So the last rumor about Super Street Fighter IV’s roster has finally been confirmed. We are in fact getting Hakan, the Arabic grappler that is obsessed with oil. However, Capcom pulled a fast one on all of us. While we were all stuck dumbfounded on how racist the character concept was, Capcom was probably snickering behind the scenes at the final reveal. First of all, though Hakan is Arabic, he actually comes from and represents Turkey, and uses Turkish wrestling as his fighting style. Second of all, while we all thought that “Arabic grappler obsessed with oil” was some kind of horrible commentary on the war in the middle east, we were dead wrong. Capcom pulled a 180 on us, because the oil that Hakan is obsessed with, is actually body oil. Now, he and his shiny, bronze, and oh so slippery muscles will be entering the ring and fighting against Street Fighter characters new and old!

There has been a bit of a community backlash against Hakan ever since his reveal. His peculiar style of fighting certainly paints him as a “joke” character. Most of his moves involve squeezing you so hard you pop out of his slippery grip, or using his own oily body to slide around the ground at high speeds. In fact, one of his ultra combos involves spinning around on your body, tucking your head in between his legs, and squeezing you so hard you shoot out like a missile and slam into a wall. This oddly sexual display deals quite a bit of damage and does not seem enjoyable to his victims … er except for Dee Jay … Dee Jay seems to enjoy it way too much.

However, aside from the negative reaction to his joke like fighting style, Hakan is actually quite interesting from a gameplay mechanics standpoint. He is a heavy grappler with high mobility, which breaks the heavy grappler mold. El Fuerte is a light grappler with high mobility and Zangief is a heavy grappler with low mobility, but Hakan seems to have all the aspects of a heavy grappler character (360s 720s and all) with moves that easily move both him and his opponent across the screen.

Let’s take a look at his other moves. His slide seems to allow him to cross up characters by moving underneath them. He has followups that allow him to belly flop onto characters while they are downed. He seems to have a variety of standing throws, and some throws that actually cause him to dive through the air, that appear to be able to hit either standing or aerial opponents. One of his ultras seems to be a pretty standard close range grapple move (even though it shows him taking his opponent on a roller coaster ride across his oily body), but his other ultra appears to be an anti-air counter move. If an opponent jumps in while the ultra is active, they slip on Hakan’s oily chest and the entire ultra plays out. Even though this is hilarious, it is the first anti-air counter ultra we have seen in the game, which is quite a change in terms of gameplay mechanics.

Hakan also has a move where he oils himself up even more in the middle of a match. This makes him shine for a few seconds, however, what effect it has is yet to be seen. It did not appear to make him move faster, take less damage, or deal more damage. It may be conditional, and might only effect the moves that use his oily body. He did appear to slide farther on the ground when this buff is active.

Though he may be a “joke” character, he appears to have an interesting fighting style that may have a decent impact on the Street Fighter IV metagame … that is … if pro players can stash their pride long enough to pick up a joke character. We will give you more details on Hakan’s movelist, and Super Street Fighter IV’s release as they become available.

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