Street Fighter IV

"I'll make this quick and painless for you, kid!"

Hot on the tail of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix was the console release of the next great leap in the Street Fighter series. Had it gone 3D yet? Sort of, yes. Was it easier for newcomers to pick up and dive into? I'm told so, yes. Would it kick the fighting genre into a higher gear than that which it had been wallowing in recent times? Yes indeed.

What is it called already? Simply, Street Fighter IV.

Fun Times

Well now, this is unexpected. Is it because I'm playing Ultra Street Fighter IV that I'm greeted by these painterly visuals, or is Street Fighter trying to say something about its new style - because new it is.

Two fighters are still put face to face to battle it out on a single movement plane, but those characters aren't the sprites of the past, nor are they HD sprites of the future. Instead, they are 3D models with their own art style slapped on top. Not quite cartoon, not quite artwork, all parts interesting.

The roster, as of Ultra, is 44 characters deep, but just 17 kicked off SFIV in the arcades, and Cammy wasn't one of them, but the Brits have to stick together now that a certain group of people have cocked it all up for the rest of us.

As ever, the story mode offers you the bare essentials of a story to follow along with. It's only a few paragraphs over some still artwork, but already I've forgotten Cammy's reason for fighting again. Bad guys need to be taught a lesson, probably. 

I'm playing with the default difficulty and am going in as blind as ever. Street Fighter isn't Tekken, despite the crossover game, so I can't rely on anything I may have learned.

Light, medium, and heavy attacks are mapped to the face and shoulder buttons on a controller, which is never the way you really want to play a fighting game, but unless you're an enthusiast, it's that or the keyboard, and I want to stand at least a bit of a chance.

It wasn't too long before I would become more than familiar with how little I knew of the fighting mechanics, as Rufus was pulling off fancy shit every other attack, it felt like, the screen filling with flashes of light and colour, the camera getting possessed and showing me the spot in all its cinematic glory.

They looked like nice attacks, for the attacker. On the receiving end of things, they were mighty repetitive, pulling me out of the action as I had to sit and wait for it all to finish before I could get back into the action, where I'd no doubt swing, miss, and get sucker-punched once more.

Heading into the pause menu to check out some of my moves, I was once again filled with the utter dread that comes from fighting games. It simply isn't enough to throw a bunch of kicks and punches at your opponent. Even if you're useless, you've got to try and pull off some special moves and combos to keep pace with the opposition.

The move lists have been simplified, the timing windows expanded, and the game made simpler for novices to get into. Could I pull off something fancy? The age-old question I have of any Street Fighter game.

Frustrations

No, is the answer. It usually is. I might have been able to do something - I did glow yellow at one point - but screen-filling cinematic attacks that reduce my opponent to tears, causing them to think twice about their next attack? That was never going to happen. I didn't know my light attacks from my heavy, my quarter rotations from my zig-zags, holds from presses.

It looked nice, with stage backgrounds coming alive and HUD elements full of sweeping paint and ink strokes. Street Fighter IV has style, and style I want to see more of. But it's going to kick my arse no matter what I do.

I picked Ryu next, because surely he's good, and dropped the difficulty to 'Easy'. Bit of a mistake that, because he's not the kind of fighter I like. Too top-heavy, and reliant on punches. Well, no reliant, but he's a powerhouse.

I definitely hurled some Hadouken, and absolutely whiffed a Shoryuken, but I couldn't tell you what combination of inputs I did to pull them off.

Fights were close affairs too, closer than I'd like. When the star of the show loses two rounds in a row to a guy called Guy, who had only a sliver of health left but decided now was the best time to launch a 19 hit long combo your way, you know SFIV doesn't care about your feelings.

So, another character, another drop in difficulty...

We're now on very easy difficulty with the leggy Chun Li. Can I pull off any moves that I associate with her? No, not that I can tell. No silly helicopter kicks here, that's for sure. Again, in places, it looks fancy and I want to see more, but nothing I am doing on the controller is making me look cool, even when actively trying to do so.

My opponents can do it without thinking, but here I am, struggling to beat up a car. I don't know how I manage to get through these fights but get through them I do, and I've actually made it to the boss fight. Or a boss fight, I'm not sure which. I'm not expecting a 40-hour campaign in a fighter, am I?

Kicked. My. Bloody. Arse. I literally cannot tell you how I dealt any damage. Maybe it was taken out of pity. The screen was glowing purple for most of the fight, which meant I was turning black and blue. Couldn't see an opening, couldn't land at attack to save my life.

Welcome to the easier SFIV? How are you doing? Like what you're seeing? Seeing, yes. Achieving, no.

There is just one chance left. Guile. Easiest difficulty. Channel some Van Damme and brute force my way through this.

So that was Cody. He was fight number 3. He was wearing handcuffs. There was a knife on the floor with an indicator telling me you could pick it up and make use of it. He won. Oh, boy, did he win...

Final Word

That was an hour of Street Fighter IV, in its Ultra guise, full of extra characters and costumes and unlockable taunts. Ha, taunts. Like I'm skilled enough to taunt at my opponent in the middle of a fight. What do you think I am, SFIV?

I knew I wouldn't be sticking around in Street Fighter IV for long, but I had hope that I'd have a good time. I was definitely interested in the way it looked, even if some of the backgrounds are a little funky and/or dated these days. It's a style, it's different, and I wanted to enjoy it.

But the gameplay. Gah, the gameplay. You can enjoy something and lose, and that's a lesson we've all got to learn at some point. I enjoy the direction Street Fighter IV is taking us in, but I still cannot get on board with its gameplay in a way that I'm happy with.

It has been multiple decades now, game after game, remix after remix, rerelease after rerelease. There are a million different ways to jump into Street Fighter, and I don't think any of them have been welcoming to idiots like me.

I bought Tekken 7 because I hadn't played any Tekken game in a long time. That game allows idiots to have fun. This one doesn't. This one challenges each and every one of us who wants to play to get good or suffer the consequences.

I don't want that from a fighting game. I want a sense of satisfaction to come out of it, even if it means putting on the training wheels and having an opponent tie an arm behind their back, but Street Fighter has never given me that satisfaction.

I am forever shut out of it, destined to admire the skills of others from a distance because it simply doesn't allow players to have fun without working for it. And with a game as good looking as SFIV, with a roster that other games could only dream of, that saddens me greatly.

Fun Facts

One game proposal for the next Street Fighter entry would include a 3rd person God of War-like story mode for players to learn about Ryu's backstory. I'd definitely be on board for something like that if it allowed us dunces to enjoy the characters we like.

Street Fighter IV, developed by Capcom, Dimps, first released in 2008.

Version played: Ultra Street Fighter IV, PC, 2014.