Video Game / Street Fighter X Tekken

"I know you're listening, Jin. The man you wanted to meet so much is right here."

— Kazuya, referring to Ryu.

Street Fighter X Tekken is a 2D fighting game featuring the casts of the Street Fighter and Tekken series going head to head against each other. It was produced by Capcom with the same engine used for Street Fighter IV, and released in 2012.

A mysterious meteorite crashes in the South Pole, and hidden away within the meteorite is an artifact which is given the name "Pandora." Researchers have no clue as to the origins of the cube-like artifact, but they soon discover Pandora causes beings to come into conflict when nearby — and it releases a water-like energy which brings more power to the combatants. Both Shadaloo and the Mishima Zaibatsu want the object for their own purposes, but they'll have to deal with a host of other warriors — all with their own reasons for wanting Pandora and its power — to get to it first.

Street Fighter X Tekken was the first in what was intended to be a duology of crossover games between Street Fighter and Tekken. The other one was supposed to be Tekken X Street Fighter, which would've been developed by Bandai Namco as a 3D fighter in the style of the Tekken games. However, it entered development hell after Street Fighter X Tekken's post-launch support came to a premature end and just as development on Tekken 7 kicked into high gear, leaving it Vaporware. The closest Tekken X Street Fighter has come to materializing has been through Akuma's appearance as a Guest Fighter in 7, and Kazuya appearing alongside Ryu and Ken in the Bandai Namco-developed Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Playable characters

Street Fighter

• From Street Fighter 1: Ryu, Ken Masters, Sagat
• From Street Fighter II: Chun-Li, Guile, Cammy White, Dhalsim, Zangief, Balrog, Vega, M. Bison, Akuma, Blanka (DLC)
• From Street Fighter Alpha: Sakura Kasugano (DLC)
• From Street Fighter III: Ibuki, Elena (DLC), Dudley (DLC)
• From Street Fighter IV: Abel, Rufus, Juri Han
• From Final Fight: Poison, Hugo Andore, Rolento F. Schugerg, Guy (DLC), Cody Travers (DLC).

Tekken

• From Tekken: Kazuya Mishima, Nina Williams, Yoshimitsu, Heihachi Mishima, Paul Phoenix, Marshall Law, Jack (known as "Jack-X", DLC)
• From Tekken 2: Lei Wulong (DLC)
• From Tekken 3: King II (known as "King"), Julia Chang, Hwoarang, Kuma II (known as "Kuma"), Ling Xiaoyu, Jin Kazama, Ogre, Bryan Fury (DLC)
• From Tekken 4: Craig Marduk, Steve Fox, Christie Monteiro (DLC)
• From Tekken 5: Raven, Emilie "Lili" de Rochefort, Asuka Kazama
• From Tekken 6: Robert "Bob" Richards, Alisa Boskonovitch (DLC), Lars Alexandersson (DLC)

Guest Fighters (PS3 and PSVita exclusives)

• From inFamous: Cole MacGrath
• From Doko Demo Issho: Toro and Kuro
• From Mega Man: Bad Box Art Mega Man (known as "Mega Man" in-game)
• From Pac-Man: Pac-Man

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Tropes associated with Street Fighter X Tekken include:

• Adaptational Attractiveness: By contrast with BBA Mega Man, Roll goes from a young girl to... a total babe.
• Adaptational Villainy: In Tekken, Ling Xiaoyu is a Nice Girl who's obsessed with helping Jin become a better person and redeeming the Mishima family in general. In this game, her love for Jin has been rocketed up to full-on Yandere levels, to the point where she's willing to kill anyone who gets in her way with the power of Pandora.
• Armed Females, Unarmed Males: Poison and Hugo are tag team partners in this game. Hugo is a large mountain of a man who fights unarmed as a wrestler, while Poison uses a form of self-taught martial arts which incorporates use of her riding crop.
• Artifact of Doom: "Pandora" appears to be this. Mainly due to the fact that (at least in-game) you have to sacrifice your partner to achieve its power.
