Super Street Fighter 4

Rating: T

Score: 7.0/10

Let me tell you a story about a game called "Street Fighter". It was an arcade title nobody really knew, so when Street Fighter 2 was made, it was made for arcade and released on home consoles. From there, it became extremely popular, and most every gamer either had it or had a friend that did. It was so popular that Capcom (the designers) decide to release a follow-up, not quite a sequel, called "Street Fighter 2 - Champion Edition", adding more characters and stages. It was an addendum of sorts, and seemed like a good idea to tide gamers over until Street Fighter 3 came out, even though it was the same price as the original. Then Capcom released "Street Fighter 2 Turbo", which was another addition to the original Street Fighter 2, adding more characters and stages. Next, Capcom coughed up "Super Street Fighter 2", yet another addition. "Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo", another addition, was next and each of these additions only added a minimal amount of content. Yes, one or (arguably) two might've been good to hold gamers over, but were so many really what Capcom had in mind? Find a successful game and stick with that one title forever? Well, after pressuring reviews and screaming fans, they finally did release Street Fighter 3, and the hundreds of other additions to it. They told the gamers they won't do that with Street Fighter 4. Say hi to Super Street Fighter 4, folks. Smell it, breath in the scent of pity and desperation. This game is available for Arcade systems, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.

I have no respect this series, let's me make that clear. It wasn't just a minor thing that they released half a dozen games under the same title: each one of those suckers was $60 out of your wallet. 360$ spend on the same game is outrageous, and the fact they never learned afterwards proves it wasn't a simple "testing of the idea"; it was pure greed. Don't get me wrong, re-releasing a great game on a better system with upgrades is an excellent idea in my opinion. It adds life to a dead or slowing series and lets newer gamers enjoy it for the first time while letting previous fans enjoy its new life. However, we're not talking about re-released with a few years or decades of aging; we're talking about every year another addition shot out by Capcom. How long since the original Street Fighter 4 was released? One year? I rest my case. There's no need.

Street Fighter has been a leading series in fighting games. It is easy to learn but hard to master. It's more or less if you like fighting games, you'll probably get sucked in and get good, or you don't like fighting games a lot, you will never be particularly good. For people in the former group, this game is already covered in diamonds by just having "Street Fighter" in the title and being new. For the latter, my stance of little need for this game's existence it's probably where you stand.

To the game's credit, it's still an excellent-quality fighting game with the typical fluent controls and spectacular original art style. You have ten new characters to play around with, along with the twenty originals, making for a large selection of characters with quite large differences in play style. For the most part, there seems to be a hint of the classic copy-paste character moves and specials that most other fighting games sporting large numbers of characters are plagued with.

There are some new game modes too, like Tag Team, and the new Replay Channel , which you can save and view replays (obviously), and the endless mode where you're endurance is tested in fighting multiple rotation groups of enemies. The bonus stages that let you destroy cars and barrels returns from the older games, which hasn't seen its share of rather random (for a fighting game, anyway) yet amusing times for ages. There's also more dialogue in the game, offering more story should you care. The voice action is great, and none of the cutscenes are unbearably long, like in some text-heavy or cutscene-heavy games nowadays.

The game also has its own -and hold on to your hats because this will blow your mind - downloadable content. The point of downloadable content is to add content to an older game, which is the exact purpose of releasing this game; it's adding content to the original! The tournament online mode fans begged for will be, take a guess, downloadable content. So are more costumes for your characters and hints of new characters. Looks like Capcom will be laughing all the way to the bank as you fork over $70 for Street Fighter 4 again AND you fork over 10 bucks for extra content for your extra content. There must be a word for greed so devilish Satan himself would be shocked.

Your loyalty to this series will be tested. If you're a fan, you'll probably buy it for the extra content for your favorite (or one of your) game(s). If you're not, there's no reason to buy it if you already have the original. Capcom is just up to their usual tricks, which seems a little odd. Capcom, you have a dozen great series and game titles to be made, why do you insist on still pulling this trick? It's a great game, no doubt, but it's was already a great game that didn't require the extra (few) fees.