Street Fighter 4

Street Fighter IV is a fighting game and the next installment in Capcom’s long-running Street Fighter series. The coin-operated arcade game was released in Japan on July 18, 2008, and is a planned home release for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows-based personal computers.

Gameplay
While Street Fighter IV will feature 3D rendered characters and backgrounds, the game will still play in traditional 2D, thus creating a “2.5D” effect. While more concrete details on the game’s gameplay have yet to be revealed, producer Yoshinori Ono has stated that he wants to keep the game closer to Street Fighter II than its sequels, and as such the “parry system” from Street Fighter III has been dropped. A new system temporarily called “Saving” has been introduced, as well as Ultra moves. The traditional six-button control scheme will return, with new features and special moves integrated into the input system, mixing classic gameplay with additional innovations. On December 30, 2007, a gameplay trailer showed how typical gameplay worked, with the 2D plane of fighting shifting and rotating, characters reacting facially to particularly hard blows.

The game has the same feel as Super Street Fighter II Turbo, with several features from Street Fighter III 3rd Strike. Pressing both light attack buttons is still for throwing, and both heavy attack buttons are for the personal action or taunts. Both medium attack buttons are for the saving strike. Dashes and quick standing are also in the game. At the moment, C.Viper is the only character who can perform a high jump.

It is intended that the car-smashing bonus rounds from earlier Street Fighter games will return. Yoshinori Ono has claimed they will be in there, although he noted that there may be problems if the game’s vehicles resemble models by real-life manufacturers. Ono later stated that the bonus stages would not be in the arcade game, but may be in the console ports. He cited the reason being capitalism, that the time players spend on bonus stages takes money from arcade operators.

Saving system (Focus attacks)

The system that has been referred to as “Saving” for the time being, but will be renamed “Focus” for North America and Europe name=JoystiqFeb22>GDC08: hands-on with Street Fighter IV, is a new system that is being introduced in Street Fighter IV. The system features a four-segment “Revenge” gauge that builds up as the character takes damage. A player can use one segment of the gauge in combat by simultaneously pressing both medium punch and medium kick to unleash a special attack that will deal instant damage and render the opponent immobile for a short time (similar to the Guard Crush attacks from the Street Fighter EX series). The buttons can also be held down and charged to unleash a devastating unblockable attack at the cost of 3/4s of the full “Revenge” gauge. The gauge can also be used to fuel EX Specials—stronger versions of regular special moves—at the cost of one stock of the gauge. Both the Saving/Focus move and EX Specials can be “canceled” by dashing towards the opponent (the move will still be performed and will still do damage however), this dash can again be “canceled” by performing another EX Special or Saving/Focus move, this however will require pinpoint timing so that only skilled players may execute this kind of combo.

Ono has stated that this system was incorporated in order to shift the emphasis away from combos and toward a more realistic system he has compared to boxing, in which “the skill is in reading your opponent’s move before he starts moving … We haven’t forgotten about combos and linked moves, but saving makes it so that you have to read your opponent.” The system aims to make ground attacks as viable a way of approaching opponents as jumping was in previous games. The saving system is a core part of Street Fighter IV’s gameplay and will continue to evolve as the game is developed.

Super and ultra moves

Super moves will return in Street Fighter IV; however, the team is still undecided on how to implement them. Currently, they are considering three options, the first being similar to Super Street Fighter II Turbo, where each character has one set super (the option the game is currently using), the second based on the Street Fighter Alpha series where characters have multiple supers (but without the Alpha series’ multilevel chargeable supers) and the third follows Street Fighter III where the players choose which super they want to use for their character before the match. In the end, they have chosen the first. Every character retains their original Super Combo from Super Street Fighter II Turbo.
In addition to the series staple Super Moves (since Super Street Fighter II Turbo), the game will also feature Ultra Moves. Ultra Moves are performed by performing a character’s Super move but executing it with three attack buttons (like an EX Special move). The Ultra is a long and cinematic move featuring a lengthy combination of punches, kicks and other moves. Along with the regular Super moves, the Ultra will be the only time wherein the camera will break from its normal fixed position to show a more dynamic, cinematic view of the gameplay.

Online

Street Fighter IV will feature online gaming and is the fifth game in the series to do so (the first four being Super Street Fighter II X—Grand Master Challenge for Matching Service which was only released in Japan for the Sega Dreamcast, the Xbox version of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection, the Xbox Live Arcade version of Street Fighter II’: Hyper Fighting and the latest being Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3). Like other games such as Virtua Fighter 5 or Tekken 6, Street Fighter IV will feature item collection and secondary costumes. Producer Yoshinori Ono is looking into using microtransactions for future downloadable content, including new characters and stages, but he said the final decision would be Capcom’s.

