STREET FIGHTER IV

Street Fighter IV (ストリートファイター IV Sutorīto Faitā Fō^?) is a 2008 fighting game produced by Capcom, which co-developed the game with Dimps. It was the first numbered Street Fighter game released by Capcom since 1999, a hiatus of nine years.
The coin-operated arcade game was released in Japan on July 18, 2008, with North American arcades importing the machines by August. The console versions for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were released in Japan on February 12, 2009, and were sold in North American stores as early as February 16, with a February 18 intended release date. The official European release was on February 20. A Windows version was released on July 2, 2009 in Japan, July 3, 2009 in Europe and July 7, 2009 in the United States. A version for iOS was released on March 10, 2010. By March 31, 2009, Street Fighter IV had sold over 3 million copies worldwide. An updated version, Super Street Fighter IV, was released as a standalone title in April 2010.
Street Fighter IV has sold 3.1 million units by March 2011. Super Street Fighter IV has sold 1.8 million units, in addition to 400,000 of the Arcade Edition, by December 2011. Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition sold an additional 1 million copies by April 2011, and 1.1 million as of December 2011. This adds up to sales of 6.4 million copies in total. Upon its release, the game received universal critical acclaim; receiving universally high scores from many gaming websites and magazines.

Gameplay

Producer Yoshinori Ono has stated that he wanted to keep the game closer to Street Fighter II. A new system called Focus Attacks (Saving Attack for the Japanese version) has been introduced, as well as Ultra Moves. The traditional six-button control scheme has returned, with new features and Special Moves integrated into the input system, mixing classic gameplay with additional innovations.
Stephen Kleckner of 1UP.com has stated the game has a similar feel to Super Street Fighter II Turbo, but also has a few features from Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. As in Street Fighter III, throwing is performed by pressing both light attack buttons, while pressing both heavy attack buttons performs the character's personal action or taunt. Pressing both medium attack buttons performs a character's Focus Attack. Dashes and quick standing are also in the game. C. Viper and Dan (with the air taunt) are the only characters who can perform a high jump.
It was intended that bonus rounds such as the car-smashing stage from earlier Street Fighter games would return. Ono later stated that the bonus stages would not be in the arcade game, citing the reason to be that the time players spend on bonus stages is time during which they have no chance of losing, which ultimately takes money from arcade operators.
Focus Attacks, known as Saving Attack in the Japanese version, is a new system introduced in Street Fighter IV. The Focus Attack is a move that allows the player to absorb an attack and launch a counterattack, and it is performed by pressing the medium punch and medium kick buttons simultaneously. There are two phases to the attack. In the first phase, the player will shift into a new stance, at which point he or she is able to absorb a single hit from the opponent. The second phase is the counterattack. The longer the player holds down the medium punch and kick buttons, the more powerful the attack will be. If the buttons are held for long enough the attack will be unblockable and cause the opponent to crumple slowly to the ground, allowing the player to follow up with a free hit. Attacks that were absorbed during the first phase of a Focus Attack still cause damage to the player; however, life lost from the opponent's attack will be quickly regenerated afterward. In addition, during the first phase of the Focus Attack, the player may perform a dash either forward or backward to cancel the Focus Attack. Finally, at the cost of two bars of the Super Combo gauge, many Special Moves can be canceled into a Focus Attack. By executing a Focus Attack during the Special Move, the animation of the move will be cut short and go instantly into the Focus Attack animation. This allows players with precise timing to cancel Special Moves into Focus Attacks, and in turn cancel Focus Attacks into the forward dash, resulting in new combo possibilities. If a Special Move is blocked by the opponent, the new system allows players to cancel the blocked move with a Focus Attack, and then cancel the Focus Attack by dashing backward safely away from the opponent. Ono has stated that this system was incorporated in order to shift the emphasis away from combos and toward a more realistic system he has compared to boxing, in which "the skill is in reading your opponent's move before he or she starts moving ... We haven't forgotten about combos and linked moves, but focus makes it so that you have to read your opponent." The system aims to make ground attacks as viable a way of approaching opponents as jumping was in previous games. The focus system is a core part of Street Fighter IV's gameplay.
In addition to the powered-up versions of Special Moves introduced in previous Street Fighter games such as Super Combos and EX Special Moves, the game also introduces a new type of powered-up Special Move officially dubbed the Ultra Combo. Ultra Combos are long and cinematic moves featuring a lengthy combination of punches, kicks and other fighting techniques. Just as there is a Super Combo gauge, there is also an Ultra Combo gauge (officially known as the Revenge Gauge or Revenge Meter), but whereas the Super Combo gauge fills up when the player hits their opponent or performs a Special Move, the Revenge Gauge fills when one takes damage from their opponent (similar to the K Groove featured in Capcom vs. SNK 2). Along with the Super Combos, Ultra Combos are one of the only times (besides Zangief, E. Honda, Seth and Abel's command throws) the camera breaks from its normal fixed position to show a more dynamic, cinematic view of the gameplay.

