With SSF4 on the horizon, now’s a good opportunity to reflect on SF4 in appreciation of all the ways Capcom went that extra mile to make us happy.
Classic Characters, Oldschool Gameplay
It may be missing all the delicate bells and whistles of Capcom’s recent titles such as CvS2 and MvC2, but Street Fighter 4 brings back the focus on solid fundamentals which made SF2 so popular. In true Street Fighter fashion, victory is all about having a solid ground game, keeping your cool, measuring up your opponent, and adapting your gameplan.
State of the Art 3D Animation
When SF4 was announced, most die-hard Street Fighter fans would’ve told you they wanted 2D sprite animation from Capcom. That’s because Capcom’s previous ventures into creating 3D SF games were less than aesthetically pleasing. However, SF4’s art direction and attention to detail are nothing short of breathtaking. Every trace of motion is so fluidly animated that superfreeze unlocks a hidden wealth of never before seen frames!
Character Style and Balance
One of the most amazing things about SF4 is how completely familiar every returning character feels. Balrog has never been in a 3D Street Fighter game before, yet he actually plays exactly like you would expect Balrog to play in a 2D Street Fighter game. Even the new characters, who seem wacky and outlandish at first, feel like real Street Fighter characters. This was no accident. The dedication of all the excellent designers, programmers, and artists involved with the game’s development shines through.
The Versatility of Focus Attacks
At first glance, the marquee new feature of the series seems somewhat underwhelming. Yet the Focus Attack system elegantly ties together every aspect of Street Fighter 4 – offense, defense, ultra moves, dashing, super armor, special move cancels, and even the trademark paint effect of the premiere trailer. It introduces an offensive element to the Revenge Gauge and a defensive element to special moves. Finally, it serves as a link to Capcom’s classic fighting game series: SFA3 Guard Crushes, SF3 Parries, and SFEX Special Move Cancels.
Severe Combo Damage Reduction
One of the most criticized features of SF4’s game engine is also one of its best safeguards against potential imbalance. After nine moves, every attack in a combo inflicts only 10% of its base damage. This permits players like me to stretch the combo system to its limit without fear of damaging the dynamics of competitive play. It even allows for characters with infinites and semi-infinites to coexist with characters who only have one or two useful combos. Furthermore, the emphasis on scaling whole moves rather than hit count cleverly avoids penalizing characters simply for having twenty-hit super moves.
Convenient, User-Friendly Menu Options
For the first time in a Street Fighter title, you can exit from Training Mode at the Character Select screen. You can undo your character choice when you change your mind or make a mistake, even after selecting both characters in Training Mode. You can see a sample color patch before choosing outfits instead of having to memorize button assignments for each costume palette. You can even record a training dummy sequence, play it back to test something, then change characters, and it will still play from memory without resetting when the stage loads. These little time-savers don’t count for much individually, but they certainly add up to an overall pleasant experience.
Online Play and HYPE!
It’s amazing to see the response this game has been getting all over the internet. It’s amazing to see Street Fighter commercials on television again. It’s amazing to see nearly five thousand people discussing fighting games on SRK at any given moment.
And the craziest part is, i honestly feel like these words barely scratch the surface of all that makes Street Fighter IV so cool to finally play after all these years of anticipation.
Thanks to Csaba for linking me to that Abel/Dhalsim compilation video and pointing out the superfreeze vs ultra moment at 4:45.
And SSF4 is a console-only fanservice-filled mess! Bravo, Capcom!
SlimX oh I see. You’ve got this game have you?
Not wanting to jump on the SFIV hate bandwagon(though this actually isn’t one of those posts), but those never before seen frames just seem to be the auto inbetweening from one keyframe to the next.
The characters are animated like any CG(or even 2d)character, but in CG you can just let the computer fill up the empty space between 2 frames. In SFIV in stead of freezing the characters on the frame they’re on, they go into auto-inbetweening, creating a smooth motion from one frame to the next.
That part where Blanka tucks in his legs to roll is just one keyframe changing to another keyframe automatically. It’s not like it goes so fast you never see it, you never see it because it wasn’t there. It’s being done in real time, basically.
You can do this with any CG animation, it’s not really a big deal. Good animators like to let the computer as little as possible because leaving the animation process to the computer is like having a terrible inbetweener who just puts all the frames exactly in the middle and sucks the life out of your animation.
Just so you know.
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I don’t know that much about 3D animation but i knew the inbetween frames were all automated. Still, that doesn’t make it any less funny/amazing for me to watch Blanka tuck in his legs as he becomes a ball during superfreeze.
Yeah I mean it also highlights the fact that they put in the animation of him tucking in his legs, instead of just having him going from a standing blanka to a blanka ball…so even though not nearly every frame is lovingly designed, (see error0001’s ken ultra glitch, that thing is ugly when slowed down), there’s still plenty of thought put into the aesthetics of move design.
Plus SF4 is the first Street Fighter game where blocking actually looks interesting. Watch any character block Cammy’s ultra in slow motion. They go through all kinds of animations.
