Street Fighter IV!

My day off just happened to be the first day of the SF4 testing in Kichijoji. I rode my bike over, waited about 15 minutes for a spot to park my bike, waited in line for about 10 minutes, and was thoroughly UNDERwhelmed.

I have been waiting for SF4 for years. The SF3 series wasn't my cup of tea, so I wanted SF4 to be good. I am extremely disappointed. Graphically it's amazing. The backgrounds are gorgeous. The characters look great (except for the faces, but I don't like faces in ANY 3D game...). It plays like a Street Fighter....

... if that Street Fighter was from two decades ago.

SF4 should have been the game to take the best things of all the different SF series, fix the problems, and present it in a new, refreshing way. Instead, it's taking the route of "all the recent games were shit, so we're going back to basics." The problem is, the result is TOO basic. Today's gamers are used to flash. They're used to having a ton of tools at their disposal and choosing when to use which tool. SF4 is basically 2 huge sprites poking at each other. Everything is very straightforward. The revenge attack feature is the only thing that felt new, but it wasn't enough.

10 characters, of which 2 are new.
2 colors per character.
1 super art per character.

I realize it's incomplete, but these things need to be addressed. The game looks great. Obviously a lot of time went into making the game. Unfortunately, they didn't put enough time into the "fun factor" of the game. It's just not fun as it is. Interesting enough to play it once, but not enough to keep you playing.