Street Fighter IV Review

Let me first start out by saying that I have not been the most loyal Street Fighter fan. The only versions of the game that I played with any sort of religiosity were the Super Nintendo versions of Street Fighter II. This includes Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting and Super Street Fighter II. Those were released about 15 years ago, and while I can remember playing them every day after school or during the summer against the same few opponents, seperation between versions is very hazy. The next next step was on PlayStation 1 with Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha which I couldn't stand (Skullomania anyone?) and abandoned the series in general, not touching it until Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting's release on Xbox Live Arcade and its abysmal network code.

The formula of a fighting game is typically fairly simple. Take some people with a score to settle, throw them into an area, and allow them to beat the crap out of one another. Enhance the experience by varying attacks between opponents, including special moves, blocking techniques and you're good to go. I feel that the keys to success though are in depth, accessibility, and balance. Make one character too strong and everyone will hone in on that. Make it too shallow and button mashy, it'll have a short (or no) lifespan. Make it inaccessible, and people just won't play it except for a core group of masochists.

What Street Fighter IV does so well, is all of the above. Novices can quickly jump in, learning some fairly simple moves and enjoy themselves while veterans can take the core move set and learn to utilize focus attacks, cancels, super and ultra combos. For every strong guy that moves slow and hits with severe pain is a quick fighter who can get in and out landing multiple hits. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and they all play very nice together... just as long as you're not facing off against the AI controlled Seth, who is the epitomy of a cheesy end boss.

One thing fans of Street Fighter II will certainly be is right at home. You've got the same core group of characters you know and love with most of the same basic move sets that you still have the muscle memory to pull off with ease. Ryu, Ken, Chun Li, Zangeif, M.Bison, and my personal favorite, E.Honda all make appearances, along with several new fighters like C.Viper, Abel and El Fuerte. The new fit with the old just fine, and no one stands out as a glaring idiot (although Rufus is kind of gross). You'll even finally get to play as Gouken, the master who trained both Ken and Ryu. There are 25 total combatants, several of which will need to be unlocked by heading through the single player 'arcade' mode.

While I can appreciate the desire to unlock things, I wish Capcom had included some sort of method for unlocking primary characters through online play. As it stands, you'll have to face Cheesemaster Seth at least 24 times before getting all 25 characters into your stable. Seth is named after a dude who works at Capcom and is a great SF player in his own right, but the game throws you into a handicap situation, dulling down the actual impact of your moves and forcing you to game the system instead of actually play well. When you have to fight him with a character you aren't exactly great with, this can lead to some serious frustration and possible controller throwing moments.

There is at least some sort of reward system for playing online though. Each player can display both an icon and title to the world when meeting up in the online battlefield, and there are a ton of both to unlock as you progress. There's also a Battle Points system in place which will increase or decrease depending on you winning and losing in ranked matches. They are a general indicator of your skill. Additionally, there are plenty of achievements for putting in your time online as well as medals that you are awarded due to your performance in individual matches.

Another sleight bone of contention is the matchmaking system in place. As it currently stands close to two months after release, there's not much to it and often it doesn't work properly much of the time. You can play in player matches or ranked matches without all that many options except time limit and number of rounds. When you can actually get into a match however, most of the time it will run very well and there's typically no noticeable lag to be seen. There is a Tournament patch coming out this Friday, so that will add more robustness and hopefully will fix issues within this particular aspect, but as it stands, there isn't much to it and sometimes you could spend more time looking for a game than actually playing in one.

Visually, SFIV has a very exaggerated yet beautiful art style. Not trying to be photo-realistic, each character is lovingly crafted in three dimensions with just the right balance of cartoon quality. It's colorful, very distinctive, and there's no mistaking one character for another. When specific special moves (ultra and super combos) are triggered, the camera will zoom in to get a better look at the fighter performing it, often showing the opponent with a bug eyed "oh crap" look on their face in the background. My only real complaint in this department is the number of locales in which to fight feels fairly limited. Added to the cartoonish style are broad pen strokes and even what appear to be ink splatters during the fights. The end result is unique and stunning and while the characters and environments are in 3D, the matches themselves take place on a single 2D plane. No rotating around each other endlessly or diving into the background or foreground, just pure head-to-head fighting that has undergone a great deal of playtesting and balancing.

When Street Fighter IV was pitched as a close successor to Street Fighter II (and even takes place chronologically directly after SFII and before SFIII), I became excited and thankfully, it delivers on that promise. It shares plenty in common with its 15 year old brother and adds just enough depth, fighters and features to make it feel like a completely new yet familiar experience. If you have given up on fighting games because nothing was as fun as Street Fighter II in your best friend's house back in the '90s, or you're interested to see what a purely fun and well crafted fighting game can do in this generation of gaming then you owe it to yourself to pick up Street Fighter IV.

The Good

• Great art direction
• Accessible, deep, and balanced
• You'll be able to play forever and almost never get bored

The Bad

• Somewhat broken and limited online component
• Not very robust statistics

The Ugly

• Cheesemaster Seth is cheesy.