Prior to the release of Street Fighter IV, the anticipation and hype levels reached ’second coming of Christ’ levels in some circles. Prophesied by Super Street Fighter II HD Remix, Street Fighter IV would gather all loyal fighting fans and take them away to the same heaven that American arcades went to. I watched combo videos, match videos, and read every bit of news I could get a hold of. Then I played it, ready to bask in its perfect glory. Instead I have traded in my faith in the new shiny lord and savior for the worship of dark, old gods; Street Fighter IV is not the Christ, it’s not even a very good prophet. HD Remix is the holier of the two, representing fighting game perfection, with the newcomer feeling rough and unpolished in comparison. To be fair, it took many years to get Street Fighter II into its final form; Street Fighter IV needs about three more revisions before it even comes close.
Enjoying a fighting game at any level beyond mashing buttons boils down to how it feels. I am by no means an expert, though I think that I manage to not embarrass myself more often than not in spite of never practicing. Enough fighting games have passed under my thumbs that I know exactly what I need to know to have a good time, and it has been very rarely delivered by a fighter that has moved beyond the second D. There is a crispness and immediacy to the action of games like Capcom vs SNK 2, Marvel vs Capcom 2 and the new Street Fighter HD-remix that I have found missing from most 3D fighters. I am not saying that Tekken and Virtua Fighter are bad games, just that they have a very different feel than any of Capcom’s sprite based offerings. Street Fighter, with the exception of the EX series, has always maintained the feeling of a cartoon chess match with reasonably balanced characters. As different as Third Strike is from Alpha 3, the games are similar enough that moving between them was not painful and most skills were transferable. A fireball is still a fireball in Street Fighter IV, but much of the timing and movement of the characters are so different it might as well have been called something else.
The first reaction I had to Street Fighter IV was, ‘wow, this really moves slowly,’ followed shortly by ‘why are the characters so floaty?’ All of the characters have been redesigned from the ground up, filled to the brim with polygons and some odd texturing choices. Most of them look good, a few of them look terrible, but the ultimate downside is that I found it very difficult to figure out where they began and ended. The hit-boxes are not nearly as evident as they were HDR, leading to whiffed attacks or missed blocks on things that look like they should hit. Jumping in a 3D fighter has almost always been a bad idea, and even though Street Fighter IV is 3D in presentation only, the jumping still feels off. The crossover game is almost gone and placing jumps to avoid the inevitable fireball/uppercut trap is more difficult than it needs to be.
In an effort to one up HDR, there is now a super meter that builds as you attack and an ultra meter that builds as you take damage. I end up using up my super meter on EX moves that have been lifted right off Third Strike, which is okay, because I still have the ultra meter to pull out a flashy massive damage move when I need it. Supers are usually better than ultras, but the fact that by mid match the ultra is almost always available negates the need to choose between the two. Many, many rounds end similarly, with an ultra hitting on a missed move or killing with chip damage. It all feels too predictable; by adding more options the game actually dictates the best way to play. I am sure that for the professional level player this isn’t true, but the endless parade of Kens and Ryus that populate Xbox LIVE all fall into this pattern, making online ranked matches much less fun than they should be. Avoiding the multiplayer is also not an option. There is not much to find in single player beyond general practice modes and a Mortal Kombat-style broken final boss. It is quite possible for a fighting game to have a compelling single player component (see Virtua Fighters 4 and 5), so the lack anything fun to do without an internet connection is unforgivable and lazy.
As much as I complain about Street Fighter IV, it is far from a bad game. Even in its unpolished state it is still better than most other fighters. The netcode is not as good as HDR, but most matches are playable enough. It has a strong character roster, but all four of the new characters either look stupid or are worthless and I don’t like the changes that have been made to a few of the returning favorites; minus a million points for making Blanka way too slow - I have had to abandon the character I have been playing for more years than I care to admit to for a Mike Tyson palette swap. By making a specific effort to pull in the unwashed masses, Street Fighter IV may have lost the players who put it where it is. At least I still have HDR to go back to, but with all the shoto newbs migrating over to the new shiny game, the old player base has suddenly improved. I may actually have to start practicing.
