Review: Street Fighter IV
Released: 20th February (UK) (Out Now)
Platforms: PS3/XBox 360
FINAL OPIONON: MUST PLAY / AWESOME
Compared to the past Street fighter games one of the first things you'll notice about Street Fighter IV especially veteran players is the games new cel-shaded graphical visual style. The characters and environments are rendered as 3D models and have a cel-shaded/hand drawn look to them with added splatter ink and ink smudges for added visual effect during fights. The street fighter characters have never looked so good especially the facial expressions when damage is dealt and received.
Veteran Street fighters shouldn't be worried even though the character models are in 3D this is not the Street Fighter EX series all over again as the game stays true to its roots as the game plays out on a 2D plain field like its past iterations. In fact Street Fighter IV plays more like Super Street Fighter II Turbo while still borrowing elements from other past Street Fighter games. The flow of the fights are fast, slick, furious with good animation for each of the characters, in fact a lot of the combos and tricks that worked in Super Street Fighter II turbo will work here too. I have to say the games visual are mighty impressive, from the stages to the characters them self’s its really impressive.
Speaking of characters Street Fighter IV doesn't disappoint here either. The game brings back in all original 12 playable characters from Street Fighter II, along with 6 new characters to the Street Fighter series Rufus, El Fuerte, Crimson Viper, Abel, Gouken and Seth who is the new boss character for this outing of Street Fighter. Along with another 7 characters taken from both the Alpha series and also Super Street Fighter II Turbo, bringing the total to 25 characters available to play in the game.
Street Fighter IV retains the traditional six button control scheme with new features and special moves integrated into the input system, mixing classic game play with additional innovations. Pressing both light attack buttons will perform a throw, both heavy attacks will perform a taunt or personal action and pressing both medium attacks will perform a focus attack. Speaking of focus attacks it is one of the new mechanics introduced in Street Fighter IV. Simply put a focus attack will allow a player to absorb one attack and also counter attack with an unblockable attack if fully charged. Yes I said fully charged as the focus attack has different levels of charge with varying effects. As mentioned before Street Fighter IV has a lot of layers of complexity for the more hardcore players, the focus attack system is just one of them. You see anyone can pull off a focus attack from the start however it takes real skill to actually master this mechanic. Focus attacks combined with dashing can be used to move through single hit projectile moves such as guile's sonic boom or Ryu and Ken's Hadoken. Focus attacks can also be used to cancel attacks such as Ken's fierce dragon punch. Players can stop an opponent’s focus attack by using any two hit move or two quick normal attacks.
Along with focus attacks the player also has access to special EX moves. The EX bar located at the bottom of the screen is a bar that is split up into four quarters. A player can fill their EX bar by performing and landing attacks the more you attack the more the bar will fill up. When one of the small bars fills up the player has the choice of unleashing an EX move or they can save it for later. EX moves are basically powered up versions or a characters normal special move that do twice the damage such as guile's flash kick or his sonic boom. If a player chooses not to use their EX moves then eventually the EX bar will fill up to its max and gives the player access to his Super combo attack. A Super combo can usually be performed by modifying a characters specific special move such as kens super move which is a modification of his hadoken. To execute the player would have to perform a double fireball (hadoken) motion and the press of a single punch button. The player also has access to an Ultra combo. An Ultra combo is a much more devastating combo attack compared to the Super combo. Compared to the other mechanics in the game Ultra combos are longer and very cinematic in fact this is the only time in the game where the camera will break away from its normal position to focus on the player performing the Ultra combo move. To the side of the EX/Super meter there is another bar called the Ultra combo gauge. Filling up the Ultra combo gauge is the opposite of how you would fill up the Super combo in the fact that now the player has to take damage in order to fill their Ultra combo gauge. Pulling off the Ultra is the same as pulling of a Super with one major difference, in the fact that the player now has to press all three punch or kick buttons to pull of the Ultra combo move.
