Capcom is the father to many a classic series including Mega Man, Resident Evil, and of course, Street Fighter. Being the most successful, Street Fighter II was one of the most popular fighters in the history of video games. Many sequels and spin-offs spawned from its enormous success, but none hit home like the fighting classic. It’s no wonder then why Capcom decided to unleash the behemoth that’s been lying dormant for well over a decade unto the next-gen crowd.
At this point I believe there isn’t a single fighting game out there that is capable of telling a story that actually makes sense. So it should come to no astonishment that the story for each character in Street Fighter IV is universally baffling. And to that I say, who cares? Street Fighter has always been about the combat and eye-candy. If you’re looking to a fighter for a captivating tale, well, you clearly need to extend your genre.
Visual-wise, this game comes with a cell-shaded appearance and represents everything that is beautiful. Each character is finely detailed and the backgrounds to each stage are very well done with the possibility of the occasional interaction. Though it’s fun to see people fall over when you stomp your foe to the ground, the best part of the graphics is the attention to detail. The distortion Guile’s Flash Kick emits, the faces each character make when hit, the effect of a firey Shoryuken, I can talk about this all day. If there’s anything you take out of this know that everything has been animated with meticulous hands.
With the decay of the arcade age, every fighter is practically required to implement an online-component and this game is no exception. The interface is setup nicely, making it quick and easy to get into matches and to customize your profile. The profile is a new feature that allows you to display icons and a title by unlocking them through playing the game. It’s a small feature, but it gives you one more reason to get good with every character. Besides, who doesn’t want “Gotta Love The Hair” next to their name? You also attain medals after every online match, showing you what feats you accomplished during the bout. Medals really don’t do anything but provide you bragging rights and a little documentation on where you’re at.
Sounds good so far, but this is where my praise for the game abruptly ends. I have never been so frustrated with a fighting game in my entire gaming career. What do I mean? Let’s start by acknowledging that the online component is a grotesque rendition of your girlfriend; very appealing until you find out she’s a man. Either the room you try to join is full or the match gets disconnected early on. But once you’re in a match and actually playing, well, that’s another beast entirely. Characters harbor some of the cheapest moves possible, rendering you helpless before you can even get to your feet. Take Zangief; he’ll knock you down, stand on top of you, and then do a few grab combos that are unblockable. Or you can run into the schmuck using Blanka who tactically sits in the back and when approached fires off his cannonball maneuver followed up by his electrical garbage over and over. In their defense, there aren’t very many moves so whatever you do is going to look and feel like spam. It’s too bad there’s no meat to the bare-bones modes; no tournament-style mode, no spectators, no rotations, nothing. If there’s any praise left for online-versus it’s because you’re playing against a friend.
I will give the game props for the EX and Ultra combo systems, as they’re very useful. Over time as you accumulate damage and use special moves, both Ultra and EX meters increase providing you with more powerful variations of the moves you already use. The Ultra combos look stunning but can be a real hassle to pull off with certain characters, which brings me to my next complaint; the charging system. The majority of the characters in this game have moves that require you to hold a certain direction for about two-seconds. Two seconds may not seem a long time, but when people are constantly flipping over you or kicking you in the groin you can’t pull them off. That means most of the time both characters will be on separate edges of the screen because they’re trying to get a special move off instead of actually fighting. It’s like watching two retarded ballerinas at a recital observed by robots. But not all the characters are burdened with charge moves. Ryu and Ken, for example, can pull off any move they want in an instant. Granted, some charge moves are very good, but the characters with none seem to have a significant advantage over those that do.
The arcade-mode or single player unsurprisingly suffers from brutal AI. At first the computer is easily dispatched and then suddenly the angry wolverine awakes and cuts off your legs. This is especially apparent when fighting the last boss, Seth. No one knows who he is, no one cares, and once you fight him for the first time it’ll probably be your last. The thing basically reads your movements, teleports behind you whenever you’re about to do something you thought was smart, aaaaaand game over. Once you’ve given up on the arcade-mode, you can indulge in the challenge and training rooms. That is, if you could actually complete them. The instructions on how to use moves are so vague you’ll just end up mashing buttons until nothing happens. How do you expect to play a game that beats you in the tutorial?
After being constantly disconnected, cheaply beaten, and denied victory to unlock additional characters, your controller will be out the window. Street Fighter IV is a $100 bill covered in feces. Its nostalgic values cannot be denied, but once you experience the atrocity you’ll gladly leave it be.
The Street Fighter series has a long history, but which are the seven best games the franchise has yet offered to gamers?
After Street Fighter II released in in 1991, it caused a fighting game explosion, both in arcades and in home consoles. But, as the decade ended, and arcades were failing, so too were 2D Fighting games. This is how Street Fighter IV completely revitalized the genre.
I'd say Blazblue helped too. Didn't care for Street Fighter 4, but Blazblue was amazing during that time. Sad that the series kind of went downhill after the first 2 or 3 games though.
BlazBlue was phenomenal. Platinum'd Calamity Trigger because I loved it so much. I remember buying Continuum Shift back in the day at launch for like $40. They did have DLC characters (Valkenhayne, Makoto, and Platinum at the time) and it came out to just a tad more than it would at full price. Didn't mind at all.
