Street Fighter II for the HD generation. No greater compliment can be paid. Ultra responsive, deep fighting system
The Good:
-Captures all the magical attributes of Street Fighter II almost perfectly
-Basic pick up and play controls that also has an incredible depth to it
-Amazing visuals with a very distinctive and recognisable style
-The legends of past Street Fighters are faithfully brought to the high definition generation faithfully and look better than ever
-As good of a multiplayer experience as you can come close to getting
The Bad:
-Single player element is nothing but amass of frustration stemming mostly from ridiculous AI
-The majority of the new characters, despite having great move sets, feel bland and washed out
-The soundtrack sounds completely out of date
-Terrible voice over's
-Un-necessary story element that is poorly written and presented that adds nothing to the game
Street Fighter II is not only my favourite beat 'em up of all time by a long considerable distance but it is also one of my absolute favourite games of my entire gaming life dating all the way back to the old school Atari days right up there with true classics amongst the likes of Metal Gear Solid, The Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy VII & X, The original Gran Turismo and Shadow of the Colossus . A timeless classic that will be remembered for as long as there will be such a thing as video gaming. Nothing abnormal there you may think, you know literally millions of people across the entire planet feel exactly the same and invested hundreds of hours into this game on their SNES or sat in a sweaty, windowless, brown arcade somewhere and that this game inspired almost all of the great minds of the industry today.
The graphics at the time where as sharp as they got and the visual effects illuminated the room and the controls where as smooth as a knife through butter and Christ, where they responsive. The slightest touch on a button and BANG it reacted, not an ounce lag at all which meant all the action that unfolded was as fast as you could think and react, not the hardware constantly playing catch up. This coupled with the multiplayer aspect of the good old days, having a living room full of mates in winner stays on contests that comes with common competition attributes: Slating, boasting, moans of anguish, cries of cheating… lol, and leaping clean off the couch in a close fought victory
It has left quite an amazing legacy behind it. The Ex & the Alpha instalments of the franchise have come and gone quicker than I keep track of but when a 'proper' next instalment comes along, a Street Fighter title followed by a number, it creates a massive sense of anticipation and expectation of the gaming community waiting. Is IV good enough to attract new gamers and is it fit to carry the torch to the next generation?
Street Fighter boots up with an outstanding opening sequence that manages to capture every ounce of what the series has become renowned for. A CGI video in anime style rich in art that looks hand drawn and coloured that is very Japanese with the Street Fighter greats that appear in the game, and a glimpse of some of the new-comers, locked in combat, or stood posing looking menacingly at an unseen character. The action is fast paced, the hits look like they could topple a building and this is all helped along nicely with a nice dose of motion blur and impact splatters that look like when you squirt ink into clear water. It all looks beautiful. But the opening leads me to one cause for concern; the music. The guitar background sounds great and compliments the action perfectly but someone in the music department got the clever idea to add, in what my opinion are, unneeded lyrics and then hire what seemingly is a boy band fresh off eviction from The X-Factor to perform them. It is like garnishing an exquisitely made sorbet with a slab of lard. The bad composition choice in the music isn't just confined to the introduction either to be honest, it does stretch much deeper into the game and there it has a more profound effect.
It has pace and impact rooted into each and every track but they sound so…. This is difficult to a put finger on. Not retro, retro is something that is thoroughly modern that has something old rooted in it for nostalgia. The music sounds completely out of date and sounds cheesy, sorry my vocabulary dried up and have no thesaurus to hand. Take Ryu's BGM for example. They have tried to stay true to his Street Fighter II theme, which isn't a bad thing, and have done a fantastic job of giving it new life and a new sound but it just doesn't feel as though it belongs to this generation. If you went back in time with the Street Fighter IV soundtrack and got them to include it on SFII either on the SNES or an arcade cabinet it would feel right at home and tragically this problem is present throughout the entire game. Mercifully as is the Street Fighter tradition for short, action packed rounds this isn't as bad as a hindrance as it could have been. There should really be an in game facility for custom soundtracks, granted it isn't fair for criticising a game for this as not all of them have the feature - nor am I doing. It could of created an exciting community with people making their own snappy, fast paced, hard hitting tracks for combat and an opportunity to show their creativity and remixing skills of old Street Fighter tracks.