Street Fighter IV also boasts a number of gameplay modes which include, versus, challenge, training, online and also the traditional arcade mode. The traditional arcade mode allows a player to pick from any of the 25 playable characters some of which have to be unlocked. During arcade mode you fight one random opponent after another before reaching what is entitled a "Rival Battle". Each of the 25 characters has a rival such as Ken whose rival is Rufus who wants to lay claim that he is the greatest fighter in the U.S.A. Each of these rival battles has a nice little in game intro before the fight begins. After the rival battle you will fight the main boss of Street Fighter 4 Seth who is a very tough opponent to try and defeat. At the beginning and end of arcade mode you are treated to a short anime intro and ending sequence, which is my first major problem with Street Fighter 4. The anime intros and endings are very bland, do nothing to advance the story or even tell you anything about the character you just picked. As an anime fan I would say the intros and endings are poor in quality and lack detail.
Versus mode allows 2 players to battle it out against each other or a single player against the CPU with any of the available 25 playable characters. Challenge mode offers a range of challenges to try out your skills these include Survival, Time attack and also trial mode which teaches you simple and advanced combos that you can pull off for each character. Take note that pulling off the more advanced combos takes practice and not to mention that you will probably never be able to pull these off against another player. There is also a Training mode which allows plenty of sparring.
Street Fighter 4 also brings its own online mode which is pretty fantastic and hardly suffers from any lag. Originally there were two options for online, ranked and player matches each allowing only a 1 on 1 lobby system, which may disappoint some people after playing Street Fighter HD Remix with its six person lobby system. New DLC was added later after the games release entitled “Championship Mode”. This mode added a new option to the online play. A new points system, replay mode and tournament matching making system. Championship has players complete against other players for ranking points. The higher the players rank the more difficult the contest the player competes in. The replay mode allows players to watch and save other players match replays and can also rate the video if they like. It must be said that each player can only have one video uploaded at a time. The Championship Mode is a welcome addition and I find it to be a much better alternative to the games Ranked Matches.
The game contains some other nice little touches to its online as well. Such as the fact the players can earn Medals for doing various things online. Such as wining matches with Super or Ultra Combos, performing counters during a match, or simply just wining a match. There is a handful of Medals that players can continually win when playing online. Along with this players can also set Titles and Icons which can be earn while playing online. Furthermore one of my favourite features is the Arcade Request feature. During Arcade Mode at anytime players can be challenged by other online players. This feature saves a lot of time since I don’t have to be in a lobby and wait for someone to join. Instead I can play Arcade Mode and wait for someone to challenge me.
There are a number of nice slick tunes to complement Street Fighter 4 although I didn't find all of them as memorable compared to Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Also the boy band intro music for Street Fighter 4 I find quite catchy and rather enjoyed. But for whatever reason the remix tunes of the classic songs can only be heard during rival fights and nowhere else. Hope fully this is something that they will fix when they bring out Super Street Fighter 4 next year.
All in all Street Fighter 4 is a throwback to Super Street Fighter II Turbo with plenty of new mechanics added to freshen things up rounded out nicely with plenty of quality gameplay modes new and old. The game is simple to pick up and play but has many layers of depth and complexity so mastering it will be a challenge.
Street Fighter IV Breakdown
GAMEPLAY
Classic and new mechanics mixed to create something that is truly fantastic.
GRAPHICS & PRESENTATION
An excellent choice of art style for Street Fighter’s latest outing. Fantastic animations and facial expression with added ink like effects. Visual style is excellent accompanied by a catchy intro theme.
LONGEVITY
Arcade Mode, Trials, multiplayer and an online mode full of people just waiting to beat you. You’ll be coming back to this game for the odd match or to for years to come.
AUDIO
Music is top notch along with both English and Japanese audio. Too bad the classic remixed songs can only be heard during rival fights and the anime cut scenes could have been a lot better.
Author: Hall0606
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