameplay Notes
Credit to Capcom Fighters, Nico Nico, IGN, Eventhubs, and Shoryuken for the information below.Decapre's fighting style revolves around her great speed and unpredictable cross-ups, along with the use of her Psycho Power-infused daggers. Similar to fellow doll Juni, many of her moves require charge motions, making her the first new charge character Capcom has created since Q and Remy in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike.
Exhibition Match - Decapre (ComboFiend) vs. Sagat (Ryan Hart)
This match took place after the reveal trailer transpired at Final Round XVII, so it is not the newest build of Ultra Street Fighter 4.
Combo Video by ComboFiend
Decapre notes from Final Round 17 stream and IGN breakdown
• Decapre is a charge character who is very mix-up heavy.• She plays similarly to Juni from the Street Fighter Alpha series.
• She can perform her Spiral Arrow attack in the air, but being that it's a charge move, it'll mostly be used when jumping backward.
• Has a command dash special move in which she becomes invisible for a portion of it. It can travel horizontally, or take her up into the air, (the stream notes that she goes up at around 45 and 70 degree angles.)
• She has multiple follow up moves from the command dash, including a dive kick, returning to her starting point, dropping straight down, a ground pound, and more.
• She has an uppercut move that is performed like a Flash Kick, (holding down for 2 seconds, then hitting up and attack.)
• Her normal attacks are similar to Cammy's.
• Her Psycho Stream Ultra is very much like Dhalsim's Yoga Catastrophe, but travels further. It moves slowly across screen, and hits a total of 9 hits. It has a fairly slow start up, so using it when an opponent is getting up could leave you susceptible to a reversal Ultra.
• If you use her air command dash and do not use one of the follow ups, once the dash animation is over you can proceed to hit air normals. The stream notes that ComboFiend showed a particular set up where Decapre used the medium version of her air command dash from about 80% of the screen away from the opponent, and was able to successfully hit a cross up attack.
• She has an overhead attack that hits from a very far distance away.
• Her Super and command dashes, although resembling teleports, do not have projectile invulnerability.
• Decapre also has a Hundred Hand Slap type move where she runs forward and hits multiple times.
• She can perform target combos as well, one of which puts the opponent into a juggle state.
• Decapre's DCM (Ultra 2) is a combo Ultra with a 3 frame start up. There are three different versions of U2: a ground version that moves horizontally, an anti-air, and another anti-air that hits at a different angle, (like her air command dash moves). ComboFiend hit a crouch heavy punch into DCM on stream. He also hit teleport - EX ground pound follow up into U2.
• The regular ground pound move isn't safe on block, around -7.
• Her close heavy punch hits twice, like Vega.
• Command dashes have a red line as a visual indication of which she is using. The EX version of ground command dash can be used to escape pressure after she's knocked down. ComboFiend notes that she has escape options that don't necessarily lead to attacks, but will get her out of harm's way.
• The Capcom team is focusing heavily on balancing Decapre in order to avoid her being overpowered upon release. Due to the utility of her Ultras, ComboFiend mentions that she will be more inclined to use Ultra Combo Double, as opposed to characters that will benefit more from single Ultras.
• As she stands right now, Decapre is only 85% complete. She is subject to change by the time Ultra Street Fighter 4 is released in June.
The build of Ultra Street Fighter 4 that Capcom's Peter Rosas (Combofiend) used to show off Decapre at Final Round 17, isn't actually the latest one, Capcom Japan's producer for Ultra Street Fighter 4 Koichi Sugiyama revealed on an official "Hagi Toko" live stream earlier this week.
Even before players have got their hands on the new character at location tests, Capcom has already begun tweaking her moves for balance reasons -- and producer Sugiyama insisted on saving the latest build, which was just compiled last week, for a world exclusive on the Capcom Japan live stream.
"Hagi Toko" live stream Decapre notes
• (Changed from FR17) Decapre's HP -> HK target combo has been changed to MP -> HK. After launching your opponent, if you're close enough to trigger close standing HK, you can now jump-cancel the target combo and follow up with additional attacks -- including Decapre's aerial grab. There also appears to be a new MP -> HP target combo.• (Changed from FR17) Ground Cannon Drill or Spiral Arrow has been removed. The special move can now only be performed in the air.
• (Changed from FR17) Some of Decapre's teleport attacks now generate an afterimage, which makes them easier to track and defend against.
• (Changed from FR17) Psycho Stream ultra in the latest build will now knock down an opponent on hit, and launch the opponent to put it in a juggle state on counter hit.
• As she's a charged character, producer Sugiyama thinks that even for players who can't yet perform the dragon-punch, they'd be able to play Decapre.
• Light, medium and heavy variants of Psycho Sting have different invincibility properties. One version has strike invincibility, while another has projectile invincibility.
• Hundred hand slaps (claws?) hit from pretty far -- even after you've pushed your opponent away with three crouching light jabs.
Afterthoughts
I think Decapre is going to be OP (over-powered) right out of the box. If basing her off the already over-powered Cammy, then allow me to clue you in. I'll give 3 big examples from gifs.
Why the FUCK does she have a Street Fighter X Tekken-style chain to launcher that gives her a free air throw? Guile, Vega, Ibuki, Cammy, nor Chun-Li (all characters with air throws by default) have setups like this with or without meter. To make matters worse, the Japanese streams say this is off her MP-HP chain. Just wow. So free launcher to setup her aerial attacks which could potentially lead into resets and more importantly free damage for her Ultras, especially her Ultra 2 - DCM. Yay (sarcasm).
If they are going to give one character SFxT style mechanics, Capcom might as well add the tag system from that game into Ultra Street Fighter 4 as a bonus mode or something. That way they can share that style of juggles and chaining all around.
Combofiend has assured players that even her dive kick is a charged move (but still can be done right off the ground like vanilla/Super Cammy) and her grounded Spiral Arrows have been removed from the current build of the game, but I have a CRAZY theory on her teleports. Okay... one of Cammy's buffs in Ultra is that she can do ALL of her aerial options out of EX Hooligan now, including dive kick. That brings me to the following...
Last night on UltraChenTV they broke down her strengths and weaknesses from their experience playtesting her on Sunday. They were worried about her threats being neutralized after she starts moving forward. Anyone who plays charge characters can tell you that you can "pre-charge" and keep moving forward to maintain pressure on your opponent while still having access to your characters' special moves. James Chen said that if you do the MK Teleport that propels her into the air and NOT do any of the follow-ups, Decapre has access to all of her aerial moves AND can cross up from fullscreen.
That being said, let's return to my crazy theory - what if Decapre doesn't have to "move" in a traditional sense but just rely entirely on her teleports to get her where she needs to be? Given that her teleports aren't potentially safe at all from early reports, but it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to see that become a viable strategy for her gameplay, especially if those teleports are special move cancellable. Plus think about it, movement from specials isn't that much of a stretch, especially since Combofiend is encouraging Gief players to use LP Green Hand for mobility in Ultra.
UltraDavid stated that he used Dhalsim in training mode with her and keep throwing projectiles at her Ultra 1 - Psycho Stream here and said it absorbed roughly 2 Yoga Catastrophes and about 3 Yoga Fires before disappearing. That amount of projectile durability sounds like she needs to be a Marvel vs. Capcom game than a Street Fighter IV add-on.
Another thing to note is her insane damage output. We don't want a rehash of vanilla/Super Cammy or Arcade Edition Yun here. For Capcom's sake, I hope they find that middle ground with her and everyone else in this game in terms of balance or it's going to be the same problems that plagued this game and Injustice: Gods Among Us in early tournament outings with Top 8 finals with every over-powered and broken character doing mirror matches.
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