Another subtle thing i love about SF4 is the fact you can enable Counter Hit in the Training Options menu, but it’s automatically disabled for controllable dummy modes. It only affects Stand/Crouch/Jump actions. So you can (almost) never have an impossible counterhit setup. No enabling that option and then trading hits or whatever. (It’s great for simplifying challenge rules!)
“That’s because Capcom’s previous ventures into creating 3D SF games were less than aesthetically pleasing.”
technically, capcom hasnt had any previous 3D SF ventures. technically. arika made the SFEX games. they pretty much borrowed the SF characters and logo like a restaurant borrows the denny’s logo and menus. as such, capcom kicked ass for their first attempt at 3D SF.
“Furthermore, the emphasis on scaling whole moves rather than hit count cleverly avoids penalizing characters simply for having twenty-hit super moves.”
maybe i just suck at math, but i dont see that as helping once the scaling gets to that 10% mark. using akuma as an example, wouldnt 10% of each hit work out to slightly more than 10% of the total ultra (which would be just under 60 damage at full meter)?
Arika was founded by Akira Nishitani, who was one of the original designers on SF2. Arika’s original team included other former Capcom employees. SFEX was co-published by Capcom. It’s an exaggeration to say that Capcom played no part in the series. Plus Capcom’s other 3D fighters weren’t exactly cutting edge in the graphics department.
As an Onimusha fan, i always felt that Capcom could do an amazing job with 3D combat. But obviously it would require a huge budget, and considering the fact that Capcom Fighting Evolution was the last CoJ fighting game before SF4, i think the concern over the 3D news was valid. I’m just glad it turned out well in the end.
As for damage reduction, if it was 10% per hit then Akuma’s ultra would barely break 150 damage by itself outside of a combo. Obviously 10% per move is the same as 10% per hit once your combo reaches max penalty.
Am i the only one who thought ken’s ultra was actually very well animated?
I agree with most of the post as SF4 did infact do alot right. The cast didn’t alienate me like SF3, the game play reminds me of SF2, and for the most part it is a very fun feeling experience.
I disagree with the severe damage reduction on combos. I don’t feel it help balance the game, and I would rather skill be rewarded. However I do understand Capcom’s casual focus on the game so I guess it works for what it is.
BTW damage reduction doesn’t stop infinite abuse. Infinites can be abused if they exist at all. Well designed games will simply not have the tools to create proper infinites. SF4 seems to be designed this way.
i’m surprised you like damage reduction as implemented on SF4.
you said that it actually makes characters w/ infinites less broken but I disagree. if a character with an infinite combo existed on SF4’s engine then the damage scaling would stop at 50% ish damage most of the time unless each hit is doing as much as or more than a fierce in the infinite (i’ve experimented with this when i’ve created infinites on accident while modding the game). this doesn’t mean the infinites would be stopped at 50%, all it means is that infinites would be done until time over and that would make for a fucking terrible game.
The reason infinites don’t exist in sf4 in any large quantity other than one or two impractical character specific corner only exceptions that are all 1 frame links (like I believe chun has one of these on abel if I remember right?) is because the designers followed general intelligent rules on designing moves: 1) moves that decrease a lot of distance between the two characters should never be both able to be combo’d into or combo’d out of (pick one of the two). 2) juggle limit. There’s no spinout (mvc2) or decreasing hitstun per hit (aksys games) implemented in SF4 which something of the sort probably should just be put in every fighting game JUST IN CASE. There is no reason the game should allow a 100+hit combo as a valid combo just because move properties allow it. If somebody had an infinite on SF4 it would’ve ruined the game utterly. If somebody has an infinite/loop on a lot of other systems its not really a big deal, just a great tool. storm dhc into sentinel is a bit scarier on mvc2 than magneto’s ROM. if you took those combos and put them on sf4, ROM would be the scary one, because the damage scaling would make the 100% combo not be a 100% combo, but magneto would just ROM until time over (well ignoring juggle limits and the obvious of dhc and airdash and whatnot not existing on SF4. I’m just saying that the system does a TERRIBLE job of preventing infinites, they just did an EXCELLENT job on designing movesets w/ regards to that).
i still agree w/ damage scaling as a concept, but as it stands on SF4, it is badly implemented, both because it is overdone and the juggle/combo system is so extremely unfriendly to resets which is the AWESOME thing people generally want to do because of damage scaling.
@onreload
Actually, when you look at it, they didn’t add any animation of him tucking in his legs at all. It moves from a keyframe where Blanka stands up, arms and legs spread apart, straight into his Blanka Ball pose (Like in 2d, instantly going into the ball).
The computer just adds frames right in the middle. If the superfreeze had occured 2 frames before the Blanka Ball starting up, he would have inbetweened from his crouching pose, or whatever he was doing, to the pose where he’s standing straight up. It wouldn’t slowly move into the Ball pose, since it would only add frame in between 2 key frames, the Ball pose would be key number 3.
