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.

Multiplayer is where Street Fighter has always excelled, and Arcade Edition is no different. The net code has been noticeably improved, so we had no trouble finding matches that were lag-free. Each time you win a game, your player and battle point totals increase, which highlight how proficient you are with individual characters as well as your overall skill level. Scores are tracked on a global leaderboard, with player skill indicated with a series of different ranks.

You might not get the time to stop and enjoy the scenery when playing online, but the game looks fantastic. It isn’t hugely demanding, either, so most people should be able to run it using the fixed frame rate setting; this ensures that each move displays the correct number of frames, which is important for timing counter attacks and special moves, regardless of your computer hardware. A built in benchmark tool will tell you if your PC is able to run at the minimum frame rate to play online games smoothly.

Console gamers would be justified in feeling slightly cheated if they bought Arcade Edition for the full retail price; compared to Super Street Fighter IV, it adds very little in terms of new gameplay. However, it’s phenomenal value on the PC, providing a wealth of upgrades, a massively improved spectator mode and plenty of new characters. Truly dedicated players may want to invest in an arcade stick, such as the Mad Catz Arcade Fight Stick, to get the precision needed to pull off many of the complex special move inputs, but however you choose to play, there’s simply no competition from any other fighting game.