Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition review

Street Fighter is arguably the greatest fighting series ever made; it has a huge roster of playable characters, spectacular special moves and superbly balanced gameplay. There’s a reason it’s still played all over the world, over twenty years since it first appeared in arcades. In spite of its popularity, PC gamers missed out on last year’s Super Street Fighter IV, which only saw a console release. Thankfully, Capcom has listened to fan feedback and Arcade Edition is finally coming to the PC.

As well as putting PC gamers on a level footing with the console crowd thanks to a heap of balancing changes, this latest update introduces four new characters that bring the total playable roster up to 39. Chinese twins Yun and Yang were added due to fan demand; they started out as simple palette swaps in Street Fighter III, but have developed into two very different characters; Yang relies on mix-ups to keep his opponents guessing which way to block, whereas Yun has a tremendous rushdown attack that makes him a character to fear in the right hands.

There are four new characters, though two are updates to Ryu and Akuma

Evil Ryu has made appearances in the Street Fighter canon before, so it’s no surprise that his move set combines aspects of series figurehead Ryu and the evil Akuma. In addition to the iconic hadouken fireball and shoryuken uppercut, he has a new overhead wheel kick and teleport to escape from opponents. Oni, a demonic version of Akuma, is the only completely new character; he is the only character with an air dash to escape airborne attacks, as well as an ambiguous lunging slash that can confuse opponents into blocking the wrong way and leaving themselves open to a combo.

As well as these brand new characters, Arcade Edition also includes all the additional fighters from Super Street Fighter IV: Adon, Cody, Dee Jay, Dudley, Guy, Ibuki, Makoto and T. Hawk, as well as Juri and Hakan. The Arcade Edition includes all the new features added in Super Street Fighter IV, including bonus stage challenges and a trial mode that can help new players get to grips with their chosen characters. It’s a shame that it hasn’t been updated to use the new balanced settings, as any combos learnt using it will require slightly different timing and spacing when playing online.