Super Street Fighter IV (PS3/360)

A mate of mine once told me that no Street Fighter game is perfect the first time around, and that the re-releases were a good thing, because it helped develop the series into some of the best fighting games ever made. And he’d be right – it took Capcom five re-releases to get the quintessential Street Fighter II in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and only two for the still mind blowing Street Fighter III – 3^rd Strike. The difference with those games compared to Street Fighter IV? The advent (or misuse) of Downloadable Content, wherein you don’t need a new disc to sell to get the latest version. But god bless Capcom for trying, because just over a year from the original console SFIV release, we have the latest version – Super Street Fighter IV, and it’s as good as you’d expect.

In terms of new stuff, there’s quite a significant chunk of new content here. Let’s begin with the 10 new characters, whose addition bumps up the total playable characters in the game to 35, only the second highest count of characters in a Street Fighter game; Street Fighter Alpha 3 takes the cake, with a total 38 playable characters in its most recent version. The eight returning characters all bring a welcome breath of fresh air to the game, and actually fit in rather well with the Street Fighter IV aesthetics and gameplay styles.

In particular, the Street Fighter III additions (Ibuki, Makoto and Dudley) are the most welcome here, and fit in fantastically – and are really quite fun to play as. Though it is rather curious as to why the remaining (and least popular) of the Super Street Fighter II ‘New Challengers’ T.Hawk and Dee-Jay were added. It’s not because they’re not interesting characters to play as, but out of all the characters you could possibly pick from…T.Hawk and Dee-Jay? Really?

In any case though, the two completely new characters – Juri and Hakan, bring a lot of great charm and interesting gameplay styles to the game. In particular, Hakan is very to play as. His Turkish Oil Wrestling skills make for a weird and flat out awesome show, and bring a bit more of an interesting wrestling approach to players than something standard like Zangief. While Juri isn’t as unique to play as, she’s a great character in her own right, and quite fun to mess around with. As a character, her ‘evil and loving it’ shtick is really quite welcoming and refreshing to see.

New character Juri is a blast to play. 

The other big focus to Super Street Fighter IV is in its online mode. Previously – there were only two options for online players, to play a ranked battle or to not play a ranked battle. Here, the non-ranked battle option has been removed, and has been replaced with two new options – Endless Battle and Team Battle. Endless Battle is effectively a ‘quarter-match’ mode, wherein winners of matches stay on, and take on all comers in an effort to stay on as long as possible. Once that player loses, they move to the back of the line as new challengers take on the new winner.

As for Team Battle, it’s really quite self-explanatory. Players form teams of up to four a side and battle it out. In both this and Endless Battle mode, you’ll get to watch the other players fight it out, so it allows you to get a chance to see how other people play their characters and give you time to develop effective strategies to defeat them. A newly added Replay mode also allows you to watch and upload replays to help further determine strategies. All of the additions are great, and really do add a lot to building up SFIV as this online gaming juggernaut, stopping short of creating a form of social network within the game that could make for some very interesting stuff. Couple that with a soon to be released Tournament Mode, it’s great to see Capcom really taking the online modes seriously.

The other changes/additions aren’t as significant, but are still pretty rad. All 35 characters now have two ultra-moves instead of one (with the exception of Gen who has four!); there are new prologues and epilogues for each character in arcade mode (yet are all uniformly terrible); the car destruction and barrel busting mini-games from Street Fighter II have returned and are kinda fun to check out; and as to be expected – there’s a whole bunch of rebalancing, removing the game of its quite infamous “Ken Fighter IV” stigma.

Play through this as Cody or Guy. I assure you, the result is worth it. 