  • It also combines elements of a Jackass Genie and troll in some endings. For example, when Hwoarang says he could fight 100 opponents near Pandora, he gets to fight 100 Akumas or turning Zangief and Rufus into thinner versions of themselves. Also, in Ryu and Ken's ending it makes Ryu disappear, leaving just his headband for Ken. Its true purpose, seemingly, is to collect Ogre after he's done stealing the souls of all the top fighters on Earth. It attracts strong fighters because, well, Ogre is supposed to be the strongest, and to have killed all the others.
  • Subverted in some endings when it's revealed to be harmless. Examples include Chun-Li and Cammy in the Street Fighter side and Lei and Christie in the Tekken side.
• Ascended Meme:
  • Bad Box Art Mega Man's reason for his inclusion.
  • M. Bison's taunt and winquotes:
    • His taunt has him float with his arms crossed and say "For me, it was a Tuesday."
    • For bonus points, the game literally came out on a Tuesday.
    • His winquote against Jin and Hugo references the "YES! YES!" and "This is delicious!" memes at once. Against Chun-Li it references the "I killed my father too and you don't hear ME whining about it!" meme.
    • His winquote against Guile which references The Movie.
    • His winquote against Blanka has him denying creating something "as ridiculous as him," mocking the movie which showed Bison's genetic experiments transforming Carlos Blanka into a green skinned monster.
  • Blanka's winquote against Guy:
    Blanka: You say funny things. What's profound sadness anyway?
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Pac-Man's ending.
• Be Careful What You Wish For Hwoarang getting his "wish" to fight a hundred opponents at a time, for example. He certainly didn't count on all 100 opponents being Akuma clones.
• Blessed with Suck: Activating "Pandora" mode allows you to gain strength and unlimited super meter for a limited amount of time. The catch, if you don't beat your opponent within that time limit, you lose the match.
• Boss Battle: Depends on your team's point character, so a team of King/Ken will have different boss battles compared to Ken/King.
  • Sub-Boss: Either the team of M. Bison and Juri or Jin and Xiaoyu; both teams are under the influence of Pandora.
  • Final Boss: Akuma or Ogre, by themselves.
• Boss Banter: Similar to the Rival Battles from Street Fighter IV, a lot of trash talking goes on during each round.
• The Cameo: Several, some from other Namco and Capcom franchises.
  • NANCY-MI847J (an Optional Boss in Tekken 6) and a Mishima Zaibatsu soldier hiding under a giant Servbot head have been spotted in the background of the Urban War Zone, with a second NANCY-MI847J fighting in the background.
  • The first CG trailer has a Mythology Gag in the form of an 8-bit Pac-Man chasing 8-bit Mega Man.
  • Alex from Tekken 2 makes a cameo in the background of the Jurassic Era Research Facility stage based on the Dino Crisis series.
  • The Mishima Estate features Kunimitsu from the first Tekken in her Tag 3P costume, as well as Sarai, one of Ibuki's friends. The same stage also plays host to some heavy grunts from the Scenario Campaign mode of Tekken 6.
  • The Comic-Con 2011 trailer starts off with Mike Haggar being defeated in a wrestling match by King and Marduk.
    • Guy and Cody show up at the end of the same trailer.
  • In the Half Pipe stage there's a billboard of El Fuerte's restaurant, and another one of the Drive-Through At Night stage in Street Fighter IV. There's also a billboard of Alex but it's very hard to spot.◊ On the lower level of the stage you can see Yun skateboarding on the ramp and Yang standing in the background watching the fight while Yun's girlfriend Hoimei is running around him in circles.
  • The El Fuerte billboard isn't the only one in that stage. Variations also feature Roger. Jr from Tekken 5, The Dolls, and even Ono-san and Harada-san appear dressed as Blanka and Kuma respectively!
  • Pit Stop 109 features a group of trucks in the background not unlike the one seen in Sodom's Street Fighter Alpha 2 stage. The likenesses of Blanka (more precisely, the toy that producer Yoshinori Ono uses in his Twitter updates) and E. Honda are pictured on two of the trucks.
