copied from OA:
By now you've heard of Capcom's late '07 surprise announcement, Street Fighter IV, the game that promises to end the decade-long Street Fighter drought. This is the game that hopes to rejuvenate the 2D fighting scene that peaked during the Street Fighter II era, and has steadily dwindled since. Not an easy task for SFIV producer Yoshinori Ono, a longtime Capcom veteran who previously worked on Shadow of Rome, Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams, and most significantly -- in relation to SFIV, anyway -- SFIII: Third Strike, among others. In case you haven't read Electronic Gaming Monthly's exhaustive breakdown exclusive first look at SFIV (and you should, since it discusses a lot of peripheral material we won't cover here -- in stores now!), we offer this recap and our impressions of the game as we know it thus far.
The Fast and the Furious
The first thing we noticed upon grabbing the joysticks, selecting our characters (initially only Ken and Ryu were available when we played the game in Tokyo, although a pre-beta Chun-Li and Dhalsim were later playable when we tried the game again at Capcom's U.S. headquarters), and pressing 'start' is that the game is fast. Ono explained to us that the current speed of the game isn't necessarily what will ship in the finished product, whether it be in the arcade (where the game would benefit from an active community beta test), or on console. He explained that it's easier to develop a game at a high speed, dialing it down as they go, as it's easier to detect and address game-breaking factors in this manner, than it is to develop a game running at a slower speed with the intent of cranking it up after the fact.
Ono wouldn't confirm what platform the game would land on -- the version we played was running off of a development PC -- but we expect it to be multiplatform thanks to the differing strengths of specific consoles in each territory. If we had to wager a guess, and we will, it's that it'd be no-brainer to see the game land on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, since it's running at a wicked 60 frames per second already, in what was at least 720p and possibly 1080p, running at first (in Capcom's Tokyo office) on high-def arcade monitors in arcade cabinets, and in the U.S. on a large widescreen HDTV -- all this performance from a game that Ono describes as being no more than one or two percent complete.
The mold upon which nearly every 2D fighting game since has modeled itself after, the Ken/Ryu archetype is the also the one that just about every fighting fan is instantly familiar and comfortable with. And so it was with us as we picked our fighters and went through the motions. Would fireballs launch from fingertips just as easily as they had in days gone by? Could we erupt in a flurry of jump kicks, low sweeps, dragon punches, throws, and hurricane kicks as we had in the past? For the most part the answer was an undeniable 'yes.' In an effort to reclaim past glories, Ono and the SFIV team have gone to great lengths to offer the same pick-up-and-playability of the original 2D quarter cruncher. They want to appease the hardcore parry-master who stuck with the series through SFIII: Third Strike, but also want to satisfy the one-time fan who last rocked a quarter-circle-forward+hard punch in 1992.
It's a tough line to maintain, but from what we played it seems like the dev team is on the right track. SFIV is easy enough for casual players to just start jumping around, punching, kicking, and tossing the occasional fireball. This is thanks to the super-responsive joystick controls and six-button layout. But the game is also conducive to deliberate, strategic, hardcore battles that tournament-level players will undoubtedly produce once the game comes out. This is largely due to...
The Saving System
The Saving system is what Ono hopes will satisfy the hardcore players looking forward to battling it out in SFIV. By now it's no secret that Street Fighter III's much-loved Parry system is out, and 'saving' is in. First of all, the Saving system isn't a fancy name for saving your game. While Capcom U.S. works out a title that's punchier and, hopefully, more descriptive for the North American market, the system-currently-known-as-the-Saving-system is the branching, one size-fits-all multi-faceted palette of play mechanics in SFIV that expert players should be able to wring some truly exciting results out of once the game reaches the general public. But to know the Saving system you must first understand...
The Revenge Gauge
The Revenge gauge looks like your basic fighting game gauge, this one divided into four sections. The bar fills as you connect with punches and kicks, and provided you have at least one full bar you can then unload a more potent attack by tapping strong-punch and strong-kick simultaneously (a 'Saving strike'). An additional benefit to using a Saving strike is that this renders you invincible for a brief sliver of time. Savvy players with impeccable timing might use this as a way to let, say, an opposing and attacking Ken -- who is in the middle animations of a dragon punch, for example -- pass through them without damage. If you have three-quarters or full Revenge gauge stored up, you can instead hold both buttons down to let fly with an unblockable, charged, super-powerful attack (that also renders you momentarily invincible). This should in theory allow for big comeback opportunities by a player who's running out of lifebar, but in ways that aren't game breaking like Guilty Gear's 'instant kill' moves.
