Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Instant classic"

There are four games that make up the Street Fighter IV series; SFIV, SSFIV, SSFIV: AE, and SSFIV: 3D Edition. The Street Fighter IV series goes back to its Street Fighter 2 roots, which created a fighting game craze in the early 90's. By the mid and late 90's the videogame market was over saturated with fighters, many who were short lived but a handful of franchises stood the test of time. The Street Fighter series is one of them.

Content (10/10)
It contains all the original content from SSIV except for the Championship mode. Ten additional fighters were implemented in the update; Makoto, Ibuki, Dudley, Adon, Cody, Guy, Dee Jay, T. Hawk, with Haken and Juri being completely new characters. The online experience was also enhanced with the addition of; Team battle, Ranked match, Replay channel, and Endless battle. I believe all characters were given an additional ultra.

Story (8/10)
This is obsolete in 90% of fighting games, but for what its worth it varies from warrior to warrior. Some storyline is revealed when you start your journey and a bit more when you beat the game. If you're looking for a complex back-story, you won't find it here.

Graphics (10/10)
Simply amazing, they use 3d sprites on a 2d plain. The graphic style is a combination of SFIII and the SF EX series with an HD twist. It's very pleasing to the eye, the character polish and detail is top notch. I don't recall the precise number of stages but it's enough to keep you from complaining about variety. Even though the stages are in a 2d style they perfectly match the quality of the characters, the days of high quality backgrounds and low quality sprites or vise a versa are long gone. My favorite stages include; Construction site, Overpass, and Small Airport, must see to appreciate.

BGM (10/10)
I can't say much about the BGM, I get too sucked into the game play to even notice most of it but I recognized many of the classic SFII themes, which are obviously remixed or re-mastered in the best quality. During my many hours of game play I have not noticed a song that's out of place, sorry guys but no random jazz beats (MvC reference). I did wish the music was a tad louder but a sound system would fix that, which I'm looking into.

Game play (10/10)
As I mentioned the style of play is extremely close to that of SFII, which works rather well despite the fact that the fighting engine is twenty years old. There are other additions like; focus attack, super, and ultra combo systems. If you were not a fan of the SFII series back in the day, you might want to give it a chance this time around. It's polished enough to fell like a new game.

Controls (10/10)
Instantly familiar if you played any Street Fighter game in the past. Many moves remain the same for classic characters. I had no problems pulling off 99% of special moves rather early on, with the exception of Guile's double dash and the handful of moves with that motion. The combo system is not too harsh on the fingers, I did find it easier to use a standard controller opposed to an arcade stick. I reserve my arcade stick implementation for offline play.

Replay value (10/10)
The trials mode has kept me quite busy even after a year or so. I'm only 60% through it, it could get pretty challenging. The online experience has also kept me occupied since my purchase; I play a couple matches almost everyday. This is one of those games that you'll keep coming back too even after newer incarnations are released. When the PSN was hacked earlier this year, I ran out and bought a 3ds and a copy of SSFIV: 3D Edition just to play online. I have several titles on my 3ds but this is the game I play the most on it, I'll post a review of that version as well.

Minor Imperfections:
I have very few complaints; the costume packs Capcom offer as DLC could get really expensive if you want all the alternate costumes for all the characters, some of them are not that great looking. Of course this is optional. The game play itself is rather slow compared to so many other fighting game titles, this doesn't bug me but it would have been nice to have the option of toggling the game play pace. On the other hand I think it would unbalance the game if this option were available. Also the online mode for ranked matches could be a hassle at times, I found it easier to play arcade mode with fight request on. Otherwise it could take a couple minutes to find matches.

General View (10/10)
I played the original SFIV a hand full of times at my buddy's house, around the time this version was launched. I thought SSFIV would be an excellent edition to my collection; I had no Idea I was going to spend so much time with it. The ten added characters and enhanced online modes made a great addition to the series; Super Street Fighter IV exceeded my expectations and became an instant classic.