Video Games Today

The weight of a new Street Fighter game is not to be taken lightly. After about 10 years of ridiculous turbo hyper super extreme installments which added a new character or a new combo meter in piecemeal, we’ve finally gotten a full-on, true sequel in Street Fighter 4. And as someone who’s not even that big of a Street Fighter fan, it’s easy to see just how good it is. It’s the best 2D fighting game I’ve ever played, the best looking fighting game I’ve ever played and is definitely going to be a standard for a long time to come.

The basics: 25 characters, six of which are brand new playable characters in a Street Fighter game. There’s an arcade mode (a series of AI battles, book ended by story-driven animated sequences), a challenge mode (basically AI Time Trial and Survival challenges for leaderboards and unlockables), a training mode to walk you through each of the characters moves and online play. From a feature-list perspective, it’s pretty basic stuff. There’s no Virtua Fighter-esque quest mode to earn in-game cash or conquer virtual game arcades. There aren’t even minigames to beat up cars! But in place of all that, you have near flawless gameplay.

It’s hard to summarize the depth of Street Fighter, but the comparisons to chess in high speed seem pretty accurate. Everything has a counter, every character can beaten by someone of a higher skill level, and, unlike Soul Calibur, button mashers will be annihilated within seconds of stepping up against another opponent. To a certain extent, this makes it hard for newcomers, as you’re better off playing people around your skill level, but the whopping number of characters means you can always handicap yourself by picking someone you’re not really familiar with.


The biggest new additions to the fighting mechanics are focus attacks. Activated by holding down the Medium Punch and Medium Kick buttons, a focus attack is basically a charged attack that can absorb a single attack from your enemy, allowing you to unleash fury back at them. It’s easy to pull off, requires no complicated button combos, and adds another layer to the combat.

Ultra combos are also new. After taking a certain amount of damage, you’ll be able to unleash an extremely devastating attack back at your enemy. Usually this requires some complex button presses, but if the attack lands you’ll be taking about 1/3rd of your opponents life. It’s hugely telegraphed, but if you’re in mid air or getting up from the ground you may not be able to block it. The idea is to keep everyone in the game. Even if you’re getting crushed, you can still hope to land an Ultra and make a comeback. They also come with super flashy animations and are unique to each character, which makes pulling one off even more satisfying.


The visuals, though, may be the start of the show in Street Fighter 4. The level of detail poured into each and every character and fighting arena borders on OCD. Eyes bulge when hit, barrels knock over when you land an attack near them, monkeys do backflips in the background. Street Fighter 4 is full of life, and looks crisp and bright, a nice change of pace from the browns and dark greens of this generation of games.

There are qualms to note, though. In testing the online play alongside the public, we had major issues when trying to play ranked matches or quick join games. Either it wouldn’t let us connect or we’d be left playing in extreme lag, with a slideshow level of frame rate. Playing against friends in player matches seemed to cure this problem, but the lack of a party lobby system (as seen in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix) means that you can’t have all-night round robin sessions.


The other big issue to consider is that the standard PS3 and 360 controllers are pretty inadequate for playing Street Fighter (or pretty much any other 2D fighting game). You can get by, for sure, but anyone with a joystick or a special gamepad will have a definite edge on you. That’s not really a fault of the game itself, but it’s something to consider if you’re looking to pick it up.

Lastly, we were a bit bummed by the lack of character customization in SF4. The game allows you to unlock 10 alternate colors for your characters, but secondary costumes are relegated to DLC. After seeing incredible character customization in games like Soul Calibur 4 and Virtua Fighter 5, it’s a shame Capcom didn’t go all the way with this one. We would’ve loved to have seen Guile with a big kitty helmet.

With all that said, though, Street Fighter 4 is an immaculate fighting game. The depth of play matched with the incredible visual fidelity makes it a new standard for 2D fighting games and may just revive what has become a niche genre.

Final Rating:8.5/10

Enjoy!
The VGToday Crew