In the film Freaky Friday, mum Jamie Lee Curtis and daughter Lindsay Lohan trigger endless hilarity (we might be exaggerating a bit) by accidentally swapping personalities. Their bodies remain as before, but everything else about them is switched. Now imagine the same thing happening with legendary Street Fighter characters Vega and M Bison.
Or, rather than imagine, watch. Because ahead of Street Fighter 5’s release in February, PC modders have already worked out how to transfer skins between characters. The most notable result is a pre-fight exchange where a newly macho Vega invites his opponent to "bow down to my Psycho Crusher", to which a now super-camp Bison responds, “let my beauty intoxicate you”. And so the match unfolds, each unleashing the other’s customary moves.
Even more bizarre is the famously lithe Dhalsim – who, like Ryu, is newly bearded for the latest instalment – adopting the power moves of Zangief. At 0:15 of the video below he even nails the Russki wrestler's famous spinning piledriver on Chun Li.
Bizarre as these mix-'ems appear, they’re not a new concept for the series, which has a bustling PC community devoted to playing around with conventions. Solid Snake, Iron Man in Hulkbuster armour and Link from Zelda are among the characters ‘added’ to Ultra Street Fighter 4 in this way.
Even more Street Fighter 5 mods, such as Ken x Nash and Karin x Chun, are available to view on this devoted Youtube channel.
Street Fighter 5 is released for PS4, Xbox One and PC on 16 February.
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