It’s actually quite hard to find any actual negative or weak elements in the game, since everything here is still fantastic or has been improved substantially; the only complaints are more nit-picky than anything else. For instance, one can look at some of the feature set of the upcoming home release of Blazblue: Continuum Shift, and see some of the great things that Arc System Works have added that would’ve been perfect here in Super Street Fighter IV; such as a tutorial mode that teaches players game concepts as well as moves, a proper storyline that’s actually half decent and not completely throwaway, and an Fight Request- esque feature (i.e. the functionality wherein you can be challenged at any point by an online player in SFIV Arcade mode) that works in all game modes. While SSFIV is still a great game, one has a feeling that there’s still more that Capcom could have added, and pray won’t be adding in a new iteration of the fighter.

Visually, it’s practically the same as vanilla Street Fighter IV. This isn’t a bad thing, because the game still looks stunning, even two years on from its original release. All the new backgrounds and character animations look fantastic and gel well within the existing backgrounds and character animations.

Cody’s ready to beat the crap out of someone.

The same goes with the aural element. Well…almost. All of the new music in the game has a much more techno/trance feel to it, and while there are some great tracks (all of the remixed tunes and some of the new music is fantastic), the rest of isn’t as great. It has a very weird 90’s style thing going to it, which doesn’t really suit the game. All the new voice acting is quite decent, though if you have an aversion to English voices where you have the option to swap, the ability to swap voice tracks individually for each character returns, and it’s just as awesome as it was in vanilla SF4.

As to be expected, Super Street Fighter IV is another solid revision of what was one of the best fighting games to date. It’s still quite accessible & familiar, and has that little smidgen of depth that all great fighters have. All the new additions and rebalancing is very welcome and appreciated, though one most wonder whether or not Capcom could have gone a little deeper and added some more defining feature sets. Be that as it may, Super Street Fighter is very heartily recommended.

The Question of Accessibility in Fighting Games

Compared to a lot of other popular genres of video games, fighting games are very unique in that they aren’t very welcoming to newcomers. Sure, once you get into the genre, you’ll find that you can bring your skills to a lot of different games and feel at home almost as soon as you starting learning a new game. But it’s the question of getting into it that proves most fascinating.

Two games that actually got me thinking a little bit of accessibility in fighting games are Tecmo’s 2005’s Dead or Alive 4, and Capcom’s 2010’s Super Street Fighter IV. At a base level, these two games couldn’t be any more different from one another, but they share the same problem – they are both quite difficult for newcomers to get into and enjoy.

Let’s begin with Dead or Alive 4. While the series is well known for having moments of ridiculous difficulty, the fourth instalment kicks it up several notches. It does help that there is a mode that allows the game to ‘drill’ the player throughout a characters moveset, the key problem here is that it falls prey to a design methodology that developer Team Ninja are well known for – making the game difficult, but if you learn how to play the game and learn the intricacies of the system, you’ll be fine.

 

Expect to see this happening. A LOT.

I say this because if you’re going into the game blind, you are going to be destroyed by the A.I. There’s no ‘easy’ mode, and you’ll need to know how to use the games counter mechanism, because the A.I knows how to use it, and will counter like crazy. Granted, the mechanic is pretty simple to understand, but the game doesn’t tell you at all about it – you have to go in to the ‘Sparring’ mode (which contains the aforementioned move drills); but even then – there is still a lot of the game’s basic concepts that isn’t exactly clear upon playing the game.

It’s sort of the same thing in Super Street Fighter IV. Admittedly, the game is a little more accessible thanks to multiple difficulty levels and a much slower pace of game and less moves to worry about; but even still, it’s not as friendly and open as it should be.

Should’ve done a focus attack there Bison. Don’t know what that is? Go read the manual. 

Again, it has a mode that drills you into playing each character – and goes a step further by even teaching the player some very useful combos. But that’s  just it – for all the additional teaching that the game does, it doesn’t go that additional step further and allow for new players to learn key gameplay concepts.

While I chose Dead or Alive 4 and Super Street Fighter IV for these examples, you could apply them to a number of other fighting games – even recently, games like BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger or Tekken 6 have nothing in the way of teaching players about gameplay concepts. While you could pass this off as saying that because they’re such long running series, they don’t need to accommodate for new players, I don’t buy that argument. I really don’t.