  • The same truck stage also occasionally has a biker wearing Chuck Greene's yellow jacket from Dead Rising 2 in the same way Keiji Inafune used to wear the same jacket when promoting that game.
  • The truck stage also has a night variant, in which a woman who looks very much like Anna Williams can be seen observing the fighting in the foreground.
  • True to its name, the Mad Gear Hideout (refurbished in traditional Japanese/Noh style; knowing Sodom, it's 99% likely it was his idea) with many Mad Gear members (Damnd, Axl, Abigail, Belger himself, Eddie E. and Grandpa Andore; Sodom joins in during Round 2) in Kabuki attire dancing. After a while (the start of Round 3), Haggar bursts in and ruins their fun. The theme of the stage even changes to numerous notable Final Fight themes throughout each round.
  • The Cosmic Elevator stage has Mecha Zangief crawling around outside the windows.
  • Dan runs the game's tutorial mode.
    • Dan also turns up in Sakura and Blanka's ending inside Pandora, weirdly enough.
  • The Blast Furnace stage has Ganryu in the background.
  • Broken JACK-6s can be seen in the background of the South Pole stage where Pandora's Box is.
  • The comic that comes with the special edition of the game reveals the creator of Pandora's Box is Ingrid.
• Character Customization: The Gems System, which allows players to equip and swap out up to three gems that alter attributes such as attack, speed, defense, the Cross Gauge, Assists, and more. Ono even hinted that movesets themselves are customizable. This changes up the dynamics of possible Mirror Matches as Ono notes that even the subtlest of changes would make "my Ryu different from your Ryu."
  • You can also customize alt colors for your character. At the time of release, there weren't too many options but more were released as free DLC. There are also special costumes that allow a Street Fighter character to wear a Tekken fighter's outfit and vice versa. For example, Chun-Li has a costume resembling Panda while Yoshimitsu has a Dictator outfit.
• Character Exaggeration: In spades, particularly on the Tekken side. Part of this is probably so people who are unfamiliar with the series can get a clear (although inflated) idea of what the characters are like.
  • Ling Xiaoyu has always been close to Jin Kazama, and Tekken 6 all but confirms that she's in love with him, but in this game, she's a borderline Yandere who will do anything and fight anyone to have Jin to herself.
  • Lili is even more of a Rich Bitch in this game than she is in the Tekken series, and appears single-mindedly obsessed with style and grace.
  • Rolento is single-mindedly driven to start an army, to the point that he considers any Worthy Opponent part of it whether they realize or not.
  • Every. Single. Character. ...references Paul wanting to be "strongest in the universe". And of course that's the only thing he can talk about, too (save for a hair-related quip to Guile and Ibuki). It ends in silly jokes about aliens and starships more often than not.
  • Bryan Fury fights like sheer Dumb Muscle in this game, to the point that you can't really even call it a "fighting style". This is in stark contrast to how he fights in Tekken, where he's an extremely skilled kickboxer with attacks that actually look the part.
  • Zangief normally speaks in perfectly good English in Street Fighter and doesn't talk quite so much about his muscles as he does here (at least, until Street Fighter V for the latter, where he talks about his muscles even more.)
  • Ironically, due to the limited text space, Rufus actually talks a lot less than he does in Street Fighter. Also, almost everyone comments on his talkativeness, because Bob gets all the comments about being fat (which, once again, come from everyone and are all variations on "you don't actually have a perfect body").
  • Ibuki's laziness and Valley Girl qualities are amped up from the usual in order to make her contrast Rolento more. One would think she is a spoiled brat for how much she complains in their story mode.
• Charged Attack: Each character has one chargeable attack, the properties of which change depending on the length of charge. This can result in a meter-free EX Move or Super Combo if the attack is charged for long enough.
• Combination Attack: The Cross Arts.
• Combos: The game has a chain combo system that's more like the one seen in Darkstalkers than any previous Street Fighter game, since the development team believed this style to be close to Tekken-like combos.
  • Tekken characters have unique combos that resemble those seen in proper Tekken games, as opposed to the Street Fighter roster's target combos. Thanks to the tag-cancelling system, this allows for some pretty crazy mix-ups.
