When you think about it, Capcom’s taken its damn sweet time bringing us Street Fighter 4. Took over two decades, in fact, since the original Street Fighter first troubled arcades. To put this in perspective, the Street Fighter series, which was the first to integrate complex joystick and button inputs into a fighting game’s mechanics, has been eclipsed in raw numbers by relative newcomers like Virtua Fighter (five, not including the Evos and Tournament Battles), Tekken (six so far), and King of Fighters (I’ve lost track of how many there have been). And, lest we forget, it’s been 10 years since the last Street Fighter (SFIII: Third Strike) hit arcades. Ironically, this is the Street Fighter revival that Street Fighter III should have been. Not that there was anything wrong with SFIII — quite the opposite. SFIII still stands up today as one of the greatest technical 2D fighters of all time, with still-impressive levels of animation, a flexible parry-based fighting system that separates it from me-too fighters like Guilty Gear, and one of the best soundtracks to ever grace a fighting game. Period. Where SFIII fumbled was in how drastically it veered off course from the groundwork laid by its countless predecessors. Of course, that’s what made it a true sequel, rather than just SFII Hyper Jungle Mix, but something was lost in the leap from II to III. The parry system, while much loved, made SFIII more of a defensive fighting game than Capcom had intended, as opposed to the all-out fireballin’ brawls of the II-era games. Now, with that decade-long break from the fighting game scene, Capcom (and co-developer DIMPS) return with a refreshed Street Fighter that will have old-school fans reaching for their fighting sticks.
The first and most critical part of this reboot is the return of fan favorite (read: Street Fighter II) characters like Guile, E. Honda, Blanka, and Cammy, all of whom were absent from the SFIII series. If any cast of characters outside of Nintendo’s first-party stable could be viewed as the “comfort food” of gaming, it would have to be the Street Fighter II stable, who have had countless anime, manga, movies and spin-offs devoted to them. Not included in SF4 are any of the fighters from the Street Fighter EX games (sorry, Skullomania fans) — Capcom’s first excursion into 3D. Those characters are owned by Arika, which is noteworthy only because Street Fighter’s fourth iteration arrives in three gorgeous dimensions. Purists would have loved to have seen what Capcom would have done with a high-res 2D brawler stocked with thousands of frames of beautiful 2D animation, if only to steal back some of the thunder that the Guilty Gear series took with its hi-res fighters (or to see how it stacked up next to SNK’s upcoming King of Fighters XII). But while SF4’s graphics may be rendered in polygons, the fighting takes place on a strictly 2D plane.
The 3D approach provides a couple of immediate benefits. The first is that everything looks amazing. Every character flexes and animates with a level of detail that would have been virtually impossible in 2D. The smoke trails, the painterly “splatter” effects that’s a signature effect in SF4, the close-ups that precede Super moves, the screen-filling fireball Ultras, the beautifully detailed and animated 3D backdrops, and even the jaw-dropping cinematics, are only possible in 3D. The second, and likely more important advantage to the 3D approach, is the accuracy of the hit-detection. Despite the fluidity of the graphics, you can still see the “frames” in the animation, which basically makes this 3D fighter feel 2D. This subtle meshing of technologies lends SF4 to some truly wonderful versus play. Two live opponents with two joysticks suddenly transform into a pair of World Warriors on screen, with the game transcending petty arguments of “2D vs. 3D.” This is a game we’ve been waiting a decade to play, a game that almost never got made, and has it been worth it? Has it ever.
The key of course is how the game plays. With only one default speed setting, SF4’s pacing would best be described as “fast.” Not super, ultra, or turbo-fast, but still plenty fast, and to be honest, pretty optimal considering Capcom wants newcomers to be able to enjoy what’s on offer here without being too intimidated at playing with veterans. This will be, after all, many gamers’ first experience with the Street Fighter series. But whether you’re a veteran or a newcomer to SF4, you’ll find the combat fast and furious, egging you on to play “one more match.” That’s because the game is designed with the notion that “the best defense is a strong offense.” If you want to spend your matches turtling or parrying until you find an opening with which to exploit and punish your opponent, well, Street Fighter III already exists in many flavors for the taking. SF4 favors a more aggressive pugilistic approach, but that doesn’t mean it lacks for strategic options. Gone is the parry system, and in is the Revenge gauge, which, in tandem with the Combo meter, EX gauge, and Ultra moves, offers players everything from high-risk/high-reward opportunities, to almost Guilty Gear-esque comebacks. Do you spend your gauge on punishing gain-the-upper-hand-now Super attacks (which are painful to watch when your opponent dodges them), or do you save them for an end of match come-from-behind victory? Naturally, it’s up to the player to decide, but SF4 doesn’t want for options. Nor does it lack in variety, with familiar charge-up fighters like Guile, to the classic fireball/dragon punch/hurricane kick yin-yang of characters like Ken and Ryu, to high-impact/low-dexterity grapplers like Zangief (and their low-impact, but highly mobile counterparts like Vega) available to satisfy all stylistic preferences. New fighters, like C. Viper, El Fuerte, and Rufus all prove worthwhile additions to the canon, despite some of their outward, me-too appearances (the fighting genre didn’t really need another luchador-style fighter, but El Fuerte is formidable nonetheless).
