Fighting game fans have been waiting for months to figure out who the newest Ultra Street Fighter IV character is. Capcom promised that it would be a character that has never before been seen in a Street Fighter game, yet comes from the Street Fighter Universe. Many fans were hoping for Mike Haggar, and even more were hoping for R. Mika or Retsu despite the fact that they don’t really meet the criteria. Well, this weekend Capcom decided to finally reveal the character to us as Decapre, which has Street Fighter fans everywhere screaming…. “Who the heck is Decapre?”
If the character looks a lot like Cammy in a mask, there’s a reason for that. Decapre is one of Bison’s dolls from the extended universe. Cammy was also one of Bison’s dolls at one point, and wore the doll uniform during the Street Fighter alpha games. We saw two of these dolls, Juni and Juli, in Street Fighter Alpha 3 . You may notice a trend in the dolls’ names, in that they are all named after months of the year. Juni means June, Juli means July, and Decapre means December. Decapre wears a mask because her face is incredibly scarred. She is easily one of the most tortured and sadistic of Bison’s dolls, and her ruthless aggressive fighting style mirrors that.
Decapre fights with modified Katar that channel psycho energy. While a lot of her normals look similar to Cammy’s, her psycho energy extends their hitbox, giving them larger range and increased safety. You’ll notice that she also shares a lot of specials with Cammy, including the spiral arrow, which can now be used in the air, and the cannon spike. However, she also seems to take a lot of moves from other characters as well, including an overhead teleport smash that seems like it comes from Oni’s move-set, a dash teleport that seems reminiscent of Gen or Guy but that can be used to teleport into the air, and an uppercut with a huge hitbox. It’s also worth noting that her EX teleport is completely invincible, allowing you to get in or out of danger as you like. She does have a few moves of her own though, like a running rapid slash that allows her to keep the pressure on. It’s a lot like wolverine’s berserker barrage in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 .
Her ultras also seem borrowed from other characters. Psycho stream, her ultra I, causes her to throw out a huge slow moving projectile, a lot like yoga catastrophe. It does a lot of hits, but not a lot of damage, effectively keeping the opponent on block for a long time. By utilizing her teleports, you can easily open the opponent up by making them block this Ultra the wrong way and start a brutal assault with her normal.
Her second ultra is a lot like Vega’s ultra 1. After using it, Decapre rushes forward toward the opponent at blazing speeds. If she connects, she knocks the opponent in the air and proceeds to assault them with a flurry of zig zag slashes. This ultra is the one you want to use for pure damage, and it is very easy to combo into due to its short startup time. In addition, she has an anti-air version of this move that allows her to dash up into the air for a hit-confirm. This can also be landed after juggles, making it one of the easiest to land ultras in the game.
Finally, her super is taken straight from M. Bison. It’s essentially the same as his super psycho crusher. However, it can be canceled from a variety of moves to keep the pressure on. Decapre can running slash into spiral arrow into super psycho crusher and simply lay the chip damage on.
Decapre is described as an entirely offensive character. She has low health and few defensive tools but incredibly high speed, mobility and damage. She plays very different from Cammy, even though they look similar, and Cammy was quite the offensive power-house to begin with. Think of her as Cammy’s version of Evil Ryu. She is about 85% done now. We will bring you more information on Decapre as we near Ultra Street Fighter IV ’s release date in June. For more info, check out her reveal trailer here.