Taking back the streets

Street Fighter IV brings the series back to its roots, but how does a 2-D fighter compete in this generation?

After a lengthy wait following the Japanese release, U.S. fans of Street Fighter now have the chance to revisit their favorite fighting franchise. It’s been over 10 years since a true sequel graced American shores, and after the long wait, fans will be pleased to know it doesn’t disappoint. Street Fighter IV is a game that is still just as accessible to newcomers as to hardened veterans.

Not only does Street Fighter IV take back its rightful claim to the two-dimensional fighter throne, but it refines the traditional 2-D fighting formula. Drawing from 20 years of experience, Capcom has managed to give a new sense of balance to its characters, bringing them to a more leveled playing field that anyone can take part in.

A fresh coat of paint
The distinct art style is the first thing gamers will notice. Character designer and art director Daigo Ikeno lends his unique vision to the game, taking the original hand-drawn character models into the third dimension while keeping them grounded in their 2-D fighting plane. Each character is animated in an “ink blot” fashion that shows itself with streaks of ink and color whenever the characters pull off a unique punch or kick, a tribute to Japanese calligraphy paint brush styles.

The gameplay itself is reminiscent of Street Fighter II Turbo, with a slower and more focused approach on battles. This helps keep the player focused on the events on screen, and allows for them to better calculate their next move when locked in the heat of battle. While you won’t have the power jumps that you did in the Marvel vs. Capcom series, flashy combo attacks and cinematic super moves remain faithfully intact. Any hardcore veteran of the series will tell you that Street Fighter isn’t intended to be a button masher, rather a delicate mix of strategy and tactics, where keeping an eye on the action for long periods while exercising quick thinking can turn a friendly spar to a war of attrition.

As with the more recent iterations of Street Fighter, each player has a super combo meter that charges up every time the player takes a hit or performs a super move. As this meter fills, the player will store up enough energy to unleash a colorful super move, visually rendered in all its artistic glory. In addition to this is the revenge meter, a separate combo meter that charges whenever the character takes damage. While hardly beneficial in shorter matches, if used correctly, it can be used in conjunction with the super combo meter to release an even more devastating combo attack that features your character dishing out a beautiful and painful cinematic of other opponents getting their butts handed to them.

Included in your arsenal of super moves is the addition of focus attacks. These moves are simple to pull off, but difficult to master. By holding the medium punch and kick buttons simultaneously, the player can pull off a counter attack strong enough to disable an opponent in the middle of an attack. This is not without risk, for it takes a few seconds to charge up, leaving the player defenseless and susceptible to absorbing any attack of the other opponent in the process.

While these moves can range in difficulty to perform, it’s nothing that the newcomer to the series is required to learn. As deep and intuitive as the game can be, it remains true to the casual gamer who simply wants to pick up the game and button mash their way through a quick round.

Old friends and new enemies
In the single player version of the game, notably absent are some of the lesser-known characters from Street Fighter III. Instead, Capcom has improved upon the original characters and invested more time with the new ones, which comes off more as shedding the dead weight as opposed to overpopulating a game with insignificant and easily forgettable characters.

There are still plenty of classic characters that return to the series whom players can immediately identify with, alongside their signature power attacks. From Ryu’s trademark hadouken to E. Honda’s hundred-hand-slap, they all retain their original button combinations of quarter circled and semi-circled jabs and kicks. Only now, players have several new characters to learn from.

Staying true to the formula of embracing foreign stereotypes as world fighters, players may find the new characters unsettling at first, particularly the introduction of the first male character to sport bigger breasts than the females. Rufus replaces E. Honda as the new egg-shaped fat guy of the cast, sporting a ridiculous mustache and more cleavage than the player cares to see. Still, in the hands of the right player, he can be a dangerous opponent with devastating attacks and surprising agility.

Crimson Viper and Abel fit into the roster by bringing their own unique brand of fighting styles to the game. Viper’s devastating fire kicks make her a fast, defensive character that is good at disabling mid-air strikes, while Abel will no doubt have many players throwing their controllers at the screen in frustration when their characters are tossed across the screen like rag dolls for the umpteenth time.

