Street Fighter IV is a great fighting game for masters of the series, or for those who care to spend time mastering it.

User Rating: 7 | Street Fighter IV X360
By The_Deepblue | Review Date:
I never was a Street Fighter junkie. There are die-hard fans of the series who have followed it closely to this point, playing Street Fighter II on nearly every console with its thousands of re-issues, spending dollars in quarters at the arcades and such. Me...I had Street Fighter II on the Genesis. I would pop in it for a good fighting fix now and then. The game was overly complicated for me to really feel dedicated to, and when I won, I felt as if the gaming gods were just being merciful. There was really no satisfaction to defeating your enemy with a simple kick and punch, and surviving by playing a good defense. For some reason I hoped Street Fighter IV would be different.

Maybe I figured that since I was older, that my Street Fighter skills would automatically enhance. How hard could it be? Just be flexible in the ring with my opponent, and do some great counter moves, and figure out the enemy's weakness. And the combos on this website I found don't look too difficult to pull off. Just roll yer analog and press punch three times when your meter is filled. But it's not that simple. Pulling off special attacks and combos is very difficult with the controller. It's still impossible for me to do combos on arcade fighting systems. I still proudly own the top score(s) on Marvel Super Heroes at my local bowling alley, in spite of that. The problem is , when you roll your analog 180 degrees and press punch three times, for example, you may be lucky to get a special move, or watch your character step around awkwardly and punch the air three times, and then get mauled by the AI.

The AI is so cheap. If you name a character from this game, I can tell you what move they constantly "spam". And the AI doesn't have to worry about pulling off ridiculous combos and moves using an analog controller. If you can beat the Arcade mode on Normal, then give yourself a pat on the back. If you're a novice Street Fighter player like me, you may find one or two characters to play with, in which you may be decent, but you feel so restricted from all of what the game has to offer, which isn't much. The game simply doesn't hold a lot of value. You get treated to small slices of glory when you accomplish something great, and there's not much meat to the game itself.

There are good qualities about Street Fighter IV. The graphics are gorgeous, the voice acting is great, though the dialog is cheesy. The gameplay itself can be very fun with the one or two characters a novice played may be good with. The most rewarding pay-off to the Street Fighter IV lover is probably training and taking the time to master every character. The joy for Street Fighter veterans will understandably be filled with this game, but newcomers will enter and be beaten to a bloody pulp.

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