Kazuki? Owned?

Today we finally got to see SFIV in action and get a feel for the highly anticipated title. Although a little late the folks at Trocadero were finally curtious enough to bless us with two SFIV arcade cabinets that have been there since friday. We would finally see if the game lived up to the ever expanding hype placed upon it. For this purpose our friendly neighbourhood Kazuki offered himself up for the sacrificial slaughter against a formidable ken after much convincing. Naturally the Kaz got himself owned (his words not mine :P) but put up a good fight considering it was his first bout with the game.

As for the game itself my first reaction was to the quite beautiful graphical design. None of the 13 characters featured in the arcade iteration of the game look out of place, while the animations for each look very fluid. This came as surprising shock considering Capcom’s first attempt to transition this fighting series into 3D space (Street Fighter EX), which we can all agree wasn’t very successful. The overal pace of the game seems to have been slowed down but once in the thick of an intense battle this is hardly noticeable.

The superb balancing that has always been synonymous with the Street Fighter series has also made it’s way to SFIV. As the game is a follow on from SF2, mechanics that featured in iterations after that like the alpha counter system seem to have been removed(apparently not everyone is an SFA3 nut….go figure) in an attempt to make the game more accessible to the gaming masses. In exchange for this Capcom have seen fit to give us the ‘focus attack’ and ‘revenge gauge’ the latter filling up upon being attacked. This generally serves as an extra ‘super gauge’ enabling you to do an ‘ultra combo’. Some of the resulting moves are quite spectacular variants of classic supers while others (Akuma) seem to be carbon copies of their original supers. while the focus attack is an alternative to the parry and counter system that are essentially charged moves capable of stunning the opponent.

Overall from first impressions I’m very impressed and cant wait to get my hands on the console CE version and kick ass with my Mad Catz TE stick. Bring on the shou-ryuu reppa action. Lets hope Capcom doesn’t screw up the online ala HDR.