Street Fighter IV Game Review - Playstation 3

OUR RATING:

9.3

EXCELLENT

TANGIBLES:

Gameplay:		10
Visuals:		10
Audio:		8
Value:		9
Quality:		9

Why you should buy it: It's the best 2D Fighting game to come out in a long time.

Why you should rent it: If you're new to this genre, this is a good one to try out. You might like it and end up buying it.

UNIQUE RATING:

9.3

SUGGESTION:

Buy It

Street Fighter IV

Written by: Filippo Dinolfo | Tags: Street Fighter IV, Playstation 3

February 23,2009 - When Street Fighter IV was first announced by Capcom reactions were mixed. There hadn't been a real Street Fighter sequel since Street Fighter III: Third Strike back in 1999. The initial trailer showed a duel between old stalwarts Ryu and Ken, rendered in a pseudo cel-shaded 3D art style. Would the game be 3D and go down the same lines as the ill-fated Street Fighter EX series, or would it use 3D graphics and keep the playfield in 2D? It turned out that the latter was the case. It also turns out that Capcom has managed to finally make this 2D/3D hybrid formula finally work.

The first thing to keep in mind when considering Street Fighter IV is that there will be a few things that you will need to learn, while there are other elements that will feel familiar. The first thing and most obvious is that Street Fighter IV is still a 2D One on One fighting game. One fights from the left side of the screen, one fights from the right. The game plays in two axes, X, and Y. There is no side stepping to worry about.

Most of the changes come in the game's fighting system. One of the new changes is the Focus Attack. By pressing the Medium Punch and Medium Kick buttons simultaneously you can execute the Focus move. This move can let you absorb one incoming attack and deliver an immediate counter-attack. If you charge this attack up to its fullest, the resulting attack will be unblockable and if it connects with your opponent it will cause them to crumple to the ground, giving you the opportunity to follow up with another attack. The Focus attack can also be used to evade incoming attacks. While your character is in the process of absorbing your opponent's hit with the Focus Attack, you can execute a backwards dash to evade or a forwards dash to press an advantage. You can also cancel special moves into a Focus Attack. The Focus attack has a lot of other more advanced uses that we won't go into here.

Another change to the fighting system comes in the form of a new Revenge Meter. This is a compliment to the Super Meter. The Super Meter contains four blocks which gradually fill up as you deal damage to your opponent. Each time you fill one of the blocks you can execute a powered up version of any of your special moves. When you fill all four blocks, then you have access to your character's Super Move. Now, the Revenge Meter builds up as your character takes damage. When this meter fills up you have access to your character's Ultra Combo. The Ultra Combo is an even more powerful version of your character's Super Combo. The two meters play off of each other and if nothing else, the Ultra Combos allow someone to potentially deal a huge amount of damage to their opponent. It could save you in a pinch, but it's dangerous to rely on it.

Street Fighter IV has a number of single player modes for you to play through. There is an Arcade mode which is simply a series of battles that will culminate in a fight with the game's new end boss, Seth. There is also a rival battle which really isn't any different to a regular match, though it's preceded by a little bit of dialogue between the two characters. During the fight, both characters will also be trash talking each other, which is a nice little detail.

The game also offers a Vs. CPU mode, where you can just fight a match against the computer. There is also the typical Training mode which lets you practice your character's moves, record a sequence of moves and attempt to defend against them. It's everything you really need in a Training Mode. New to SFIV is the Challenge Mode. This mode contains a Time Attack mode and a Survival Mode with two different difficulty levels. The Time Attack is pretty straightforward. You fight through a series of battles with a specific time limit to get through them all. Survival has you fighting through another series of fights, but you don't have a time limit. Your goal in Survival mode is to knock out a specific number of opponents before you get knocked out yourself.

The Challenge Mode also contains a Trial Mode. This is effectively an extended training mode which gives you a series of moves to execute and you must perform them. It starts off easily enough with a character's basic moves, but soon gets much more complex by showing you how to perform more complex combos. The trouble here is that they show you the moves and the combos, but there's no theory behind it. It doesn't teach situational awareness, which is unfortunate.

If you want to play the game with friends, there are a few options. You can play Vs. mode with a friend on the same console or play the game online. The online modes are pretty bare bones. There's one on one Player Match and one on one Ranked Match. There is no Tournament mode or multiplayer rotation play. When you compare this to the online play that was on offer in HD Remix, SFIV's online is a little bit lacking. That said, SFIV has one very cool feature which we wish more fighting games would do. The game allows you to set a Challenge Request Status on the main menu. You can set this to be either Ranked Match, Player Match, or Off. When you set it to either of the online match types and then play an offline arcade mode game, you'll be available to be challenged by other players. When the match ends, then you go back to your offline game. This is the closest thing to the side by side arcade challenges of old that has ever been done before, and we applaud Capcom for it.

Visually Street Fighter IV is a fantastic looking game. The backgrounds you fight in are all very detailed. Each background has its own unique lighting as well, which is a nice little detail. The character models have a huge amount of detail to them. Combatants move with a fluidity that is very difficult to match using 2D sprites. What really makes the characters come alive is their facial expressions. You can see the determination when they execute moves, as well as their looks of complete surprise when they see an Ultra Combo headed right at them. Things like this really make the game feel more alive.

If you're a Street Fighter II veteran, then you remember that game's soundtrack to this day. It had music that just stuck with you. Street Fighter IV manages to pull off much the same trick. Whether you like the new music or hate it, one thing that you won't be able to do is forget it. The stages all have their own new unique tunes, and most of the characters all have theme music. The original cast has remixed versions of their old stage music, which work out quite well. The sound effects and voice acting are another matter. The sound effects could have used a bit more oomph to them. The hits just don't sound quite as impactful as they perhaps should. Also, Capcom seems to be intent on always putting some sort of announcer into their fighting games. Please, stop, just stop the madness right now, we don't need an announcer blabbing the same one liners over and over again. The rest of the game's voice acting is hit or miss. By default the audio language for spoken dialog is English. Some characters like Cammy sound fine in English. Some of them just don't. Thankfully one of the first things you'll unlock after beating arcade mode is the ability to set the battle voices on a per character basis, so you can have Ryu and Ken speaking Japanese and have Cammy and Rufus speak English if you like.

On the whole, Street Fighter IV is a fantastic achievement. It has a great fighting system, excellent visuals and decent audio. There's a good amount of single player content to play through and a functional, though bare bones online component. Most importantly, Street Fighter IV is a fun game to play. At the end of the day, that's what matters, isn't it?

The last Fighting game Yoshinori Ono worked on was Capcom Fighting Evolution. Much of the reason for the doubt behind SFIV was due to this fact.