It's been quite a while since a Street Fighter has made this much impact in the video-game industry. In fact, the fourth installment might be the real worthy sequel to the classic releases of Street Fighter 2. The Street Fighter name was somewhat living through a series of compilations and other eventual releases, some games were actually good, but none of them captured the true feeling of what was like be playing Street Fighter 2 in all its glory.
This game, unlike all the other follow-ups to Street Fighter 2, seems to have forged a personality. Tangling the new stylish graphics, renewed soundtrack, great online capabilities and many unusual challenges to result in a game that differs itself from the previous in a meaningful way, and marks a brand new beginning. And this should be a beginning, this is a solid game, especially when you're in for some multiplayer action, but there's still some work to be done in the single player department. The game modes included are good, but maybe in the future some more to entertain sole players would be very interesting. The job is not completely done when it comes to controls, the new controllers demand a better way to execute combos and specials.
First thing to be noticed in how the graphics are stylish and crisp, Capcom gives us a lesson on how to make a fighting game in the current generation of gaming. Graphics that doesn't stray too much away from its classic roots, and won't make us feel that the hardware power was underused. It's not 3D, so player's won't move to their sides as well, the cel-shade plays a huge role in it. The screen is flooded with details and life. The effects in fights are tight and were nicely done, as one would
expect from the new graphics and a more powerful hardware; specials
never looked this good. Everything is overly bright and colorful, with shiny effects floating around here and there; it's an amazing sight to look at. Every stage has several actions going on in the background. It goes from a jungle infested with animals to an island with a volcano erupting. Many classic stages were redesigned and look better than ever. The cel-shade brings a whole new approach, but still not surrendering to full 3D.
Right at the beginning, in the intro movie and the main menu, you'll hear a quite unusual tune, a pop song, played and sung; I find that it doesn't fit the game at all, a more fitting song would have a faster pace, the genre is debatable. It's funny to notice that some voice-overs are a little out of synchronization, the sentences spoken after a fight for example, it's barely noticeable, it's more of a funny little touch than a problem. All characters have their own lines ready to speak during and in a little intro at the beginning of a fight, a pleasant little detail, which can be skipped if you eager to begin as fast as possible. Overall you might notice some classic sounds in here, redone, of course, but be prepared to listen to several new tunes and with much higher quality. While fighting, the pace of the music is sure to be fast, the way it's supposed to be.
The most classic mode to play is the Arcade, in this mode you play Street Fighter the way it was played many years ago. You choose a character, and start traveling around the world fighting opponents. Each character has its own personal reasons to be doing so, and these reasons are explained in the intro and outro movies of the character. This time, unlike in the second installment, you can fight Ryu using Sagat and still battle in Europe, or any other place, you don't necessarily fight in the opponents nation. A small anime video helps to show a little of each character's story in the beginning and, if you manage to beat the Arcade mode with that character, some more in the end, then as a closure to his/her feat; totalizing two videos per character. The videos are a welcome addition, especially because they are generally short, and skippable; those bothered by them can easily press a button and go right to the action.
The controls can be confusing until you get used to them, but even after long hours into the game they can still be confusing, difficult and sometimes irresponsive. There are various combos for every character, they range from basic to very complex. The special moves maintain some similarities to how they used to be executed in the previous games. It's okay to keep it classic. But some specials have almost similar ways of being executed from each other, that can bring problems to your head, you can find trouble trying to perform the most complex combos, sometimes even the less complex, because the way they are executed resembles others; you might try one and end up doing the other. Some get an extra dose of difficulty in them, a good example is one of Sagat's moves, which is almost impossible to perform. The controller not always helps too, even though the Xbox 360 controller stands as one of the best controllers ever released for a video-game console, it feels like it could use a couple more buttons for this game. The use of shoulder buttons is mandatory, you have 3 kinds of kicks and 3 kinds of punches, except for obvious exceptions like Balrog who has only punches, even so all buttons have a function. They are, of course, low, medium and high punch/kick. The front buttons will take care of the low and medium's, the right shoulder buttons will take care of the high's. You then have the left shoulder buttons, which at first glance will seem to do the same as the right ones, like mirrored buttons for player's choice, since some players will have exact same results when pressing one or the other. But it's not like that at all, they actually equal to pressing every single button for kicking or punching. Some specials will require you to press every kick button, or every punch button, and since that's an insanely hard task to be asking for, especially in the heat of battle, they implemented this feature on these buttons, and will certainly ease the job a lot and keep the task away from being frustrating. There's also the Focus Attack, which happens when you press both medium kick and punch at the same time, it can be charged for increased results.