At least, that’s my theory, if I understand their method correctly. It would probably be a bigger programming challenge to actually keep moving in slow motion through all of the keyframes.
Doing it like this, inbetweening between 2 keys is just to keep things moving just a little bit, in stead of freezing the action all together, which looks fine in 2d, but not in 3d for some reason…
ano: Actually i think they did a good job of preventing infinites. How many of them are there? Fuerte’s RSF, Fei Long’s chicken wing loops, Abel’s jab to F+MK to dash cancel, and Chun’s meaty SBK.
Fei Long was a mistake and it was patched out. Obviously they knew about the Fuerte one because it’s actually one of the challenge trials. It works because he’s balanced with that infinite in mind. Nothing else combos into it since s.HP is so damn slow and useless, and he doesn’t have a great mixup which opens up s.HP opportunities. All of his mixups involve his acrobatic run specials which knock down. The fact that he’s still bottom middle tier with RSF proves that they actually managed to balance a character with an infinite (or semi-infinite or whatever the case may be).
That brings us to Abel and Chun. Neither of these are trivial infinites. In fact, if you look at the frame data, both of these should be impossible. They both require situational meaty attacks mid-combo, which are by far the most difficult combos to predict in testing. Seriously, this is the definition of slipping through the cracks, which is bound to happen in any fighting game design. It’s just a matter of luck on their part, and what i like about the damage reduction system is that it limits the fallout from a little bit of bad luck.
Is it full-proof? Of course not. If Sagat had Abel’s infinite, SF4 would be fucked. But the damage reduction system does a pretty good job of keeping combo damage reasonable, balancing out all kinds of stuff like Akuma’s far s.HK loops and Sakura’s crazy combos.
Cuz at the end of the day, the game should reward strategy, not the ability to take your opponent out of the game for 30 seconds at a time. SF4 has better pacing for the fact that it encourages shorter combos. (Except for ultras taking too long, of course.)
Bob Sagat: Yeah, i think superfreeze slows down the interval between two consecutive frames. I’m not 100% positive, but pinpointing Blanka’s leg tuck animation definitely felt like one-frame timing while i was trying to record it.
@Maj and
@Bob Sagat
when doing the ken ultra slowdown glitch 1 of three things can happen,
1) ken hits them before any meter is spent and game stays slow
2) ken hits them during super freeze and game stays slow
3) ken hits after super freeze
I’m fairly sure you can have #2 vs seth but you can vs ryu. This would indicate that Seth’s super freeze lasts for less then one frame of normal time and Ryu’s last’s just over 1
sorry for the double post but I had a typo
@Maj and
@Bob Sagat
when doing the ken ultra slowdown glitch 1 of three things can happen,
1) ken hits them before any meter is spent and game stays slow
2) ken hits them during super freeze and game stays slow
3) ken hits after super freeze
I’m fairly sure you can’t have #2 vs seth but you can vs ryu. This would indicate that Seth’s super freeze lasts for less then one frame of normal time and Ryu’s last’s just over 1
@Maj
no no i didn’t say they did a bad job, i think they did a great job… just the system itself does a bad job.
they avoided it in character design, not in system design, which i just thought was perhaps irresponsible is all
actually more specifically i should clarify that i mean this:
they were walking on really thin ice with the system as they implemented it. if they had gotten unlucky, just ONE useable-in-the-match infinite that slipped through…. it would’ve been fucked up. people just do it until time over and it would be the worst gameplay ever
on the other hand a game like mvc2 remains fun even with infinites
Really though? The whole system’s bad because Abel has one link he shouldn’t have and Chun Li’s SBK hits weird at a certain distance?
How many characters are capable of ground infinites? Let’s be realistic, it’s not like Sagat or Ryu have anywhere near the necessary tools to achieve that. It’s not surprising at all that Abel and El Fuerte show up. But like i said, they balanced Fuerte with RSF in mind so he doesn’t count.
I mean, look at the kinds of combos that are in SF4. Almost every character with a mash special can combo multiple iterations of it. You’ve got Balrog’s EX dash upper loops. You’ve got Sakura’s LK Hurricane Kick links. You’ve got Fei Long’s EX chicken wing loops. FADC allows every character to reset their ground sequences and perform up to three whole cycles of basically any combo that works on the ground.
If damage reduction was even a little bit forgiving, anyone with 2 or 3 bars of meter would be walking death. The second round of every match would last 10 seconds. Well, 10 interactive seconds followed by 30 seconds of single player spectator mode.
Honestly i don’t have a problem with SF4’s damage reduction because i think the whole system makes sense. It’s probably not how i would’ve designed a combo engine, but they did an excellent job of following through on their basic stated premises and it’s a lot more solid than it seems at first sight.
They didn’t get lucky that there are no gamebreaking infinites. They got unlucky that there are infinites at all. Conversely, MvC2 was going to have infinites from day one and they got totally lucky that it’s still a good game. (Although MvC2 contains an insane number of brilliant design decisions too.)
SFIV animations are really impressive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPn8pDfjo0k