Last night were the Ultra Street Fighter 4 top eight finals at the Evolution 2015 fighting game championships. Just before the top eight began, Capcom had a special treat for the 180,000 fans watching online and the 9,000 spectators in attendance. The mysterious character glimpsed at the end of the Ken reveal trailer is none other than the first new fighter to grace Street Fighter 5. His name is Necalli and he is the first of four brand new characters that will be available with Street Fighter 5 launches early next year.
We didn’t get a chance to play as Necalli, and we’ll likely have to wait a little bit before we get that chance. However, we were able to gather some additional information about the character to satisfy fans until we get some hands-on time with the new World Warrior. As much as Necalli resembles Blanka (both in look and fighting style), he is an entirely new character. His attitude seems similar to that of Evil Ryu and he even borrows a bit from C. Viper, so let’s take a closer look at what we know so far.
Fighting Style and Special Moves
Necalli is primarily a close-range fighter. He has hard-hitting attacks but for the most part, they don’t have a lot of reach. He has a command throw, but we’re hesitant to label him as a grappler character just yet. He’s more agile than most grapplers, and he even borrows from C. Viper to extend his range a bit.
His V-Skill (not to be confused with his V-Trigger) is almost exactly like C. Viper’s Seismic Hammer. Necalli can use the Culminated Power to attack close to him, at mid-screen, and across the screen, very similar to the Seismic Hammer. It’s unknown if Necalli will have the same kind of Seismic Hammer cancels that C. Viper employs, but if we had to take a guess we would say no. If Capcom ever wants to include C. Viper in Street Fighter 5, the ability to cancel her Seismic Hammer is more than enough to differentiate these two characters.
V-Trigger and Critical Arts
Necalli’s V-Trigger is called Torrent of Power, and it acts more like a limited time stance than a typical V-Trigger. Once Torrent of Power is active, Necalli’s hair transforms (almost like that of a Dragon Ball Z Super Saiyan) and he gains new attacks and combos, changes the frame data and properties of some attacks, and even gains a new critical art super move.
Once again, details are limited, but this seems to be quite powerful and almost calls back to Hakan’s ability to oil himself up. The normal version of Hakan was an average character at best, but once he was oiled up he was arguably the best character in the game. Hopefully that won’t be the case with Necalli, as it will likely be more difficult to gain enough meter to activate V-Trigger compared to simply oiling up as Hakan. In addition, Hakan was buffed multiple times and he’s still considered only an average character, hopefully Necalli doesn’t fall under the same stigma.
We’ll have more information on Necalli as soon as we can get our hands on the character. For now, stay tuned for more Street Fighter 5 goodies coming later this week and next week as we go hands-on with the beta. Until then, check out Necalli’s reveal trailer and our articles on Ken, Ryu and the other Street Fighter 5 characters!