When I mentioned this three-button pressing to be used in fights I meant only one technique, but it's easily the most powerful technique that each character has. I'm talking about the Ultra Combos. There's actually two kinds of advanced combos, the Super Combos and the Ultra Combos. These extra combos aren't usual ones, for you to be able to perform them you need to fill the meters located at the bottom of the screen. The blue horizontal meter is for the Super Combos. The circular meter serves the Ultra Combos. The Ultra Combos, once triggered and not blocked, will leave you with a small scene with the character performing the moves. For you to fill the meters you need to either take or inflict damage; in the case of the circular Ultra Combo meter you can only fill it by taking, not inflicting. At some point of the fight, it is highly likely that both players will have their bars ready to be used at least once; of course, the Super Combos can be performed in several occasions throughout the fight, but not the same thing can be said about the Ultras.
There's various game modes to choose, from the already mentioned and classic Arcade, to some new ones. You have the physical multiplayer intact, you can fight against a friend or the CPU, or maybe set up a battle between two computer-controlled players and see which one will stand victorious, it's possible. There's also the brand new Challenge Mode, in this mode you face several types of challenges; they go from a race against the clock to beat all the opponents before the time runs up; to Survival Mode where you need to survive a certain amount of enemies to advance; as well as a Trial Mode, this one is interesting, you can actually train all the combos of every character there, the buttons you should press will appear on screen and you just need to follow, some combos are incredibly difficult, so be prepared. Each Challenge game mode is divided in Normal and Hard. You can also receive a certain crown in the first two modes depending on how good you did; like gold, silver, bronze, etc.
The training mode is self-explanatory and it's hard to find a fighting game without it. Through Player Data you have details of how you're doing with your fighting skills with each character and take a look at your online medals. There's even some collectibles, they're the titles and icons, which you set by your name in Xbox Live and each has a distinct requirement to be unlocked; there's hundreds of them, basically anything you manage to do in the game can give you one or the other, maybe both.
Even with all the appeal for the classic multiplayer, the excitement of fighting someone you know and who's sitting in the same room as you just like it was done in the old days, it's obvious that gaming today demands a great online experience for a game like this, and that's exactly what you get. Despite Capcom's attempt to bring some new features to the single player experience, if you don't have how to play this game online you're gonna miss a major part in what makes this a good game. In the case of the Xbox 360 you have Xbox Live to backup your online gaming, and that's saying much. You can stock up Medals from your fights, many things you do in the fight will result in a medal, like a perfect victory, finishing with an Ultra Combo, having a certain percentage left on your vitality gauge after you beat your opponent, etc. There's also leaderboards and downloadable contents.
It's not everyday that you see Street Fighter being reinvented this way, this game was certainly made to be put aside from the other previous releases, it took quite some time to come, but it's finally here. It has everything you would want from a classic series with classic fighting style, as well as some nice additions that will surely make good impression. While being a good game nevertheless, it's still highly recommended that you have the capability to play online so you can fully enjoy it. If you intent to go solo then you might get a little frustrated along the way, maybe the next installments will cover this department in a more meaningful way so we could enjoy a great single player experience in all its extent. A control reinvention is needed too. The good thing is that the base is set, just need to work on the concept to improve. If you like fighting games, or liked the games from the gold era of gaming with Street Fighter 2 and its variations I bet you're already curious to see how this turned out. Well, this turned out a good game, and let's just hope Capcom keeps bringing new Street Fighter games with the same dedication they delivered to this installment, just with more features for solo fighters and better renewed gameplay. This way, the future will surely bring even better releases.
