Round 4! FIGHT!
It’s hard not to think of arcades when I reminisce around my early gaming experiences. Yes I had plenty of time on everything from the ColecoVision to the NES but there were many a lazy summer afternoon spent in the backroom of hot and smelly bodegas (corner stores in NYC) pumping quarters into whatever machines the owner had that month. One mainstay of those machines was the rickety old Street Fight 2 machines that always had way too many kids waiting to use them. The same appeal followed the game when it showed up on the SNES and prompted a whole Summer of kids packed onto my couch all waiting for their turn to play my SNES.
Fast forward to 2009, and up until Street Fighter IV I really had not gotten into another iteration of the series since, yes I made a brief foray into the Vs. series of games but even then I lost interest quickly. It seemed like the series thrived to reinvent itself and I was left to the wayside while tournament players and change mongers got their fill of flashy counter moves and other technical features that seemed to force a player to adapt or move on rather than encourage mastering the game. Street Fighter IV on the other hand is a return to form that I am glad Capcom had the guts to make. The game itself still remains as deep as ever but a lot of the fat from past iterations in the series have been trimmed away leaving the essence of Street Fighter still in tact
One of the most interesting choices Capcom has made in regards to the game is art style. Many of the character models are based very closely on their Street Fighter II dopplegangers with stylistic changes being made here and there to give SFIV a unique almost water-colored look that still feels very much like the SF of old. Another choice that was made that seems a bit baffling is how the player is forced to complete certain tasks to unlock quite a few characters in the game which seems like an antiquated restriction only tacked on to falsely elongate what is already a fairly deep game. There is a lot to the game, including LIVE functionality that allows Vs. play so the inclusion of this limiting unlocking scheme seems a bit convoluted and a bad choice in general.
Regardless of the headaches unlocking items can be this game is addictive beyond all belief. My first experience online had me cheering as my behind was beat around 5 times in a row, not because I’m some masochist that loves being whooped but because it only made me try harder each consecutive time. Sure this could never duplicate my times spent at the arcade with a quarter on the glass marking my next turn but it does a really good job of coming just short of it and I have no complaints about that. Street Fighter IV is a game made for fans of how the series used to be but still advances the 2d fighter genre a few levels in the process.
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