The year was 1991. The Soviet Union has fallen, the first Gulf war was over..ish and the Super Nintendo was born. It truly was the best of times. This was also the year that the golden age of fighting games began. Street fighter 2 hit the arcade scene, and boys and girls (mostly boys -ed) lined up with a pocket full of quarters and fire in their eyes.

Now fast forward to the year 2008, the arcade is all but dead, fighting games outside of Japan moved to consoles, and without large groups of kids to battle each other, games like street fighter live on only within a small group of hearty souls who dream of the 90’s. Enter Street fighter 4. Bowling allies and small near-lifeless arcades take a risk and began to import a Japanese only arcade cabinet, and like a scene from Field of Dreams, if you bring it they will come; and come they did. The heart of the fighting game community beats again.

Can Street Fighter 4 live up to the hype? Now it has come to consoles, and I have taken some time to look at the 360 version.

Story

As with many fighting games the plot is thin at best, and often not very clear. But is any story really necessary? For those that do care, SF4 is set soon after SF2, and is supposed to be the prequel to SS3. If you start the arcade mode you begin with an anime short, giving your world warriors reasons for entering the tournament. This time, after playing through, rather then giving you the same set of mid level bosses you are now pit against your rival (which is difernent depending on which character you choose). After which you face Shadow Law’s newest creation Seth.

Characters

The original 12 from SF2 have returned along with Cami and Felong from SSF2 and 4 world warriors from the Alpha series, along with Akuma, who started in SSF2T as a hidden character. Joining them are new fighters: C. Viper, Abel, El Fuerte, and Rufus. Ryu and Ken’s master, Gouken, finally joins the cast as the new hidden character (Note: he has been hinted at for years after the video game magazine, GamePro, printed an April fools day joke saying that he was unlockable in SSF2). The new boss Seth (named after Seth Killian the Community Manager at Capcom), rounds out a respectable 25 choices. You may be wondering like the rest of the world, why the name Seth? Why not name him Killian? Oh well who knows?

The new flavor of the SF4 fighters, does take some getting used to, especially Rufus, who is a morbidly obese kung-fu practitioner from the US. Most have warmed up to him after some use. He is a very fast close combat specialist and sits near the top of most tiers. Seth takes some getting used too as well. When controlled by the computer he is nearly impossible to beat on any setting, and also sits very high with human players as well. As for the strangeness of each, it really is par for the course as far as Capcom is concerned. Look at the full cast of SF3 or, for that matter look at Blanka, a green mutant with electric powers from the jungles of Brazil. And Dhalsim, a fire breathing Indian whom can stretch his limbs ten times their normal length. Compared to that is an over-weight American really that hard to swallow?

Capcom has yet again made sure that cast is very balanced, though everyone has their favorite. Any one choice is quite fair against any other.

Control

SSF 4’s new fight system has a lot to offer. Gone are the parries from SF3. They have been replaced with the focus attack. By holding down medium punch and kick, you can charge up your attack. While doing so your fighter is surrounded by clouds of ink spots, and the world warrior is totally vulnerable. After releasing, you are afforded a “free hit”. At low levels, the focus attack will very briefly stun your opponent, and at top levels you will knock them down. If you are only hit once, your health will drop for a few moments leaving a shaded part of the bar that will refill. If you are hit more than once while your health is recharging, your life will cease to refill. It makes for great new strategies, and if timed right one can even focus right through projectiles.

Also new to SS4 is the ultra attack. While the super combos from SS2T remain, ultras work on a different system. The new gauge at the bottom of the screen called the “revenge gauge”, fills up when the fighter is hit rather then when they attack. The ultra for most characters is performed in much the same way as the super combos: basically executing the D-pad part of the move twice or some other more complicated then normal motion that requires you to hit all three punch or kick buttons. This allows for big come backs as most ultras will take almost half of your rival’s life if landed.

SF4’s input requirements have been made much more forgiving, allowing for either faster or slower timing to execute special moves. This makes the game much more accessible for beginners. It should still be noted that the 360’s D-pad is terrible for fighters. So if you don’t have a joystick, the analog stick is your only viable option. Take my word for it, you really still need the joystick.

Graphics and Sound

Love it or hate it, Capcom has chosen to keep the main vain of Street Fighter 2D, but have updated it with 3D cell-shaded graphics. The backgrounds have taken a cue from Tekken, the colors have gone darker, and have small interactive elements. The classic characters have grown up a little (well most of them) and seem to have spent a lot of time in the gym buffing up significantly. It should also be pointed out that not everyone has universally accepted the new visuals, see our own staff member Dan’s take on them here. As for the 2D battles during super combos and ultras, the view pans around your fighter in a brilliant display. As stated before not all of the world warriors have grown up; even though SF4 is set few years after SF2, Sakura seems not to have aged a day (great face cream I would bet). All-in-all superior graphics.

The sound is not too bad, my only real issues are with some of the English voice acting. The opening theme is the other problem. It is very catchy, but it plays every time you end up in the menu, which if you are playing multiplayer is a lot! So it gets old quick.

New Modes

While getting too in-depth with the new modes would make for a much longer review, I would like to point out some of the highs that SF4 has to offer. One of the big ones is the new VS mode option. Now one can choose to play against a human or CPU opponent, with the option to totally tweak the CPU’s fighter by choosing it’s character, difficulty, and even it’s handicap. Also if you really want to, you can just watch two CPU fighters go at it for a round or two.

In the challenge modes, you are tasked with “easy” and hard missions. I say “easy” because even those, require a very high level of skill to complete. They are well worth your time though. The challenge modes were designed by some the world’s top fighting game champions as the fundamentals of top competitive play. One of the other great new features is in the option mode. After beating the arcade mode one time, you can toggle between Japanese and English voice actors for each fighter. This makes Akuma much cooler sounding, because he really just does not translate well into English.

Multiplayer

What most fighting game fans long for is the ability to play with an other human being, and for a very long time the genre seemed to be waning, because if you run out of people to play, the game finds it‘s was back to the shelf. Well fear not fighting fanatics, with this game you will not be without the ability to find a flesh and blood opponent for quite some time. As with HDr the world seems to have gotten very good at this game, and it can be very frustrating for noobs (or even old dogs like myself). SF4 has a great basic multiplayer, with ability to just have a quick random game for fun, or if you so choose a ranked match that can earn Battle Points. Battle Points have no real in-game benefit other then bragging rights, but who doesn’t want to see how they stack up to the rest of the world? This has also created one the biggest problems in the game though. If during a match you are losing you can just open your disk tray or pull your internet connection and you will be dropped from the match. As of right now there is no penalty for doing this, the game scores you as if you never started the match in the first place. This has come to be called rage quitting. It has become such a problem that players have taken matters in there own hands and started this web site.

SF4 has some great new options. You can set the game to look for matches based on connection, similar skill level, or if you are trying to improve you can set it to look for player with a higher skill level then you (this is all based on your Battle Points). One other thing worth noting is the option to set the game to look for certain match types, and while you are playing the single player, if that match type comes up you will be thrown into a online VS match, and afterwards you are returned to the arcade mode.

The one big thing that is missing is a tournament mode. This feature was included in Hdr but is sadly missing from SS4.

With great graphics, superb game play, and online multiplayer Street Fighter 4 has done well to insure that Capcom will remain the leader in fighting games, and is well worth the buy. There has also been confirmed news of a free update called Championship Edition that will be available for download on XBL and PSN very soon, though they have not yet confirmed what it will entail, so check back for updates on that. I have to say that this is the best Street Fighter yet.