Plot

Street Fighter IV takes place several months after the events of Street Fighter II (thus is chronologically set between Street Fighter II and III). After M.Bison's survival from his encounter with Akuma, the S.I.N. corporation began another fighting tournament in order to draw out the most powerful fighters on Earth to complete the BLECE project. Each character has their own reasons for entering this tournament, but S.I.N.'s real desire is to lure Ryu to them in order to analyze the Satsui no Hadō, believed to be the last piece of data needed to complete BLECE. The tournament is publicly organized by S.I.N., apparently using preliminary matches and a point system to determine who is allowed to enter (as shown by the conversation between Seth and his lackey about how Dan Hibiki was able to "squeak by with just enough points to qualify"). It can be assumed that the only participants in the tournament are the playable characters in SFIV not including Seth.

Characters

Chronologically set between the Street Fighter II series and the Street Fighter III series, the playable character roster of the arcade version includes the cast of the original Street Fighter II (all 12 characters, including the four Shadaloo Grand Masters) and four new characters. Akuma from Super Street Fighter II Turbo also appears as a hidden playable character, as well as a secret opponent, for a total 17 playable characters. Additionally, the game includes two more secret characters: Seth as the game's standard final boss, and Gouken as a secret opponent, which makes for a total of 19 characters.
New characters:

• Abel, a French fighter who utilizes Russian combat sambo to defeat opponents (note his kurtka). He is described as an amnesiac, a "man with no past" looking to defeat surviving members of Shadaloo. He is later revealed to be a prototype of Seth's model.
• Crimson Viper, a female American spy wearing sunglasses, leather gloves and a form-fitting suit with weapons she entered the tournament in order to "test".
• Rufus, an obese kung fu fighter, who seeks to fight Ken to prove himself as the best fighter in the United States.
• El Fuerte (Spanish for "The Strong One"), a Mexican luchador and aspiring gourmet chef.
• Seth, also known as "The Puppet Master", is the new boss character. He is the CEO of S.I.N., the weapons division of Shadaloo. His body has been modified using advanced technology. His Special Moves are techniques used by other characters.
• Gouken, the elder brother of Akuma, and Ryu and Ken's master, appears in the arcade version as a secret computer-controlled challenger in the end of the single-player mode, making his debut as a fighter in the Street Fighter series.

The returning characters are Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, E. Honda, Blanka, Zangief, Guile, Dhalsim, Balrog, Vega, Sagat, M. Bison and Akuma.

Development

Before producer Yoshinori Ono pitched the idea to Capcom R&D head Keiji Inafune, the prevailing attitude around Capcom was that a new numeric entry to the Street Fighter series would not be made. Initially, there was much resistance to Ono's pitch for a new Street Fighter game so many years after the original. The gap from 2000 to 2008, since Street Fighter EX3, the last Street Fighter game, represented the longest time the series had gone without a sequel. However, in light of fan demand plus the positive reception to Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting on Xbox Live Arcade, Inafune eventually allowed the project to begin. This was Ono's first take on a new entry for the Street Fighter series as a producer, although he had previously worked on Street Fighter III 3rd Strike as a "sound management director" and previously produced Capcom Fighting Jam. The experience provided by Super Street Fighter II Turbo became the main influence for the Street Fighter IV development team.
The original game concept, titled Street Fighter IV Flashback, imagined in part by David Sirlin, the designer of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, never made it past the proposal stage. Flashback would likewise feature the 2.5D gameplay and a roster made of classic Street Fighter II characters plus Sakura and a few new characters. The game would have also featured a single-player mode with third-person 3D action (similar to this of the God of War series) that focused on Ryu's backstory, as well as all Street Fighter arcade games in their original forms and a 3D version of Super Turbo. Flashback's proposed easy control system was later used in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, minus its titular "flashback" gameplay feature.
While Street Fighter IV features models and backgrounds rendered in 3D, the gameplay remains on a traditional 2D plane, with the camera having freedom to move in 3D at certain times during fights, for dramatic effect, similar to the Street Fighter EX series Capcom produced with Arika. However, there are a couple of key differences. Art director and character designer Daigo Ikeno, who previously worked on Street Fighter III 3rd Strike,opted for non-photorealistic rendering to give them a hand-drawn look, with visual effects accented in calligraphic strokes, ink smudges and ink sprays during the fights.
The game runs on the Taito Type X² arcade board inside a Taito Vewlix cabinet and takes advantage of the TypeX.