An Intro to Street Fighter IV

I only hear stories of the arcade experience now.  It’s become something of a legend only old people care about.  Apparently arcades used to be something like a community, local legends were born at arcades where some people existed that could conquer games you found impossibly hard and cost way too much money and time. People taught each other secrets and strategies to playing the games, and plenty kids hung out there after school.  One game in particular caused an explosion the growth of the arcade community: Street Fighter II.

UPDATE: Already into the game? Check out the new guide!

Birth of a genre

Street Fighter II

No one had ever seen something like Street Fighter II before, with its crazy characters and the flashy special moves.  What is truly impressive that many people think of fighting games as shallow games that just require button mashing to succeed, but with SFII all that changed.  People started creating new strategies, mind games, combos, and techniques.  Once beaten, people would study the game mechanics and reflect on their battles and create counter techniques.  Some guy killed you just by spamming fireballs?  Hop over a few, block a few and close the gap between you and the guy, then when he panics, beat him down.  And what happened really was a video game which was shallow in appearance became like a game of chess: a game of strategy and staying one step ahead of your opponent.

But only really hardcore people play fighting games to this extent now.  There just aren’t many games left, and not many people to play them with.  When SFII came out companies came into existence just to ride the wave of popularity and blatantly copy what it did.  Kind of like the DS, the Wii, and lots of first person shooters now.

Yes that's Jackie Chan

Capcom came out with Street Fighter III: Third Strike back in ’99, the third revision of the SFIII series.  It wasn’t very popular.  Today it is regarded as having one of the most balanced and tactical fighting systems ever, but at the time no one liked it.  The characters were weird, and people asked where were all the fan faves from SFII? There hasn’t been a true entry in the series since then.  Really goes to show once again that most people don’t look past appearances, and the SFII was popular for the exact reasons why certain video games get popular now: the satisfaction of the experience, not from all the strategy, skills, and mind games required that I mentioned before.

Street Fighter III

Street Fighter returns

So now after 10 whole years, there is a new Street Fighter (IV) coming out.  The art direction looks fantastic, it features characters everyone remembers from SFII, and it’s got huge buzz right now.  Could this be the return of the arcade experience?  No probably not, but it’s a shiny new reminder of a time that has passed.

Street Fighter IV arrives February 17th, 2009 in North America for PS3 and Xbox 360.