Sheng Long
Sheng Long is a character hoax related to the Street Fighter series, created by Electronic Gaming Monthly as an April Fools' prank in 1992. Conceived by editor Ken Williams due to a mistranslation suggesting the existence of a character named Sheng Long in the Capcom fighting game Street Fighter II, the publication released an article describing a method to fight the character in the game. Despite intending it to be an obvious joke, many players took it seriously, and other publications reprinted the details as fact without verifying its legitimacy, causing the Sheng Long hoax to spread worldwide. As a result, the magazine later acknowledged it was indeed a hoax, though it revisited the concept for a similar joke in 1997. Claiming Sheng Long would appear in Street Fighter III, they provided a backstory for the character and an appearance designed by editor Mike Vallas. Despite the article trailing off and being incomplete, it resulted in confusion between the North American and Japanese branches of Capcom, with the former calling the latter to ask why they had not been informed about the character.
As a character and a hoax, Sheng Long has been described as one of the most famous and well-known legends related to video gaming by publications such as UGO.com and GameSpot. Several publications have attributed the hoax with the creation of Street Fighter character Akuma, who was added to Super Street Fighter II Turbo as a secret boss with several similarities to the original joke. Fan appeal for the character affected later Capcom titles, with public requests for the inclusion of Sheng Long in an actual video game leading to the consideration of his inclusion in the Street Fighter: The Movie video game and the appearance of the character Gouken as both a secret boss and playable character in Street Fighter IV. Capcom has also added in-game achievements referencing Sheng Long in Street Fighter II re-releases, and for the 25th anniversary of the hoax temporarily posted artwork and a profile for the character on their website, this time designed by Shigenori "Kiki" Kiwata. This version of the character was later reused for his appearance as a non-player character in the World Tour mode of Street Fighter 6, acting as a high-difficulty optional boss.
Origin
The name Sheng Long comes from a mistranslated portion of the name of a special move performed by the series' main character, Ryu; the characters shō ryū from Shōryūken, Ryu's flying uppercut, are shēng lóng in Chinese pinyin. This was carried into one of Ryu's quotes to defeated opponents in the English localization of the 1991 arcade game Street Fighter II, changing the Japanese quote "If you cannot overcome the Shoryuken, you cannot win!" to "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance." As a result, players were given the impression that Ryu was referring to a person instead of the attack.The Super Nintendo Entertainment System port of Street Fighter II, released shortly after the April Fools' prank, changed the translation to "You must defeat my Dragon Punch to stand a chance." However, the English instruction manual for the SNES Street Fighter II referred to "Master Sheng Long" as Ryu and Ken's teacher. Instruction manuals for later ports to the SNES and Sega Mega Drive consoles replaced all references to Sheng Long by referring to Ryu and Ken as disciples of the "Shotokan school of karate". A character named Gouken was later introduced in Masaomi Kanzaki's 1993 Street Fighter II manga as Ryu and Ken's sensei and was adapted into the series' backstory in Super Street Fighter II Turbo.
Original April Fools' article
The mistranslation spawned rumors about the existence of a Sheng Long character in the game, and players sent letters to video game publications attempting to confirm the character's existence. Electronic Gaming Monthly editor Ken Williams, who was an avid Street Fighter II player, also took an interest in the rumor, feeling there had to be some secrets in the game due to his experiences with the first Street Fighter arcade game. Wanting to try the office's newly acquired Adobe Photoshop software, he modified screenshots of the game to "create" a "secret boss" by combining sprites from different characters, using it as a way to let off steam due to the stresses of work. Pleased with the results he invited the other writers over, who enjoyed the humor and encouraged Williams to create a second screenshot of the character, with Ray Price suggesting to give the character a flaming fist version of Ryu's "Shoryuken" special attack. Unsure what to do with the screenshots at this point, and with their April issue approaching, they invited founding editor Steve Harris over and proposed using the images for an April Fools' Day prank article. Harris took one look and responded "Make it happen."As a result, in the April 1992 issue of the video game magazine, a method was "revealed" to reach Sheng Long in the arcade game. The article claimed that the character could be found if a player using Ryu did not let the character suffer any damage during the entire game. Upon reaching the final match against the game's boss M. Bison, the player had to avoid hitting Bison and being hit by him until the time limit expired, thus ending the round in a draw. After repeating this for ten consecutive rounds Sheng Long would then appear out of nowhere and throw Bison off of the edge screen and out of the way. The game's on-screen timer would then stop at 99 seconds, resulting in a "fight to the death" between Ryu and Sheng Long. As a character Sheng Long was stated to feature the special moves of all the fighters, such as Chun-Li's "Spinning Bird Kick" and Sagat's "Tiger Shot", but inflict more damage. In addition, the character was supposedly faster than any other fighter in the game, negating the pause between projectile attacks. Other attacks mentioned included an air-based throw attack and the aforementioned "Shoryuken" covered in flames to represent his greater power. The "ridiculous requirements" to encounter Sheng Long were intended to help cue readers in that the article was indeed a joke, however they felt they needed more to make that clear. Editor Martin Alessi suggested adding an "Honorable Mention" to "W.A. Stokins" of "Fuldigen, HA". Williams felt that nobody would fall for the joke without being incredibly gullible.