  • As a tradeoff to the above, the SF cast's forte is aerial combos.
• Equivalent Exchange: To activate "Pandora" during a match, you must sacrifice your teammate, and can only do so when your vitality is below 25% (indicated by your healthbar flashing red) And if you can't win the round before Pandora's effect ends (indicated by a dwindling purple bar above your healthbar), you lose the round instead. In other words, Pandora is not practical unless the user is about to lose. It was designed specifically for a last-second reversal.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: Instead of having one player control both characters, two players can pick one character each and play as a team, even in Arcade mode. Versus mode allows two two-player teams to compete. Unfortunately (depending on your case), this only exists on the PS3 version.
• Counter-Attack: Features a universal "Alpha Counter" similar to that first seen in Street Fighter Alpha. King, Asuka, Lili, Steve and Heihachi also have Counters as moves in their arsenal.
• Crossover: With the antecedent of the Action Strategy RPG Namco × Capcom (and some inFAMOUS and Doko Demo Issho love being thrown in there as well).
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The Comic-Con trailer had King and Marduk overpowering first Haggar, and then both Poison and Hugo, getting in only one attack each (one of which was a sneak attack) before losing.
• Darker and Edgier: Capcom stated before release that SFxT would be this towards their other Capcom vs. games. The Pandora feature (sucking your partner's life force in exchange for a brief surge of power) and the fact that Ono has explicitly said that these two universes vindictively hate one another casts a darker shadow over this game than past crossovers. Then the game actually came out, and beyond the introduction FMV it's far from dark and edgy.
• Death by Cameo: Dan, at the hands of Kazuya... yet somehow he's running this game's tutorial.
• Designated Girl Fight: The only two female teams on the Street Fighter (Chun-Li/Cammy) and Tekken (Asuka/Lili) sides are designated rivals.
  • Furthermore when playing as Jin and Xiaoyu their rivals are Cammy and Chun-Li. Cammy focuses more on Xiaoyu.
• Developer's Foresight: The game has an option for you to make it so that you have to hold Start to pause the game, in order to keep people from accidentally disqualifying themselves in tournament play.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Rufus and Bob are fighting! Zangief doesn't even bat an eye. Julia clings onto him. He does a massive Spit Take... twice.
• Drunk with Power: Some of the quotes the characters say when activating Pandora give off this impression.
• Epic Fail: Capcom releases a patch to fix numerous glitches with the game on May 16, 2012 and ends up creating a new glitch with Rolento that causes the game to crash. See it for yourself here.
• Excuse Plot: An unknown cube crash-lands in the South Pole. Researchers find out that the energy of the object is released when people start fighting. Hence, the contenders of the World Warrior and King of Iron Fist Tournaments decide to beat the shit out of each other. Every character pair in the game (plus 4 characters that fight alone on their own way) have a storyline of why they want to acquire Pandora. However, most of them are just a plot excuse and do not make much sense whatsoever.
  • No Plot? No Problem!: This is even worse for the Guest Fighters, Cole, Toro & Kuro, who do not even get a story (for that same reason they are unplayable in Arcade Mode).
  • Exaggerated with the Downloadable Content costume packs. Each outfit comes with a flimsy excuse to justify why one character is dressed up like another.
• Exposed to the Elements: This being a fighting game, about half the men lack shirts and/or shoes, and about half the women are stripperiffic. The Story Mode ends at the South Pole.
  • Almost lampshaded in one scene, where Sakura is just fine wandering about in her usual short-sleeved, midriff-baring uniform with short skirt, with Blanka following behind her, wrapped up like a mummy in about thirty different scarves and still clearly freezing his ass off.
• Expressive Health Bar: the health bar shakes losing a portion of the remaining health whenever an attack is landed on a character.
• Final Boss: Akuma and Ogre fill this role, depending on which series the point character hails from. While they fight by themselves, their health and damage output have been buffed accordingly to balance them out.
• Friendly Enemy: A meta example. SF producer Yoshinori Ono and Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada's constant back-and-forth bantering can be seen as this.
