What do you get when you thrust a controller into the hands of an FPS veteran and push him into the ring to square off against some of the world’s deadliest fighters, both real and virtual?

A palpitating heart?

Cold sweat?

Numb fingers?

I would say all of these and much more, for that is exactly how I ended up once our Editor-in-Chief thrust the latest addition to the Street Fighter franchise into my hands and barked out an order to review it. Now saying I am a newbie to the genre would be putting it very mildly. Having been a PC gamer for the better part of my life, I have always given fighting games a wide pass. So when Street Fighter IV was announced a while back, I wasn’t one among the hordes of fans cheering, fainting or singing hallelujah in the streets, accompanied by frenzied high-pitched screams of “Shoryuken!”, “Tiger Fist” and other guttural noises. Which kinda neatly explains how I’ve remained untouched by all the hype surrounding the game, until the review copy landed in my lap one fine morning.

I can hear the Street Fighter veterans in you sniggering at me already; something quite understandable. With the cult following the series has had over the past twenty years, it comes as no surprise that the fans would rabidly defend the game much like a religious zealot asked to throw himself into the searing flames so he can be rewarded in Paradise. Thankfully, after spending quite a considerable chunk of my waking hours with the game, I can safely say that the fans can put their burning torches and their pitchforks down – this iteration of Street Fighter doesn’t need anyone defending it.

My biggest worry with the game was how easy it would be for me to dive headlong into the cut-throat world of beat-‘em-up’s and emerge with, hopefully, at least some shred my dignity left. Not much, just a tiny sliver, mind you. But phew, kudos to Capcom for having created a Street Fighter game that is probably the easiest to pick-up-and-play by someone like me while appeasing even an ardent, I-live-and-breathe-Street-Fighter fan like Vijay. It did not take me long from mindlessly pounding on the buttons in totally random order – hoping to hit my opponent with a fluke punch or a once-in-a-pink-moon round house kick – to pulling off the entire gamut of standard moves, focus moves, the supers and the incredibly flashy ultra combos and completely demolish the fool that dared to take me on.

The standard Street Fighter packs in quite a healthy variety of punch and kicks in his repertoire, ranging from the light jabs and kicks to medium punch and kicks, graduating all the way up to the more damaging strong combos. All of these can be pulled off with a simple press of the face buttons or the right bumper and the right triggers; nothing flashy here until you start using them in tandem with every other button and stick on the controller, keeping in mind your relative position to your opponent. Pushing A and B together while close to the enemy will result in a beautifully animated over-the-shoulder throw or a end disastrously with a vicious kick to your back. Twirling the analog stick in the trademark half-moon / quarter-moon motions while pressing a preset combo on the face buttons would unleash the special powers of the character – whether it’s Ryu using the powers of the Metsu Hadouken to send a destructive ball of spirit hurtling towards his opponent, or Sagat riddling his with a barrage of conventional fireballs – two examples from an overdose of combos to discover with each character. Using Focus Moves to cancel an oncoming attack or breaking through one’s defenses, or dash cancelling a move to take your enemies by surprise or even cancelling an Ultra Combo into a Focus Move are some of the tricks of trades that you will learn after having tasted dust repeatedly.

In this way, Street Fighter IV provides a tactical fighter with a better control over the fighter then descending down to random button mashing until one of the hits connect.
One of the coolest looking combos are the Focus Attacks, which also happen to be the newest addition to the series. Keeping the X and Y buttons depressed for a while will result in a Focus Attack which floors the enemy. The longer you keep the buttons pressed, the more vicious the attack. Inky black colors swirl around as your attacks connect with the opponent while diminishing his / her / its health bar. You can even unleash a series of focus attacks by being ready with the next one even before your opponent can get back on his feet; needless to say, this attack has some serious potential for misuse, whether you’re at the giving or at the receiving end. But that’s not all! Focus Moves can be used to cancel an incoming strike and dish out some pain of your own. The damage that you take while cancelling the incoming attack will replenish over time.

Ratcheting up the coolness factors are the EX version of special moves, Super Combos and the Ultra Combos. The EX Moves and Super Combo can be performed once your Super Meter fills up. You do not have to worry about the Super Meter as it fills up on its own over the course of the battle with each successful attack. Once full, a flashy EX or a Super Combo attack can be launched. On the other hand, the second meter, Revenge Meter will fill up as you take more and more damage. Once topped up, you can unleash the Ultra Combo, one of the most over-the-top moves in the game. Even the damage inflicted by this move is way over-the-top, so much so that one such move can turn the entire tide of the battle.