However, people did indeed try to find the character, with arcade owners sending complaints to the magazine that their machines were being broken: large amounts of quarters were being deposited by players, causing them to eventually get stuck. The magazine also received a large volume of hate mail by players themselves, who were complaining that the requirements were impossible. Rival publication GamePro also received letters from players asking to verify the authenticity of Sheng Long, much to the chagrin of their editor Dan Amrich. Compounding matters, publications from Europe, Hong Kong and other countries reprinted the trick without verifying it or asking Electronic Gaming Monthlys permission causing the hoax to spread worldwide. Capcom's North America branch also for a time changed their introductory message for their corporate line to address the hoax, instructing anyone calling about Sheng Long to call Electronic Gaming Monthlys offices instead. Though Williams was unconcerned with the reaction due to only being known at the publication as "Sushi-X", the other writers were, and in their December issue of that year revealed that it was a hoax and stated surprise at the worldwide coverage the joke received.
April Fools' 1997
During the development of Street Fighter III, fans discussed the prospect of the character's inclusion in the new title. By this point in time Capcom had introduced the backstory character Gouken, who had been killed by his brother Akuma, a playable character added to later iterations of Street Fighter II. Taking advantage of this, Electronic Gaming Monthly perpetuated the hoax again in 1997 by claiming that Sheng Long was in the game, and provided character artwork depicting his appearance alongside new screenshots which were all photoshopped works by editor Mike Vallas. Unlike the first article, they did not finish their explanation of how to reach him, ending the article with "To reach him, you will need at least six perfects and..." Additionally, the words "April Fools" were spelled out in the first letter of the first ten sentences of the article.The character's design was expanded on greatly in the article; Sheng Long was now stated to be the American localization name for the character Gouken. His profile listed in the article paralleled Gouken's, but instead of Akuma killing him he was knocked into a raging river. The result gave him a scar over his eye, and a desire to get revenge on his brother. To this end, he revived several "killing techniques" of his fighting style, which included an air version of Akuma's red "Hadouken" projectile attack that knocked his opponent down, a ground high-low projectile that could be used on the ground, an unblockable "Denjin-Shinryuu-Ken" super attack that would shock the opponent, an air rapid "Hadouken" super attack akin to a move used by Ibuki, and a third super attack intended to be a stronger version of Akuma's "Shun Goku Satsu". In a later issue, the staff reported that despite this being the second Sheng Long joke, it was convincing enough that Capcom of America called the company's headquarters in Japan asking why they had not been told that the character was in the game.
Legacy
The April Fool's joke has seen significant discussion in media outlets since its debut, with IGN describing it as having the biggest impact of all of Electronic Gaming Monthlys April Fools jokes, while UGO.com named it one of video gaming's greatest urban legends, noting its impact upon the series' success. Capcom community manager Seth Killian described the hoax as "a part of gaming history", comparing Sheng Long to the Konami Code. However, Tom Coulter of GamesRadar+ listed it as one of the video game legends he never wanted to hear about again, stating that while it was a good prank at first, it had gone from "sly wink to the fans" to "Borat t-shirt."The rumor is often credited with inspiring the creation of Akuma, a character who debuted as a hidden final boss in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, due to their similarities, although Capcom has never confirmed nor denied this. As in the hoax, the process of fighting Akuma would require certain achievements met during the game, with Akuma interrupting the final match of the game between the player and M. Bison. "The similarity was nodded at in the high-definition remake of Super Street Fighter II Turbo, in which an Xbox 360 Achievement titled "Sheng Long is in Another Castle" could be earned for defeating Akuma in the game's arcade mode. Despite the lack of direct confirmation from Capcom, the staff of Electronic Gaming Monthly felt the character was added in response to the hoax, with Williams stating that they were "flabergasted that something we did had an impact on the industry like that."