  • Before the SFxT reveal at San Diego Comic Con, Harada "interrupts" Ono's Street Fighter IV panel wearing a boxing robe... with Heihachi's signature dogi underneath.
  • At later dates, the two were seen competing against one anotherin all sorts of wacky hijinks.
  • It became such an efficient marketing tool that it's even being used to promote completely separate games; it's the focal point of the very silly TGS 2011 trailer for Tekken 3D: Prime Edition.
• Friendly Rivalry:
  • As noted, the aforementioned comical interactions of Ono and Harada.
  • On the other hand, Ono has said that, "canonically", the characters of both universes hate each other. This is the reason for its naming convention, as Ono felt that X denotes more of a vicious rivalry as opposed to Vs. In-game, it isn't necessarily the case, as not that many characters from both sides hate each other.
• Funny Background Event:
  • Continuing on from his running gag of mistaking just about anyone with blond hair/in red clothes for Ken Masters, Rufus battles Bob in the TGS 2011 trailer at Marshall Diner, one of Marshall Law's restaurants. During the battle, Rufus is sent flying, showing us a clear shot of the upper level of the restaurant. Conveniently, Rufus flies by none other than Ken himself, trying to enjoy a meal with his buddy Ryu. Neither one notices the commotion down below.
  • The Mad Gear Hideout stage has Haggar showing up during Round 3, wrecking a party of the Mad Gear Gang and proceeding to make Sodom run for his life.
  • In the Urban War Zone stage, someone is trapped inside of a Servbot head.
    • In the same stage, a worker gets trapped in the claws of a damaged NANCY-MI847J robot while a fellow worker tries in vain to free them.
  • The Cosmic Elevator stage has Mecha Zangief trying desperately to hold on as the stage flies into space... only to fail.
    • He somehow survives and makes it to space. Mecha Zangief is seen in subsequent rounds floating in space with other astronauts while striking a silly pose.
• Game-Breaking Bug: Multiple instances:
  • In patch 1.04, when Rolento's Stinger knives collide with an enemy's fireball that isn't a kunai or another knife, the game freezes.
  • The Windows version cannot be installed or played due to a dependency on Games for Windows LIVE which has shut down.
• Gender Incompetence: During a stage transition males and women receive different animations according to their gender. When a male loses his HP and the stage transition is happening, all of the girls could appear to be scolding their ally for losing while another male being anchor just looks like he wants to get revenge.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Akuma.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Pretty standard in the mixed-gender teams. Bob and Julia, Hugo and Poison, Bison, and Juri, and done to a realistic extent with Jin and Xiaoyu...Averted with Kazuya and Nina (Kaz is taller but Nina isn't tiny by any means) and inverted with Elena and Dudley (he's heavier, but she's actually taller).
  • Ibuki got this pretty bad. She is the tiny girl to Rolento's huge guy as he is freakishly tall when standing, but their rival battle has her team with the huge guy against two humongous guys.
  • The Poison and Hugo team is more like 'Big Girl Giant Guy'' as Poison, who's quite tall in her own right, gets absolutely dwarfed by the massive Hugo.
• Jiggle Physics: Most females (along with Rufus) have a little of it going on during the fights or in the intro vs. screens. Poison's is probably the most blatant with it happening with the slightest movement.
• Just Ignore It: In the few actual good endings of the game, this seems to be the best way to deal with Pandora's Box. Even Ryu succumbs to it, but people like Poison who have no interest in the box itself cause it to vanish in a puff of logic when they refuse to pay any attention to it.
• Launcher Move: The characters all have a technique (heavy punch + heavy kick) that launches their foe into the air and then tags their partner in for a juggle.
• Lazy Artist:
  • The returning Street Fighter cast reuses their models and many animations from Super Street Fighter IV with some aesthetic touch ups, and some new animations. For example, Ken got a few new animations for the Shippu Jinrai Kyaku, which he didn't have in IV.
  • Ogre's model is heavily based on SFIV's Seth. And that has caused most people to aptly call him "Seth Green."
