Gaming: You Must Defeat Sheng Long To Stand A Chance

You Must Defeat Sheng Long To Stand A Chance.

For years players of Street Fighter II wondered who Sheng Long was, as the name appeared in a quote from the character Ryu to his defeated opponents. Was he a secret character, that players could unlock? Rumours spread through whispers among fans in arcades, to stories appearing in gaming magazines as to whether Sheng Long existed, and how to unlock him. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior first appeared in arcades in 1991, a sequel to 1987's Street Fighter. Starting the explosion of fighting games in the 90s, Street Fighter II became a massive cultural phenomena. By the mid-90s revenue from arcade machines was in the billions of dollars, and 10s of millions of console cartridges had sold across the world. The most popular port being on the SNES, Street Fighter II being the first 16-bit game for the console which came out in 1992.

And there it was, a question on the lips of millions of players of the English version of the arcade game, "Who is Sheng Long?" Unfortunately he was no more than a mistranslation in the creation of the English language version, though he was given a hoax existence in 1992, by Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) as an April Fool's joke in 1992.

Originally the name Sheng Long came from a mistranslated of the Ryu's special move the Dragon Punch, otherwise known as the Rising Dragon Punch. The words "shō ryū" (昇龍) mean "rising dragon" in Japanese from Shōryūken (昇龍拳). The name of Ryu's flying uppercut, was translated into Chinese as "shēnglóng", which instead of being translated into English as it should have been to, "If you cannot overcome the Rising Dragon Punch, you cannot win!" It became the now infamous line "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance." The SNES version when released did correct this in the game, but the English instruction manual for the game referred to "Master Sheng Long" as Ryu and Ken's teacher. Adding to the mystery of the supposed secret character.

It didn't help that before the SNES release the April Fool's joke had come out in EGM. Thus creating one of the gaming legends of all time. The article claimed that the character of Sheng Long could be unlocked if a player using Ryu did not let the character suffer any damage during the entire game, and upon reaching the final match could neither hit the final character M. Bison nor let him inflict any damage 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. The game's on-screen timer would then stop at 99 seconds, resulting in a "fight to the death" between Ryu and Sheng Long. The character of Sheng Long being capable of inflicting "mega-damage", as he could perform all the special moves of all the characters in Street Fighter II.

The joke spread like wild-fire, with gaming magazines reprinting the story and the method of unlocking Sheng Long without checking their facts. Players across the world poured into arcades, spending months attempting to unlock him. It wasn't until December of 1992 that EGM finally revealed that the whole thing was am April Fool's joke.

In 1997 EGM repeated their trickery, at a time when Street Fighter III was in development. Adding to the mythology, they claimed that Sheng Long was to be the American name for the character Gouken. A character named Gouken was introduced in Masaomi Kanzaki's 1993 Street Fighter II manga as Ryu and Ken's sensei.

Thus the non-existent character of Sheng Long became not only one of the greatest urban legends in gaming history, but also credited as one of the greatest Street Fighter characters of all time, despite never having existed. Even to the point of subsequent versions of the game often making reference to him, and as such weaving the legend into the back-story of the Street Fighter series. In the subsequent years and new versions of the game, rumours have continued that Sheng Long may one day appear. However it appears that Sheng Long is and will always remain a character of mystery, in the Street Fighter canon.

The nearest we may ever get to Sheng Long actually appearing in a version of Street Fighter is fan made videos, like the one on the right. A character introduction segment done in the style Street Fighter III. The nearest that players have got to having him appear in the games is with the introduction of Akuma the younger brother of Gouken, Ryu and Ken's master in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, as a secret character and hidden boss. Then finally in 2008, with the introduction of Gouken himself, styled after the mythical appearance of Sheng Long, in Street Fighter IV. However, the mystery still persists in gaming culture of Sheng Long, to such an extent that in the 2012 Disney movie Wreck-it Ralph, a piece of background graffiti reads, "Sheng Long was here!"

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