Street Fighter IV
One of the greatest ideas for a videogame ever, Street Fighter has lost none of its appeal over the years. Street Fighter IV looks to be a reprise of its finest hour, Street Fighter II, with all the colour and combos of its most famous protagonists centre stage.
Playing Street Fighter IV is like stepping into a time capsule, only not travelling backwards as you perhaps thought we would say. Instead, we’re going forwards in time from 1992 with a “Back to the Future” naivety that assumes all good things stay the same but with better gizmos. SFIV almost completely ignores the past 15 years of so-called progress and instead celebrates the essence of what made Street Fighter II the gaming, and dare we say cultural, phenomenon that it once was.
In simple terms, Street Fighter IV makes it okay for you never to have cared about Street Fighter III (weird characters, too complicated to play), Star Gladiator (bizarre 3D fighter from Capcom designed for PlayStation), Virtua Fighter, Tekken, King of Fighters… any other technically outstanding but otherwise ‘not Street Fighter II’ game that has surfaced in the meantime. Having played the most recent in-production version of SFIV we are convinced this game will relight the fire in anyone who loved Street Fighter II while at the same time attracting a new audience with its pure-hearted almost funfair thrills and spills.
There is a timeless quality to the likes of Chun-Li, Ryu and Ken, three of the original cast of eight; the strongest fighters from their respective countries, competing to become world champ while at the same time achieve some higher goal. Some would have it that the c.1992 line-up featured in the many arcade iterations of SFII comprised offensively stereotypical caricatures. But it seems to us that these are archetypal heroes and villains that cleverly encapsulate an irresistible theme.
We have a yoga master from India, Dhalsim, whose arms and legs extend to three times his body length for confounding long-range counter strikes. Amazing! Kabuki clad Sumo wrestler Honda, from Japan of course, can propel his body as a 340lb torpedo or slap you senseless. Fantastic (and ouch)! US Air Serviceman Guile can somersault kick with his heavy boots, but more impressive is his ability to summon a Sonic Boom with his bare hands! No way! The World Warriors, as they are collectively known, might have originated in fables for kids but instead were created to endure the ultimate face-offs.
Really anyone can play Street Fighter and know what to do. For one thing all punches and kicks are mapped onto six buttons so you'll instantly know where to find that quick jab or roundhouse. Not everyone can perform the Special Moves that involve complex rotations of the direction pad (or joystick if you’re old school) but most people can muster Charge moves that required holding in one direction before switching back the opposite way. Everyone can summon Chun-Li’s “Lightning Kick” or Blanka’s “Electric Shock” because you just hammer buttons like mad. Defending is just like running away, blocking when you’re enemy is close.
So far we’re giving the impression that Street Fighter IV is just Street Fighter II with updated graphics. Well, it kind of is to be honest but that’s a great thing. The hand-drawn heroes have never looked so vibrant or detailed, and thanks to the latest 3D technology they perform some dizzying set pieces amid more subtle special effects such as tornado winds around the feet of Ryu as he summons his trademark Wave Fist – Hadouken! As fights continue in the foreground there are some fascinating goings-on behind them. In Chun-Li’s iconic street market the sign above a restaurant gradually collapses while below a Chiba dog scarpers with a roasted duck that has fallen from a market stall. Cute, aye.
There are sensible take-or-leave gameplay embellishments too, which you could completely ignore if you prefer for fear of losing your concentration while trying to activate that Electric Shock (tappity tap-tap) or Barrel Roll (away towards, go-go-go). However once you’ve seen somebody perform a Revenge meter super move, you’ll be inclined to practice all weekend to get this working even once… then back to tapping and running away. And if you ever get around to perfecting Ryu and Ken’s infamous Dragon Punch manoeuvre, you’ll have joined something of an exclusive club (although if you really want to impress the lads, see how many Spinning Pile-drivers you can squeeze out of Zangief in one round).
Only one thing we don’t like about Street Fighter IV at the moment, and that is we think Colonel Guile’s hair isn’t anywhere near tall enough! See, that’s another thing about Street Fighter you’ll discover soon enough – you get very precious about your chosen World Warrior, which soon makes every match personal!
Street Fighter IV will debut in the arcades this summer. Home versions for PS3 / Xbox 360 so far unconfirmed.
