Street Fighter IV Hands-on Preview

First off we visited Capcom’s UK HQ to dust off our Sonic Booms and Flash Kicks and dip our trembling toes for the first time into Street Fighter 4. Then we travelled thousands of miles, to Los Angeles, California, to play Street Fighter legend Seth Killian at his own game, getting the low down on the four brand new characters in the process. Then, still wrecked by jet lag, we queued up, sometimes for half an hour at a time, to get our Hadouken-ing hands-on the finished Japanese arcade version at the recent Battle of Destiny tournament in a sweaty London university student bar. And, now, finally, having played it to death, we’re ready to bring you our impressions of what could be the best fighting game ever made.

The question ‘is Street Fighter IV good?’ is a pointless one. Of course it’s good. It’s bloody great. It’s great if you played Street Fighter II back in the day and haven’t touched a fighting game since. It’s great if you mastered the parry system from Street Fighter III and occasionally dabble in tournaments across the UK. And it’s great if you just love fighting games, because, well, nothing does 2D fighting quite like the guys and girls at Capcom.

So, with the question ‘is Street Fighter IV good?’ firmly Dragon Punched into oblivion, we come to the really interesting question – ‘just how good is it?’. This is a somewhat harder question to answer.

We asked around at Battle of Destiny, the European leg of the global Evolution fighting game tournament, to see what fighting game fanatics thought. Some said it was too slow. Some said it was too similar to the original Street Fighter II. Some said the new characters weren’t interesting enough. And some even said they didn’t like the art style. But everyone we spoke to queued up to play it and, once they were beaten, immediately rejoined the queue to have another go, as if it was the latest heart-thumping roller coaster ride at Alton Towers.

The point we’re making is that for many fighting fans Street Fighter is much more than a mere video game. It forms a part of who they are. Each has his or her own personal memory – whether it be of pumping 20p pieces into dingy funfair arcades or of trying to make sense of the Japanese manual having imported it for the SNES. This is a game we all love, and we all love in our own special way. And if anything about the fist proper Street Fighter sequel in a decade rubs us the wrong way, we won’t be afraid to moan about it.

Take the new art style, for example. When the first screen shots hit the web there were just as many people moaning about it as there were people falling over themselves in excitement. Then there’s the perceived 2.5D game engine – a point of concern for all those who wanted a pure 2D experience. Well fear not – if you haven’t already seen the game in motion, let us be the first to tell you – the game is animated in 3D but plays in classic 2D, and screen shots are meaningless. In motion, and in feel, Street Fighter IV an absolute work of art.

The 3D cel-shaded characters and environments give everything a wonderfully emotive, hand-drawn look. The Ultra Combos, the most devastating moves in the game, and some of the most spectacular moves we’ve ever seen in a fighting game full stop, show the game’s new look off best. Take spiky-haired US marine Guile for example. His Flash Explosion (charge down back, forward, down back, up forward and all three kicks) sees the camera zoom in for a more cinematic angle as he crouches, builds up energy and then pounces in a flurry of kicks. But it’s not Guile who’ll you’ll be looking at as you connect, it’s your unfortunate opponent. The facial expressions in Street Fighter IV need to be seen to be believed – eyes pop, mouths open, faces contort and spines curl. It’s fluid, 60 frames per second graphical greatness.

That mysterious ink effect we all got excited about after the first Ryu versus Ken teaser trailer was released also makes an appearance in the form of the new Focus attack. By pressing middle punch and middle kick your character will perform a one-hit attack, spewing forth shadowy ink, and absorb a hit at the same time. The Focus attack effect changes depending on how long you hold the buttons down. Tap and you’ll do a reflex attack, hold a little longer and it will stun, allowing you to follow up with an Ultra Combo, if your Revenge Gauge is at least half full (more on that later), or charge to the max for an unblockable attack.

The Focus attack gets interesting once you realise you can cancel from it and into it. So, for example, Ryu can perform his traditional Hadouken fireball (quarter circle forward and punch) and cancel it with the Focus, cutting the special move animation short. Or he can perform a Focus then dash (double tap left or right) out of it before the animation finishes, opening up some cool combo and escape opportunities.

Yes, Street Fighter IV feels a lot like Street Fighter II, especially during the first hour or so of play. Many classic combos and strategies still work, and fights can often feel like a blast from the past when playing against fellow lapsed Street Fighter II players. There’s the now standard Super Combo meter, which enables players to perform Super Combos (now simplified, like in the upcoming HD Remix of SSFIIT), as well as Ex Special Moves (press two buttons simultaneously when you do a Special Move for a more powerful version). In fact, some might say that Street Fighter IV is poorly named – it might be better described as Street Fighter Refined, a coming together of all the best bits from the Street Fighter games down the years rather than a true revolution in gameplay.

We’d go along with this assessment, but qualify it by saying the new Focus attacks do mix things up. It’s intended to reduce the reliance on jumping in – a strategy that has been a corner stone of the Street Fighter series from the very beginning – and make ground attacks more viable in Street Fighter IV. It works, too. Dashing in and out of Focus attacks keeps your opponent on their toes, and stunning then following up with an Ultra Combo to finish your opponent is hugely satisfying.

The Ultra Combos are governed by the new Revenge Gauge, which can only be built up by taking hits. Once it’s at least half full (the attack power of the Ultra Combo is determined by the amount of energy in your Revenge Gauge) you’ll be able to unleash on your opponent. The Ultra Combos are designed to be one off finishers, used sparingly by players as round enders. But they can actually be strung onto the end of combos, if you’re good enough, and are quite possibly the best bit about the whole game.

You can get a much more detailed run down of the four confirmed new characters in video form here, with voice over from Seth Killian himself. What we will say here is that they are completely different to what’s gone before, at least in terms of the Street Fighter series, and that’s a good thing, because we’re bored to tears by endless derivative Ryu knock-offs. American special agent and single mother Crimson Viper (she complains about being late for her daughter in her win quotes) has a dirty Burning Kick (quarter circle back and kick) that can hit behind your opponent when performed in the air. Abel, a Frenchman with no past, is a sort of mix between Fei Long (from Super Street Fighter II) and Russian monster Zangief. Rufus, a fat, Jack Black-esque character with mesmerising belly physics, has great anti-air potential and can absorb fireballs, and opponents, with the Ex version of the Galactic Tornado (quarter circle forward and punch). And El Fuerte, a luchador in the lucha libre style of Mexican wrestling, isn’t quite as refreshing as the other new characters (there’s a Mexican wrestler in every fighting game these days) but has great top tier potential.

So, we return to the burning question – just how good is Street Fighter IV? Is our enthusiasm for the game blinded by nostalgia goggles? Are we ignoring the fact that, actually, in terms of fighting game innovation, Street Fighter IV is a little shy? No. We’re not ignoring it. We’re accepting it, and we still think it’s bloody great. We want to feel 12 years old again. We want new Street Fighter characters to learn. We want Guile to be overpowered, Ryu to Hadouken and Ken to Dragon Punch with those flaming fists of his. We want all of this in 60FPS ‘next-gen’ glory not because it’s particularly new, but because it never gets old.

Could Street Fighter IV be the best Street Fighter game ever released? That certainly would be something, wouldn’t it? The answer to that question, the most important of all, is going to have to wait. Until then, feel safe in the knowledge that this game will be a positive addition to the greatest fighting game series known to man. That, surely, makes the wait worthwhile.

Street Fighter IV is out in Japanese arcades now. The Xbox 360, PS3 and PC versions are TBC.