Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360)
Everything old is new again, and that's just fine by me.
2/17/2009 8:44 PM | 28 Comments | Page 1 of 3
What's Hot: Perfectly balanced fighting action; Beautiful, expressive 3-D art; Online play system.
What's Not: New characters feel underpowered, except for Seth, who is a scourge against humanity.
Updating a fighting game series, especially a well-regarded one, is always a delicate proposition. Ideally, the game you're starting with is already a well-balanced rock-paper-scissors battle, where every character, move and tactic can be countered by someone skilled and/or quick enough. Adding new content onto this framework, as sequels must to stay fresh, could potentially topple the entire house of cards, making the original game unrecognizable to fans and inaccessible to newcomers.
I love the way the super meters bend with the rest of reality in this shot.
This is arguably what's happened to the Street Fighter series over the past 15 years. After achieving popularity with the seminal
Street Fighter II and perfecting the balance and roster with the still-popular
Super Street Fighter II Turbo (
SSF2T), a chain of reinventions erased most, if not all, of that familiar fighting system that the developers had worked so hard to achieve. Sure, there were a few memorable gameplay additions amongst the cavalcade of new characters, moves and mechanics introduced in the Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Ex, Capcom Vs. and Street Fighter III series, but all these new layers introduced unnecessary complexity and overly technical emphasis to the near-perfect balance of the original
SSF2T.
So we come to
Street Fighter IV, a game that adds to the heritage of the series by taking away most of these distracting layers and coming close to recapturing the nostalgic ideal of the old
SSF2T.
Part of this comes from basic familiarity. A full 15 of
Street Fighter IV's 25 selectable characters come directly from
SSF2T, most with nothing more than cosmetic changes. While expert-level players might notice some small differences, most will simply see the same familiar moves playing out with the same familiar animation patterns and executed with the same familiar controller motions as in
SSF2T (though you'll probably want to invest in some sort of arcade stick to pull off those moves -- the d-pad on the standard Xbox 360 controller is uniquely awful for pulling off most of the circular controller motions for special moves).
Same characters, new thickness...
Familiarity isn't a bad thing -- it's like slipping on a worn but comfortable pair of sneakers after spending years trying, and failing, to get used to tough patent leather. But it does beg the question: Why bother? Specifically, why did Capcom have to make a new game if all the best bits were already inherent in
SSF2T, a game that was recently ported to modern systems in a highly successful, downloadable
HD Remix?
Well, the obvious answer lies in the small -- but not insignificant -- parts that have been added to the formula, most notably the five new characters. Four of these are playable from the outset, and surprisingly none of them feel like simple retreads of the well-known existing Street Fighter archetypes. Sure, there are familiar elements -- Abel brings to mind Zangief's grapple-heavy style; El Fuerte's speed and jump-heavy tactics mimic Vega's; Rufus captures the over-the-top, self-aware, bombastic style of Dan -- but each new character has just enough tweaks and fresh abilities to create their own unique style. It's hard to know how these characters will fit into the established hierarchy of professional Street Fighter play, but players should have plenty of fun integrating the new strategies and tactics into their game plans.
