Street Fighter 5s new guy sounds like two characters in one (and a bit cheaty with it)

So the mystery is solved (by way of us having been given the answer). That next teased character at the end of Street Fighter 5’s Ken reveal trailer – the one who stalwart fans thought could have been anyone from a heavily redesigned Akuma or Juri, to a Psycho-powered zombie E. Honda – is actually none of the proffered options. He’s an entirely new combatant. His name is Necalli, and he sounds like a total badass.

With Mysterious Origins™ and an intimidating countenance of bouncy-castle abs and and python-like dreadlocks, Necalli is an unashamedly blunt, bruising rush-down character, an animalistic wild man whose fighting style has been “forged through the heat of battle to inflict maximum pain upon his opponents”. His move-set is described as being one of savage battery and close-range focus, with a command-grab – those special, extra punishing throws and grapples that require a joystick input to execute - sitting alongside.

But things get really interesting when you get into Necalli’s V-Skills and V-Trigger ability, Street Fighter 5’s new across-the-board super abilities. His V-Skill, known as Culminated Power, is a ground-pound that unleashes a shock-wave that can be directed with a stick input for no doubt all kinds of traps and set ups. More intriguing than that though, is his V-Trigger, Torrent of Power, which applies a whole bunch of ambient tweaks and upgrades to his fighting style. While the V-Trigger state is activated, he gets new combos, a new Critical Art – the new name for those show-stopping ultimate special moves – and ‘new frame data’, which loosely translates to ‘his standard attack, defence and recover timings will change, probably making him faster and more versatile’.

That last one is particularly interesting in the context of Street Fighter 5, which is, from what I've played of it so far, faster, more versatile, and much friendlier with its combo timing windows than Street Fighter has ever been before. If Necalli can activate an additional ease-of-use boost on top of that, he should be an absolute monster.