Holy Crap! I can hardly believe that the day has finally come. Here in just a matter of hours, the Blast Heroes will have both 360 and PS3 copies of Street Fighter IV. Hopefully you have a copy waiting for you as well!
To mark this special day, Adam and I will be doing some live blogging between our matches, with our impressions and comments. Be sure to check back starting today at 5:00pm (Central Time) to see what we are thinking, as we are thinking it.
Today is a great day.
Chris here:
I was delayed quite a bit in getting my copy of Street Fighter IV by bad traffic and some (ugh) grown-folk responsibilities. Anyhow, I have my copy now and have been playing some seriously heated matches with my brother Ryan. It's really hard for me to get my thoughts together on the game, partially because I am so damn hyped and partially because the game is quite a bit different than I expected.
It's definitely beefy. Not quite SFII beefy but heavy none the less. I played my first round with Zangief; man, he is huge! His presence on screen is unreal, so menacing. 360 throws are super-easy to execute, so I was able to pull off a lot of spinning pile drivers and powerbombs which feel so powerful and massive. Really all the special moves have a long window for input time so just about everything is easy to pull off.
The graphics are just what I had hoped, though some character art on the select screen looks a little off (I am pretty sure they just drew over snapshots of the 3D models and sometimes it doesn't quite work). Also, some backgrounds seem less thought out than others.
That's all for now, I need to get back to the fight!!!
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This is Adam:
Just came off a 6 hour binge. I'm taking a break to download the game to my 360's hard-drive. Wow, this game is like crack!
Lemme try to sum up my experiences so far. Like Chris said, the game is beefy, which will take a while for you to adjust to if you've been playing tons of Third Strike or HDRemix recently, like I have. I'm a bit disappointed that all the command inputs aren't easier to do. I still cant do any of Vega's supers, and can only get Guile's out every once in a while. With all this talk off Capcom wanting to hook the casual crowd with this game, I'm surprised that they didn't make some of the more complicated moves just a tad easier for all the characters (Zangief excluded, he's an F'n BEAST!)
I'd like to say a few things about the focus-attack system. It's absolutely brilliant, and adds layer of depth to an already deep game. My brother James, who literally hasn't touched Street Fighter in over a decade, really held his own with some trusty sweeps and Focus-Attacks. It's super fun to use them they feel amazingly satisfying when they connect. It really pushed the whole "risk/reward" aspect of Street Fighter that's defined the franchise for so many years.
We'll that's all for now. Me and Chris are about to hook up for some matches!
----------
Chris's closing thoughts for the night:
This live blog thing didn't quite work out as well as I had hoped.
That's only because pulling myself away from Street Fighter IV proved more and more difficult the longer I played. Once I started to get comfortable with the play mechanics, things really opened up. The more you know the more powerful you feel and in turn, the more enjoyable the game becomes. Street Fighter games (or a least the great ones) have always grown better with time and experience.
It's strangely fresh to feel like a beginner again, I am enjoying every moment.
Getting back to the game itself:
Focus attacks are where it is at! Any old school Street Fighter EX players will remember them right off the bat, as they are basically the same as EX's "guard breaks". The opening for follow up attacks after a successful focus move is huge, so linking into big combos, ultra attacks or 360 throws is really easy to get the hang of.
Because of the massive damage possible from an effective focus combo, matches can turn around very quickly. There was plenty of times where I thought I had a round, only to lose to a huge come back in a matter of seconds. The ability to inflict such tide-tuning damage, so quickly, keeps things exciting; no "throw away" matches.
After about 8 hours of play, Street Fighter IV has started to reveal itself as a blend of all the previous games; taking elements from the games before and building on them or in some cases, simplifying them, to create something that feels both new and familiar. I am please to see that even though the game is not as technical and deep as Third Strike, it's definitely not overly-simple.
The game is beautiful and the character models are probably the best I have ever seen. Between the design, movement, attacks and facial animations, Street Fighter IV's models stand strong against their best 2D sprite representations. Like I touched on earlier, things aren't quite 100% consistent visually, but there will be revisions for that (Street Fighter IV: Maximum Edition perhaps?)
I plan on witting more tomorrow and onward, as long as I keep discovering new things about the game.
Oh and Seth is a Bitch by the way
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Adam's Last Word
Oh goodness...Did really just play Street Fighter 4 for 13 hours? What a day, what a day.
I'm exhausted, so I'll keep this short...
So far, I'm extremely well pleased this game, and it's totally lived up to my own personally generated hype.
The graphics are so good that it's actually gives me a headache: I've never seen characters in a video game with this much personality. The gameplay feels exceptionally balanced, and the extra weight added is welcomed. I'm really starting to get my head around the new characters, and find that, overall, they are a welcome edition to the Street Fighter cast. Seth, as Chris mentioned above, is a total asshole, but I wouldn't change him for the world. Street Fighter bosses are supposed to be evil, cheating bastards.
That's all for now. There really isn't much more for me to say about the greatest of Street Fighter 4, other than it's back. With a vengeance.
Nighty night.