Another use for the Revenge gauge's pool of stored power is in SFIV's EX attacks. While performing a typical special attack, like a fireball or dragon punch or hurricane kick, you usually punctuate the move with a weak, medium, or strong punch or kick. To perform an EX attack you press two buttons instead, presumably medium and strong together, resulting in a fireball on steroids, or a hurricane kick with extra kick. The quick-wristed will make the most of this system once they've mastered how to cancel these moves through forward and reverse dashes. SFIV producer Ono himself gave us a clinic on how to maximize the strategic possibilities of this system by showing us one way to knit together a series of combos, cancels and EX attacks.
Example: Player One uses up one slice of the Revenge gauge by launching into a Saving strike but then halfway through the attack animation interrupts the move by dashing forward slightly, to cancel. Using another portion of Revenge gauge Player One further confuses his opponent by letting loose with an EX fireball, with a quarter-circle forward plus a medium and strong attack. Cancel that attack as well, as your opponent weeps loudly and attempts to dodge what he views as a fireball wind-up by backflipping in the air. Whip out the classic 'Z' formation with your joystick and the two strongest punch buttons to wreck his world with an EX Dragon Punch. Cost: One Revenge gauge bar. With one section of Revenge left, feel free to interrupt your foe's landing with an EX fireball, which will almost surely K.O. him at this point. This was also designed to ensure that no player, even one with a sizeable advantage in health, should ever feel safe, so long as their opponent has a full Revenge gauge at his disposal.
Another use for the Revenge gauge's pool of stored power is in SFIV's EX attacks. While performing a typical special attack, like a fireball or dragon punch or hurricane kick, you usually punctuate the move with a weak, medium, or strong punch or kick. To perform an EX attack you press two buttons instead, presumably medium and strong together, resulting in a fireball on steroids, or a hurricane kick with extra kick. The quick-wristed will make the most of this system once they've mastered how to cancel these moves through forward and reverse dashes. SFIV producer Ono himself gave us a clinic on how to maximize the strategic possibilities of this system by showing us one way to knit together a series of combos, cancels and EX attacks.
Example: Player One uses up one slice of the Revenge gauge by launching into a Saving strike but then halfway through the attack animation interrupts the move by dashing forward slightly, to cancel. Using another portion of Revenge gauge Player One further confuses his opponent by letting loose with an EX fireball, with a quarter-circle forward plus a medium and strong attack. Cancel that attack as well, as your opponent weeps loudly and attempts to dodge what he views as a fireball wind-up by backflipping in the air. Whip out the classic 'Z' formation with your joystick and the two strongest punch buttons to wreck his world with an EX Dragon Punch. Cost: One Revenge gauge bar. With one section of Revenge left, feel free to interrupt your foe's landing with an EX fireball, which will almost surely K.O. him at this point. This was also designed to ensure that no player, even one with a sizeable advantage in health, should ever feel safe, so long as their opponent has a full Revenge gauge at his disposal.
While Street Fighter III fans (Third Strike and otherwise) bemoan the lack of parries in SFIV, the decision to remove that defensive tactic was deliberate, as the development team wanted to create a more offensive, up-tempo game with defensive possibilities beyond blocking hardwired into the offense itself. Obviously only really talented players (or really lucky players) will be able to sew these sorts of mind games together with any level of proficiency or consistency, but that points to Street Fighter IV's intended depth for high-level players. And this depth doesn't even begin to factor in...
Ultra Combos
If there's anything we can all agree on, it's that the one thing that satisfies more than damage, is more damage. Super Street Fighter II Turbo had Super moves, but Street Fighter IV has Ultra moves. The version(s) of SFIV we played had some of each player's signature moves in place. For Ken it was his Shoryu-Reppa Dragon Punch, for Ryu his Shinkuu Hadoken fireball, for Dhalsim the Yoga Inferno was brought back in altered, but better-balanced form, and for Chun-Li the team retained her Kikou-sho fireball. All of these can still be performed using the original methods, typically with a double quarter-circle forward and a strong punch for Ryu's fireball, as an example. But if you have a chunk of the Revenge bar blinking and ready to go, the same motion, but with medium and strong punch pressed, activates an Ultra combo.
The difference with an Ultra combo is that instead of doing damage, it does big damage. This is also where SFIV momentarily strays from the strictly 2D perspective to kick off 3D fireworks. This is basically a cinematic, as the game never, ever wanders into the realm of 3D gameplay, but it's an awesome cinematic, which goes a long way to capturing and crystallizing the excitement of a match. Since an Ultra move can miss -- which we witnessed first-hand -- there is guaranteed to be a lot of yelling when an Ultra does and doesn't land. While the game mechanics are far from being ironed out, for the moment it also seems possible to cancel out of an Ultra combo as well.
