Namco X Capcom/Awesome

Let's start with the intro sequence itself as one for the developers. Everyone in the cast gets a chance to look like a badass, and it was so well animated its creators reprised the role for all future related games.
The Soul Edge is generally feared by anyone wanting to retain their own will because it loves to corrupt one's free will. No less than Kagekiyo had the balls to just grab the damn thing, despite knowing it was a cursed blade. Instead of screwing him over, it left him an even better sword to kick ass with as a replacement for itself with no strings attached.
Let's give it up for Akuma, who staged an incredibly brilliant and complicated scheme to manipulate the good guys into doing what he wanted, all so he could achieve one goal: Punch Bison in the face till he died of it. The kicker is that he KNEW he could not do this on his own, and deliberate went about being a Stealth Mentor to Ryu in the most oblique manner possible in order to pull this off with no one suspecting a thing until it was all over.
- His very first appearance is him being awesome, with him saving Sakura Kasugano from Janga, making the bastard his bitch effortlessly.
When Ryu goes "Evil" Ryu, we get shown why that's awesome and Nightmare Fuel, as his first act upon his debut is own the shit out of Kamuze in one blow, leaving the massive demon near death upon his FIRST appearance.
Shion Uzuki proves herself to have Nerves of Steel when she forces Wayahime to do a factory reset at one point to avoid a lethal overload sequence from the latter. It only gets more awesome after when she not only admits her gamble was based on pure luck, she had to overcome a Fear of Lightning to pull it off. as that killed her mother and she was traumatized biy it ever since.
Remember that little dude from Dig Dug? Well, he got a serious badass upgrade as his appearance in this game as Taizou Horii, who is revealed to be a ex-military combat engineer with a Pile Bunker, Cool Shades, and Brass Balls.
- Even his ex-wife got this, as we found out he and Toby Masuyo were on the same team prior to the game, and that the stories of Dig Dug and Baraduke were accounts of the same operation to kill a bunch of space monsters, they were just attacking the same problem from different angles.
Strider Hiryu's very first scene is him being an unflinching badass and nearly taking out his Evil Former Friend in the process.