Short Version: With quite a few next-gen fighting games on the market, Super Street Fighter 4 improves on an already amazing game to provide one of the most fun and rewarding fighting experiences you'll ever find on next-gen consoles.

Game Rant's Ryan Blanchard reviews Super Street Fighter 4

The Street Fighter series has, over the years, made a name for itself as one of the biggest, most well known franchises in the fighting genre. With its debut on next-gen platforms, Street Fighter 4, the franchise was opened up to a whole new generation of gamers as well as the returning, hardcore crowd.

Now, in a similar fashion to its previous games, Capcom is releasing Super Street Fighter 4, the updated version of 2008's smash hit fighter. While some are against the idea of releasing an updated version of a two-year-old game in an age where downloadable content has become more and more prevalent, the real question is whether the game has enough content to warrant a second purchase.

Story And Sound

This is a fighting game. As such, you probably won't be surprised to hear that the plot in this game is far from a selling point. While there are short cutscenes at the beginning and end of each character's arcade mode run-through which give you a reason for them entering the fray, they're far from memorable. That shouldn't discourage you though. This is a fighting game after all, and plot should be the least of your worries.

As for sound, if you've played the original Street Fighter 4, you'll know what to expect in this one. You'll get the usual punch and kick sounds you'd expect from a fighting game as well as a generic rock soundtrack to keep your energy up while fighting. While it doesn't hurt the game, the sound design doesn't really do anything to benefit the game either.

Gameplay

Even with its lackluster plot and generic sound design, the real reason for playing Super Street Fighter 4, or any fighting game for that matter, should be for the gameplay. It probably won't come as much of a surprise to hear that, while the gameplay has remained almost identical to the original, there are few, if any fighting games on the market with stronger gameplay.

Adding onto the already robust list of characters, Super Street Fighter 4 brings the total up to 35, adding 10 characters. Eight of these characters, T. Hawk, Dee Jay, Adon, Cody, Guy, Dudley, Ibuki, and Makoto are Street Fighter veterans. On top of this, two new characters have been added to the series.

The first of which is Juri, a fighter hailing from South Korea who specializes in Taekwondo. While she has a moveset which is simple to pull off and understand, making her perfect for beginners, she also has an extremely wide range of moves for all situations which, when placed in the hands of an experienced player, makes her a force to be reckoned with.

The second new character is Hakan. He clocks in as one of the most interesting characters to become a part of the series. Hailing from Turkey, Hakan is an oil wrestler. As such, his moveset deals with the use of his oily body to quickly move around the stage unexpectedly, standing as one of the most unpredictable characters to join the fight. Not surprisingly, this makes him a difficult character to master. Under the control of an experienced player though, Hakan could be quite a challenge to anticipate and counter in battle.

All of these new characters play just as you'd expect them to play, each having distinct advantages and disadvantages. With such a large cast, it would be easy to pad the number with clones, but in my time playing with the new characters, I've yet to notice any problems. They all handle like a dream and definitely feel as though they belong among the veterans already populating the original fighters.

On top of the new characters, each character is also given a second ultra combo. Both can't be used together in battle though, as the player is given the choice after they have chosen their fighter and are deciding on which costume to use.

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These aren't the only changes though. Returning to Arcade Mode, in true Street Fighter fashion, are the car and barrel bonus stages. Now you can relive the anger you once felt as you made that tiny mistake, missing the final barrel and losing the bonus it would have given you. These only provide slight distractions from the fighting though, as they get old quite quickly.

Mode-wise, Super Street Fighter 4 also brings four new or updated modes into the mix. In Online Team Battle, up to eight players are split into two teams who take part in a series of fights in order to decide the stronger of the two, allowing spectating teammates to cheer the current fighter on as they wait for their turn.

Next is the Replay Channel. This allows you to look back on fights that have taken place online in order to study the techniques of others. While the causal player may not get much use out of this feature, it's quite useful for learning alternative ways to use and counter the various characters.

The third new mode is Endless Battle. In this mode, up to eight players will take turns fighting each other to determine the best fighter of the group. The catch? The winner of the fight moves on, fighting the next person in line, making for a survival of the fittest.

Finally, there is the new and improved trial mode. While the trial mode in the original game, acting as a tool for learning the moves of each character, was incredibly useful for beginners and those wanting to brush up on their skills alike, it's been improved even more. Rather than splitting the combos and moves up into groups you'd have to work your way through, Super Street Fighter 4 allows you to choose individual moves you want to learn making for a quick and easy reference when you need to brush up on a certain move.

All of these new modes come together to complement the gameplay from the original game, unchanged, save for character balancing and bug fixes, in an extremely cohesive manner. This is easily one of the most satisfying fighting games on the market. Not only can the beginner pick it up and have a blast, but it has all the things a hardcore fighter could ever need in a game to keep them playing for years. With its massive list of diverse characters, there's no shortage of ways that you can choose to play the game whether it be alone against bots of varying difficulty, or against the best of the best online. There really is no fighting game on the market that can compare with the quality Capcom puts into their games.

Graphics

Like the sound and basic gameplay, the graphics of Super Street Fighter 4 remain unchanged from its predecessor. This isn't a bad thing though, as the graphics in the original game did all the right things, keeping to the series' roots while bringing the characters into a 3D world in high definition, mixing in literal brush strokes to add to the style. Style. Something this game just oozes. While it may not sport photorealistic graphics, Super Street Fighter 4 has visuals that set it apart from all the other fighting games on the market, preventing it from becoming just another forgettable game to toss aside when a new game hits the market.

Conclusion

Even though Super Street Fighter 4 is lacking in the plot and sound department, what you really want is a strong, fun fighting game that will last you a long time through strong multiplayer. In that sense, it delivers everything you could possibly need to keep the fighting addiction going. While casual gamers who own the original may not see the point of purchasing this updated version, there are more than enough changes that make an amazing game even better to easily warrant a second purchase if only for the amazing new characters to play around with.

For more info, head to the official Super Street Fighter 4 website.