Ummmmm, well this was just announced

So, in Ultra Street Fighter IV, you will be able to select which version of character you want now. This means you can use Vanilla Sagat against Arcade Edition Yun. This is kinda nuts.

What do you guys think? It's obviously going to be a secondary option for online play (If it even is an online feature) but this is pretty big news.

Didn't they do something similar for some version of Street Fighter 2? In any case, tier lists just got that much more complicated.

I have to imagine that there's going to be some sort of tournament rule limiting the eligible editions.

But good lord, online is going to be an absolute zoo.

There is no way a tournament would allow something like Akuma's roundhouse loops or the wrath of Sagat.

Online will be weird, that's for sure.

@arbitrarywater: Yep, in Hyper Street Fighter 2 you could pick between all of the versions of each character.

I've missed you Vanilla Seth. Mama I'm comin' home.

Interesting, though as a street fighter novice I'm probably going to stick with whatever is the newest version of every character I play.

And the character select screen does not include the secret 5th character... it's Mike Haggar. We all know it is... just... confirm it so I can stop wishing for any Darkstalkers character to cameo.

Really looking forward to Ultra Street Fighter 4.

@therealmoot: they already said is a girl and mike haggar was the first one to be completly denied

Me want that Vanilla damage.

blah, this is why I didn't enjoy Alpha 3 and Capcom VS SNK 2.

I'm guessing you'll be able to pick whether you want to play with just the Ultra changes or this free for all mode. Previous games had a version select so it might be something like that, or maybe a seperate mode like Heroes and Heralds in umvc3.

@hailinel said:

This is going to be a different mode. There is no way they would put this into regular online battles.

I really hope you're right. I was gonna get the Steam version, but if this is in the regular online mode then forget it.

@l33t_haxor said:

That would be incredibly stupid. The trailer is even making fun of how unbalanced some characters used to be.

Here is a japanese blog post that goes into more detail on the mode: http://www.capcom.co.jp/blog/sf4/saikyo_blog/2014/03/03_7725.html the post explains that edition select is offline-only content.

Awesome. This is a really sweet addition.

Or should I say... edition?

HIGH-RULE!!??

Obviously not used in competitive play guys, come on. Sheesh.

@expensiveham: There was no way that this would be the default for online matches. Seeing that it's offline only is kind of a bummer I would have liked it to be an option to select when playing online. Otherwise why would they even bother balancing the characters for USFIV. Take the case of Cammy for example. Everyone would have just picked AE Cammy instead of going with her nerfed new version.

I was super hyped for this when I heard about it last night watching socal regionals. It was pretty much the only thing that could have gotten me excited for USF4 and something I suggested for a long time. But I've just now read that it will be disabled for online play, which is the only way I can play. So hype levels go straight back to zero.

Still a chance it'll be added as a separate mode for online play, Ultra isn't out until June and Capcom have added modes post-release in the past. (UMvC3, vanilla IV)

I'm not too bothered myself, it'll be fun to see some exhibition matches of O.Sagat vs. AE Yun and so on, but it's not make or break.