Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Genre: 1-on-1 Fighter
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360, PC (reviewed on PS3)
ESRB Rating: T (Teen)
Players: 1-2 (2 online)
Hours Played: 30
Game Progress: Unlocked all characters, finished game on medium
Oh momma! Was I ever excited when Street Fighter IV was announced. You see, I?m a big fan of the original Street Fighter II (hard core gamers will recall that the very first Street Fighter was a side-scrolling beat ?em up, not a 1-on-1 fighter) and one of its many evolutions, Super Street Fighter II. Over time it became difficult to keep up with the many new additions to the franchise, especially as the fighting mechanics became more hardcore and tailored to arcade rats. So when Street Fighter IV was first announced I was excited about the prospect of a game that goes back to its roots and becomes more accessible by stripping some of its baggage. Read on to find out if the legend is back, or if it gets a ?Shoryuken? straight to the bargain bin?
The great news is that the second you boot up the disc; Street Fighter IV feels very familiar. All the well known characters from Street Fighter II are available from the start along with their traditional move sets and the controls and environments are all very recognizable. Unfortunately, it soon becomes apparent that the promise of simplified gameplay is washed away in the face of focus attacks, EX special moves and EX focus abilities. The game has never felt smoother, controls and animations are very polished and it?s easy to chain together moves in one fluid action. However in order to use all of Street Fighter IV?s fighting mechanics, you?ll have to master a lot of different techniques. In addition to the familiar throw, throw escape and recovery abilities, you can press the medium punch and medium kick to perform a focus attack, which will make an opponent crumble to the ground. These same two buttons however can be used during a normal special move to turn it into an EX attack, giving it focus attack properties. You can also use medium punch and kick to protect yourself from a counter attack when one of your moves is blocked. As you can see, these two simple buttons allow for many different applications.
You can further boost your special moves by turning them into EX attacks. Instead of using the normal punch or kick button along with the appropriate movement on the D-pad, you press two or more punch or kick buttons and part of your super gauge is used to further strengthen your special move, often resulting in more hits and more damage.
There are two special move related gauges in the game, the super combo gauge and the ultra combo gauge. The first is charged by hitting your opponent and pulling off special moves, once it?s filled you can pull off a super combo by repeating a pattern on the D-pad and pressing the punch or kick button. The super combo gauge is also used to power EX special moves and to pull of combos. I found that it?s more useful to employ the super combo gauge to power your EX special moves, as it makes your arsenal of standard special moves become that much more potent; whereas a super combo usually wouldn?t do much damage, or produce a lot of hits anyway, yet it would consume all of your super combo gauge. The ultra combo is much more potent, and its gauge is filled by receiving damage. Ultra combos have special animations and are performed in the same way as a super combo, only instead of hitting one punch or kick button, all three have to be pressed (and as with previous Capcom fighters, ?three punch- or kick? buttons are mapped to the controller, preventing you from actually having to press three separate buttons to pull off an ultra combo).
This level of depth is not necessarily a bad thing, however it fails to deliver on the promise of more ?simplified? gameplay. Invest enough time in Street Fighter IV though, and you?ll eventually become more comfortable with the deep set of abilities the game throws at you, and learn to appreciate their applications.
Offline options include arcade, versus, training and challenge modes. Arcade mode is deceptively challenging, mostly because of cheap AI that manages to pull off the perfect move, at the perfect time, all the time. This is especially true for the final boss, who is a new introduction to the Street Fighter universe, and gave me trouble on even the second easiest difficulty setting (out of eight). Challenge mode is interesting and gives you a ton of survival, time attack and trail challenges that will take some time to complete and reward you with new artwork, costume colors, personal actions, titles and more.
Graphically, Street Fighter has received a nice upgrade. The character models look great, and the animations are absolutely fantastic, with fluid motions and stellar detail. I loved the detailed facial animations, which give a wide range of expressions, my favourite being the bulging eyes and stunned look, moments before you unleash an ultra combo on your hapless opponent. Fighters still have the same chunky, angular build but now have a more cartooney look, which takes some getting used to. The opening sequence and menus have a slick, water colour look but stand in stark contrast to the introduction and ending sequences for all the different fighters. These brief cut scenes consist of terrible anime clips that explain absolutely nothing about the fighters? motives and roles in the current tournament, Capcom would?ve been better off staying with the art style found in the opening sequence.
The backgrounds are mostly updates of previous Street Fighter stages and are a bit bland and nondescript. There are no multi-tiered stages, nor is the environment interactive, some background animations can be triggered once the fighting action heats up, but that?s about it. Although everything is modelled in 3D, the camera always presents the action from a side perspective, just like it?s always been.
Most of the audio themes from previous Street Fighter stages have been remixed for this latest version and sound good, as do the sound effects. English voice-overs are pretty weak and have received no lip-syncing, making the anime cut scenes look even more terrible. Fortunately there is a neat option that allows you to set Japanese voice-overs for each fighter individually.
The game?s cast consists of 25 excellent fighters, which include four new fighters available from the start. They are: El Fuerte, a Mexican luchador wrestler with a passion for cooking, Rufus, a rather portly kung-fu fighter with an obsession for Ken, Crimson Viper, a female agent boasting an arsenal of gadgets, and Abel, a French freestyle fighter, with no recollection of his past. The latter two are more solid additions to the Street Fighter line-up as both El Fuerte and Rufus are a bit too silly to be anything more than novelty characters. New unlockable characters include Street Fighter IV?s new boss, Seth, who also suffers from some bad character design, and a new secret character not seen before in any Capcom fighter.
The best part of this whole experience is to take your fighter online. Although there aren?t many game modes, you can mostly tweak the number of rounds and their time length, and the fighting is fast and fluid. We mostly fought people with two or fewer bars of network speed and experienced no slow down or lag, not once. This is absolutely crucial with a technical fighter like Street Fighter IV, where timing is everything. More titles, icons and of course trophies/ achievements can be unlocked by fighting online, and it is here where you?ll really be challenged by a highly skilled gaming community. I?ll tell you, few things are more satisfying than winning a close three-round fight against a much higher ranked opponent with a perfectly timed dragon punch.
Summary
Graphics:
+ Fantastic animations
+ Fighters look great in 3D
– Bland backgrounds and terrible anime cut scenes
Audio:
+ Remixed Street Fighter themes sound great
– Poor English voice-overs, no lip-syncing
Gameplay:
+ Fast and fluid gameplay
+ Deep fighter with solid balancing
– Fails to deliver on promise of ?back-to-basics? gameplay
– Cheap computer AI
Lasting Appeal:
+ Ton of single player challenges, lots of icons and titles to collect
+ Fantastic online experience
– Arcade mode feels a bit unrewarding due to unfairly good AI and poor opening and ending sequences
9.2
Street Fighter IV would?ve received an even higher mark had it not suffered from cheap AI and a strange art style, which both are quite forgivable. What?s maybe less forgivable is the failure to deliver on the promise of simplified and streamlined gameplay. Street Fighter IV is deeper than ever, something fighting fans will actually be able to appreciate in a big way. The series has never felt more fluid and responsive, and looks great to boot. Be sure to pick this one up as the wait has certainly been worth it and I?m sure gamers will look forward to scrapping online for a long time to come.
