Super Street Fighter IV

Updates are a Street Fighter tradition. Capcom always expands each game in the series by adding new characters, balancing the roster, and tweaking the gameplay. This pursuit for perfection can be slow, and the changes may go unnoticed, but the effort eventually pays off. Series' favorites Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo and Street Fighter 3: Third Strike are a direct result of work completed over multiple iterations. And with Super Street Fighter 4, Capcom continues this tradition, aiming to make it more than a slight upgrade.





T. Hawk, a grappler, is surprisingly quick. His movement is a lot faster than the game's other grapplers, such as Zangief, and that's a help in setting up his Typhoon, a powerful throw performed with a 360 motion and a punch. Depending on the punch's strength, a Typhoon sets the opponent on knockdown in different ranges. A weak punch places an opponent in the sweet spot for a cross-up or a throw upon wakeup, while the strong punch sends them flying across the stage. Another notable tweak is the combination Tomahawk Buster, an uppercut special attack, and the midair Condor Dive. Against opponents who love to jump in, T. Hawk players can harshly punish them with a Tomahawk Buster followed by an EX Condor Dive for additional damage. A new move, the Condor Spire, lets T. Hawk travel above the ground momentarily. It looks fairly ordinary, but its effects are quite handy. And because T. Hawk is briefly airborne during it, he can safely avoid opponent low attacks. The Condor Spire also pushes him forward, so T. Hawk players can use it to get into the opponent's immediate space and threaten them with the damaging Typhoon.

Juri is a Korean Taekwondo fighter whose moves emphasize the power and range of her kicks, performed mainly with a quarter motion command and a kick button. She's agile and quick, but with low stamina. Her special attacks include a quick flip kick that's safe on blocking, a dive kick performed at the top of her jump, and purple fireballs from her feet. Depending on the strength of the kick input, the fireballs travel at different angles: some at 45 degrees towards the air, or going parallel across the stage. The fireballs offer an interesting strategic quality, allowing players to "store" them by holding down the kick button, releasing it at a later time, not unlike Gilgamesh' stored projectiles in Capcom's Fate/Unlimited codes. The strategic possibilities are fascinating; you can store all three versions (Low kick, Medium kick, Hard kick), and release the fireballs in sequence or all at once.

Capcom's goals for SSF4 are ambitious. Less than a year after Street Fighter 4's console release, the company plans to release a substantial update sometime in Spring 2010, incorporating more characters, more gameplay enhancements, and more online matchmaking options. While some tweaks are hard to spot (such as faster Focus Attacks for all characters), the new characters are considerable additions to the game. SSF4 is still early in its development phase, but there's no doubt the next few months could be very exciting for SF4 fans.


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