Summary [9.8 out of 10]

A year after the initial release of Street Fighter IV Capcom offers up a new edition with 10 new fighters, new online modes, extra Ultra Combos and some tweaks and balancing. If you are serious enough about Street Fighter to want the new hotness or you never bought last year’s edition, this is the one for you. At a price point of $39.99 you are getting a lot of value for a reasonable fee.

Introduction

This is a familiar situation to any long time Street Fighter Fan. Street Fighter II had five iterations up to and including Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter III had three culminating with Street Fighter III Third Strike. Each of these added  a little something be it characters, play styles, super combos or speed. Some were better than others but iterating the title with improvements has been the norm for a long time so it is no surprise that a year after Street Fighter IV we have Super Street Fighter IV. With 10 extra characters and a bunch of extra modes and combos, this is without a doubt the largest expansion they have ever done but a lot of people wondered if this would ultimately be worth an extra $40 particularly if you already owned the original release. After putting it through its paces I have to say that yes, generally, it is. All of the positive things about last year’s version are back again and the added content makes it that much better, but some of the issues from the first haven’t been addressed and there are a couple of new issues as well.

The Great

• New Characters: Right off the bat, the new characters added are generally great. I am not fond of all of them necessarily but they do present a more complete package by bringing the roster to 35. From Super Street Fighter II: the New Challengers we have Deejay and T-hawk, two characters I have never particularly cared for but felt missing from last year’s release, join the roster. Guy and  Cody from Final Fight and the Street Fighter Alpha series show up and they are two of my favorite new editions. Guy is not easy to win with but when you do the victory is sweet. Cody is pretty decent and seems to be an early favorite if my online matches are any indication. Adon shows up from the first Street Fighter. Ibuki, Mokoto and Dudley join the fight from Street Fighter III and, given that Street Fighter III is my favorite in the series, I am very happy to see them. Almost as happy as I am to see that Elena did NOT make the cut. All three are excellent characters and bring great new flavor to the game. The two new characters, Juri and Hakan,  follow the trend of the new characters being decidedly weird ass but they are also pretty cool. Some of the online players with Juri are not so cool but whatever. Every cheap move has an answer and if you can’t do it or find that answer, you just need to get better.

• Balancing: A lot of characters have received some tweaks to either make them less dominant or more competitive. While there are still better characters than others, generally everyone is competitive now if you know how to use them. There are still some with glaring weaknesses if you play the wrong way but you can now be successful with pretty much anyone if you put in the time. This sounds like an echo from my last review but it is even more true now than it was back then because play style comes into it much more and the addition of a new set of ultras gives you even more options on how to do that. But more on that later. The REAL balancing boon here is that Seth has been nerfed in apparent effort to help even out the blood pressure of anyone who tackles the arcade mode. He is still tough and super cheap but he is also much easier to beat. Some people may think this is a bad thing but I think it is awesome and will help cut down on the chance of me stroking out or having heart problems in the future.

The Good

• New Online Modes: In addition to the ranked matches and the matches that interrupt arcade play, there are now Team Battle,  Endless Battle and Replay. The Team Battle mode is a round robin competition in which teams of players battle each other with the winner staying and the losing team’s player rotating out to the next player on the team. Endless Battle further replicates the arcade experience where you would put your quarter up to save your spot in line and then play when it is your turn. The winner stays and the next in line rotates in. The people waiting in the lobby for their turn can watch the match in progress which is nice as you can learn the playstyles of those in front of you before you jump in. This is a great throwback to the old arcade experience and it is very nice to see it replicated here. The replay mode allows players to record the match and upload so that others around the world can watch it. You can go in an view other people’s fights in a variety of categories and save the matches you want to keep. This is another great way to learn play styles and technique.

• All Characters are Unlocked: From the moment you put your disc in the system, all 35 characters are ready to use. This means no goofy and seemingly arbitrary conditions to meet in order to unlock Akuma and Gouken. No playing with characters you don’t care about to unlock single characters and you don’t have to beat the game with everyone to get Seth. They are all just there. Now, there are some who are not happy about this because they feel that unlockable characters ups the replay value and forces you to tryout and be familiar with all the characters in the game. That is all well and good but I don’t think anyone should be forced to play with a character they aren’t interested in just to unlock one they are. It is a good idea to play around with everyone so you can learn how they tick and how you can make them stop ticking but if you don’t want to, you shouldn’t have to. There are plenty of other sorts of unlockables offered in the game to keep you coming back for more if that is your thing. And if you really loved the hoops you had to go through to unlock Akuma and Gouken, you can still do those thing to get them to come out and fight you at the end. I actually got Akuma to come out accidentally while playing as Ibuki so it isn’t so bad this time around.

