Street Fighter IV (Arcade)
What Capcom is attempting to do is pull in those who have ignored Street Fighter since they went update crazy, yet not completely alienate those who have been playing the last sequel, [3rd Strike].
To find yourself at the Capcom suite at GDC 08 and in the week-long presence of Street Fighter IV was to witness the evolution of the very game itself. If anyone has told you that it plays exactly like Super Street Fighter II Turbo (the game its attempting to emulate for the most part), then they're either far too caught up in the hype or haven't played the game in the past 15 years. But for as awkward as the play was when the week began, the final day of the Game Developers Conference showed some incredible promise of what this new style of fighting can bring to the table.
Maybe it was the widescreen splendor of the Viewlix cabinet doing all the work, but the now infamously ridiculous faces found in screenshots of Street Fighter IV aren't much of a bother in motion and in some instances, actually enhance the experience. And the background spectators aside, the game looks fantastic on the TaitoX2 hardware with Street Fighter IV's roster of characters appearing larger than life, much like they seemed back in 1991. Seeing Abel stuck in mid-air with his tongue waggling about in a screenshot is one thing, but seeing that same face, upside-down with his neck totally tweaked sideways from a spinning pile driver is another.
The theme of Street Fighter IV is compromise. What Capcom is attempting to do is pull in those who have ignored Street Fighter since they went update crazy, yet not completely alienate those who have been playing the last sequel, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, for the past decade. The original cast of eight has returned yet there are brand new characters for players to question what it is that truly makes a character a "Street Fighter." More importantly, the mechanics are a mash-up of ideas from throughout the series. Air-blocking and parrying from the later games are out, but EX moves (enchanced special attacks performed with an additional punch or kick button) from 3rd Strike remain. The biggest inclusion, however, is the brand new Focus attack and it's one that changes how the game is played completely.
With the option of being used both offensively and defensively, the Focus Attack took quite a while to wrap my head around. The attack itself is initiated by holding down the two medium buttons, in which your character begins to charge the blow. During this charging period (of which there are three levels, the last being an unblockable attack), you can sustain a singular attack and not be interrupted, thus making it a quick and dirty parry replacement should the situation call for one. The act of charging can be canceled by dashing either backwards or forwards, which leads to its most vital role: attack canceling.
Focus Attack: It's not just for parrying anymore!
Bolshaya Pabeda!
By using focus attacks to cancel, a simple chain combo into an EX attack can then be cancelled out and lead into just about anything you can imagine. From EX Shoryukens into mid-air hurricane kick juggles to Zangief following up EX Banishing Flats into Final Atomic Busters, focus canceling can already be used to stop over aggressive players, but it can also be used to dish out even greater punishment for whiffed attacks.
Punishment is currently the name of the game as Street Fighter IV's greatest flaw at the moment is its erratic pacing. Everything from the gravity of jumps to the incredibly slow dashing (you're better off just walking 90 percent of the time), Street Fighter IV feels quite sluggish when compared to the rest of the series. This feeling can mostly be attributed to the intense recovery times that come along with most of your characters arsenal. From Ryu's Hadoken to Guile's low roundhouse, the time between when your attack lands and when you regain your ability to block feels significantly greater than any Street Fighter to date, which leads to a bizarre ground game where seemingly nothing is ever safe.
When asked about this criticism, producer Yoshinori Ono completely agreed. "Yes, about that..." he jokes. Ono gets very animated as he speaks, throwing out punches while he explains the situation. "The problem is that in the older titles, the animation was hand keyed. If say, this five frame attack was taking too long, we'd cut it down to three and no one would even notice. But now, with the 3D graphics, we have to animate everything. There's nowhere to hide! This is something we're working on though."
This becomes a constant exchange throughout the week and a reassuring one at that. Yoshinori Ono truly understands his project and whether it was specific moves not acting appropriately or the strange glitches that popped up here and there, he would listen and if possible, offer up an explanation as to how he and his team could go about fixing it. The Game Developers Conference was the first time that very serious, very dedicated players could get their hands on Street Fighter IV and experiment and he was beyond excited to see the results. When the week began, the vast majority of us played it like Super Turbo and used the Focus attack primarily like 3rd Strikes parry. By the end of the week we were truly playing Street Fighter IV, combining the different styles of focus and making due with the often bizarre pacing of the game.
From someone who still spends the better part of their time playing games such as Super Turbo and 3rd Strike competitively with some of the best players on the planet, I honestly didn't have much faith in what Street Fighter IV is attempting to accomplish. But after spending hours upon hours with the game, dissecting it with equal players and debating endlessly with Yoshinori Ono, I'm convinced that Street Fighter IV will turn out to be something special. It may not be there just yet, but the hurdles that Capcom faces aren't terribly tall and at this point, its more a question of whether or not they actually care enough to leap them. Seeing as how Ono never kicked me out of this suite with my near endless whining, I'd say they care.
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Ultra Combos are Japanese for really big super.
Come back on Wednesday where we discuss how over powered Viper is!
F. Roundhouse: Still the coolest move in the game.
