Street Fighter IV Revisited - An Exclusive Preview For The Arcade Edition
Capcom's third revision of the mighty Street Fighter IV title, labeled 'Arcade Edition,' has hurricane-kicked its way into the MCM Expo today for an exclusive preview along with some Q&A with Capcom's very own Leo Tan.
Fresh from the stands, today we were presented with Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition. Current owners of Super Street Fighter IV are most likely pondering the differences and the value of this ever-so-slightly tinkered-with beat 'em up, and they would be right to do so. For 1200 Microsoft points or £11.99 on the PSN store here's what we're looking at:
- 4 new playable characters: Evil Ryu, Oni, Yun & Yang.
- Tweaks to the battle system to try and maintain the balance.
- Characters that were once weaker are now quite the opposite.
- It's now much easier to share replays with friends and to also search for others via PSN ID/Gamertag.
These updates seem to be the major changes with other slight improvements to the overall balance of fighters. Leo went on to say that rather than having hundreds of people test the game engine, Capcom has selected professionals that eat, sleep and breathe Street Fighter IV to help make the necessary modifications for improvement.
Two of the new characters, Evil Ryu and Oni, looked impressive. Evil Ryu seems to just be a dark, more sinister and twisted version of Ryu. Purple fireballs, exceptionally rapid hurricane kicks, a new axe kick and the general look of someone, well, evil. Oni, according to Mr. Tan, is heavily based on Akuma from SFIV - but still has his own unique styles and ultra moves. Oni is completely consumed by Akuma and as a result has the second most powerful ultra in the game. Yun and Yang were both popular characters on the older Street Fighter games and are back by popular demand. The game crosses over with Super Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter IV, downgrading and upgrading where necessary if friends have yet to upgrade to the Arcade Edition.
Leo continued with noting that patches make it easy for Capcom to fix balancing glitches and the fighting system in general, but the Arcade Edition is necessary to introduce new character models, 'major' tweaks and some user-generated content. They feel it warrants a full-on retail update, but do we? I'm not so sure; £11.99/ 1200 Microsoft points seems like a lot for such a small offering. We'll have to wait and see what the full game is like before we can comment further.
To round off the talk, we were able to witness the games' characters, both new and old, in heated action once again. A competition took place for a battle of Street Fighter IV supremacy. Fight!
Also check out Dan's preview coverage of Child of Eden.
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