As a Wii only gamer, I was anticipating Street Fighter IV to make an appearance. After all, Street Fighter IV made an appearance on the iPhone, why not on the Wii that has a huge install base?
“You can get it on the 3DS.” Screw that. The game makes your hands cramp up something fierce, and I’d find the game unplayable with 3DS’s horrible small Japanese buttons and all. My hands cramping is why I don’t enjoy playing with handhelds. I prefer consoles where I can CHOOSE MY OWN CONTROLLER since people have different hands. You just can’t make one controller to suit everyone. Right, Nintendo? Right?
I’m not sure why SF4 never appeared on the Wii, but Capcom put out some VS game which I didn’t really want. So when SF4 appeared in a Steam sale for $10 for the complete arcade version, I decided to get it.
I think I’m beginning to understand what Steam is. I thought Steam was trying to be PC gaming which is why I hated it. Steam is actually trying to be an alternative to consoles. Like it or not, there are publishers who refuse to release games anywhere without the DRM of a console. What Steam has done is provided a DRM so the games can be released on the PC. I hate the DRM, but this saves me buying a console in order to get to the game. I’m using Steam only to get the games I want that will never become DRM free. Games like Street Fighter IV Arcade, Castle Crashers, and eventually Dark Souls. I really want to get that new Mortal Kombat game and Pac-Man Championship Edition. Why, oh why, are they not available in some form outside of the damn consoles? Oh well, they won’t get my money.
And let me take the moment to thank the hardcore gamers for buying Street Fighter IV multiple times at full price so I could buy it all for only $10! Thanks hardcore gamers, you guys are the best! <3
The last time I had played Street Fighter was with the SNES version of Super Street Fighter 2. My experience playing the modern Street Fighter was quite laughable. Everything had changed yet everything had stayed the same.
My first playthrough was on the easiest of arcade. I knew how to do the basic kick and punch, block, and such. I had no idea how to do the special attacks. When they occurred, it was only by accident, and I became very surprised. When I got in trouble in a fight, I just started smashing buttons and was in awe as my character began doing all these moves. “Wow!” I said having never seen some of these moves. Hahahahahaha. Then I came up to one guy I couldn’t beat. “What is with this guy? OMG, he is making a BLACK HOLE? Who IS this guy?” I had to look him up. Apparently, he was Seth which is supposed to be the ‘big bad guy’ in the game.
The reader might laugh at how awful I was, but how could I know with only Super Street Fighter 2 being my last Street Fighter game? As I understand it, fighting fans saw only marginal differences in the game since they buy every version. Since I wasn’t around for those marginal changes, the learning curve is steeper for someone like me.
During the 16-bit era, I really liked games like Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat, but they frustrated the hell out of me. I hated having to look up the moves from a magazine or someplace else. (When the game came out, most people had no idea how to do many of the moves. We were used to usual fighting games at the time like Karate Champ. There were no fireballs or electric zapping in Karate Champ! In the arcade when the game first came out, a special move accidentally occurred and people got excited over it. “What was that?” “I don’t know, man! I hope it happens again!” “How did you DO that?” “I have no idea!” “What did I just do? How did I do that!?” Such innocent times.
What I really liked what they did is the training mode. You can practice your moves on a dummy and call up a button to see how to do different moves. You didn’t have to look at a magazine. I just wish I could place those moves on the background itself so I didn’t have to call up the special screen to see them but that is a minor complaint.
Above: This video shows off the training mode.
I haven’t fully explored the game, but since it is easier for me to learn the game, I have made much better progress. Next time I saw Seth, I knocked him out easily. It is very fun to see myself improve. I LOVE arcade games because of this. I was surprised to hear people not like SF4 (for whatever reason) because I can’t find anything I dislike about it. None of the usual ‘modern gaming’ aftertaste is there for me.
“What about the cutscenes, Malstrom? It has cutscenes! You don’t like cutscenes! Therefore, you violate everything you say!”
I haven’t really noticed the cutscenes. They’re not very long. I actually LIKE cutscenes in arcade games. It gives my fingers a rest. Remember, Pac-Man had cutscenes, and I LOVED them because it gave my hand a rest for a moment. Arcade games are so frantic, and when you get older it is tougher to play them. I still enjoy them a ton.
I really like how the game doesn’t take itself seriously. The game jokes around with itself all the time. We also live in a time when characters like Chun-Li or Cammy couldn’t be made today because feminists (who we can all agree need to get out of our video games) and those who empower feminists would raise a stink about them. “They’re too attractive, wah. Their legs are too good and muscular, wah.” You get the picture. So I really enjoy that, at least for now, we can get playful fun such as Cammy and her ‘catsuit’.
I think the reason why I enjoy the game is because it requires little time to play and the harder I try, the more I improve. The fun in the game is getting better. It seems like there is a high skill ceiling which may be beyond even my reflexes. But if I can become competitive with a typical 20 year old, I am doing OK.
Right now I’m going through the characters I remember from Super Street Fighter 2. Any new ones that are very popular?
BTW, Endless Space is free to play on Steam for this weekend. Instead of buying it immediately as people suggested, I held off. Now I get to see whether or not the hype of it being the ‘successor to Master of Orion’ is true.
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