Jan 02
Street Fighter IV Gameplay Exposed!
Lots of you know that I love Street Fighter. In fact, Street Fighter II was one of the first video games I ever bought, incited my love of fighting games, and of course permanently endeared me to the Street Fighter franchise.
Since then, SF has had a ton of games and the characters have been all over the place in crossover games like Marvel vs Capcom, to movies, and comics. Well after a long wait, the next game in the revered franchise is finally seeing the light of day – Street Fighter IV.
News broke about the game quite some time ago but it is only recently that the first gameplay footage has eeked out over the Internet.
First Impressions
I don’t know how much you can take from just the gameplay trailer. Thankfully though, 1up posted a great video that has conversation with developers that sheds a lot of light on the project. Now I’m not gonna say TOO much about the video (because it’s really a FANtastic view that you should watch) but I will say that say that one thing revealed is no more parrying.
If you’re not familiar with parrying, it was introduced in Street Fighter III and by either executing a well timed forward or down on the joystick, you could successfully parry an oncoming attack meaning you took no damage and you were also in a spot to unleash any kind of attack of you wanted to. You could even parry a 15 hit super combo! What this meant was NO MORE EXCUSES as to why you lost. What it also meant was that Street Fighter became a much deeper game.
If you can’t tell, I’m very sad to hear that there’s no more parrying.
Street Fighter IV vs Street Fighter EX + Alpha?
… Me and my friends are big Street Fighter fans. So let me just put that out there from jump. We’ve played every incarnation of Street Fighter, we all have our favourite characters… We love the game. This game – I just don’t know. If you know SF history, when you check out the gameplay footage, you HAVE to think about Street Fighter EX, the first foray into 3D.
THAT game was hit and miss. Most SF fans would say probably say miss. For me, there were parts I liked and parts I didn’t. I thought it was tremendously creative, but the actual gameplay was a bit of a let down. It didn’t have the subtlety of previous Street Fighters and it didn’t lack the depth of Tekken (which I’m a big fan of).
After EX, I always asked myself why Capcom couldn’t come up with a game with the quality of Tekken… Maybe Street Fighter IV will finally answer that question for me. (One way or another).
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:50 pm
I used to spend a large chunk of my allowance in the arcade playing Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. I used to be awesome but I’d probably get massacred nowadays.
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:12 pm
@Jeremy – “Arcade?” What’s that? (#);) Man I miss arcades. I actually had a SF arcade experience at a D&B not too long ago. I got school pretty badly but I pulled off a spinning pile driver which (in the arcade) I felt pretty good about. *nod*
January 14th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
You are afraid to admit it Bush, we all are, but you already know it in your heart – 3D Street Fighter games suck @ss, and this one will probably be the same. It really pisses me off that a Street Fighter game in the main series, the SF game to get the “IV,” is going to use 3D graphics. Screw this game. I was so excited, but after actual gameplay photos and movies were released, I said “screw this crap.” Seems like the video game industry continues to disappoint me more and more as time goes on (much like the auto industry).
As far as 2D SF games, other than the parrying system, I didn’t like much about SF3, not much at all. I really wanted a pure SF game that used the same engine from Marvel Super Heroes vs SF – basically that exact game without the Marvel characters, and with higher-res art.
For the time being, the Guilty Gear series is what satisfies my cravings for awesome 2D-fighting goodness. My brother is even part of a club that focuses only on this series up at the Digipen Institute of Technology.
As far as SF goes, I’m still waiting for SF HD on XBLA with the artwork and animation all completely done by UDON. If you ask me, SFIV should have been a new SF game with all the art and animation done by UDON as well. SF HD has much higher resolution art than Guilty Gear, and that freakin’ kicks @ss. Capcom and SNK’s problem has always been that their artwork was too low res. And GG still runs at 60fps no problem.
Tekken is meant to be more realistic than SF. Don’t compare the two man, it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. And we all know SF would be nowhere as good as it used to be if it played like Tekken or Virtua Fighter or even DoA. You can’t combine realistic fighting with super moves and whatnot. Imagine characters in Tekken throwing fireballs and executing super dragon punches. No thank you. And such moves don’t look impressive with 3D graphics anyways. It’s all about the 2D art.
Capcom had a chance to bring back 2D fighting and make it stronger than it ever was with SF4. But instead they chose to smoke a whole buncha crack. Now they want to hand the crackpipe to their fans. No thanks guys, I think I’ll pass.
If you want me Capcom, I’ll be up on my Sega Saturn, rocking Samurai Spirits 4, Vampire Savior, MSH vs SF or Xmen vs SF. Or on my PC / PS2 / Nintendo Revolution playing Guilty Gear XX #Reload or Accent Core. Call me when you get out of rehab, with a 2D-based Street Fighter 5.
January 14th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
@Drezkill – As always, beautiful comment. And as always, you wrote so much, I don’t even know where to begin when replying. But I guess the beginning is as good a place as any…
You make it sound like there’s been many. Even though there were 3 iterations of SF Ex, they were basically all the same game so it’s not like SF has REALLY had more than one foray into 3d land.
SF3′s parrying system really made the whole game. If you didn’t learn it and master it (to some degree) you missed out on 90% of the game. Now, I never said I liked the characters much from SF3… I think as far as characters go, SF3′s started off good and ended up way bad as far as moves for some, and personality for another. That said, Dudley and Hugo and Alex (amongst others) were great characters.
SAY WHAT!? A pure SF game would be everything MSF vs SF, MvC isn’t! No tag teams, no MvC combos, … well that’s everything right? Oh and there’s that whole depth thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the crossover games, but as far as one on one battles, more characters lack depth than have them.
I’m not too psyched for SF HD because the gameplay is going to be the same, if not worse because of the updated sprites. And even though GG is a BEAUTIFUL game, I don’t think it’s good because of how it looks.
I wasn’t comparing the two, but I was asking the question as to whether Capcom could release a 3D fighter as good and deep as Tekken. I would say they could. Think of it this way… If you gave Namco the SF IP and said : “Make a 3D fighting game.” I bet they would and I bet they’d do a damn good job.
If you want me, I’ll be playing SNK vs Capcom 2, Paperboy and watching American Gladiators.
July 11th, 2008 at 10:01 am
[...] Fighter fan than you’re boy, Bush Mackel. As a consequence my world has been pained with Street Fighter EX IV Street Fighter IV moving away from the under appreciated masterpiece that was Street Fighter III [...]
January 29th, 2009 at 1:36 am
dude theres a reason sf 3rd strike is still to this day the most played balanced and respected 2d fighter at evo just check out some of the footage if you think theres a better incarnation (other then maybe ssf 2 turbo if your a throwback type) you are severly mistaken check out one on the greatest spectating moments of any gamers life http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS5peqApgUA&feature=related
February 20th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
@gouki – And this is why we’re friends. (#):)