SFIV for the Xbox 360... A new hope? 
Monday, March 2, 2009, 06:31 PM - Xbox
Posted by Caliga
Crisp, clean, and fresh like a new car, after years of waiting, Capcom decided to finally release their newest addition to the Street Fighter franchise.


Now, while I'll be the first to admit I'm a huge fan of these games, thats not to say that any game like this is without its downsides.

Utilizing their same fighting system for what seems the past decade, Capcom decided to keep the basics, and only perform the most simple of tweeks to it. IE: Polishing the response time, adding in a new Focus Attack function, and minimalistic things such as that. However, this is not to say the system is without its flaws.

The Xbox 360 version (Box art shown above), seems to have plenty of them. The combo chains.. They make you want to throw your controller at the TV, as some of them you can pull off, however the system will say, "Please do this and this and that and this to perform this combo!", blissfully unaware you've just done that. It's like playing a 60$ version of Simon Says. This does not make for good playing.

The next glaring flaw is the lack of replay value. Sure, you can kick the ever loving snot out of your friends and loved ones for days on end, but it gets old. Really old. Really fast. The bliss from waffle-stomping everyone on the street can only last for so long, before the game is retired to your shelf, and never touched again.

Ever.

You have a total of twenty five playable characters, including a boss character that's Dhalsim-Guile-Ryu-Zangief-The Maytag Man all rolled into one. Not to mention after lord knows how many years, Capcom finally decided to play into EGM's old joke of Shenlong, this time by creating a character named Gouken, who is the master of Ryu and Ken, whom you can unlock by pretty much the same scenerio as the original April Fools joke said. (Which by the by, this character is just as, if not cheaper then Akuma/Gouki.. Says a lot, don't it?)

The lack of additional stages, and the ability to choose character music for some stages is a bit of an annoyance, but the visual designs more then make up for it. The character models are beautiful, and have their own appeal (Especially Dan, whose become a Mentos spokesman since his last appearance in the series.)

Personally, I like how smooth it feels. I grew up with Street Fighter II: Championship Edition on the SNES. So using the D-Pad on my 360 controller isn't any different then from those days. It seems though, that to get the most of the game you need to have an Arcade Stick.

The second big bonus to me is the animated cut-scenes, which gives the game more then your standard arcade brawler feel. Another bonus, and the last one for me, is the language options. The ability to choose English or Japanese Voices for the characters? And then set whichever character you want to have either of the two? That's a big bonus. More games should do that in my opinion.

Capcom has also announced that if the desire is there, there would be downloadable characters for the game, maybe even stages. But that still doesn't justify the price tag. Nor does it justify what we're getting now.

Final thoughts? All in all, while I may still end up purchasing this game? I'm still glad in the end I rented it first.
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