Street Fighter IV

After being very underwhelmed by the whole experience of Prince of Persia, when I perused the shelves in Best Buy a few weeks ago, I decided to pick up a game where there wouldn't be a lot of mystery as to what I was going to get. As such, I ended up settling on Street Fighter IV. I'm not really what I would consider a veteran of tournament fighters, and the one series that I've gotten reasonably deeply into--Soul Calibur--differs quite a bit from Street Fighter. I did own and played a fair amount of Marvel vs. Capcom 2, though never really got particularly good at it. So basically, I'm going into Street Fighter IV mildly aware of the basics of the game, though certainly still at a novice level (this was confirmed a couple of weekends ago playing my friend who used to play SF Alpha 2 competitively, and getting pretty consistently owned).

The biggest and most immediately recognizable difference from the classic SF games is the use of fully 3D models for characters instead of 2D sprites. Its still a 2D fighter, but its now 2D fighting in a 3D environment. Despite the switch, the game still retains most of the same feel that the earlier 2D iterations of the series had. The visuals look detailed enough to warrant being on a next-generation system, while still retaining some of the exaggerated anime-ish quirks that have been a trademark of the series. Chun Li's kicks still inexplicably create neon blue trails of light, E. Honda's fists still fade into a Loony Toons-esque blur, etc. I always thought Street Fighter II had a better look and feel to it compared to its once direct competitor Mortal Kombat, which used sprites that were generated from captures of real people dressed up like the characters. While, understandably, the MK characters looked more like real people in still shots, I thought in the context of the game the MK graphics looked rigid and awkward, while SF's "cartoonyness" allowed it to be more fluid. But even in an era where 3D motion capture is commonplace in game development, I don't think these little flourishes of exaggeration feel out of place and still have a certain charm to them.

The core gameplay elements have remained pretty much true to what its always been, and veteran players will be able to recognize that a lot of the basic button combinations are still the same. A hadoken is still down, forward, punch, for example. Borrowing from the Alpha and MvC era games, the game gives each fighter an "EX gague" and a "Revenge gauge." The EX gague can be used to pull of "EX" versions of certain moves, which you can do by simply adding another punch or kick button at the end of the move. If it fills up all the way, you can try and pull off your Super Combo, where everything on screen turns into an orgasm of anime speed lines. Your Revenge Gauge is used for your Ultra Combo, which is generally an even more powerful version of the Super Combo, and is usually done with the same button combination, only with all three punch/kick buttons at the end. They also added a new charge-up move that you can use with each fighter for which you hold down medium punch and medium kick simultaneously. As the move is charging up you can absorb one hit from your opponent, and if you're able to get it off and land it, it'll do a big chunck of damage and stun your opponent.

As I said above, I'm not good at all against a veteran human opponent at this point, but against the computer I feel as if I'm slowly improving. It certainly isn't too difficult to start playing from scratch and have at least some base level of effectiveness against the CPU on low difficulty without hours and hours of effort. The game has the traditional tournament fighter training mode, wherein a dummy oppnent just kind of sits there as you beat the crap out of him. It also, however, has what it has a "Trial" mode which is basically a much more sophisticated version of the basic training mode idea. With each character you try and pass five separate levels, in which you first try and execute the character's basic movies, and then move on to pulling off sophisticated combos. You unlock artwork doing this, so you feel like you're accomplishing something as you're learning. I thought this was a great addition, and I'm not sure why they felt the need to bury it in the Challenge Mode menu alongside the not at all related Time Attack and Survival Modes.

The game brings back most of the old mainstays of the Street Fighter series, and introduces some new ones as well. They range from Abel, a very serious looking mixed martial artist, to El Fuerte, a completely off the wall masked luchador character who, in his opening cutscene, explains that he aspires to become a chef and that he's joining the tournament to get recipies from the other fighters. Another new character, Rufus, as an obese, loudmouthed American (is it just me, or does it seem like there's some no too subtle social commentary about Americans in the Street Fighter games) is also supposed to be funny, but if you ask me, he's more annoying than anything else. Having read through some of the official strategy guide and elsewhere, it doesn't seem like any of the new characters are all that effective at a high level, but their move sets are often pretty unique (El Fuerte has one sprint that he goes into where he performs six different moves coming out of it based on the attack button that's pressed after its started) and should serve to keep the game fresh over a long period of time.

After Prince of Persia, I basically just wanted a game where I knew going in exactly what it was going to basically consist of. Street Fighter 4, indeed, sticks to the basic formula that its been doing for well over a decade now, but adds enough new elements and polishes up the look enough to justify it being on PS3 and X-Box 360. If you love tournament fighters, well, you probably already know about SF4, but if you don't, you should run out and pick it up.