Street Fighter IV

Platform:  XBox 360, PlayStation 3

Release Date:  February 9, 2009

Super Street Fighter II HD Remix was a taste of the craziness to come in terms of Street Fighter fanaticism.  It’s been almost ten years since the last new 2D Street Fighter came out, being Street Fighter III Third Strike in 1999.  So when a trailer was announced for the fourth iteration of the series last year, you bet I took notice.  Finally, after all this waiting, Street Fighter IV comes out to consoles.  And you know what?  Despite my love/hate relationship with fighting games, I actually keep coming back for more.

Street Fighter IV is another one of those fan service fighting games that seems to serve only to grab the old Street Fighter II audience.  But this is only on the surface of the package.  While all twelve original fighters are in the game, several new fighters also make their appearance.  El Fuerte, a luchador who seems to have watched one too many Iron Chef shows, Abel, a Frenchman who has no memory of his past but memories on how to grapple and counter MMA style, Crimson Viper, some female double-triple-counterintuitive agent who boasts a cybernetic fighting enhancer and fashion tastes similar to Iori Yagami, and Rufus, a really fat martial artist who happens to be super fast, aspiring to become the best martial artist in the United States.  A new boss also appears, named Seth, who seems to look like a prototype for Gill from Street Fighter III, minus the long hair and adding in a giant rotating Taoist symbol in his abdomen.  Fei Long and Cammy make their return from Super Street Fighter II, Akuma comes in from Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and Rose, Sakura, and Dan make it from the Street Fighter Alpha series.  Also appearing, to finally dispel the April Fools jokes once and for all, is Gouken, Ryu and Ken’s master.

Even with all of these characters, the game is extremely well balanced.  The arcade version didn’t have this many characters, and it’s nice to see they made some changes.  For instance, while Ken’s power isn’t as good per hit as say, Ryu or Akuma, Ken can cause more hits per special move, thus causing more damage overall.  He’s also quicker and has more range with his dragon punch.  Akuma’s dragon punch, while also multi-hit, feels like it goes straight up instead of the near 50-degree-angle Ken’s move has.  It’s not quite Soul Calibur perfection – there will be times where you will feel cheated out of a win.  But then again, sometimes you don’t mess with a formula to get it to work.  Focus moves are new, where you hold down two buttons to make a powerful attack that will knock an opponent down if it connects.  It also acts like a parry if someone hits you.  Super/Ultra Combos and EX moves are also intuitive as well.

Graphically…I might as well just say it, HOLY CRAP this thing is beautiful.  I remember when Street Fighter III came out and loved the animation, but it did feel a little slower.  Now thanks to better rendering engines, all the animation is still extremely detailed, but fast as well, thus making gameplay that much more exciting.  I really think this is the vision that Capcom had when making the game – an well flowing 3D game that plays in two dimensions.

I love all the extras in the game.  Each character has a (cheaply) animated introduction and epilogue, and while it does break the flow of the FANTASTIC graphics, it’s still neat to watch.  All the titles and icons are a nice addition, even if they really don’t do anything except to entertain you.  The downloadable content is nice as well, even if it is a bit expensive.  The different costumes give you something a little different to look at.

Surprisingly, I really like the online portion of the game.  It’s the only online component that I enjoy and look forward to playing.  Matching based on skill level seems to be fine, and I do enjoy it when I win or lose. I haven’t heard a whole bunch of trash talk – it seems all the people just want to play and just avoid the drama, similar to the old arcade atmosphere in the good old days of Street Fighter II.  It’s not like Halo 3 or Grand Theft Auto IV, where you run around in teams or every-man-for-themselves competitions where you can hear nothing but idiots around – it’s just you, your opponent, and up to 297 seconds of gameplay, provided you stick with the default setup.  Online play can be segregated to XBox Live or PSN online play via lobbies, or you can make it more like the arcade days by allowing interruptions during single player arcade play – the lobby will then create itself and you’ll go onto playing the person that interrupted you.  I’m not sure what’s with all the battle points attained during ranked matches; I suppose it’s some sort of scale to measure your uberness in online beatdowns. 

I think the only major flaw to the game isn’t inherent in the game itself – it’s the controller.  The Xbox 360 and PS3 controllers don’t exactly have the best d-pad in the world, as I’ve mentioned before in another review.  This can throw off gameplay badly, as any system that does not deliver accurate controls in split-second situations is never good.  Most purists will end up getting either one of the Mad Catz fighting pads, or one of the Japanese style arcade sticks.  I’m still waiting for the Happ stick arcade sticks on the consoles, unfortunately, and it looks like I’m going to continue to wait.

Not since Capcom Vs. SNK on the Dreamcast have I been this excited about a fighting game.  Even with controls provided by the console, I am impressed by just about everything its thrown at me.  Presentation, gameplay, online, etc., is all fantastic by my measly standard.  Street Fighter IV looks like a grand return to fighting game greatness, and I can honestly say this with a lot of confidence:  The king of fighting games is finally back.