You will immediately recognize the game as soon as you pick up a controller, or in my case, an arcade stick. Many characters from Street Fighter 2 and the Street Fighter Alpha series have returned in 3D and in glorious
Right off the bat, you will see a large difference between this game and it's predacessors, just in terms of fidelity. The game will still be highly recognizalble to hardcore players, as the returning characters look very much like their former embodiments, only highly refined with much more detail.
I am playing the game on an Xbox360, in which it runs at a solid 60 frames per second, which seems mandatory for any fighting game to reach its full potential with the hardcore crowd. Although the game's graphics are not comparible to something like those of Crysis or Gears of War, it does look amazing in it's own right.
Sure, you'll see a few polygons here, or a character's hand go through part of another character. But that seems few and far inbetween. The fighting games has a very surreal, "cartoony", almost cell-shaded look to it. The ink effects from specific attacks (focus attacks), where ink will splash the screen or the surrounding environment, adds an un-needed put appreciated layer to the game. I also have to mention that character supers and the special effects coupled with the professional camera angles, make the game look lightyears ahead of its time.
The dynamic backgrounds in the many various levels with some returning from previous games, add a much needed active background. Whether it be a rocking boat out at sea with the setting sun on the horizon, or at an air base with a plane getting ready for take-off. As it comes around, the plane's wing will come over the fighters, and a timely dragon-punch will knock the wing right off the plane. Minor details such as that add a nice touch and comic relief to a game that players take very seriously.
Gameplay
Street Fighter 4 has infact been out for over half a year by now in arcades. But, with a hefty pricetag and a near-dead arcade scene, it's very hard to find one to play on, unless you live in Japan.
The arcade version compared to the console version, are very different. Not only is there a much larger character roster for the home console version of the shooting games , but it has also been much better refined and balanced.
Street Fighter Games - Sagat's Chance for Revenge
