Game Rant's Street Fighter IV 3D Edition review co-written by Kevin Pennington and Riley little

Let me start my review by saying I’m a big fan of fighting games, so naturally I love Capcom, the Street Fighter series and all that they do. Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition for the 3DS is generally a straight port of the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, with a few extra perks, most notably the 3D.

The presentation on the game is amazing — it’s hard to imagine Super Street Fighter IV being on such a small device. The animations are sharp and as breathtaking as they are on the bigger consoles. The backgrounds are static and unimpressive, but this is probably the fairest trade off to having this game on a handheld and in 3D.

The 3D on the game works fairly well, but when in 3D mode the framerate drops noticeably. Factor that in with moving the console around and the screen flickering, and it can get pretty annoying, let alone headache inducing. While the 3D aspect is the main attraction for the console and perhaps this game, but I can see many gamers keeping it off for good. The 3D slider probably works best if you don’t slide it all the way and find a healthy medium of 2D/3D goodness.

Capcom did a good job on making the game accessible to newcomers, while not neglecting hardcore Street Fighter fans. There’s two variations of controls — lite and pro. It should be noted that the shoulder buttons need to be used for moves, which makes the moves harder to perform than they should be. I don’t think the d-pad on the 3DS was designed for fighting games because there was a bit of a struggle to get the characters to do what you want them to do.

In the 'Lite' scheme, the touch screen can be turned into four buttons, so you can pull off ultra and super combos by simply touching one of these "buttons." This feature makes the game more accessible, turning combat into more about planning the attacks rather than just remembering button combinations or button-mashing techniques (is there such a thing?). For hardcore gamers who may feel this is cheating or those who want to perform the moves in the “proper” way, this feature can be disabled by utilizing what Capcom calls the 'Pro' scheme.

There are a variety of modes that appear in the 3DS' Street Fighter that keep the game from becoming stale. Old school modes such as 'Arcade' and 'Training' make their triumphant return in Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, much to the expectation of fans everywhere. They are also joined by the 'Challenge' mode which allows players to vandalize cars and destroy barrels, as well as practice their skills by completing certain moves with each character in the roster. These modes have become somewhat of a standard among the series, but there is also a new mode that makes its triumphant debut in the latest Street Fighter.

'Figure Collection' is a mode exclusive to the Nintendo 3DS, and it's a very interesting feature. This mode utilizes the Nintendo 3DS' StreetPass feature and built-in pedometer. Playing through the game's many modes gives you money which you can then use to purchase figures out of the slot machine, and you can also convert the PlayCoins, that you've earned by walking around, into Street Fighter currency. The action figures that you obtain through the slot machine each have their own stats, and you can put together a team of up to five different fighters.

After you've put a team together, you're all set to walking around town with your 3DS in sleep mode. This is where the StreetPass ability of the 3DS kicks in and really shines. The team you've put together will go head to head with other 3DS owners who have played Street Fighter and the figures will actually have a mock battle. Engaging in these battles will earn the player experience points, as well as money to purchase even more figures! 'Figure Collection' certainly adds something that hasn't been found in previous Street Fighter games, and gives players an additional goal besides completing the Arcade mode and kicking butt online.

The global online play works surprisingly well. No lags, very easy to use and simply amazing that I could be playing a game on a handheld device against someone from China. I’ve only played online about 3 or 4 battles and the fighters were obviously using their touch screen pads to perform the special moves. I don’t think people are going to be clamoring to play online against other people when they have made the moves pretty easy to perform. It’s not about skill at that point, so I don’t see the online play being truly competitive. It should be noted that you can choose to only play with players who are playing in “Pro” which was very smart of Capcom to do. It makes the game competitive for the hardcore gamers. No touch screen combos there!

You get all 35 characters from the original game (including my two favorites, Cody and Fei Long) with all their variable costumes and color schemes from the get go. No DLC here, at least yet, so you get everything with the purchase price. The roster and character designs are really quite impressive, but the backgrounds have been dulled down quite a bit from Super Street Fighter IV's home console versions. The animals and people in the background that were once busy hustling around and being interested in the fight going on in front of them are now locked in place, making for some very cool, but lacklustre, statues.

After putting in lots of playing time into Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, I felt like I would’ve loved this game if I hadn’t played it on my PS3 before. It's an absolute must buy for handheld gamers who don’t own a PS3 or Xbox 360, because they really don’t know what they are missing. It doesn’t contribute anything too new to people who’ve played the game on other consoles, but if you’re new to Street Fighter or can’t master the super moves or tricky combos — you’ll probably enjoy this game immensely.

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