The thing that really makes SF4 special is its overall polish and finesse in almost every category. From small things like the art direction (match ending lettering, menu system, etc.) to the ability to tweak online matchmaking to suit your skill level, SF4 is clearly a labor of love. The character art is fantastic and the 3D renditions of the original 2D art are impressive, making each character a thrill to view in action. The more you play, the more icons you unlock for your custom profile, which may take a few cues from Virtua Fighter 5’s recent advancements in the realm of personalized profiles, but is rewarding nevertheless. SF4 also features a considerable amount of stat tracking, keeping tabs on your time played, win/loss ratio, character preference, medal list, leaderboard rankings and winning streaks. Online play is included, and while we haven’t had the chance to test it out in the myriad conditions one might experience on either Xbox Live or PSN, with DSL vs. cable vs. T1 and the like, playing over a private network was as smooth as could be expected. But expect your own experience to vary as with any online game, with things like peak hours adversely affecting your latency. Since fighting games rely more on pinpoint precision and timing than nearly any other type of game, you should probably avoid any intercontinental matchmaking. One nice and very arcade-like feature is the ability to accept versus challenges from other players on the network even while you’re playing in Arcade Mode (which is the game’s default story mode). Not everyone will recall the thrill of playing Street Fighter II in the arcade, only to have a rival put some quarters on top of the marquee to challenge your skills, but for those who do, this is about the closest comparable sensation to that. You can, of course, turn this option off if you’d rather play unaccosted, as well as adjust search priority according to stability of connection, skill level, and even language preference.
Not everything is perfect in SF4, although the transgressions are minor. The lamest part of the game arrives in the hand-drawn pre- and post-game cut-scenes which are, in the best of cases, merely bland. Remember in Tekken 3, which had those really cool CG and hand-drawn ending cinemas for each character — the hand-drawn ones which were of particularly high quality? Yeah, these aren’t like that. The anime cut-scenes in SF4 are so at odds with the gorgeous 3D cinematics that grace every other part of the game (the opening movie is truly a high-def showcase piece of work) that you’ll immediately wonder why Capcom didn’t use the game engine to tell the game’s stories. The worst of the hand-drawn cinemas are just plain bad, similar to the cheap, low budget, nearly motionless junk that floods the anime DVD market today. Another mild drawback is that while the backgrounds are indeed beautiful, and many are homages to classic Street Fighter II backdrops, none are the real deal. Sure, Drive-in at Night, Crowded Downtown, Pitch-black Jungle, Deserted Temple, Cruise Ship Stern, and Small Airfield are nice enough, but anyone longing for E. Honda’s onsen hot spring will be left wanting. Maybe Capcom has this planned as downloadable content, but for the moment those classic SFII settings are on our wishlist. So too is a save-a-match mode which could have been used to capture and upload those hardcore, tournament level matches you know this game is going to inspire. Sure people with a video capture set-up can still grab footage and post it on Youtube, but it would have been nice to have seen a feature like this built in to the game. If Halo 3 can do it, then surely Street Fighter 4 could do it.
These are minor quibbles, though, and shouldn’t hold anyone back from an immediate purchase. Any differences between the PS3 and Xbox 360 version are negligible, as well, with the only advantage being the PS3’s more flexible D-pad versus the stiffer 360 counterpart. That shouldn’t really be a factor though, as players really looking to derive the maximum arcade-y enjoyment from this game should be using one of the many arcade joysticks available for either system. In case you’re wondering, yes, the Mad Catz stick really is that good, and a great value considering how much import sticks usually cost. They’re heavy and worth the investment (import sticks usually cost over twice as much) as they’ll last you quite a long time. Plus they look really great too. The specialized Mad Catz controllers are also pretty good, arranging the buttons in the classic Sega Saturn pad formation. I have doubts as to how long the controllers, specifically, will hold up under long-term abuse, but fresh out of the box they’re quite responsive needing little break-in time before they’re ready for heavy-duty combat. Of course, if you already have a time-tested Hori Real Arcade Pro stick, or any of the large number of other, high-quality joystick options for 360 or PS3, there’s no need to add another stick to the pile.
In my opinion Capcom and DIMPS have done an amazing job with Street Fighter 4. It’s obvious from front to back that the people working on this game knew the legacy they were contending with, and found the guts to finish this project with conviction. This is no mere copycat; this is a proud new addition. It’s a bold, confident fighter that celebrates its heritage while bringing fresh, new ideas to the table, arriving in a remarkably complete package that — if this were the last Street Fighter to ever be created — earns its rightful place in the series’ canon. It’ll be great to see the tournament-quality matches that arise from this fourth iteration (as well as the crazy exploits that only the best players can discover), and the future innovations it will awaken in Capcom. In all, it’s a fine return to form from the masters of the genre.
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