March 9, 2010: we'll remember it as the day that Capcom finally confirmed the last thing on that huge leaked list of features and characters appearing in Super Street Fighter IV. The last major thing is Hakan, another all-new character who joins Juri, the other brand new fighter in SSFIV. He's... kind of cool.
OK, so the back story is that he runs a cooking oil company, and he's traveling the world in search of the world's greatest oil recipe. It's not exactly "traveling the world to dragon punch waterfalls and not talk much," but it's certainly not the oddest background in Street Fighter's history.
The oil thing plays into just about everything that Hakan does, and by doing a dragon punch motion with kick, Hakan will start happily spilling oil all over himself, giving him a much brighter--and somewhat more disturbing--shine. When he's shiny, he takes less damage and some of the moves change properties a bit. It really seems like he gets more range when he's all slicked up. The oil doesn't last forever, so it'll need to be reapplied during the match, which obviously leaves him open to attack.
Hakan also has a stomach slide, done via a fireball motion with punch. This low slide bowls over standing opponents, and if you hit punch as the slide is connecting, he'll slide back the other way for a second hit. His other two specials are 360-motion throws. Performing it with punch is a close-range grab that squirts the victim out of his arms. A 360 with kick performs a lunging grab.
Like everyone, Hakan's got two ultras, the Oil Coaster and the Oil Combination Hold. I'm not even going to waste your time by having you read about these. Just watch the trailer here to get a sense for what these do.
Weird, right? He's sort of a weird dude, this Hakan. But like Juri, he feels like a cool addition to the roster. At this point, it's great to just have all of this stuff out in the open instead of dealing with shadowy rumors and message board leaks. With this out of the way, it should be smooth sailing from here to the game's April 27 release.