Review: Super Street Fighter IV

Xbox 360, PS3

By James Heffield / Wednesday, June 02 2010

The latest Street Fighter adds little but will still impress hardcore fans of the cult-classic video game. The arcade graphics remain impressive, complete with slow motion replays and beautifully rendered combos, and the old barrel busting and car smashing bonus stages are back.

Super Street Fighter IV introduces a few new faces, including taekwondo fighter Juri and Turkish oil wrestler Hakan, without losing any of your favourite fighters. Hakan’s slip and slide fighting style is particularly entertaining to play, although many of his moves require a long buildup and you will be lucky if a swift punch to the jaw doesn’t interrupt him before he finally executes a greased up grab of some sort.

Each fighter also now has a simple background story which is introduced using a narrated arcade-style intro sequence whenever they are chosen at the start of a single player arcade tournament.

As has always been the case with Street Fighter games, previous experience will give you a huge advantage -- you can’t just waltz on in and expect to pull off the most devastating and spectacular moves in the game. Unfortunately this barrier is made worse by a baffling command list menu as the symbols displayed to execute the character’s moves don’t all clearly correspond to the buttons on your console controller. Add to that the difficulty of executing some of the thumb contorting moves on an Xbox 360 or PS3 controller’s mini joystick, and the learning curve becomes a rock-climb. We tested the game on both a standard Xbox 360 controller and a Real Arcade Pro EX-SE setup with a Hori Real Arcade Pro EX-SE arcade joystick (see review) and found the latter made performing combos and moves much easier.

Arcade single player mode is fun enough but it’s in multiplayer and online where the game provides the biggest challenge. Duking it out with friends in tournament-style lounge room battles has always been the highlight of Street Fighter gaming for me and the improved ability to go toe-to-toe with other Street Fighter players from around the world, via Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network, is pleasing.

Overall, there are definitely better and more realistic fighting games available but there’s something to be said for a basic arcade fighting game like Super Street Fighter IV that has remained true to its 1980s roots and doesn’t complicate things.

Super Street Fighter IV
Developer: Capcom; publisher: Capcom
Better than: Super Street Fighter III
Worse than: UFC Undisputed 2010
There are better fighting games available but none have Street Fighter’s retro credibility.

7/10