  • The very first teaser for the game features Ryu's animations in the pre-match dialogue from his rival fight with Sagat in Street Fighter IV, while Kazuya's is a mix of Sagat's animations from that same fight along with some Sagat animations (particularly when he folds his arms) from Sagat's rival fight with Adon in Super Street Fighter IV.
• Lighter and Softer: This game doesn't take itself particularly seriously, what with the humourous character winquotes, the general "party" atmosphere, and the high amount of joke storylines. And Bad Box Art Mega Man.
• Limit Break: Each character has one of these in their Super Art. Each team of two also has one of these in their Cross Art, which uses the entire super bar. Akuma is notable for having two (the Raging Demon and Misogi), while King and Dhalsim can modify their supers into two variants.
• Logic Bomb: Because of Pandora's effect, you can lose by Time Over even if you set the match to infinite time! Necessary to prevent a possible Game-Breaker, but still...
• Long Song, Short Scene: The Continue? theme goes on for a couple of minutes, most of which you won't hear due to the screen only lasting 10 seconds at maximum.
• Motif: Similar to the brushed ink effect in Street Fighter IV, SFxT has a water-based motif, seen in gameplay when a launcher move is performed. It is also very prominent in the CG trailers for the game, usually seen when a character does something important or impressive.
• My Ninjutsu Is Stronger Than Yours: There are 5 characters (Vega, Ibuki, Raven, Yoshimitsu, and in DLC, Guy) who are (or claim to be) ninjas and they have some choice words about the others in their victory quotes.
  • This more or less applies to characters who share a common discipline, like boxers (Steve, Balrog and Dudley) and wrestlers (King, Hugo and Zangief.)
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • Dan was on the receiving end of one from Kazuya. Word of God has virtually confirmed that Dan died from said beatdown.
  • Scramble Mode essentially turns matches into an all-out frenzy.
• No Kill like Overkill: In Steve and Hwoarang's ending, they face 100 Akumas. 99 of them are Shin Akumas.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: An odd hit and miss example. When voiced in English, all of the European Street Fighter characters speak with the appropriate accent for their nationality - Cammy sounds English, Zangief sounds Russian and Vega (Claw) sounds Spanish etc. However, for the Tekken crew, it's more sporadic - Steve Fox does have an English accent, but Lili doesn't sound French (as she should, being Monégasque) and in fact has an American accent, as does the Irish Nina Williams. It seems odd that the English voice-work was seemingly quite selective in attributing native accents. Though, in fairness, the English speaking Tekken characters were always like that—at least until Tekken Tag Tournament 2, which was in development at the same time...
• Ominous Cube: "Pandora" is the name given to the mysterious cube that fell to Earth that the game centers around. It is capable of granting its wielder's wishes, as well as amplifying the strength of those around it well beyond natural levels.
• Optional Boss: Getting a certain amount of Super Art Finishes or Cross Art Finishes scores you a boss fight against Pac-Man for Street Fighter characters or Mega Man for Tekken characters.
• Order Versus Chaos: The main theme of the Ryu vs. Kazuya match-up. In the first trailer, Ryu can be seen meditating in a temple while Kazuya just barges in, covered in darkness.
• Pandora's Box: A variant on the Box shows up in the game.
• Power at a Price: As mentioned above, Pandora mode is a risky technique, requiring one of your characters at 25% or less health to be immediately removed from the round, and giving your other powered-up character only 10 seconds to win the round on their own. There's a reason Seth Killian calls it a "high stakes unholy gamble."
• Power Creep, Power Seep: Both sides are somewhat faster and stronger than in their own series. Supposedly, Pandora is strengthening fighters before Pandora mode.
  • This isn't even getting into the Guest Fighters which go in both directions.
• The Rival: All canon teams have special rival battles against another team from the opposing series. For example, we have Ryu and Ken vs. Kazuya and Nina, Poison and Hugo vs. Steve and Hwoarang, Dudley and Elena vs. Lei and Christie, etc.
  • There are rival match-ups for Mega Man, Pac-Man, Akuma and Ogre if they are the point characters, although in the latter's case, this primarily takes the form of a quick cutscene before the true Final Boss fight.
