Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Mike Escobar

If you peer back through the mists of time to an arcade circa 1984, you can witness the earliest days of the videogame fighting genre with such classics as Karate Champ and Yie Ar Kung-Fu.  Just a few years later 1987 saw the premiere of Street Fighter, and fighting games changed forever.  So many things that we take for granted today were first seen in the original Street Fighter.  The concept of having different characters to fight with, each with his own abilities, strengths, and weaknesses.  Having a unique storyline and ending for each of the fighters.  Special moves, hidden characters, the list goes on and on.

Well the granddaddy of all fighting games has returned, and it’s phenomenal!

We haven’t seen a truly new version of this franchise since Street Fighter Alpha 3 came out back in 1999, but once you’ve played Street Fighter IV (SF4) I’m sure you’ll agree that this version was well worth the wait.  With the exception of a few gimmicks, most fighting games have used the Street Fighter formula and added only a tweak here or there to differentiate themselves.  While Capcom might not have broken any new ground with this title, they have made sure that everything looks and works beautifully.

Ever since Capcom released the first SF4 trailer, there’s been a ton of excitement and anticipation in the gaming community about how great the game was looking.  While we didn’t end up seeing the stylized, waterbrushed look in gameplay that we saw in all the trailers, we have been treated to an ultra-crisp, HD palette of colors to enjoy.  At first glance the gameplay arenas may not seem like anything special, but when you finally manage to tear your eyes away from the fighting, you’ll realize that just as much time and effort were put into the game environments as they were on the playable characters.  The little touches are what add up to such a great experience.  Whether it’s the appearance of Balrog cheering at the fight from the doorway of the military plane on the airfield level, or seeing the crocodile surface in the water behind the bridge on the jungle level, it’s these details you’ll continue to notice as you make your way through the game.

With the exception of Chun Li’s disturbingly large man-hands, all the players look fantastic, each exaggerated in the usual anime fashion.  The four new fighters that have been added (El Fuerte, Crimson Viper, Abel, and Rufus) each have their own play style and are a nice addition to the already varied roster of characters to choose from.  All of the fighter’s motions are smooth and natural, giving just the right “feel” when you’re watching them.  The Special and Ultra moves look incredible, with the camera zooming in and rotating around when you execute them.  Nothing is quite as intimidating as staring down the barrel of Ryu’s Metsu Hadoken and realizing that this is really going to hurt…

Every character’s prologue and ending movies are rendered in a 1980’s style short cartoon that sets up that person’s story.  The real bonuses here are the characters’ ending movies.  Done in the same style as the prologues, each of the endings reveals a little bit more of the overall storyline.  Depending on what order you complete arcade mode for each fighter can have these movies making a lot of sense or just leave you scratching your head until you finish with another fighter that helps fill in the blanks.  In arcade mode, the last fight before the boss is your “rival” fight and has a small intro rendered using the in-game engine that explains a little of the animosity you have for the rival you are about to face.  Some are quite amusing, such as Rufus asking Dhalsim if he’s an alien, sparking the inevitable confrontation.

The voice acting for all of the characters is solid throughout the game, with plenty of variety in everyone’s speech.  From Ryu’s earnestness to Abel’s angst, all the voices are believable for each character.  The attention to detail even affects each character’s cries when they lose a round.  Some of the more entertaining ones are Dhalsim crying out “yogaaaaa!” and Balrog yelling “my prize money!” when they’re defeated.

The environmental sounds are well done for each of the levels, with the cacophony of sounds of the jungle at night as faithfully reproduced as the crowd noise of the fight taking place on the stern of a ship.  The music is also solid, with a jazzy, upbeat tempo that goes very well with the game.  Special mention should be made of the announcer for each of the matches.  Capcom used the same kind of over the top, semi-cheesy announcing voice that they’ve used in the past and it goes perfectly with the gameplay.

The controls for Street Fighter IV are solid with not a whole lot of surprises.  There are some minor items that the developer implemented that add to the overall experience, such as having a default button mapped to Heavy/Medium/Light attack all at once, making some of the combos a little easier to accomplish.  The controls are completely customizable, allowing you the freedom to change the button layout to whatever suits your style of play.  If you are so inclined, you can map all of Chun-Li’s buttons to Heavy Kick and just mash buttons all day, doing fairly well on the easier difficulty levels.  Not that I’ve tried that you understand…

 

As I said previously, Capcom didn’t revolutionize the fighting genre with this title; they just took what they already did really well and did it nearly perfectly.  It’s hard to know where to start singing the praises of this game.  Let’s start with the core, the arcade mode.  Arcade mode consists of 8 fights for your chosen character, with the seventh fight being against your Rival.  SF4 does an excellent job of making the difficulty levels of the game granular, so if you’re having a tough time and just want to see Rufus’ ending movie, you can set the game at “Easiest” difficulty and pretty much walk right through to the ending.  All told, SF4 has eight levels of difficulty in arcade mode making it easy for any skill level to jump in and enjoy the game.  For those wanting more of a challenge, Hardest difficulty will take quite a while to master.  During arcade mode you can choose to allow or block network matches, analogous to being at the arcade and having someone walk up, drop in a quarter (or three) and challenge you.  The only requirement is that you must be playing at a Medium or higher difficulty level to allow this.  You can also customize the number of fights per round and the time allowed.