Example here being Sega’s 2004 fighter Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution. The Virtua Fighter games are known to be one of the most deep and one of the more hardcore fighting series out there, and if anything, the one that would most benefit from a tutorial. And you know what? It has that. And it goes a little further than saying “here’s how to block, here’s how to attack”, explaining how to best play in certain scenarios, as well giving players the ability to be drilled through character movesets. In fact, it was such a great feature, that it’s omission in Virtua Fighter 5 was a huge disappointment!

Admittedly, this isn’t the training mode, but if you were in training – you’d know how to not get your arse kicked by Akira.

Though it does seem like other fighting games are slowly realizing that accessibility is a good thing – the sequel to the aforementioned Blazblue; Continuum Shift, is receiving  a tutorial mode. And of course, there are always things like YouTube or FAQ’s if you want to learn and see the base concepts of a fighting game, but it’s that little in-game help that helps just the same.

The Complexity Argument (Or Why Street Fighter III Shouldn't Be Ignored)

With the impending release of Super Street Fighter IV, there's a number of different sort of memes popping back up all over the place, specifically in various commentaries about the Street Fighter series. The most common thing I'm seeing is derision of Street Fighter III, and how it's "too complex" of a game compared to the much more simpler Street Fighter IV, or even Street Fighter II.

As someone who took the time to understand and learn how to play Street Fighter III, I find the increasing number of complaints to be somewhat annoying, and almost ignorant to a point. Admittedly, my stance is a little biased - since I adore Street Fighter III, but at the same time, it's almost ludicrous that the game gets as much undeserved crap as it gets - since it does many things that Capcom haven't done as well since or before the release of 3rd Strike. 

Specifically, let's begin with the "too complex" part that most people seem to complain most about. In particular, people cite difficulty with the parry system - wherein to parry attacks, you need to move forward just as the attack connects, negating the attack and leaving your enemy wide open. By doing this, it effectively negates projectiles (which isn't an issue, since MOST of the characters in 3rd Strike aren't projectile users), and allows you to counter pretty much every other attack, including Super Arts (which will get to in a later paragraph). 

The most common misconception about this argument is that in order to basically play the game - you NEED to know how to parry. This can't be any further from the truth. In reality, it does help if you want to take the game seriously, but you don't need to know how to parry in order to play the game. I can't do it properly, and yet, it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game. I know quite a few people who can't do it properly, and yet, they still enjoy the game. And if you want further proof that parrying doesn't ruin games - I CHALLENGE you to find someone complaining about the Just Defence system from SNK fighting games or Guard Impacting from Soul Calibur, and how it's "too complex" and ruins the game for them.

Another argument I've heard in favour of the game being "too complex, therefore it sucks" is the Super Art system. Basically, each character has three super moves, known as Super Arts. Once you pick a character, you pick one Super Art to use as your sole super move until you choose another character. 

I'm more baffled that people have found reason to even complained about this. The ability to choose Super Arts allows for different styles of gameplay, and locks you to learning only one combination - should you JUST focus on doing just that. What's so hard about locking down one super move?

I'm guessing that a lot of people deriding Street Fighter III are people who grew up and played the ever loving crap out of the various different versions of Street Fighter II. In fact, if you were to read a lot of articles and even listen to podcasts from outlets like 1UP, Gamespot, IGN etc, you'll hear a lot of praising of Street Fighter II and how the participants spent a lot of time playing the game, but stopped at III, citing that it was too complex and focused at a more hardcore audience.

Well no shit it's different. It IS a sequel after all. Were you expecting a title known as "Street Fighter III" to be as iterative as a lot of the different versions of Street Fighter II? Of course it's different. It's a sequel, a completely new entry in a long running series - you'd better damn well expect it to be different from it's predecessors. If it had been exactly the same, these would be the same people damning it.

