Perhaps the most pleasant surprise of the last generation was the announcement of Street Fighter IV. I personally thought the series was done after SF3, and we would only ever see the SF guys in ports and crossovers. Then Capcom released that trailer of Ryu and Ken fighting with that crazy art style, and the hype train got rolling. People started debating about whether the game was going to be a 2-D fighter or 3-D fighter, among other things. Personally, I didn’t really care what it was going to be. I was just thrilled that we were going to have another Street Fighter.
When the game finally came out, I played the mess out of the thing, just like I had with previous incarnations of the game, only now there was online play! Street Fighter IV was my first really significant online experience. I had dabbled in online gaming briefly with a couple other games, but nothing like this. I’ve played several Board 8 guys in SFIV over the past few years, like Weaku, HM, Ulti, thundersheep, and KP. I’ve mentioned to you guys before how none of my real life friends are very good at video games, especially fighting games, so it was nice to have some real people who could actually give me a good challenge in a fighting game.
However, there was a problem with Street Fighter IV, at least for me. I couldn’t find any one particular character I wanted to main. I played around with a bunch of them, but I never felt…comfortable with any one guy, I guess you could say. Then the announcement of Super Street Fighter IV came. I know a lot of people were angry at Capcom for doing a cheap cash grab with an upgrade of SFIV not long after the original came out, but honestly, I probably would’ve quit playing the game years ago if not for SSFIV because of my inability to find a main I was comfortable using. Thankfully, SSFIV remedied that problem with the introduction of (anyone who’s ever played me online knows who I’m about to say)…Guy! KP was even kind enough to create a Leonhart Guy Flowchart to describe my play style that, again, anyone who’s ever played me online knows is 100% accurate. I also like to use Cody a lot, and sometimes I think I’m actually better with him, but Guy is more fun for me, so I use him more.
Anyway, I haven’t even talked about any of the specifics of the game itself yet! I enjoy a lot of the new elements they added to Street Fighter, such as Ultras and Focus Attacks. EX moves are a lot of fun and can turn a match around if you can use it properly. I love the art style of the game as well. It looks great. The gameplay is smooth, and I think it’s pretty well balanced, maybe not so much in terms of who’s viable and who isn’t, but in terms of how much damage characters do, how much health characters have, etc. Rounds aren’t too short, but you aren’t always running into time over situations either. You don’t really see many people mention this when it comes to fighting games, but to me, how long the average round lasts is important. I feel like it’s not that fun if the match is over too quickly, and I certainly don’t ever want to have a situation where a time over decides a match. I think Super Street Fighter IV manages to provide a good balance in this area. Fun game.
Bonus Question: What is your favorite game to play online?
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