Street Fighter X Tekken

Cross Assault is Street Fighter X Tekken's boldest new mechanic, and it's simple enough: do a quarter-circle away and press both medium attacks with a full meter, and both of your fighters jump in and gang up on the opponent while the metre ticks away. You have direct control of one fighter, and the other's slightly greyed-out and backgrounded, but the transitions are very confusing - each time a move connects, your control switches to the other character.

I'm not going to lie: I was crap at this. It'll take a very quick brain, or excessive practice, to make the most of this system. In certain fights it was the fatal mistake, letting the lone fighter dragon punch through two fools rather than one. Yoshinori Ono has hinted we should expect 2vs2 online multiplayer, incidentally, so don't be surprised to see this get a dedicated mode. Or perhaps they'll save that for Super Street Fighter X Tekken Ultimate Arcade Edition.

We also had a go with Yoshimitsu, and all of his Tekken move set was present and correct, including the daft ones: poison breath, and the vintage face slapping move that, no kidding, has the official name 'Slap U Silly.' Harada must be great at texting. Yoshimitsu's suicide move, turning his back on an opponent before stabbing himself through the gut, was present and correct but - extremely odd, this - didn't deal him any damage.

Regardless, Yoshimitsu was the highlight of the day's play: he's just such a weird character, and unlike anything in the Street Fighter universe. He's a gimmick character - and probably the best gimmick character in fighting game history - and it's wonderful to see his full box of tricks intact and slotting so neatly into place.

Eighteen characters have been confirmed so far, and it's mainly the usual suspects. A surprise announcement of Poison was made last week, a fan favourite (mainly, it has to be said, because certain people enjoy obsessing over her gender.) It seems quite clear why she's held in such high regard: she's a sassy lady with a shock of pink hair, a riding crop, and the best win quote out of the whole roster: “I'm not just hotter than you, I also just kicked your ass.”

The full roster's easily googled, but it's worth mentioning that a Comic-Con trailer last week teased Cody, Guy, Hugo and Mike Haggar (please let it be true), though they're yet to be seen in-game. Oh, and if you're playing on a Sony console, you get charisma sink Cole MacGrath to play with! Bet he's good.

The most surprising aspect of Street Fighter X Tekken is how new it feels. There's an ordered chaos here that doesn't feel like anything from the competition: it's a fast and aggressive fighter with the meatiest sound effects this side of a butcher. There are constant flourishes. When a cross attack hits there's a sharp camera movement towards the blow and a freeze-frame at impact, complete with SFIV's ink trails on the aggressor's limb, which just as quickly snaps back out to the normal fighting view. The common-or-garden throws are now a feast of zoom-ins, pans and those delicious 3D character models as they're performed. This game looks like Street Fighter IV, but as you watch it moving that's less and less true. It looks better.

Tekken's a blood-and-thunder fighting game, where relentless pressure and combo strings mean a constant stream of blows either way. It would be grossly unfair to say it doesn't have subtleties, but it's not a subtle fighter. In Street Fighter X Tekken this offensive focus translates into a new combo system that breathes fresh life into Street Fighter's cast – freed to chain as many hits and do as much damage as possible, they're wrecking balls. The Focus Attack, brilliant as it is, wouldn't feel right here. Street Fighter X Tekken doesn't need it. The combat feels imaginative, it feels exciting, but most of all, and for the first time in a while, smacking Ken in the chops just feels damn amazing again.