Review: Super Street Fighter 4

Superficial flaws should not derail you from a competent experience that the best fighting game offers.

___________________________________________________________________

CHOICE PICK

9.4

The Good

10 new characters * New characters carefully crafted to fit into the overall perspective of the game * Second selectable ultra per character adds both variety and new strategies to the playing field * All characters unlocked from the get-go * All challenges unlocked from the start * New point systems give better sense of progression and achievement * Endless Battle and Team Battle modes are new, brillant ways to play the game * Ability to watch replays of matches

The Bad

Some characters are too similar to each other * Lackluster animations in Arcade Mode * Absence of ultra meter in Training mode baffling * Unorganized Replay Channel is really messy

___________________________________________________________________

If last year’s Street Fighter 4 was about the success of the reinvented Street Fighter which anyone could pick up and play, Super Street Fighter 4 is the success of a beefier Street Fighter 4 that should appeal to anyone with a remote interest in fighting games. If you still do not recognize Street Fighter 4 or aren’t really familiar with it, Super Street Fighter 4 serves as a great starting point. Like any respectable expansion, there’re a few embroiderical changes in here to keep things fresh, another few subtle changes to the largely unchanged gameplay formula and significantly more content and features which justify every dollar you pay for Super Street Fighter 4. This is the better version of the best fighting game around.

Anyone popping in the Super Street Fighter 4 disc for the first time would likely check out the new character rooster – something that has been heavily promoted in pre-release materials because it’s the most obvious upgrade to the original, though not necessarily the biggest update. There are now 10 more characters, bringing the total number of fighters to 35, 2 of which are entirely new to Street Fighter. Both franchise debutants have been carefully crafted to fit into the overall perspective of Super Street Fighter 4 and it shows. Like the fighters before them in Street Fighter 4, they have been given the magical coat of paint and there’s as many nuances in their aesthetics as there’re in their movesets.

Newcomer Shadaloo agent Juri is a nimble fighter who has a wealth of both defensive and offensive anti-air maneuvers in addition to a number of ranged attacks to keep things in control. For anyone who spends more time in the air than on the ground during a match, Juri’s a great option. Fellow debutant Turkish oil wrestler Hakan, while bizarre, knows how to exploit his oily body for attack bonuses. Think of him as a more agile Zangief. Makoto, Ibuki, Guy, Cody, Adon, T. Hawk, Dee Jay and Dudley round up the cast of new fighters in Super Street Fighter 4. Between Hakan, Abel and Zangief, there’re already ample grapplers. Some of movesets of the new fighters are essentially fusions of fighting styles of the original characters, a fact that makes the new fighters great fun to play with. However, if I do want to nitpick, I’d say that Adon is too similar to Vega, while Dudley is Balrog with a mask.

Supporting the cast of new fighters is the addition of a second selectable ultra per character. Ryu now has a Metsu Shoryuken which is actually 3 kick-ass uppercuts chained together complete with some outstanding visual effects. Abel now has a delayable grapple that requires the most precise of timing to execute, while Zangief can surprise competitors by suddenly launching into a mid-air grab for his Siberian Blizzard. Hakan’s Oil Combination Hold is perhaps the most ingenious second ultra, but I wouldn’t spoil it by spilling the beans because the fun’s in exploring the various new techniques and strategies yourself. Having said that, the second selectable ultra isn’t just filler for the content box but rather, something which refreshes the playing field. There’s certainly some learning to be had here, but once you become familiar with the new employable tactics and mix old and new strategies together, the game becomes a very satisfying experience.

Learning the new characters and ultras take some time but it isn’t long before you explore the several modes in the game. As per the original, there’s the propitiatory Arcade mode, Challenge mode and Training mode. Survival and Time Attack have been removed, but they have been compensated by 2 surprisingly addictive modes which are available for online multiplayer (but more on that later).

All the characters are now unlocked from the get-go so there’s not much emphasis on plowing through Arcade mode with each character unless you want the achievements. Like last year’s Street Fighter 4, animations bookend each character’s story in Arcade mode, but whereas last year’s great animations provided players with additional motivation to complete Arcade mode with each character to uncover the plot, this year’s animations feel lackluster at best. These animations are actually just static pieces of artworks which the game uses to pan up and down while recorded dialogue plays in the background. It isn’t the most interesting way to get players involved and the often preposterous ideas behind the characters’ motivations to partake in the fighting tournament don't help the cause. And if you choose to play through Arcade mode, you’ll get to play the car and barrel destruction bonus stages which have much nostalgic value for old-school Street Fighter fans. For everyone else, these interruptive bonus stages, while fun for a few minutes, don’t add much to the overall game. Fortunately, once you complete Arcade mode the first time around, you could choose to filter these bonus stages off from Arcade mode, though you could still play them as standalone challenges from the menu.

Training mode is a great place to practice moves before heading to the competitive online scene and like in Street Fighter 4, everything is still the same. And that’s bad news because the omission of an ultra meter in Training mode remains baffling as this means you can’t practice your ultras in Training mode. Trial mode guides you through the most fundamental moves for each character, as well as the more convoluted ones and the unique moves that each character possesses. Unlike Street Fighter 4, where you have to unlock each challenge by completing the one before it, all the challenges are available right off the bat in Super Street Fighter 4, meaning more advanced players can jump right into learning how to perform the more complex moves without having to complete the earlier challenges.