The point of this? Go play Street Fighter III. It's one of the best fighting games ever made, and Capcom's crowning achievement as a company.

What I Missed Out On...

I don't know what it is about that series, but I adore the Tekken games. I don't know if it's the actual fighting mechanics, the unique characters, the awesome music, the insane extras Namco heap onto the game (Tekken 3 & 5, in particular), I'm not too sure.  But the funny thing is, as someone who adores that series, and is jonesing heavily for Tekken 6, I'll freely admit that there are games in the series that I haven't played, and no desire to.

While there is the obvious answer of the Playstation2 Death by Degrees game, this also extends to the original Tekken game. I've only ever really played the home version once, at a cousins place, and all my other experiences with it come from the arcade version present on the Tekken 5 game as part of the incredibly awesome "Arcade History" mode. 

Last I played it, it didn't hold up reasonably well. Granted, the game was originally released in the early days of 3D fighting games (and 3D in general), and Tekken was created as a response to Sega's Virtua Fighter (which had launched a couple of years earlier), but the way the game plays, such as still being on a 2D plane, slow fighting, and the general lack of responsiveness once you get knocked down. I mean, you can get knocked down and you takes a long and near excruciating while for you to get back up again. It's probably worth checking out later iterations of the series, if you're interested in the older games - Tekken 2/3 in particular. Though the idea of swapping cameras is a neat idea, and no other fighting game (and even later Tekken games) used this functionality.

Though thanks to stuff like YouTube, I've been able to catch up on one of the cooler things about the series - its CG endings.

Tekken is one of the few fighting franchises that does something unique with its endings compared to different versions. In the arcades, there is no story whatsoever - you're treated to a generic "CONGRATULATIONS YOU WIN" screen - similar, but not quite, to Virtua Fighter. It's a weird decision, especially when you consider that with the exception of those two games, pretty much every other fighting game worth its salt in the arcades has an ending. However, when the games are released onto home consoles, Namco go the extra mile to actually including CG endings for each of the characters.

Being the first iteration of the series, and also one of the earlier 3D games, the original Tekken has some of the most fantastically awesomely outdated CG I've ever seen in a game. The intro to the game looks and sounds like a bloody demo reel of a mid-90's CG artist - but doesn't hold a candle to the actual endings. Which are some of the most awesome things I've ever seen.

All of the endings in the game are about 30 seconds long, all of which set to the same piece of music. There's no dialogue, but there are associated sound effects. What gets me about these endings are twofold. The first is the effort that Namco went to for some of these. Take King's (the second ending, if you're watching the above video), for instance. If you can't watch the video, here's a quick explanation - King returns from the tournament to an orphanage, and as he arrives, the kids flood out to meet him.

To say that I was expecting kids to be flooding out of the church would have been the preferred  response, but I honestly doubled back a little bit and was shocked to see that the kids themselves are actually REAL kids - greenscreened into the shot. You have to understand, there are practically no fighting games that have ever had FMV kids inserted into a CG shot. Though the pose that King makes as the scene fades out is completely awesome and made for some inappropriate captioning.

The other thing these endings (and the game itself), is that it's made for some awesome reactionary imagery. Yoshimitsu's (second from last) is the best example of this. Shortly after he opens up the case and the cash goes flying, there's a dude that just looks up in complete and utter disbelief that hundreds and thousands of dollars in cash is just FLYING around. His slowly transforming face as he looks up and sees the cash makes for quite possibly the greatest "OH MY GOD" look ever used (if not intentionally) in a video game. This is also coming from a video game where characters portraits literally distort when you select them.

I should probably go back to explore the original Tekken game, but really, is there any point now? The game has been superceded (and made better) by later iterations, the endings are all online, and hell, I can get a copy of the game free of charge by buying the PS2 (and I think PSP) versions of Tekken 5.  

I would close off by saying that future iterations of Tekken never included awesomely bad reaction faces in their endings...but...

Nah...