A lot has happened since the release of Street Fighter II. People have grown up, people have jobs, and those same people that once frequented a local 7 Eleven as a child now have a family of their own. It’s been a long time coming, but Capcom finally felt it was time to release Street Fighter IV.
If you know anything about fighting games, you probably know what to expect. Arcade mode, versus, training, challenges, online play (gasp), and a bevy of options to tinker around with. The roster consists of 25 characters, with 16 unlocked at the offset and the other nine hidden away in the depths of arcade mode. The challenge modes consist of three varieties, including time attack, survival, and trials.
The characters from SFII are mostly all here, so nostalgic fans need not fear. There’s also plenty borrowed from SFIII, including meter-management, ex moves, dashes and all the like. This game is like no other fighter you’ve ever played, however. This beast plays by its own rules that you’ll need to adhere to if you want to win.
Focus attacks are a new element in the series, which can be activated by hitting both medium attacks simultaneously. It’ll absorb one incoming attack from an opponent and unleash a powerful (and sometimes unblockable) counterattack. There’s three levels of strength, based on how long you hold the buttons down, and proper use of this technique can set up interesting combos. It’ll take some getting used to, and it’s worth noting that you can play just fine without ever using it, but it’s an added layer of depth for experienced players to enjoy.
Combine all of that good stuff with a slick art style that looks like delicious candy, and a game that plays like your favorite chair sits, and you pretty much have SFIV in a nutshell.
Liked:
Familiarity: While the game is quite different than any other iteration of Street Fighter, anyone who has thrown a hadouken in the past will instantly feel right at home with SFIV. All the basic fundamentals are here, and relatively unchanged.
Presentation: The super-stylized cartoonish design of the characters is quite the eye-catcher, and it’ll stand the test of time. The silly facial expressions characters make when hit (such as bulging eyes) are hilarious. The brush stoke feeling carries through all of the titles and menus, and into actual battle as well. The stages themselves are ridden with animated people doing various things, and in some instances the environment actually reacts to your fighting (such as uppercutting the wing off a plane, or people falling down after an ultra attack).
Fight Engine: The addition of the revenge meter brings a pendulum-swinging element into play, where players that are getting beat on can quickly turn the tides by unleashing their ultra move. The Focus Attacks can be used in numerous ways, including parrying attacks ala SFIII — but they’re also risky at the same time. The full depth of this game has yet to be discovered, and new techniques are being developed by players every day.
Unlock City: There are so many unlockables in this game, your head just might explode. If you’re acompletist like me, you’ll find yourself trying over and over again on the many challenges in the game, just to unlock that next color palette for your favorite character, or to get the great title of “I Like Meat Buns.”
Disliked:
Stage Selection: A minor gripe, but I would have preferred unique stages for each character, and not just a bunch of random locations.
Trial By Fire: There’s a normal and hard trial mode for each character in the game, which is supposed to teach you the inner-workings of said fighter. But all it ends up doing is frustrating you when you can’t understand how to link one move into another, or that that move needs to be canceled, or that your timing is completely off. A better tutorial or maybe a ghost showing you how it looks beforehand would have helped immensely.
Online Structure: While the online works just fine once you get in a match, actually finding one may be a problem. Since the lobby structure is (as of now) limited to two people, when one person creates a ranked or player match lobby it instantly fills up, causing you to have to search about 30 times to actually find a match. Halo-Esq matchmaking and quarter match style lobbies are mysteriously missing, so the arcade experience really isn’t replicated as of now.
Final Word: A new fighting game in 2009, now I’ve seen it all — and it’s brilliant. The art style puts the cherry on top of this delicious sundae, and I recommend it to just about anyone interested in having fun, fighting aficionado or not.
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