After choosing your fighter, you can select your Color and Personal Action.  Personal Actions are the different taunts that you can use during the fights.  While they have no effect on the match (no health or energy regeneration) they are a nice way to rub it in when you’re handing out beatdowns.  Initially you will only have one color to choose from and one Personal Action.  This is where the unlock madness begins!  As you play through and complete arcade mode for each character, you’ll start to unlock more Personal Actions, colors, and players.  One of the very few complaints I have about this game is the way the Personal Actions are handled.  Through various gameplay challenges, you can unlock up to 10 different taunts per character, but you’re only allowed to use one per arcade mode!  To try out a different one you’ll have to start another arcade mode session and choose the new Personal Action.

One surprising problem this game has is the long load times between fights.  While in arcade mode, you will have on average a ten to fifteen second wait between each fight while the game loads.  While this doesn’t seem like much, it definitely interrupts the frenetic pace of the rest of the game.  In addition, there is no “Loading…” prompt of any kind on the screen while you are waiting for the next fight.  Every single person I’ve seen play this game has thought that SF4 was waiting for them to hit X or Start to continue on to the next fight.  This is a minor, but still annoying, oversight in an otherwise perfect game.

Versus mode lets you have single fight matches where you get to choose both opponents.  You pick your own character and can then choose who you want to fight.  The second player can be left as a dummy for you to just beat on (great for taking out your frustrations when you just can’t seem to get past Gouken) or controlled by the game or even another player.  You can even set both characters to be controlled by the game and sit back to watch the mayhem!

Network Battle Mode is the online component of Street Fighter IV and it is done extremely well.  You start off by choosing your icon and title, literally hundreds of which can be unlocked through solo and online gameplay.  Once you complete that, you’re able to search for people online to battle.  All the bells and whistles that you’d expect to be present are here.  You can search for Ranked Matches, the outcome of which contributes to your overall ranking, or regular Player Matches that don’t affect ranking.  You’re also able to view rankings, create your own game lobby, and search for friends online. 

Six types of Challenges comprise the final area of play in this title.  There are three kinds of challenges, each with a normal and hard mode.  In Time Attack, you must clear all the stages, defeating every fighter, within the time limit.  Time Attack starts out gradually, starting out with 500 seconds to defeat three different fighters, and each win earns you a 30 second bonus.  Later levels get much harder, with you having to defeat a dozen or more fighters, starting out with 300 seconds, and getting only a 10 second bonus for each win!  In Survival, you start off facing three opponents, and you only regenerate 50% of your health between each match.  In later Survival levels you fight more opponents and regen less health after each fight.  Finally, in Trial mode you have to perform a series of each character’s special moves perfectly to be able to advance.  There is no time limit in Trial mode, but the more advanced moves can be very tough to duplicate.  Additionally, you are graded on your challenges, earning a gold, silver, or bronze ranking for each of them.  Each of the challenges has twenty levels, giving you plenty of gameplay to try and defeat.

The way trophies are handled is one of my greatest pet peeves when it comes to PS3 games, and I must say that SF4 handles them beautifully.  Instead of handing out a trophy just for completing a character’s arcade mode, all the trophies have to do with completing actions in gameplay.  Things like performing ten Personal Actions, unlocking all characters, or winning three online Ranked matches in a row all receive trophies.  With 48 different trophies to acquire, this title will keep you busy for quite a while.

Downloadable content (DLC) is yet another thing that Street Fighter IV excels in.  While other games promise DLC “sometime in the future”, SF4 already has a ton of new outfits and colors available on PSN.  There haven’t been any DLC characters or moves yet, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing downloadable arenas and perhaps even new challenges.

Being a fighting game, SF4 is all about the replay and it is done extraordinarily well.  Allowing yourself to be challenged at any point (and giving you the option to turn this feature off) gives the game a real arcade feel.  Who can forget the feeling of standing in the arcade, beating on Zangief, and then seeing the “A New Warrior Has Entered the Ring” pop up on screen? 

There’s just so much do to in this game!  Whether you’re gunning for every achievement (a huge time investment all by itself) or trying to get every costume, taunt, icon, and title in the game, be prepared to fight a LOT of matches.  There are over 400 icons alone, each of them requiring a different set of conditions to achieve them.  As far as bang for your gaming buck, this game is one of the best investments out there.

Street Fighter IV is proof that you can take classic gameplay and update it for today’s game consoles and it will be hit.  With the huge number of challenges and variety in gameplay, the SF4 disk will be spending a LOT of time in your PS3.  For those who have been fans of Street Fighter since waaaay back in 1987, this is a must-have.  And for those that love the fighting genre, this is definitely a should-have.

Gaming Trend Score

94

1. Graphics: 95
2. Audio: 90
3. Controls: 90
4. Gameplay: 95
5. Value/Replay: 100
6. OVERALL:94