Street Fighter IV is awesome.
I'd like to address the graphics
first. This is the best looking game so far this year. I'm talking from
a purely artistic perspective of course, but it looks good from a
technical standpoint too. Each of the characters are rendered in a
cartoony style, all in 3D. Kinda like a cross between the old Street
Fighter 2 sprites and the somewhat newer EX models. The game looks
fantastic, fireballs have never looked so good before.
Street
Fighter IV is what has been affectionately referred to as 2.5D. The
game is rendered entirely in 3D, but the game moves on a 2D playing
field. Unlike most recent fighting games, like Soul Calibur and Mortal
Kombat vs. DC Universe, you cannot move towards or away from the
screen, just left or right. This may put off those who don't like 2D
fighting games.
As I said, the gameplay is on a 2D plane, pretty
much like all Street Fighter games. The basic gameplay is the same as
Street Fighter 2. You can't string combos together by furiously tapping
the X button, there are no input combos like in Mortal Kombat(unless
you count 1 and 2) or Tekken. That's not to say there aren't any combos
at all, there are nearly endless possibilities for combos in the game,
you just have to be a little creative. A flying kick into a crouching
sweep is among the most basic, but it gets the job done.
If you
haven't played since the days of Street Fighter 2, the controls haven't
changed a whole lot. It still operates with a six button fighting
systems, Light, Medium and Heavy versions of Punch and Kick. The
concept of light, medium and heavy also applies to special moves, the
heavy buttons usually having an advantage in most situations. You'll
also use some simultaneous button presses. Light punch and kick is used
for throws, medium punch and kick is used for focus attacks and heavy
punch and kick is used for taunts. Pressing all three punch or kick
buttons simultaneously can be used for more powerful versions of
fireballs and dragon punches, although this drains you special meter.
New
mechanics in SFIV are focus attacks and the revenge meter. The most
basic thing you can do with a focus attack is to break your opponents
guard. This is the focus attack on it's most superficial level. While
charging your focus attack, you can sustain one hit without breaking
the charge, and the health you lose will heal over time unless you're
hit again before it's completely healed. Focus attacks can also be
canceled while charging, and you can also cancel your moves with it.
The
revenge meter isn't as subtle. It fills up as you get hit in the round,
then resets for the next one(the super meter doesn't reset between
rounds). The meter charges up as you get hit and when you're down to
half your health, you can use an Ultra attack. Ultras are kinda like
Supers, only slightly more powerful. They usually take down the
opponent by 30-50% health, depending on the character.
The sound
is good, though all the voice actors are set to English as the game
starts and the English voice doesn't really fit some of the characters.
However, after one playthrough you can set the language of each
character individually. This doesn't apply to the anime cutscenes,
which are either in English or Japanese. Commentator comes in between
each round, says enough different lines to not overstay his welcome.
Special moves' sound effects are also competent.
Online is the
weak point of Street Fighter IV, like so many Japanese developed
fighting games. This may come as a bit of an unpleasant surprise to
some as Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix was probably the best
fighting game in terms of online, only a few months ago. That has been
mostly attributed to the development, which took place in the U.S. for
SSF2THDR. Where to begin with the online... Well, you only have the
choice between Ranked Matches and Player Matches. I haven't been able
to get into either yet and I've tried about 50 times by now. You get a
choice between three players to fight against, which is pretty weird
that you can choose like that. Once you choose, you either lose
connection with the other player, which is very, very frequent, or you
get kicked by the other player.
Now, there is a way around this,
if you actually want to play online. You can set your profile to allow
people to challenge you while playing in Arcade mode. This is by far
the most reliable way to get a connection. You can specify on your
in-game profile if you want ranked or player matches and you'll get
challenges in very frequently. In fact, you'll get them so frequently,
you'll never finish the first round in Arcade, which I guess is another
unfortunate side effect, since you'll never be able to complete the
arcade mode with this setting on.
But anyway, let's move on to
the other modes. The remaining modes are Challenge Mode and Training
Mode. Training mode is your standard practice mode, where you can just
whale on Dan(or Bison for all the times he kicked your ass in SF2).
There are some neat touches, like recording 10 seconds while in control
of the "dummy", then set it to playback. The dummy will perform all the
actions you recorded in a continuous loop.
The Challenge Mode is
more like the Kombo Challenge mode in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe,
and no, they aren't copying MK. These challenge modes have been in
several SF games in the past, so if anything, MK is copying SF. Anyway,
they are easily as hard, harder even as SF requires more precise
timing(or maybe I'm just better at remembering long strings of input
combos...). However this is only a portion of the Challenge mode,
referred to as trials in the game itself. The other two portions are
time attack and survival. In time attack, you get a set amount of time
and you must defeat a number of enemies specified by the challenge. You
gain seconds upon completion of each match based on your performance.
In survival, you start with 100% health and must defeat a number of
opponents, regaining an amount of health specified by the challenge.
This will certainly prove a challenge to any fan of the series.
Finally,
I'll address the balance. The balance is more or less the same as in
SF2, which means it's very good. No combatant will have too big of an
advantage, at least not with getting a lot of disadvantages. Of course,
the exception to this rule is Sagat, who, like in SF2, is already been
proclaimed the king of Street Fighter IV and will no doubt be soft
banned in some fighting tournaments.
In conclusion, Street
Fighter IV will not change your mind on Street Fighter. It's the best
Street Fighter game since Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo(or Hyper
Fighting, whatever...), a worthy successor. And, as shameful as it is
to admit, it's the best fighting game in this generation of consoles.
It's easily as fun to play as MK and has the depth of SC.