• Extras for Previous Owners: It isn’t that big of a deal or anything but if you have saves on your system from the original game you get two extra alternate colors.  The first changes the art style on the character to a painted style like some of the Attract videos from the last game and the second gives the characters a sketchy look like the current Attract videos. It isn’t a huge addition but I really like the painted style a lot and use it most of the time. It is a nice little extra for people who have come back for a second round.

• Added Ultras: This is in keeping with previous iterations and adds some extra variety to the gameplay. Each character has an ultra that is more effective than the other one but the determining factor as to which to use is play style and preference.  Some of the limitations on the combos are damage and range but let’s say you are a Ryu fighter who likes to play close in as opposed to zoning. Now, instead of having to worry about the timing of the ultra hadoken(yeah I know it isn’t the name of it) now you can choose an ultra version of the shoryuken, which seems to be a throw back to a similar super move Ryu had back in Street Fighter III. That one was devastating but tough to get the timing on and this one is no different. If you are good inside and know how to land it, this could really help out your game. If you are more of a distance fighter or perfected the original ultra then you can choose to go with that one. It is an extra level of preference for the player and it forces opponents to change how they react to that player. You aren’t going to fight someone with the fireball the same way as a guy with the uppercut. This addition really beefs up the options and variety on both sides of the screen.

• Ryu Less Ugly: It may just be me but it seems like Ryu looks less like a slab of beef with a face crudely drawn on with a bit of charcoal.

• Price: With the amount of content here Capcom could have easily charged full price for this game. It probably wouldn’t have made anyone happy but they could have been justified in doing so. They charged $20 less and delivered a ton. It is well worth the money if you are a fan or if you haven’t purchased it before.

• Replay: With the unlockables and challenges already in place from the first game, you have great replay right out of the box. The addition of online modes sweetens this pot that much more and given the level of competition online now that the original has been out a year, you are going to want to spend time in the arcade, challenge and training modes to prepare for what you are going to be facing. It isn’t pretty.

The Bad

• Tournament Mode: Once again they have shipped the game without a tournament mode. It is coming and available to download for free but why do we need to wait for this again? It is set to release on June 15, 2010 and it is nice that it is free but why do this again? Why not wait until June 15 and release a complete package? The summer is usually empty of good games anyway and there has been a ton of competition early this year. This irritates me just about as much as having to pay for costumes which are already on the disc…which we have to do again.

• Unstable Online: I am not really sure if it is the servers themselves or that people have bad connections but finding a stable game with no lag, or even to connect with in the first place, is not an easy task. Going through the list of potential games and watching connection strengths plummet is disheartening and many of the online games I’ve been in have had really terrible lag. Some have straight up frozen. I am not sure what the problem is exactly here but when quick match takes me 20 minutes to find a game it is able to connect with there is something very wrong. The game is founded on its multi-player and having an unstable online connection is a really bad thing. The original didn’t have this issue and I hope they get it ironed out soon.

• No Skill Matching in Quick Play: You can tweak your game to match you up with players of similar skill and rating in all of the modes except for Quick Play. This, in addition to how long ‘Quick’ Play takes to actually find a match for me, makes me not ever want to use it. I am not a bad player but I did take some time off from playing the original so I don’t want to get thrown in with players so far out of my skill range that I can’t get a move to register on the stick before I’ve lost. I need to work my way back up. Quick Play throws you into the lion’s den and god help you if you aren’t up to speed. I can’t imagine a new player is going to want to continue playing if this is the first mode they try. There really should be an option to set Skill Matching on this mode as well.

• Goofy Anime: Once again, the beginning and ending stories of the characters are told in goofy anime sequences that look like they were scribbled together by children and voice while play acting during recess. The stories still don’t make any real sense together and are again fairly pointless. If you can’t be bothered to put something together that is quality then don’t bother to do it at all. As I’ve said before, in game dialogue like what you have during the rival matches would have been way better.

The Still Hot

• Cammy’s Ass: Seriously, just look at it.

The Creepy

• Hakan: Seriously red Turkish Oil Wrestlers dumping said oil on themselves are creepy.  There is no way that the real thing is that…

oh.

Conclusion [9.8 out of 10]

Super Street Fighter IV is again a great fighting game. There is a lot of added value here and the balancing makes it much more fun to play and easier to get into. With 35 fighters there is someone for everyone and every play style and they all have a decent shot at winning given practice. The score the same as  the 9.8 I awarded the first version just because there are still some issues that haven’t been fixed and some new ones that hamper the experience so with the improvements it ends up being a wash. Had the few issues not existed it would be pretty much perfect. Perfection aside, the best fighting game available just got better and is well worth picking up if you are a fan or if you never had it before. Even if you gave up on the original because of a difficulty issue or for not connecting with the right character, this version is well worth a look.