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Street Fighter IV - Perfection Has Arrived

Posted by Kishiro in Video Games March 03, 2009 at 12:52:25 AM

If you haven’t played Street Fighter IV yet, you have probably been living under a rock, with no kind of contact with the outside world, or you just don’t really care for fighting games.
However, no matter what your excuse is, you are reading this article now, so you need to click this link, watch the video, and then come back. Don’t worry, I’ll wait. Go ahead.
Street Fighter IV Opening

You loved it, every second of it. Don’t be afraid to admit it. Even if you don’t or won’t play the game, you can’t say it doesn’t look fantastic. You can’t say that it doesn’t work.

Street Fighter IV is a masterpiece of video gaming in every sense of the word. It is the combined work of every version of Street Fighter II rolled in to one, polished, shined, put in to 3D, with a revamped and supped up move system that keeps you coming back for more.

Taking place in the timeline between the events of Street Fighter II and III, Street Fighter IV sets our fighters together in yet another world tournament, after the supposed fall of Shadaloo and defeat of M. Bison. Yes I know, it’s out of order so far as the numbers go, tough. How many people actually follow the story of Street Fighter anyway? I can’t think of too many people beside myself and some other very cool nerds that I have met that are surprisingly knowledgeable about the storyline.

Anyhow, the game plays magnificently. Long time players of the Street Fighter series will recognize the button setups and configurations quickly, and know that they can program the buttons to their liking and play style. Newcomers will be able to easily pick up the controls and get a quick feel for it. Let’s be honest, the moves never change, they just add new ones, and more effective ways to use them. This installation is no different.

The Parrying System from Street Fighter III’s Double Impact and Third Strike games is out the window, and the Focus System is in. Focus Attacks, Focus Cancel, and Armored Attacks are just some of the new terminology you’ll be hearing when people talk about this game, and do more than use the same moves they’ve been using since Street Fighter II Championship Edition got in to our hands. Focus Attacks let you break through your opponent’s moves, even special moves like the Hadouken or Shoryuken for example. So for all of you that have for so long dreaded the unstoppable force of Chun-Li’s blinding Lightning Kicks while trapped in the corner of a stage, fear not any longer! A well timed or placed Focus Attack can break through that cheap tactic and crumple our blue dress wearing Chinese heroine, leaving her vulnerable to attack. Oh sweet revenge.

It will take you some time to master the new Focus System. It is quite powerful and effective, and can even leave what used to be the most seasoned of Street Fighter players in a debilitated state if they don’t know how to deal with it. It adds a whole new dimension to the fighting, and I’ll tell you right now—if you fight someone who knows how to use it, and you don’t you WILL lose. You will lose quickly, and you will be embarrassed. Your only saving grace is that you are not forfeiting quarter after quarter until you realize you’ve spent twenty bucks on a game in one day’s worth of time just to have everyone see you get served eighty times, only to return and try again with youthful exuberance, pride and hope to do better the next day.
Those were the days.
Now you can spend $59.99 plus tax and play against your friends at home, and complete strangers online to your heart’s content, and no one will ever have to know your are the persistent, brave hearted, determined person with a losing streak of 107, with a grand total of 14 wins under your belt.
Speaking of online play, you should know that unless you turn it off, there is a feature on by default that let’s people challenge you to a match while you play in Arcade/Story mode. Yes, they’ve turned your console in to a virtual arcade machine. Anyone online looking for a match can challenge you while you are playing the actual single player game. Now, you can turn this off very simply by editing your online play options, but I have to say I was quite surprised the first time it happened, and I would say to keep it turned off until you unlock all the characters.

This game is rendered in 3D, but plays purely in 2D. Much like Super Smash Brothers. Street Fighter IV makes uses of cell shading at the very finest level a video game can—I feel like it is the best use of the texturing style since Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Although I can’t say that the Naruto and DragonBall Z fighting games haven’t done a great job of using this style too, Street Fighter IV just took it to a whole new level that is above them all. The animations are perfect and crisp, the actions fluid and timely. There is no reason to not love this game if you play fighting games, it is without a doubt perfect to me in all ways a fighting game can be.

How you play the game is up to you. The controller setup, what kind of controller you use, typewriter style or standard position, all of these factors can make all the difference in the world in your performance, so find out what works best for you. I encourage you to play with every character in the training mode at least once, for at least 5 to 10 minutes, and get a feel with them. Beat the game with each of them at least once, and then find who you are really good with, then take your game to your nearest rival’s living room or gaming den, and wipe your feet on their face like Chun-Li did to Vega.

--Kishiro

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