The graphics from the video however are transferred almost seamlessly into the game. Again, like the intro, it all looks very anime like and are very vibrant in colour but it never looks childish and very much for the mature gamer. The character models have the detail that are of the very highest standard with no detail missed or over looked and the same can be said for the backdrops. What really brings the visuals to life is the use of the effects on screen. The way tears & splashes appear on screen to indicate contact between the combatants, the way the characters suddenly look like their model outlines have been drew with a paintbrush during ultra combo's and the way the background goes blurry and flashes to indicate massive speed is serene as it is exciting. Behind all of the eye candy you can see just how much tech has gone into this game. It is difficult to interoperate how the 2D characters look as though they are 3D models when they are in motion, try and think of it like a cartoon, and the clever lighting and shading that compliment the character models. It's not shadows like you expect in life but the technique the Japanese have pioneered by using groups of horizontal straight lines on characters to indicate shading. Really is inspiring and you can sense the passion from the concept art boards all the way up to implementation.
As briefly mentioned above the character models are incredible. All in all there are 25 to select from, most of which have to be unlocked, and the iconic heroes of past Street Fighters have been brought completely to life. They stay true to the look they've always had, it's more of a high definition make over show. They all look exactly how they looked in Street Fighter II which is what I respect and love most about them is that on other titles, like Tekken, the studio can never resist adding more to their characters on the principle that 'more is more' in an effort to keep them looking new title to title. A new tattoo here, a new item of clothing there. Look at Jin Kazama and his first appearance on Tekken 3. He was believable as he was minimal in design. He had a very focused and functional look about him and you could see the laid back and fiery sides to his personality as well as the massive strength and great agility and speed he possessed. As the years have rolled on he has bigger, more elaborate pads, more sashes, in what my opinion are over designed clothing and the designers never realise they are detracting from the character. It's almost a simple childhood thrill of seeing the likes of Blanka & Dalshim's almost un-human look and the scarred and ripped torso's of Zangief and Sagat. Even just seeing the detail of Vega's tattoo and Ryu's physical presence. The new characters, despite having the same level of detail, are a real let down. They either border on the clichéd such as El Fuerte who is your typical mask sporting Mexican wrestler to the plain blandness of Rufus and Abel. Depending on your stereotype of the French I guess you could argue Abel bland and being uncharismatic puts him into the clichéd category… My only gripe at all with the characters has to be the voice over work. It is terrible. An argument I have often heard, and always felt ridiculous, to characters like Link not having a voice is that it is impossible to tailor the voice to suit the expectations of all the characters fans. Nonsense. Look at how they took a massively loved character and give David Hayter the responsibility of Solid Snake, Look at how Square Enix risked the wrath of the entire planet by giving our heroes from Final Fantasy VII voices in Advent Children and to a lesser extent giving Mario a voice. They all fit perfectly which took the characters to all new heights of depth but they've managed to make a complete hash of it here. You don't get a sense of wisdom and power Ryu has, the bestial nature of Blanka, The ruthlessness of Bison… Chun Li sounds like a cheerleader at time's for Pete's sakes. They've even made the thunder mental error of resorting to stereotyping the character to their nation of birth for characters the sound department hasn't understood. They aren't even Sunday morning cartoon standard, it's almost as if they have recruited the actors off the street. Seeing some poor sod on his way to the gym "You there! Ken wears a red shirt and walks around without shoes on - you'll do for the part", and seeing another person off to McDonald's "You're fat, Rufus if fat - Perfect!" I really wish that they had just left the characters as mutes. It has done nothing but corrupt my thoughts of the characters.
Another gripe I have with the game is the story based element added to the single player. For a game that is meant to set the standards and lay the paving stones for future titles in the genre to follow it has taken a leaf out of the Namco text book. Upon selection of your character you get an introduction movie that shows some half baked reason for entering the tournament and after a few fights, just like Tekken, you verse your rival and get a little info as to the bitterness before taking on the final boss and then treated to an ending video as now is the standard and I do use the term 'treated' loosely. They are all brief, and hardly anything happens - it's very difficult to see the point of their inclusion at all even when you have completed it with all of the characters and all the fractured individual stories form to create a much bigger overall one. Even worse these all have an anime presentation and it detracts from the experience. Flowing into the single player I will make it abundantly clear at this point - avoid it like syphilis. There is no fun to be found, only a massive sense of frustration of the level that propels your control pads across the room into the concrete wall at speeds that can only be matched by an F22-Raptor. It is ruthlessly hard that offers no sense of fair play. For a gamer that could complete all past Street Fighters at their hardest difficulties, I hate the idea of Trophies & Achievements but would of killed for them in the past to prove my statement, I could never beat the 10th fight and the final boss on the easiest difficulty. Thank God the difficulty has been patched and I can shamefully admit to be able to complete the game now with the assistance of a continue or four. The reasons why I consider this game to be hard is what leads to my massive frustration at it. One, it cheats. A massively overused term in the field of gaming but I have lost track of the amount of times that I've had full health and an opponent with