Street Fighter IV continues the franchise by bringing back the fan favorite characters and the basic 2D fighting feel from previous games. Will it carry on the legacy of Street Fighter or disappoint?
Thumbs up: Solid controls, diverse cast of characters, solid online play, many unlockables, difficulty options
Thumbs down: Unlocking characters, PS3 load times without installation, 2-player online lobbies.
Eh…: Animated cutscenes, graphics, music.
Street Fighter IV has 3D characters on a 2D plane. The characters look like clay figures at first, but the art will grow on you after playing it consistently.
The opening theme may not be suited for the American crowd because it is Japanese pop and it does sound a little flamboyant. The background music sounds generic but it blends in with the game’s “back-to-basics” feel.
The 2D animated cutscenes are an unnecessary addition to the game. The main attraction of the game is to spar with people, not a random storyline. The quality of the animation is sub par to modern cartoons.
The controls of the game are solid. The game’s input direction is lenient. Special moves, supers, and ultras can be executed at will with the PS3 directional pad or the Xbox 360 analog stick as long as the player performs the right motion. It’s highly recommended to get an arcade stick to play this game for a better experience because it allows faster command inputs.
The cast of characters include people from Street Fighter II, Super Street Fighter II, Street Fighter Alpha/Zero, and four newcomers (five including the boss character Seth). Everybody feels different so there’s bound to be a character that suits your play style. All characters have the tools they need to win, however some characters have better risk/reward options to clinch the match.
Before jumping into multiplayer, there are things you can do in the single player aspect. Beating arcade mode with different characters unlock console and boss characters. One can adjust the game’s difficulty from Easiest to Hardest to suit their level of play. Challenge Mode allow players to unlock colors, taunts (personal actions), and titles and icons for their online status. After unlocking everything, one can obtain the trophies/achievements if they’re looking for more single player content.
Unlocking characters is an annoyance. There may be a fighter that piques your interest, but it’s a hindrance to find out that he/she isn’t part of the starting roster.
Another petpeeve is the loading times for the PS3 when Street Fighter IV isn’t installed. It takes quite a while and the installation is located in an inconvenient area (Options -> System Settings). It would have been a wise option to ask the player to install SF4 while starting the game up. After installing the game, the loading times are almost as fast as the arcade version. The 360 version has fast load times on disk and on hard drive.
The online play for Street Fighter IV doesn’t disappoint. There are signal bars that represent the connectivity between you and the other player before you start the match. Even if there are no bars, the game runs smooth. If you’re playing people overseas, there may be some latency. There are only two-player lobbies, no 2-6 player rooms.
Overall, Street Fighter IV is fun and worthwhile. There are things to unlock and people to challenge. Adjustable difficulties can match a player’s skill level. The game moves and feels great. It has one of the best netcode for a 2D Fighter. The game doesn’t disappoint and should live on quite a while.
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I personally like unlocking charcters in any fighting game. For me, it gives the game more depth and more play time. I like be rewarded for an action I do in the game, like a trophy but an actual chacacter. If you had all charcters right off the bat, yeah it would be nice, but I feel it would get boring and ask myself “Ok I have the characters, what do I do know?” Basically makes the game last longer. Although I do see your point of view on that, becuase when it comes down it, duh, we would all love to have all the charcters!
As far as the storyline, yeah I agree with you on the mediocoreness of it, but who really looks for storyline in any fighting game. No depth of story in fighting games. Fighting game genre isn’t for the story, we all know that. So guys, if your looking for story, sorry this will dissappoint.
Other than that, the game is fun and part of the fun for me practicing and just becoming better. To touch on the unlocking again, I feel the game evolves more than a time passer to active playing to “Ok, I have to get on play the arcade and achieve the requirements and get a new character and train with him/her.”
The point is, overall the game yeah, is definitely fun and will be enjoyed!
Hadoken!
-Havoc
I didn’t find that big of a problem with the load times in the PS3 version of the game but, whatever… In any case, I found the review to cover almost every aspect of the game, well done. Looking foward to Super Street Fighter 4!
(P.S. I’m still trying to find a way to defeat all the Sagat spammers online)