More than half a year after its arrival in arcades, Capcom’s Street Fighter IV has finally come home to console owners (and hopefully PC ones, too). You’d think after 20 years of playing Street Fighter games, as great as they are and still till even now, that numero quarto would seem like the same song and dance all over again. We won’t argue with that, but Street Fighter IV (SFIV) reinforces everything you’ve ever wanted in a fighting game, things you didn’t expect to enjoy, and things that you didn’t want or knew existed – all in one extremely well-executed, polished package. To put it bluntly, it’s a hard dish to not to fall in love with all over again.

It doesn’t take a lot to impress me, especially if games like SFIV predominantly make a habit to wave the nostalgia wand over my face every few minutes or so. There’s so much that’s been lifted from previous games that almost everything that oozes from SFIV comes nothing short but a mushy love letter to the intransigent junkie. It has nearly every character you can possibly care about that debuted in Street Fighter II (with a bit of Dan and Sakura thrown in for good measure), the intricate mechanics of Street Fighter III but tuned even further, and the over-top Ultra Combos lovingly recreated in slickly 3D that even rival the insanity of the Supers seen in Capcom’s Versus titles. You will simply go bonkers over the amount of effort put into everything.

The new additions aren’t anything to snuff at either. While it’s fantastic that we get no less than 6 more playable characters to muck around with in the home version, the real highlight for me are the four combatants completely new to the series. Abel, El Fuerte, Rufus (I kid you not!), and Crimson Viper are all welcome additions to the roster. Crimson Viper in particular has emerged as an easy favorite for yours truly: she’s quick, her varied move-set of High and Low attacks sizes up considerably, and she has a pretty nifty Super Jump that can be canceled into her Ultra Combo. Given more time, I’ll end up wanting to play all the characters through just to see how many different strategies I can implement into my game and annoy the hell out of my friends at work.

And there-in lies the beauty of Street Fighter IV – it’s a game anyone can sink their teeth into, and the more you’ll want to invest your time and patience into it, the more you’ll end up wanting to play around with everything there is to offer, because it’s simply that damn rewarding. You’ll want to warm yourself to using the Focus Attack, both an offensive and defensive measure during combat, as much as possible. Depending on the amount of time you hold for it, it has three levels of effectiveness, and can work wonders in a tight situation. On the other hand, you can make it a habit to build up your Ultra Combo at the last minute of a match. This will, of course, require you to fill up your Revenge Meter by taking some hits, but the payoff is a huge chunk of health damage and one pleasing-to-watch sequence of hurt being delivered to your opponent. These are just some basic strategies that you can toy around with; whether it’s going defensively or playing possum, SFIV can give you lots of ways to go about yourself. And if you’re really prepared to go all the way, there’s the all-new Trial Mode. Essentially, this takes a page from the Command Training section introduced in Virtua Fighter 4 and acts as an even more detailed training session for newbies who want to try and hone in on their skills. Very nice.

Talking about all the layers of complexity lying underneath, the attractive graphical shell that envelops it all together is every bit as unique. You’ve seen the pictures; you’ve watched the videos – if you want to look past the technical buzzwords, SFIV whips nearly every fighting game to ever come out on current-generation hardware with a strong sense of style and fluidity. Well, as stylish and fluid as a Luchador Chef armed with frying pan will ever be, at least. It’s not much of a stretch to say that this game is the closest we’ll ever see 3D visuals imitate the Japanese Anime art form. HD Remix pulled this off pretty well too – albeit at a more “frame-by-frame” sort of comparison – but the biggest difference here is that everything transitions at a remarkably, consistent clip. Literally, it’s a high-resolution manga come to life.

Hooboy, speaking of “anime” here, let’s talk about these animated story cutscenes that are viewable throughout the Arcade Mode. With a game as good-looking as this, you have to wonder why Capcom felt they were worth the time and money needed in including them the first place. Nitpicking aside, what could have served as a cool add-on to an already complete package, ends up feeling both cheesy and outright plain confusing to those who’ve never even bothered trying to understand the back story to a Street Fighter game. Chalk it up as another “Flavor of the Week” for the Youtube crowd. I’ll take my voice-acting in Japanese, but thanks.

If you’ve never touched on them before, Street Fighter IV will act as a perfect teacher to what you’ll ever need to know about the series. I’d like to point out that if you’re going to opt for the PS3 version, you might want to consider going for the “Install to HDD” option. I’ve been told that it dramatically improves loading times, but I was unable to get this working on the old debug unit. Also, keep an eye out for Championship Mode, the first of what we hope to be of many released free expansions. In-game recording, you say? Shalom!

9.5 / 10
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