P.S. Just thinking about unlocking Gouken and Akuma makes me want to cry :'(
To mark this special day, Adam and I will be doing some live blogging between our matches, with our impressions and comments. Be sure to check back starting today at 5:00pm (Central Time) to see what we are thinking, as we are thinking it.
Today is a great day.
Chris here:
I was delayed quite a bit in getting my copy of Street Fighter IV by bad traffic and some (ugh) grown-folk responsibilities. Anyhow, I have my copy now and have been playing some seriously heated matches with my brother Ryan. It's really hard for me to get my thoughts together on the game, partially because I am so damn hyped and partially because the game is quite a bit different than I expected.
It's definitely beefy. Not quite SFII beefy but heavy none the less. I played my first round with Zangief; man, he is huge! His presence on screen is unreal, so menacing. 360 throws are super-easy to execute, so I was able to pull off a lot of spinning pile drivers and powerbombs which feel so powerful and massive. Really all the special moves have a long window for input time so just about everything is easy to pull off.
The graphics are just what I had hoped, though some character art on the select screen looks a little off (I am pretty sure they just drew over snapshots of the 3D models and sometimes it doesn't quite work). Also, some backgrounds seem less thought out than others.
That's all for now, I need to get back to the fight!!!
----------
This is Adam:
Just came off a 6 hour binge. I'm taking a break to download the game to my 360's hard-drive. Wow, this game is like crack!
Lemme try to sum up my experiences so far. Like Chris said, the game is beefy, which will take a while for you to adjust to if you've been playing tons of Third Strike or HDRemix recently, like I have. I'm a bit disappointed that all the command inputs aren't easier to do. I still cant do any of Vega's supers, and can only get Guile's out every once in a while. With all this talk off Capcom wanting to hook the casual crowd with this game, I'm surprised that they didn't make some of the more complicated moves just a tad easier for all the characters (Zangief excluded, he's an F'n BEAST!)
I'd like to say a few things about the focus-attack system. It's absolutely brilliant, and adds layer of depth to an already deep game. My brother James, who literally hasn't touched Street Fighter in over a decade, really held his own with some trusty sweeps and Focus-Attacks. It's super fun to use them they feel amazingly satisfying when they connect. It really pushed the whole "risk/reward" aspect of Street Fighter that's defined the franchise for so many years.
We'll that's all for now. Me and Chris are about to hook up for some matches!
----------
Chris's closing thoughts for the night:
This live blog thing didn't quite work out as well as I had hoped.
That's only because pulling myself away from Street Fighter IV proved more and more difficult the longer I played. Once I started to get comfortable with the play mechanics, things really opened up. The more you know the more powerful you feel and in turn, the more enjoyable the game becomes. Street Fighter games (or a least the great ones) have always grown better with time and experience.
It's strangely fresh to feel like a beginner again, I am enjoying every moment.
Getting back to the game itself:
Focus attacks are where it is at! Any old school Street Fighter EX players will remember them right off the bat, as they are basically the same as EX's "guard breaks". The opening for follow up attacks after a successful focus move is huge, so linking into big combos, ultra attacks or 360 throws is really easy to get the hang of.
Because of the massive damage possible from an effective focus combo, matches can turn around very quickly. There was plenty of times where I thought I had a round, only to lose to a huge come back in a matter of seconds. The ability to inflict such tide-tuning damage, so quickly, keeps things exciting; no "throw away" matches.
After about 8 hours of play, Street Fighter IV has started to reveal itself as a blend of all the previous games; taking elements from the games before and building on them or in some cases, simplifying them, to create something that feels both new and familiar. I am please to see that even though the game is not as technical and deep as Third Strike, it's definitely not overly-simple.
The game is beautiful and the character models are probably the best I have ever seen. Between the design, movement, attacks and facial animations, Street Fighter IV's models stand strong against their best 2D sprite representations. Like I touched on earlier, things aren't quite 100% consistent visually, but there will be revisions for that (Street Fighter IV: Maximum Edition perhaps?)
I plan on witting more tomorrow and onward, as long as I keep discovering new things about the game.
Oh and Seth is a Bitch by the way
----------
Adam's Last Word
Oh goodness...Did really just play Street Fighter 4 for 13 hours? What a day, what a day.
I'm exhausted, so I'll keep this short...
So far, I'm extremely well pleased this game, and it's totally lived up to my own personally generated hype.
The graphics are so good that it's actually gives me a headache: I've never seen characters in a video game with this much personality. The gameplay feels exceptionally balanced, and the extra weight added is welcomed. I'm really starting to get my head around the new characters, and find that, overall, they are a welcome edition to the Street Fighter cast. Seth, as Chris mentioned above, is a total asshole, but I wouldn't change him for the world. Street Fighter bosses are supposed to be evil, cheating bastards.
That's all for now. There really isn't much more for me to say about the greatest of Street Fighter 4, other than it's back. With a vengeance.
Nighty night.
P.S. Just thinking about unlocking Gouken and Akuma makes me want to cry :'(
My thoughts are in-line with yours on this. There is definitely a "beefiness." Sometimes it feels like you're playing underwater. Not sure if this is good or bad. It's too soon to tell. The game is great fun though, no matter how you slice it.
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