  • While Bison/Juri and Jin/Xiaoyu are rivals, they do not fight each other for their rival match-ups. Bison and Juri fight Heihachi and Kuma, while Jin and Xiaoyu fight Chun-Li and Cammy.
• Red Baron: Everyone, in two different ways. Not only does Capcom list every character with their own unique title on their website (e.g. Chun-Li = "Legs of Justice"), every "canon" team also has its own nickname as well.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: When Pandora mode is activated, the powered character's eyes glow red (in contrast to the rest of their body glowing purple).
  • In normal conditions you still have Ogre, Akuma and Kazuya's left eye.
• Shared Life-Meter: Scramble Mode is 2-on-2 with all 4 fighters active at once. Each side shares one life bar between both teammates.
• Ship Tease: In their ending, Julia and Bob. Also, Elena and Dudley.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Done initially, but then played with a bit. According to Ono, the only character the dev team knew they didn't want in from the start was Dan. In the reveal trailer shows Dan rolling into the temple after getting the stuffing knocked out of him by Kazuya. Later, Dan not only "returns" as the one who runs the Tutorial, and for the PS version, even more clowns are allowed such as Toro and Kuro, and Bad Box Art Mega Man. He also appears in Sakura/Blanka's ending, inside of the Pandora box.
• Shout-Out: Check the page.
• Shadow Archetype: An art update added this to the character art in the lead up to reveal of Pandora Mode.
• Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: The entire game, and all of the characters, are much, much more silly than in their canon series.
• Tag Team: More in the vein of the Tekken Tag Tournament games, in that the round ends if one character is KO'd.
  • With regards to the trailers, except for five characters^note Cole, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Akuma/Gouki and Ogre, the remaining fighters end up forming teams that are somewhat related to the canon of both series (Heihachi and Kuma, King and Marduk, Ryu and Ken, Hugo and Poison).
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Some of the teams' members dislike their partners, such as Raven towards Yoshimitsu, Nina towards Kazuya, Balrog and Vega between each other, and Juri and M. Bison between each other. In some of these endings, Chronic Backstabbing Disorder ensues.
• Thematic Theme Tune:
  • Black Tide's "Honest Eyes", the main de facto theme of the game, since one of Kazuya's prominent traits is his single, red, demonic-looking eye and Ryu's eyes glow blue whenever he uses the power of Hadou. Also, one look in their eyes can tell which one is the good guy or the evil psychopath.
  • Hollywood Undead's "My Town" for the boys of Metro City, plus King and Marduk.
  • Hideyuki Fukusawa's "The Destiny Fight" and Street Drum Corps' "Knock Me Out", for the fighting game girls.
  • Jared Evan's "In Love With You" for the showdown between Rufus and Bob. Yes, the title is both ironic and inappropriate.
  • Rise Against's "From Heads Unworthy" for the showdown between the head of the Mishima Zaibatsu (Jin, as per the storyline of Tekken 6) and Shadaloo (M. Bison/Dictator).
• Translation Convention: A transplant from the Tekken series, press release and officials videos had the fighters speaking English and Japanese to each other without any problems. The game's "Cross Style" preset language track enforces this to some extent:
  • The Street Fighter side is voiced entirely in Japanese, possibly a Call-Back to the older games having an all-Japanese cast. Mega Man is the sole English holdout on their end.
  • The Tekken side is a mixed bag, due to characters speaking a wide range of languages. While the Mishimas, Lars, Alisa and Xiaoyu all speak Japanese, the rest of the Tekken characters speak in English. This does not take into account five characters on their end who cannot have their languages changed at all: Yoshimitsu, King, Kuma, Ogre and Pac-Man. Notably, while the Street Fighter characters switched between pure English and Japanese in trailers depending on which region they targeted, the Tekken fighters strictly adhered to these pre-set languages in any instance.
• Tron Lines: With the exception of Heihachi, the characters gain them when activating Pandora, which also dyes their skin pitch black, turns their hair white, has their clothes give off an eerie purple glow, gives them glowing red eyes, distorts their voices, and has what appears to be red orbs marked with kanji (specifically, Akuma's signature 天 symbol) orbit around their bodies.
