Month: December 2017

Sakura’s initial gameplay trailer for Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition hinted at a character with both new and familiar moves, and variety of way to combo and juggle her opponents with her V-Triggers. Now, we know how these will work thanks to more details from Capcom-Unity.

Having finally graduated from high-school, Sakura now hones her fighting skills while working part-time at an arcade. As part of her growth, she now gains a new move in the form her Tengyo Hadouken: a fireball that she fires diagonally into their air. It’s similar to her diagonal hadouken from the Marvel Vs. games (though that one had a different story behind it — Sakura just couldn’t control her fireballs, causing them to fly up).

Meanwhile, one of her old moves, Sakura Otoshi, now becomes part of her V-Skill, Haru Kaze. As with her old Sakura Otoshi, Haru Kaze has Sakura leaping into the air towards her opponent, ready to give an overhand smash. The difference is that the overhand Sakura Otoshi smash is just one of her options out of Haru Kaze. By pressing kick, instead of punch, she will do Oukakyaku, which some players will recognize as her divekick from Capcom vs. SNK 2. Finally, pressing light punch and light kick will have her do a command grab called Kashinfu, which has her use her opponents as a springboard, similar to her old throw animation.

As for her V-Triggers, the trailer hinted at them changing the properties of her special moves, to allow her create extended combos and juggles — and we can confirm that that is the case. The difference between her two V-Triggers is what specific specials they modify.

Her first V-Trigger, called Haru Arashi, has her fists enveloped in blue energy. When this is active, her Hadouken and Tengyo Hadouken are powered up, giving them an additional hit that puts her opponent in a juggle state. This allows her to land extra hits after hitting with either move. In addition to this, hitting fierce punch and roundhouse kick at the same time again has her pull off a powerful palm thrust, called Hogasho.

Sakura Senpu, her second V-Trigger, on the other hand powers up Sakura’s Shouoken and Senpuukyaku. Both moves become improved versions of their EX versions, and gain an extra hit that sends her opponent flying. This allows Sakura to cancel into her V-Skill into either Sakura Otoshi or Oukakyaku to extend her combos.

Finally: Sakura’s Critical Art, Sakura Rain, takes inspiration from all her previous super moves. At first, the move seems to simply be a powered-up super fireball. However, if Sakura lands this move right next to an opponent, it goes into the extended animation that’s based on both her classic Haru Ichiban and Midare Zakura supers.

In addition to her V-System moves, the Capcom-Unity blog also gave us our first look at her alternate costumes; Sakura has 3 costumes: her Story mode outfit (which seems to be what she wears to her job in the arcade), a Battle outfit that has her wearing a white dougi similar to Ryu, and of course her classic schoolgirl uniform as a Nostalgia costume. Of these, the Battle outfit will be included for those who purchase the season 3 character pass.

Sakura hits Street Fighter V right alongside the Arcade Edition update on January 16, 2018. In the meantime, here are a few more screenshots of her.

Click to view slideshow.

Source: Capcom-Unity