Street Fighter IV comes to the 3DS in Super 3D.
Street Fighter is perhaps the longest running and most popular fighting franchise there is. It's dominated arcades and consoles for decades, but there's one area where it never had much of a foothold: handhelds. Thanks to the incredible power of the 3DS, Super Street Fighter IV enters the ring, flexing its muscle to claim a new crown as the handheld fighting king.
If you're familiar with the console versions of Super Street Fighter IV, the first thing you'll notice is that the entire roster of 35 characters have made it to the portable version. Gone, though, are the days where they had their own individual backgrounds. They still have their own stories to tell, and they're done so via anime cutscenes. Unfortunately, their stories still aren't fleshed out, requiring the player to visit a Wikipedia page if they really want to learn about their fighter's background.
On the odd chance that you're entirely new to Street Fighter, the premise is quite simple: beat your enemy's life bar down to nothing before it happens to you. Every character has three levels of punches and kicks, and you can chain them for combos, execute special moves and perform super and ultra combos. These devastating combos require meters to fill up by either constantly attacking or being attacked by your opponent. If you successfully connect with one, they'll take a major chunk out of your opponent's life bar, becoming a much needed equalizer.
New to Super Street Fighter IV 3D is the addition of a mappable control scheme dubbed Lite. You can assign any of the four face buttons and two shoulder buttons, as well as four panels on the touch screen, with special moves, throws, all punches or kicks together, and even super and ultra combos. Not only does it level the playing field for old and new players, but it helps overcome problems for veteran Street Fighters who find the system too small to play well on. If you don't wish to use Lite, you can default to Pro and perform all the moves the old fashion way.
If you love to play fighting games online, SSFIV 3D delivers. Creating and finding matches are easy, and you can set limitations on what control schemes people use. If you don't like the fact that people are using Lite while you use Pro, you can simply choose not to play them and stick to only Pro players. Latency is a minimal issue, and only one round was affected by any noticeable lag during testing. You also have the option to allow your single player game to be joinable at any time by a friend if you prefer the offline gameplay to be broken up.
Super Street Fighter IV 3D makes use of the Street Pass feature by allowing you to build a team of combatants. The more Street Passes they make, the more fights they'll partake in and the more they'll level up. You can also collect and trade figurine bottle caps, and there are 500 to gather. You can buy them by converting your Play Coins into Figurine Points, so whether you're battling it out in Street Pass or trying to collect all the figurines, you'll always want your 3DS in your pocket.
Graphically, SSFIV 3D is the best looking game of the 3DS's launch line up. It looks almost as good as its console brothers. Thanks to the beefy guts of the 3DS, the characters have been rendered with a great deal of detail, and they animate very smoothly. The only major visual difference is the lack of animations in the background. The 3D effects are terrific, making the game look like an action figure diorama from a distance while displaying some great pop out effects during ultra combos and introductions. If you want a showcase piece of software to impress your friends with, this is the one to have.
Audibly, it sounds just as amazing as it looks. The punches and kicks all have power to them, as well as the slams and other sound effects. Fire burns, electricity snaps and sizzles, and oily bodies... well... that's best left unsaid. The soundtrack is full of great music with individual pieces playing for each stage. The only thing that one might take issue with is the voice acting. Since every character now speaks perfect English, it's opened a door to some ridiculously cheesy performances. It's given the game a lot of character but at the cost of some much needed seriousness.
The most beautiful part of Super Street Fighter IV 3D is not any one part, but rather the sum of all its parts. It's the greatest possible fighting game you can get on any handheld platform. It's an almost perfect port of a current generation console fighter, which simply couldn't be done until now. The roster's so huge, you'll spend months trying to get acquainted with all the fighters, and since the game works great online, you'll always find a challenge. It's a must buy for any fighting gamer, unless you really must stick to consoles for your arcade sticks, and it's the best available 3DS game thus far.