• The Worf Effect: At the start, the Street Fighter cast was curbstomped in every cinematic trailer (according to Word of God, intentionally). This is later lessened as Capcom's side of the cast generally do better each time. In order:
  • Kazuya already had Ryu under his boot by the start of the first trailer and later got the better of Ken, not to mention having previously murdered Dan Hibiki in cold blood (in "trailer zero").
  • King and Marduk go on to beat Poison and Hugo without much trouble at all after taking out Mike Haggar two on one. Worth noting that King hits a freaking Giant Swing on Hugo, not to mention that he doesn't get attacked and beaten down. (To put it into perspective, Marduk gets clotheslined by Hugo and hit with a projectile by Poison; King gets off scot-free and takes his Street Fighter rivals down with ease.)
  • While Rufus does get humiliated by Bob and Julia in the TGS 2011 trailer, he put up a far better fight against Bob than the rest of his Street Fighter counterparts, to the point of requiring Julia to jump in. That said, Rufus' humiliation was kind of brought on by his failure to differentiate between Bob and Ken, but still, Bob and Julia do not let Rufus get off easy. Zangief jumps into the battle towards the end, but that's where the trailer cuts off, so it's unknown how he fared against Julia.
  • The Asia Game Show Trailer is better about this for the most part. Lili is pretty much shown up by Cammy, and Chun-Li handles Asuka pretty well... until Lili does a So Long, Suckers! by jumping on Asuka's head and leaving them in a confused heap.
  • The 1/16/2012 trailer almost subverts the trope. M. Bison and Juri practically walk all over Jin and especially Xiaoyu. Until Jin sees how beat up Xiaoyu is. That's when his Devil Gene slowly kicks in and he nearly crushes Juri's skull, until he restrains himself. It is only at the end of the trailer (after getting slammed into a window with Bison's Psycho Crusher) that his Devil Gene fully activates, surprising everyone in the room.
  • The episode 6 cinematic trailer is neutral on this- Akuma is supremely unimpressed with Ogre and doesn't consider the God of Fighting a challenge, but the camera cuts off before we see them fight.
  • The Vita Episode 2 trailer reverses this in terms of series with Lei and Christie nearly getting slaugtered by Vega (Claw) and Balrog (Boxer) before Chun-Li and Cammy intervene.
• Turns Red: Played literally with Heihachi; rather than actually using Pandora's powers for his Pandora mode, he just gets really angry and his skin turns red.
• Variable Mix: The music increases in intensity for each round of a match. In addition, a flange effect coats the music when the player's current character's HP is below 25%.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: The gist of Pandora. Is sacrificing your partner for all of that power really worth it? Bonus points in that the trailer showcasing the feature has Ryu pull this on Ken.
• Vocal Evolution:
  • Doug Erholtz sounds quite different as Vega compared to SFIV.
  • Eric Ladin's voice for Cole MacGrath is deeper and more gravelly sounding, reminiscent of Cole's original voice actor Jason Cottle from the first InFamous.
• Women Are Delicate: While the girls had overall lower health than the men the final update of the game made every single female character regardless of their origin, design, or fightstyle have below the average of 1000 HP.
• You No Take Candle: For the first time ever, post-Tekken 3 characters have Japanese voice actors. The same applies in reverse. While most Tekken characters have been speaking their native language since 5/6/Tag 2, this game marks the first time that most of the Tekken crew (barring King, Kuma and Yoshimitsu) have English VAs.
  • Somewhat averted with some of the characters (Cole, King, Ogre, Kuma, Pac-Man and Yoshimitsu), who only have one voice track (Cole and Pac-Man only speak English, King with his jaguar sounds, Ogre in his alien language and Kuma with bear sounds. Whilst Yoshimitsu does speak a form of Japanese, it's mostly ancient proverbs with portions of the Buddhist Heart Sutra dropped in, neither of which have a direct English translation. His subtitles, like Kuma, King and Ogre's, simply state what he's trying to say).
• X-Ray Sparks: Each character gets one when hit by an electrical attack.