Like all worthwhile next-gen fighters, Street Fighter IV will be playable online. While the SFIV engine has been designed as a flexible, multi-platform-friendly construct, it isn't the derived from the same technology as Capcom's other, similarly-flexible Dead Rising/Lost Planet/Devil May Cry 4 engine. This is all-new tech designed specifically for SFIV, with an eye toward using it for possible future revivals of old 2D fighting franchises, like Darkstalkers (Morrigan could use a serious facelift after all). Of course, it all depends on how well SFIV is received by the gaming public, but expectations are high for the game, and rightfully so.
While naysayers might lazily glance at the screenshots published in EGM and toss out "it's a next-gen Street Fighter EX" -- referencing Arika's long-forgotten PS1 series of 3D fighters -- it's anything but. Unlike that series' floaty, rough-hewn gameplay (and Skull-O-Mania, now that we mention it), SFIV's action is greased lightning. Forward jumps to low sweeps to backflips into Hurricane Kicks all take place at lightning-fast speeds which reward quick reflexes with quick results. While we may have all grown accustomed to the pace infused in 3D fighters like Virtua Fighter 5, Tekken 5 and Dead or Alive 4, Street Fighter IV blows them all away for sheer in-your-face ferocity. Confined to a limited plane, combatants in SFIV have a finite area in which to utilize their arsenal, but these battles are ever so beautiful to witness.
Although the stages pivot slightly in 3D (if only to adhere to the law of physics and vanishing points), the action is entirely 2D. No moving in and out of the foreground, no knocking anyone off of ledges or cliffs. Just glorious details rendered faithfully in rich, highly-animated 3D. Ono promises that classic stages will be reinvented to the delight of long-time fans. Stages such as Chun-Li's 'bicycle' stage will surprise players with its level of detail -- while not affecting gameplay, various objects in the background will be interactive or affected on some level. Passing fireballs may roast chickens or shatter barrels in their wake.
Character expressions which look exaggerated in screenshots (like Ryu or Ken's open-mouthed face as they're hit in the gut with a Dragon Punch, for example) offer a wealth of "did you see that?" moments for players and bystanders alike. Each character model has been painstakingly modeled after SFIV art director Daigo Ikeno's original illustrations, beefing up the original roster in the process. As you can see from the images of Ken and Ryu released so far, the pair has been spending some time in the gym.
While one might worry that their bulkiness might affect their movement, fear not, as all of the characters we've tried are as nimble as can be. Chun-Li, even in the early flat-shaded, thick-thighed model that we played, unloaded rapid-fire kick after rapid-fire kick on all opponents. Chun-Li, at this early stage, was particularly powerful, as her kicks -- even the technically 'slower' ones -- had tremendous priority over even Ken's weak jabs. Of course, since she was pre-pre-pre alpha, this will change dramatically as the game is tweaked and balanced. Still, she looked great, as did Dhalsim, who has transformed from skinny yoga-wonder to svelte, but broad-shouldered Indian mangod. The flame effects erupting from his curry-breath mouth were awesome, and the game never ever slowed from its impressive 60 frames-per-second performance.
We're really looking forward to seeing how the other classic Street Fighter II characters shape up. As a Capcom public relations representative told us, "I can't really go into detail, but wait until you see one of the classic characters, who looks ****ing unreal." We're not sure who will make the cut, but most of the classic Street Fighter II cast will return. When we threw out the name 'Blanka,' Ono's eyes turned toward the ceiling, as he was unable to comment further, but we can just imagine the electrifying make-over he'll receive.
And if even the once-malnourished Dhalsim can return in enhanced form, we can barely imagine how massive Russian wrestler Zangief would look, or Sagat or M. Bison for that matter. Then, of course, discussion is already ripe with Cammy talk among fans, but we anticipate that the characters introduced in later iterations of the Street Fighter II canon will be saved for the eventual SFIV sequels. This is Capcom after all.
For the moment, though, we've gathered all the information we could currently squeeze out of Ono and Capcom, with plenty more to be revealed over the course of the next year. A release date hasn't even been discussed in the broadest possible terms, and we've yet to discover which platform(s) the game will ship on. There's still more to come if you're thirsty for SFIV info, in the form of a lengthy Yoshinori Ono interview which is right around the corner, in which we cover all manner of topics, ranging from Street Fighter IV (of course), to eventual revivals of other Capcom 2D fighters (we'll take a Rival Schools revival, thanks), EGM executive editor Shane Bettenhausen's obsession with Final Fight's Poison's sexuality, untold stories of Street Fighter III and more.
Did you know that due to massive overstock of Warzard (Red Earth) CPS-III roms, an executive at Capcom ordered Ono to "do something with them?" The end result of this product was a Street Fighter III clock that was sold for a limited time. Eventually, however, someone with a CPS-III arcade cabinet tried putting the SFIII clock in the machine, only to find a fully functioning copy of Warzard loading up on the monitor. Fact. So check back for our complete Ono interview next week -- oh, and the first ever video footage of the game on Friday.
