Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition Adds Sagat To The Fight

One of the most requested characters for the roster of Street Fighter V has been the Thai kickboxing king, Sagat. He wasn't part of the initial line-up of characters that debuted with Street Fighter V way back in early 2016, but he has been one of the most requested characters right after Capcom began extending the roster with DLC. At this year's EVO 2018 Championship Series, Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono came on stage and announced that Capcom had some special news to share regarding the new characters, and debuted the trailer for Sagat just ahead of the Top 8 finals.

While the trailer may have aired during EVO 2018, the video was posted on the Street Fighter YouTube channel. It clocks in just under two minutes in length, introducing Sagat and his pet tiger as they look absolutely fierce. We see all of Sagat's basic neutrals, his returning specials, and his V-Trigger/V-Skill moves, which consists of some devastating roundhouse kicks, and a charged up Tiger Shot. He can also utilize his close-range gauge to pull off some hard-hitting Tiger Knee combos that launch his opponents into the air. The end of the trailer showcases a few manual combos and Sagat's Tiger Rampage Critical. The trailer also announced that Sagat is available right now!

Now the real highlight for the trailer is the fact that Sagat's new getup looks fantastic. The king of kickboxers used to be my main in the Street Fighter series, along with Fei Long and Q. Sagat was always a reliable go-to character to get the job done when the going got tough. Here we see that Sagat is decked out in a mix of training gear and a nomad's scarf. It looks so cool on him because it really matches his personality, especially as he has been intent on training to become strong enough to finally defeat Ryu.

For those of you who prefer Sagat's old outfit, with the tapped up hands and feet and kickboxing shorts, it's still available in the game as part of his "Nostalgia" costume. Sagat also comes with two other outfits, the "Story" costume and the "Battle" costume. All four outfits are based on traditional Thai kickboxing gear, which is a nice homage to both the region and the character's heritage.

Capcom also revealed that Sagat has a fifth costume, which is a secret costume that you can access only by picking the "Nostalgia" outfit. Before a match begins, hold down light punch + medium punch + hard punch + light kick + up on the control stick to activate the secret military garb for Sagat.

This barely-secret feature in Street Fighter V is a nice little throwback to the old-school gaming era, when developers would add secrets to the game for gamers to find. These days a lot of the secret stuff is packed into DLC expansions.

For those of you who have the Arcade Edition of Capcom's premiere fighter you should be able to access Sagat right now. For those of you who have the vanilla version of the game, you will need to purchase the character piecemeal for $5.99, or use 100,000 Fight Money to buy him from the cash shop. Alternatively you can acquire the season pass for $29.99.