To put it simply, the mainstream success of fighting games in 2019 can be traced back to the release of Street Fighter IV, and every other franchise from BlazBlue to Mortal Kombat owe part of their recent success to Capcom and that game. Its achievements were not simply for the franchise and Capcom to enjoy alone, because it also paved the way for other fighting games to the ride the coattails and enjoy a resurgence of their own. Ultra Street Fighter IV marked the end of an era it was a testament to how successful Street Fighter IV was in the arcades, on tournament circuits, and even through home consoles. That being said, with each new edition our beloved Street Fighter IV became increasingly more complex, especially by the time Ultra arrived, which is why the aforementioned “edition select” feature was so welcome. Strong manga aesthetic aside, the gameplay balance and pacing were more akin to the balanced flow of II instead of the technical approach of III – still a thinking gamer’s fighting game.
First and foremost, the 3D cel-shaded graphical style perfectly captured the look and feel of the ‘90s it was as if the character illustrations in the SFII instruction manual had finally come to life.
What made Street Fighter IV so endearing as a series was that it managed to capture the magic and excitement which made Street Fighter II such a mainstream hit.
Ultra Street Fighter IV was worth it just for the diverse roster alone, all impressively balanced to ensure the gameplay was the best it could be. While the complete roster of Street Fighter IV was impressive enough with 25 characters, by Ultra Street Fighter IV the roster had grown to 44 characters featuring all the iconic ones from Street Fighter II, some faces from Street Fighter III and Street Fighter Alpha, and even an all-new fighter in Decapre. It’s easy to make fun of fighting game revisions/expansions, but there’s no denying each entry bolstered the fighting roster and gameplay substantially, particularly with the swansong entry Ultra Street Fighter IV.
This would be followed by Super Street Fighter IV (and Arcade Edition) in 2010, and finally Ultra Street Fighter IV in 2014. In 2008 the world finally saw the canonical sequel in Street Fighter IV, which succeeded in rejuvenating both the franchise and the genre like it was the ‘90s all over again in the arcades, and even more so when the home release landed with network play in 2009.
Inevitably, there will be a patch that beats the game into shape, but until that day it’s impossible to recommend this spoiled update of Capcom’s evergreen title.After the release of Street Fighter III: Third Strike in 1999, Capcom took the cast of world warriors on a bit of a detour with the Street Fighter Zero/Alpha prequel series, and even the 2.5D Street Fighter EX spin-off, as well as a range of crossover dream-match fighting games with the likes of Marvel and SNK.
Considering this is a modest six-year-old engine that runs flawlessly on the existing PC port, there’s really no excuse for such poor performance.
Menus are jerky, music skips, moves are buggy and broken and, to top it all off, it suffers from input lag, an issue the PS4 version was promoted as having fixed over the PS3 iteration. All in all, Ultra Street Fighter IV looks and feels fantastic, and despite the fact that many of its new pieces of content have been seen and used before.
Sadly, the quality of the port falls some way short of Capcom’s in-house standards. Sure, the content presented is comprehensive, featuring the most up-to-date revision of the game, complete with 44 characters, the hyperactive Omega mode and every DLC costume to date (including the hilarious animal wild pack). Sadly, the emphasis here is on the dirty. S erved up as an appetiser for next year’s PS4-exclusive Street Fighter V, Sony has commissioned a quick and dirty next-gen port of the landmark title responsible for reviving the fighting game genre.