In their usual fashion, Capcom has released the latest Street Fighter game…again. (And again…and again.) But this time it has a new dimension of play exclusively for the new Nintendo 3DS. If the name 3DS and the “new dimension" comment didn’t give it away, the game is in auto-stereoscopic 3D. In addition to the 3D graphics, Street Fighter is also the only game to take advantage of the 3DS’ Wi-Fi and Street Pass features from day one.
Story
Let’s face it; you aren't playing a game like Street Fighter because it has a good story. That’s because it doesn't have a good story, no true fighting game really does. As per usual, a new fighting tournament has started up and all your favorite characters are getting the band back together to see who is top dog on the Street Fighting circuit.
Gameplay
For a game that is going to be rehashed over and over again, I was surprised to see something different in the mix beyond just a new character or two. The same core Street Fighter experience you know and love is back with all 35 unlockable console characters available as soon as you turn the game on. While the game maintains the same absurdly long button combos you’ve spent hundreds of hours memorizing, if you are not one of these people that has them memorized, the game has a simplified “Lite” mode in which 4 buttons appear on the bottom touch screen. These can be assigned to different combo macros. On the other hand if you are at the pinnacle of Street Fighter awesomeness and you can pull off the Ultra Combo with your best character, the game allows you to change over to pro mode. In this mode every combo must be performed as they always have. If you play pro mode your touch screen won’t go unused. You can assign simple combos such as three presses of the same button to a macro in an effort to make those super combos just slightly easier to execute. Another new feature is the figure mode. It’s similar to the trophies collected in Super Smash Brothers Melee. The purpose of this mode is nothing more than bragging rights and new Street Pass abilities for your 3DS. This is accomplished by putting the system in sleep mode while the wireless slider is still turned on. If you happen to pass another player doing the same thing, your figures will have a battle. This can net you new figures, as well as coins used to acquire new figures.
Multi-Player
Street Fighter IV 3D Edition is packed with multi-player features. The game has everything from local play, to online brawls, and even download play, so you can share with your friends. The local multi-player was made very well with not much to complain about. I’ve experienced little to no lag in every online match I’ve played. The addition of a spectator mode is the only thing I could think of that would really put this game over the top. If you do not have Street Fighter, a friend of yours can send you a demo. With this you can play them locally to try out the game yourself. You will only have access to Ryu, and have one map to fight on but this is a pretty nice feature, especially for a launch title.
Audio & Video
Super Street Fighter IV features your standard Street Fighter soundtrack. There’s nothing really new there, but then again there doesn’t need to be. Chances are you’re not playing Street Fighter because of its music. The soundtrack is nothing more than just background noise to prevent an awkward silence during battle. On a different note all the characters have full voice-overs. Unfortunately most of the time the character animations do not sync up with the words spoken, considering it was originally mapped for Japanese. The visuals are very impressive and the game doesn’t lag one bit, even with the 3D cranked all the way up; because of the 3D the frame-rate has been dropped a bit. All and all, the visuals are definitely a strong indicator that Nintendo’s newest handheld is really capable of some fantastic graphics.
Overall
While Super Street Fighter 4 3D Edition is nothing spectacularly new it is quite a good game and a must have if you were an early adopter of Nintendo's newest handheld. The game nets itself an 8 of 10 for gameplay, a 9 for visuals, a 7 for sound, and a 9 for multi-player which nets the game an overall score of an 8.25.
"Super Street Fighter 4: 3D Edition" is on sale March 27, 2011 and is rated T. Fighting. Developed and published by Capcom.
