Ultra Street Fighter 4 Review

Since the February of 2009 Street Fighter 4 has been the premiere fighting game franchise of the current gen. Every year or so we got a new update, and while most were minor, this years’ version seems to be a significant change.

The first thing you’ll notice is a few new characters.
Poison: A former member of mad gear. She has a fireball with significant speed changes between the versions. She has rekka attacks (like Fei Long) with her whip. The EX version of her rekka attack does a lot of damage and lets you juggle afterward. She gets a flip kick that goes over most fireballs and allows her to trigger a throw after a hit. Her Shoryuken attack is fairly unremarkable and not particularly useful as an anti air. Of her Ultra attacks, Love Storm is the better of the two. You’ll like playing with Poison if you like Ryu.

Hugo: The ridiculously tall wrestler. Gifted with a ton of health, but no mobility, Hugo is the patient man’s grappler. He has the ability to carry an opponent all the way to the corner with one of his throws. His EX attacks are pretty effective thanks to the armor it grants him (2 hits on his clothesline) they allow him to close the distance on his opponents. Also of note is his anti-air throw, it’s quite good and makes your opponent think twice about jumping at all. Both his Ultra’s are viable and he is one of the characters who can make use of the new two Ultra system.

Elena: Elena is a walking high-low mixup. She has multiple overhead attacks to pick on crouching defensive characters (EX Mallet Smash being particularly useful). As a master of Capoeira she has a multitude of Spin Kicks, including some that can cause a juggle into her first Ultra. Once you get your opponent blocking high she has a special sweep that knocks your opponent down easily. Her first Ultra is a good attacking Ultra that can be easily comboed into, but her second Ultra gives her the ability to heal roughly 30% of her life.

Decapre: She looks like Cammy, but with a mask and claw. She has a spiral arrow like Cammy, but can only use it in the air. Her primary special move is a teleport. From the teleport she can slide, dive kick, or cause a ground pound that knocks the enemy into the air. Depending on your position, you can initiate these attacks from either side of the opponent making it tricky to block. She also has a hundred hand slap-esque attack that she initiates by mashing punch, this attack is pretty good as a combo ender. Both her Ultra moves are good, and she can certainly use the double Ultra ability. Her first Ultra is a slow moving fireball that works a lot like Dhalsim’s Yoga Catastrophe. Her other Ultra is comboable series of strikes.

Rolento: Rolento has the ability to roll, bounce off walls and pogo off of his staff. This ability lets him attack from unpredictable angles especially on your wake up. Rolento’s attacks all seemingly hit multiple times or break armor, making focus attacks much less useful against him. I wish I could explain his abilities more, but while he’s probably the best of the new characters, he’s the one I’ve put the least amount of time into. Of the current characters, he feels most similar to Ibuki.

A lot of the old characters have had significant changes. Across the board almost all the characters can no longer focus dash forward after an uppercut without you being able to punish it. Most of the lower characters from the previous games have been bolstered pretty significantly, though I don’t think it’s enough to unseat the top characters like Cammy and C. Viper. The addition of double ultra is pretty cool for certain characters, like Dhalsim, Sagat, Gouken, and others. Red Focus was also added in giving you the ability to absorb infinite attacks while it charges(other than armor breakers), but it’s balanced due to requiring meter to use. The last addition to the actual fighting was Delayed Wake-up which causes you to stay on the ground after a hard knockdown for an extra half-second to attempt to throw your opponents attack off.

Characters weren’t the only thing to change in USF4, many of the modes were improved as well. The game now offers you the ability to record your offline matches and upload them to YouTube. Online mode was also enhanced with the ability to go into training mode while the game searches for an opponent so you can keep your hands limber. My only major complaint is that challenge mode has not yet been updated for the new characters yet, though that’s supposed to be available shortly.

Overall Ultra Street Fighter 4 the definitive version of the series and easily the most substantial upgrade since Super was released. Each character feels unique from other characters, and the changes to the old characters were all pretty good.