Great fighting game.
Continuum Shift was definitely my favorite. Spent way too many hours on that game, haha... Had the counters for days with Hakumen.
BlazBlue was the much better, more technical game..and a real 2D Fighting Game after all. But yes, since it was a big name..the characters were still popular and the game itself was good, SFIV indeed helped a lot. However, I am pretty sure the much better-selling Mortal Kombat 9 would have been done without SFIV as well..and that one truly helped to make the fighting game genre in general more popular again.
You’re sound dumb. Blazblue was not better than sf4. You’re just saying that because you’re a street fighter hater.
eyyy max xD
one of the very few streamers i can actually watch without it being cringe and awful ha.
The content of IV was severely lacking when it launched. It got better over time.
In the same interview at EGX 2019 recently, Capcom and Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono responded to a fan question asking if there were any plans to bring the fourth or fifth entries in the series to the Nintendo Switch.
they botched SFV so bad, just start over, make a new version with proper single player mode and fully fleshed out with support for all of the consoles this time.
Gamer7804@ they already did kinda it call sf5ae it help sf5 sell like another 2 million copies.
SFV is actually great now. Bunch of modes, bunch of characters, alot of stages, not sure what else there is to even complain about. Costume MTX? Not a issue imo, I don't get what I don't want anyways
botched launch, and they launched only on one console and currently after a long time still on one console.
Did you see how Ultra and the Collection sold? We don't need to convince Nintendo of anything. Just put it on the console.PHYSICALLY.
Enigma_2099@ they probably have to make a new sf game just for the switch they probably will need Nintendo to help fund it just like sony help fund sf5.
You’re not seeing Street Fighter V come to other platforms besides PC because Sony helped co-fund the game so it’s staying only on PS4 & PC
Don't know why anybody would want SF5 on Switch. Especially if they owned a Switch.
That doesn't makes sense. Is Nintendo saying that Capcom can't publish the game on the system because it's users don't want the game? if so, that's really stupid of them, because why should they care?
Nintendo isn't saying such things of course.
Capcom shouldn't pass the buck. If they don't want to make more SF games on the Switch, then just say so, and say why.
If they want Nintendo to fund the project, then they are the ones that need to convince Nintendo to give them money.
"If you’re looking to a fighter for a captivating tale, well, you clearly need to extend your genre. "
Way to contradict yourself and sound completely biased. I stopped reading after that. You're better off posting on forums with IMO stamped at the end so people don't bash you.
Wow really? a 6? For the game series that started it all? For the king of balance and pacing in fighting?
I know maybe you feel cheated by the AI. However have you tried turbo HD? That game feels like it reads your moves.
Seriously there is an entire underground following dedicated to the street fighter series. SF2T and SF33rd strike have been the peak of tournament fighters for like 15+ years now.
If you couldn't handle the online because people were beating you thats not a valid reason to bring the score down... The "Blanka" way of sitting back and waiting is called "Turtling" and if you took the time to learn your counters or choose someone besides Ken you might be able to see them. If you think that the way Gief has all these grabs and moves is unfair then learn how to play him so you can learn how to beat him... Some people time their moves to the 13th frame of a jump to pull them off right.
I will be the first to admit I don't think this is the most balanced version but there is no such thing as "Cheap" or "Spam" in street fighter. The goal among enthusiasts is to win in any way possible or "Play to win". The old saying of "All is fair in love, war and street fighter" is heard regularly at tournaments. I agree with Sirlins views on why the game may not be perfect. There are flaws...
"People beat me" "The Tutorials are too hard" and "The computer AI is to smart for me" are not reasons to lower the score... Reasons like "The game does not feel casual friendly even though it touts itself to be" or "The amount of meters and gauges and time on the screen detract from the core fighting mechanics and balance of the game in my opinion" or even "On top of all the mechanics the input of a 'focus attack' mechanism only adds to the frustration when your not sure if your move is a true super armor stance or not and what characters have what breaks in a timing cycle"... imo
http://www.sirlin.net/blog/...
http://www.sirlin.net/blog/...
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Are some references you might enjoy but for some reason they only work in internet explorer and not mozilla.
I respect your opinion but really you should offer more than "The game is hard" for giving it a 6... many people have been playing street fighter for 10+ years and still have not "Mastered" it and get stomped by others on a regular basis. This game is brand new... It will take some time...
Street Fighter can't keep doing the same thing for 20 years without adding something, I completely agree with this review.
The fighting is repetitive, the moves are easily strung together and worst of all, if you play against other people, it's like there is only 4 characters that exist.
Akuma, Ken, Ryu, Sagat.
Ridiculous. If you're not a fan of fighting games... Don't play and review a fighting game. Street fighter is amazing. Hell, you can't even find fighting sticks in stores or even online. The game is hott and it shows in other reviews.
...."Shakes Head"....
I dont agree at all but if Blanka, Geif and Seth were whoopin my @ss and laughing at me because i couldn't unlock Cammy or Sakura and then continuously jumped over me every time i tried to charge my glorious Sonic Boom, i would probably post a sh!ty review to get even too...=)