Story

It was revealed in the January 2008 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly the game will take place in between Street Fighter II and Street Fighter III, making it an interquel similar to Street Fighter Alpha, which took place between Street Fighter and Street Fighter II.
During the Arcade Operator’s Union 2008 convention, held in Japan, a brief description of Street Fighter IV was revealed on an arcade flyer. Its description translates to:
“The year after the legendary World Warrior Championship (SF2) it silently begins. Suspicious incidents occur, and behind it a mystic organization is on the move in the shadows. Those chasing and being chased in the complicated middle of friendship and betrayal. Now, the curtain rises and a new fight begins.”
Capcom later released an animated fight scene between Ryu and Akuma, viewable on the home versions of Street Fighter IV. Also appearing are Ken and Gouken, the latter of whom also has his own added scene at the end.

Characters<
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On the character roster, producer Yoshinori Ono has commented, “It isn’t finalised yet, but we’re trying to use all the characters from Street Fighter II’ Turbo, and we’re obviously cooking up new characters as well.” A number of classic characters will be returning, with re-imagined designs and new special moves. All eight of the original “World Warriors” have been confirmed to be appearing as playable characters, while playable demo builds of the game featured Balrog and Sagat as bosses in the game, one after the other. The fourth demo build of the game featured Balrog, Vega, Sagat and Bison as playable characters. Pictures of them have been revealed by scans of the June issue of Arcadia magazine.

Four new characters have been revealed. The first is Crimson Viper, a female American spy wearing sunglasses, leather gloves and a form-fitting suit. The second new character is a French martial artist named Abel. He is described as an amnesiac, a “man with no past” looking to defeat surviving members of Shadaloo. The third new character revealed is a luchador named El Fuerte (“El Fuerte” means “The Strong One” in Spanish). The fourth is Rufus, a fighter who has Kung Fu moves and a rotund appearance, who seeks to fight Ken Masters to prove himself as the best fighter of the United States.

A new boss character has been announced, named Seth. He is known as “The Puppet Master” and is the Chief executive officer of S.I.N., the weapons division of Shadaloo. His body has been modified using advanced technology.
While characters specific to the Street Fighter Alpha series or Street Fighter III have not been announced, Yoshinori Ono stated that characters such as Sakura or Ibuki could appear in home versions of the game when such versions are developed; nevertheless, none of these two characters are currently confirmed. Capcom has used rough sketches of Fei Long from Super Street Fighter II and Dan from Street Fighter Alpha as examples of characters who could appear in the console versions; on July 18, both were officially confirmed for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC versions of the game.

In the January 2008 Issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono stated “Let’s just say that [jokes] that your magazine have reported in the past might find their way into the game as fan service.” Executive editor Shane Bettenhausen took this to mean the appearance of their long standing joke character Sheng Long in Street Fighter IV, though added that if the character did appear in the game, it would be Gouken. On April 1, 2008, Capcom posted a fake update to their blog heavily suggesting his presence in the game, but confirmed the very next day the character would not be present in Street Fighter IV. However, in an interview with GameVideos.com on June 6, 2008, Yoshinori Ono was asked if Gouken was going to be in the game to which he replied “Will he be in the game playable that particular character, well we probably wouldn’t put a non-playable character in an animation like that and highlight him to that degree.”

Development

Before producer Yoshinori Ono pitched the idea to Capcom R&D; head Keiji Inafune, the prevailing attitude around Capcom was that a new numeric entry to the Street Fighter series would not be made. There was initially a lot of resistance to Ono’s pitching of a new Street Fighter game so many years after the original. However, in light of fan demand plus the positive reaction to Street Fighter II’: Hyper Fighting on Xbox Live Arcade, Inafune eventually allowed the project to begin. This is Ono’s first take on a new entry of the Street Fighter series, although has previously worked on 3rd Strike, the final updated version of Street Fighter III.
On October 17, 2007, a teaser video showing series stalwarts Ryu and Ken fighting using a heavily stylized cel-shaded art style made to mimic Japanese sumi-e art was released officially announcing the game.
The game runs on the Taito Type X2 arcade board inside a Taito Vewlix cabinet, marking the first time that a numeric sequel in the Street Fighter series will run on non Capcom-proprietary hardware. The arcade release will take advantage of the Type X2’s network capabilities and will allow players in separate machines within the same LAN to fight each other. A demo version of the game was present at the Arcade Operators Union Amusement Expo on February 18, 2008, with all returning characters as well as Crimson Viper and Abel playable. Location tests are also being carried out in selected Japanese arcades.

Graphics

The characters and environments will be rendered in 3D computer graphics and use a stylized cel-shading effect to give the characters and environments a hand-drawn look. As in some of the trailers, during the fights certain attacks will display ink sprays. The game will feature full cel-shaded 3D environments and characters, fighting on a 2D plane, while the viewpoint can shift and rotate in key moments for dramatic effect. The version of the game shown to EGM ran at consistent 60 frames per second.
The character designs will stay true to the Street Fighter II style, although Akira Yasuda no longer works for Capcom. The art director and character designer for Street Fighter IV is Daigo Ikeno.

from wikipedia.org

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