As fun as running through Arcade mode and beating the still-powerful Seth can be, single-player is still a training suite. Like any fighting game, Super Street Fighter 4 is best enjoyed with human competition and it’s here that the largest improvement is made. If you remember, the online component in Street Fighter 4 was rather barebones, featuring only ranked matches and player’s matches, as well as a Championship mode which was added in a later downloadable update. Super Street Fighter 4 enriches the online multiplayer by leaps and bounds. Capcom has finally realized the vision of what Street Fighter 4’s online multiplayer component’s supposed to be. There remain a few kinks here and there, but what we have here is still a very robust online multiplayer experience.

The crux of the online multiplayer experience, the point system, has now been expanded to include 2 point systems, namely Player Points and Battle Points. Like in Street Fighter 4, you’ll gain Player Points when you achieve victory and lose points when you are defeated. Likewise, you’ll gain Battle Points when you are victorious, but unlike Player Points, your Battle Points will not be deducted when you lose. The reason behind this is that Battle Points are specific to each particular character who you use, meaning Battle Points is the Super Street Fighter 4 equivalent of each character’s rating. This works to the benefit of providing you with a better sense of progression for each character who you use online, as well as giving you a better idea of what you have achieved online. The point systems are only applicable for ranked matches though.

For players who would like to sidestep the risk of losing points and just want to let their hair down after a hectic day at work or on a lazy afternoon, they can choose to participate in the point-less Endless Battle and Team Battle modes. Both modes replace Street Fighter 4’s Player’s Match. My favorite would have to be the Endless Battle mode. In Endless Battle, up to 8 players can join a lobby. The winner stays on to fight the next in line while the loser is pushed back to the end of the queue to wait for his or her turn to spar again. This essentially recreates the arcade environment right from your couch. While watching others duke it out, other players can communicate via voice chat, making homemade commentary and sharing of sparring tips very much possible. The same applies for Team Battle which mimics part of King of Fighters’ team effort appeal rather than the winner-stays-on-to-fight-next-person approach that Endless Battle adopts. Team Battle is available in 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 flavors. Having 4 different players with varying playing styles and abilities on a team can yield surprisingly fun results.

Another major update to the online multiplayer comes in the form of the elaborate replay channel. The game automatically saves 30 of your last battles and you can choose to view or save them to your hard drive at any time. You can even choose to invite your friends into a lobby to view a match with you and like Endless Battle and Team Battle modes, voice chat is enabled. A few customization options are available, including having the ability to rename replay files and rate replays. During replays, you can option to throw the match into slow-mo and turn on damage counters and controller inputs to get a better idea of what is going on. There is, however, no pause button, nor is there the ability to rewind a match or even watch only segments of a match. Should you choose to watch how others around the world fight, the New Replays section have all the recent matches up for viewing or saving. It all works like magic until you realize that one major flaw with the Replay Channel.

There is a lack of organization in the Replay Channel. It’s messy. Say, if you want to watch a match between Ken and Juri, there’s no search function or filter to thin the collection of matches down so that it’s easier to find what you want. Instead, you have to sift through the dozens of files on the Replay Channel and hope that you find a match where there is Ken and Juri. And even when you do manage to find one, it may not be a match between a pair of skilled players. To make things easier, Capcom has integrated different categories into the Replay Channel. For instance, you have better luck in finding matches featuring Ken under the Originals Channel, where only the original world warriors are featured. Likewise, if you want to watch Juri face off against others, you may head to the Newcomers Channel, where only the debutants in Street Fighter 4 and Super Street Fighter 4 are featured. However, if you so choose to head any of these more specific channels, only a random match could be viewed so you may get a match featuring Zangief and Dhalsim instead of Ken under the Originals Channel. There’re leaderboards but no option to select some of the top players and view the matches fought by them as well. Think of the Replay Channel as a Street Fighter YouTube with millions of scattered videos and with no search function.

There’s one last community-friendly feature which I find noteworthy. With Super Street Fighter 4, it’s no longer possible to know what character your opponent has chosen until both of you confirm your selections. This reduces the chances of the scenario whereby one player waits for another to choose his or her fighter before proceeding to choose his or hers. It irons out the ugliness in competitive matches and makes online multiplayer matches that much fairer.

Final comments
Super Street Fighter 4 is the better version of the best fighting game around. There’re now 10 more characters, and a new second selectable ultra per character is a boon, shaking up the playing field and encouraging the exploration of new strategies. The animations which bookend each character’s story in Arcade Mode are disappointingly lackluster though. The absence of an ultra meter in Training mode remains puzzling. On the online side of things, the new point systems, Endless Battle and Team Battle modes do a fine job of updating the series. The Replay Channel sounds interesting on paper, but it’s utterly unorganized and is a mess for anyone wanting to watch a good replay. Barring the superficial flaws, there’s a very competent fighting game to be had here and anyone with a passing interest in fighting games should get Super Street Fighter 4.