Super Street Fighter IV: Community Service

In attendance from www.neoempire.com (home of the biggest fighting game community in the UK and possibly responsible for promoting SFIV more than anybody else outside of Capcom UK) were the elite of the community, including Ryan “Prodigal Son” Hart, a man who will need no introduction to anybody familiar with the competitive fighting game scene over the last 15 years. With so many of SSFIV’s changes taking place under the hood, we found out what the Capcom European SFIV Champion had to say on their rebalancing efforts: “It seems like they’ve made so much effort to implement these ten new characters, it’s possible that certain elements of the old characters have been neglected,” says Hart with concern.

Ibuki proved to be a popular choice, carrying across many of her lengthy 3rd Strike combos.

Citing underperformers in SFIV such as Ken (his own character in SFIII: 3^rd Strike), Hart seemed unimpressed with Ken’s changes, though was sure to point out that this was based solely on a day’s play. I pondered that Capcom may well be purposefully keeping everybody’s favourite arrogant American down in an effort to dissuade casual players from blindly playing flowchart Ken (a phenomenon they even acknowledge in his new win quote), but Hart was quick to jump to his defence: “I’m not sure if that’s reason enough to keep him low in the ranking. Casual players wouldn’t pick up on all the deep technicalities, so it would only be applicable to high level tournament players.”

It’s no secret that Sagat ruled SFIV with an iron Tiger Uppercut-clenched fist and as Hart plays the Thai powerhouse, what does he make of Capcom’s changes to his main man? “He seems to have everything changed which is actually a good thing in my opinion. If I want to use Sagat I have to work a lot harder. It gives Sagat players an opportunity to display their skill in the game, rather than just sticking with old tactics.”

Guile's new sunglasses move saw very little action on the day. Surprising given that it's the first move he's learned since 1991s Street Fighter II.

On site to represent a community he has been involved in building for the best part of two decades was Neo Empire founder Simeon “Bullet Proof” Lansiquot to offer his opinions on the effects of Capcom’s fighting game revival. “To be fair to it, Street Fighter IV has pulled in a lot of people and its done wonders for our community,” he says. “They made the game accessible to all and a large number of the newcomers are now experimenting with other games and joining in with other communities and I have to thank Capcom for that,” he says gratefully. Will Super have a similar vacuum effect?  ”We’re moving down this road again where it’s just a kind of upgrade. Will it have the impact that Street Fighter IV did? No, I very much doubt it. Will the hardcore support it? Most definitely. Even I will,” jokes Lansiquot.

Tune in tomorrow for our full Super Street Fighter IV review where we put Capcom’s returning champ through the full twelve rounds to see whether you should be doing the same.