1009th played so far
Genre: Fighting
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 2008
Developer: Dimps/Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
It feels right to finish the list of fighting games with a Street Fighter game. Not because I would say it’s my preferred series (in the end Smash Bros connects more with me) but because it really popularized the genre as we know it now, with the side-on 1 vs 1 combat. From what I understand, it changed the variety in arcades to almost exclusively feature fighting games, at least for some time (something I can confirm from our trip to Japan a few years ago). It was not the most controversial or the most advanced, but it’s the best known that, at some left, is a trend setter.
I’m playing the fourth numbered entry in the series – with all the remakes and different editions of the game I don’t know who many you’d say you’re really at now – with the fifth having had a slightly shorter wait when it was released about three years after the book’s second edition. I think the main question is still, how does the game hold up compared to its previous iterations?
Fighting
Peter has always been the fighting game fan. While, as I said, I enjoy the Super Smash Bros series, especially when I can focus in single player, the more serious games grab me less. Over the past decade I’ve certainly gone from button mashing to using some amount of strategy, but it hasn’t entirely connected for me. I certainly prefer the slightly slower, more deliberate gameplay of a game like Soul Calibur over the frantic, stun lock-seeming gameplay of, well, some Street Fighter games.
It’s probably why I had more fun with the various fighting/adventure games, with the likes of No More Heroes and God of War standing out more – similar focus on skill, but in a more controlled and streamlined setting. They’re not always the first that come to mind as a member of the genre, but they’re the ones I’m most likely to come back to soon. Beyond that, I’ll just watch other people play Tekken.
Our Thoughts
I wonder whether the constant Street Fighter remakes and revisions – what is the different between Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting and Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix exactly – hides any real differences between the numbered installment. There’s a roster update, but the storyline, as much as there’s any storyline here – is flimsy and pretty empty, without much going on. In the various iterations of previous games, combos have emerged as a big thing, with there being combo meters just to see which ones you can execute, and it feels like that’s all that Street Fighter IV revolved around to me as a casual player. Your positioning is very static, your fighting skills and standard moves don’t do much as you’re playing, and it felt like it was just about learning your combos, executing them and getting through that way beforeย your opponent does.
I’m sure it works different as an expert, but for me I didn’t see much in here to hold on to. I can’t quite get to grips with the gameplay and missing out on any real story content, the game feels clinical, missing the personality and charm that other games, in or outside the series brings – this is a far cry from BlazBlue‘s story mode.
Final Thoughts
In the end, Street Fighter IV feels hollow, made for competitive players who are not me while not having anything to draw me in to get me to be a part of that crowd. I get that the series is prbably big enough to afford it, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a game to get someone new to play these.