Let’s face a very simple fact: you cannot reinvent the wheel – but you can make that sumbitch run a hell of a lot faster and smoother so that onlookers go “ooooooooooooooh.” Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to start your engines on the supercharged 2010 Street Fighter IV model. I have only had the game for a day and I played until the Grim Reaper was trying to take the controller from me so I am not going to do a full review—besides, at heart, if you have the original release then you know the basics of this game. I am going to focus on what is new and what’s good and bad.
The bad: The price, that is about it really. The game is $40 for tweaks to what you have already paid $60 for. While I hate the price, I still say anyone who is an SF fan needs this title.
The good: previous owners are rewarded – you get two of the texture skins automatically for having an SFIV save on your console. You also automatically get any and all alternate costumes that you have already paid for. While this would have been inexcusable otherwise, kudos to Capcom for not messing that up.
alternate costumes are crazier than ever – while this has been another gripe of mine that alt. costumes are a nickel and dime way of squeezing more cash outta this cow, I have to admit that using them is just well, fun. I could not possibly
be against having a “Saikyo” Blanka or a “Jungle” Dan.
Enough of the flash, let’s get down to what the game is all about – the fighting. The new tournament modes with 8 player lobbies are coming by June supposedly and when they do, people are going to need to be more on their toes than ever. Every player has two ultras now and you choose which you will use before the match. It kind of sucks that the ultra gauge tells you which move your opponent chose by assigning a Roman numeral (I or II), but it’s the new ultras that people need to be concerned with. you have standard attacks like Ryu’s Metsu Shoryuken, which makes the old school Shin Shoryuken look like a love tap (you can hear the jaw breaking!)
And then we have a new style that I like to call “reactive Ultras.” These are the ones that you really have to worry about because even the best players may be setting themselves up for destruction. Remember Dudley’s Cross Counter (which is back)?
Cross Counter on crack – Cammy takes the hit and proceeds to go all GSP on a fool. One of the new characters, Hakan, has a similar ultra which is extremely nasty.
The game now sports 35 characters total but only two of them are truly new to the franchise – Juri and Hakan. Hakan is an oil wrestler and Juri is…well, Juri is just a horribly evil bitch with some of the sickest moves I have ever seen. Her ultra is just painful and embarassing while Hakan’s ultras you don’t wanna get hit with because they just look wrong.
Ouch!
As you can see, by “disgusting,” I meant DISGUSTING. Ugh, the sound it makes.
By the way, Seth is still cheesy as hell and his new Ultra has a huge gaping hole for exploitation. Super Street Fighter IV officially drops this Tuesday, April 28th for the XBox 360 and Playstation 3 for $39.99. It is not to be missed, even if you already own the original SFIV.