All these combos and super-combos can get a bit overwhelming for a new-comer to the series. Thankfully, you can always jump into the Trial mode and have the game guide you through the combos and how to pull them off, both at Normal and Hard difficulty, although poor Dan gets to be at the receiving end during these sessions. If you want more variety, you can try out the Time Attack mode where you will be taking on opponents as the clock ticks down. Or there is the Survival Mode where you have to conserve your vitality meter and take on multiple fighters one after the other if you have to best the round. Each of these comes in Normal and Hard flavours and will earn you some nice little achievement points on the way, besides unlocking personal actions, colors and icons.

Speaking about unlockables, there’s quite a number of them in Street Fighter IV for you to unlock – starting from the predictable character unlocks, all the way to titles and banners that you can flaunt in your online matches. Some of the unlockable characters can be quite an effort, especially for those new to the series as these mostly involve besting a series of fights that are challenging, to say the least. Or you else you can simply be happy with the unlockable titles to sport when you’re online, declaring either that you’re just learning the ropes or the new king of the ring. There are a lot, and I do mean a lot, of titles and icons to unlock here.

If you happen to be hooked on to Xbox LIVE while playing Street Fighter IV, it adds more fun to your single player experience as well. Trying to recreate the Arcade experience, you can be challenged at any point in your single player campaign by a human opponent, either sitting beside you, or on the other side of the globe. Once done, you can go back to taking on Seth for the 20th time in what can be best described as the worst boss-fight ever; horribly unbalanced and very frustrating, like any good boss fight should be. When the urge to throw a controller at the television screen gets a bit too much, it is always advisable to find a friend to go head to head. Just when I thought I was getting better in the game, my friend, who has not even seen a Street Fighter game in his life, takes the controllers and calmly proceeds to kick my ass all over the arena. This time, I had to stop myself from throwing the controller on his ugly mug instead.

Good thing I have Xbox LIVE because that is the only thing that can stop me from outright manslaughter after a string of losses. You get to choose whether you want to step into the brutal world of Ranked matches or more easy-going social ones. Setting up a match can be a breeze with you just needing to set the time limit and number of rounds. In case you are looking for a piece of someone, you can either use the quick search option or go for a more thorough search by defining all the parameters upon which the fight should be based. For every win, you get some “Battle Points” that are deducted from your opponent’s score. Obviously, you stand to lose the same points in case you go down in the next match. Inexplicably Quite predictably, this drove me to fight harder, for those damned virtual points. Maybe I just wanted to have a number larger than zero at the end of the day when I unhooked the Box from internet. Thankfully, finding an opponent to spar with is never a problem. Even though the network strength indicator showed red all the time, I hardly faced any lag at all which is quite surprising for a 256 Kbps connection, that too when I had to go up against someone sitting in the US of A, considering only a handful of Indians had a review copy.

Graphically, the game is quite at par with the PS3 version of the game, reviewed a while back our Associate Editor, Vijay Sinha, which is to say, in a niche of its own. Street Fighter IV in screenshots and Street Fighter IV in motion are two different beasts all together. If you love the way the game looks in the screens, be prepared to be blown away by the real stuff. Retaining a 2D plane while going for fully rendered 3D models and levels was a brilliant decision on Capcom’s part. It doesn’t feel like a bastardised version of a timeless classic, making it seem more like this is the propah remake of the cult classic – Street Fighter II Turbo – rather than the recently released arcade version. A wide variety of levels add to the fun, ranging from a slow moving ship to the back alleys of an Asian street, all adding to the one-of-a-kind visual experience that is Street Fighter IV. Beautifully cel-shaded and richly colored, it is indeed an orgasm for the eyes. Throw in the superb character animation, the fluid kicks and punches and oh-my-god moments that define Ultra Combos and your eyes are bound to have multiple orgasms. If only they would have reduced Chun-Li’s thighs a little bit more, I would have had an orgasm of different kind. Maybe I will settle for Crimson Viper for the time being.

Street Fighter IV has proved to be the loving embrace of a long lost lover for those returning to the series. But does it hold enough charm to entice a newcomer? Will he be willing to learn all those “quarter circle forward with a medium punch” combos? The answer is a yes for that is how I started off, unsure if I would even want to review the game. Before long, I was shouting “Hadouken“ in tandem with Ryu while wasting precious office hours Googling for Street Fighter terms. If you are right now where I was a week back, maybe you should give it a try. You definitely won’t regret it one bit.

9 / 10

Review Copy Courtesy:

Price: INR 3,499
Distributor: Milestone Interactive

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• Debabrata Says:
  March 11th, 2009 at 8:44 pm

  Excellent review!

• whisperingdeath Says:
  March 20th, 2009 at 3:24 am

  Eagerly waiting to kick ass with this game…