El Fuerte, a Mexican wrestler armed with a frying pan and a passion for charging straight at his opponents screaming goofy catch phrases, comes off as surprisingly easy to take down, as he plays more with offensive tactics and hardly with any defense. Whether he will come off either as a comic success or an ethnic stereotype gone horribly wrong has yet to be seen.

Throughout the single player campaign, each character starts off with a brief animated short that won’t make much sense to the player unless they purchased the $80 collectors edition, which comes with a full length animated feature that dares to put the storyline of a fighting videogame into context. The cut scenes in game themselves range from confusing to just strange bizarre, but if anything good can be said about them, they’re short. Still, the addition of English voice actors in the game gives a fresh perspective on the characters who until now, have only been voiced in Japanese.

After the battle…
For gamers hungry for a true challenge, the network feature allows them to face off against other players around the world. From there, players can establish their ranking against other fighters or practice their skills in a quick match. The stability of the servers is surprisingly strong, with little to no lag interrupting the fight. Players with a bad connection, however, will experience moments of lag that affects both players, which still evens out the fight, unlike in last month’s release of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo: HD Remix, where a weak connection can result in a bitter defeat before realizing the match has even started.

The multiplayer function is where gamers get their money’s worth. It’s quick and easy to jump into an online match, where players are randomly paired with online opponents, ensuring a different and unique experience every time. With the incentive of Playstation 3 trophy support or Xbox 360 achievements, players are encouraged to participate in both quick play and ranked matches, ensuring that gamers will never run out of opponents hungry to raise their score.

Another trademark of the Street Fighter series is the cult-like following it’s received from gamers all over the world. Tournaments are frequently held in arcades and gaming centers, where players often compete for cash prizes. Last January, representatives for Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox recently went head-to-head in a publicity tournament to build excitement for the game. Team Playstation emerged as the victor.

As an avid Street Fighter fan, Antony Profitt has played nearly all of the games in the series, including the many various follow ups to the highly successful Street Fighter II.

“What I like most about Street Fighter IV is the animation and mixture of classic moves and over-the-top super and ultra combos,” Proffit said, “not to mention that it has stages from the classic Street Fighter II Turbo.”

While the game itself is noted for its competitive spirit between gamers, addiction to the game itself is not without consequence.
“I had a boyfriend who, with the release of Street Fighter IV, played it nonstop,” Katherine Murphy said. “He didn’t leave the couch for five days, he ate McDonalds, drank handles of whisky and didn’t bathe for at least a week. Safe to say, Street Fighter IV ruined my relationship.”

According to Capcom, Street Fighter IV completely sold out of all retail copies with the Japanese release, and as of February has sold over 86,000 copies in the region alone. The first game debuted in 1987, but became a sensation in 1991 with the arcade release of Street Fighter II, which was improved upon and refined for nearly a decade on various videogame consoles.

Since its debut, the game series has been made into toys, comic books, and spawned two feature films. It was the first videogame to feature an extended cast of characters who engaged in one-on-one battles, and has since become the standard by which most 2-D fighting games are judged.

When deciding which console version to play Street Fighter IV on, the main differences between the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 versions of the game are the load times. While initially the load times are faster on the Xbox, Playstation 3 owners can opt to install the game on their system hard drives, which will bring the loading times up to speed. In terms of graphics, the two games are virtually identical.

Those hungry for unlockable content will find it mostly in form of online titles and descriptions to add to the player profile. Newer characters can be unlocked by simply playing through the arcade mode a few times, but those willing to put in the effort will be rewarded with the secret characters of Akuma, as well as the highly anticipated Gouken, who finally makes an appearance in the series after being a rumored hidden character since Street Fighter 2: Turbo.

The rest of the unlockable content comes in the form of costume colors and character taunts. Most of them are unlocked through challenge mode, which consists of a series of survival modes and time challenges.

To help prolong the support of the game, Capcom has been steadily providing downloadable content for the game, including upgrades to the ranking system as well as new costumes that are being released in weekly increments, each for the cost of $4.99. Capcom also plans to release a collection pack that will include all of the costumes for a discounted rate.

Fans looking for a respectable tribute to the original Street Fighter II will find it here. It’s a true-to-form continuum of a classic franchise that shows how a classic 2-D fighter can be every bit as fun as it was in the ’90s.

Written March 20th, 2009

(All images courtesy of Gamespot)

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