
It's a great insight into what's possible with each character. which is something of an understatement) designed to teach you everything from basic throws and specials through to super cancels and seriously advanced combos. Yes, Street Fighter IV has a robust set of challenges (five sets of challenges for 'normal' difficulty and five for 'hard'. And for once, the game is prepared to teach you its secrets. There's incredible subtlety and nuance to the combo system and to the gameplay overall. If you want to play it like World Warrior, you can, and if you want to get technical with super cancels, cross-ups, EX focus moves and other combo boosting technical techniques, you can. And that's why SFIV is such a success – it has incredible appeal for all types of players. We're good at Street Fighter, but our play styles are still extensions of when we learnt to play back on the original SFII arcade cabinet. We'll be brutally honest – we don't use a lot of the most advanced play options. which you can then dash cancel out of and into another move. worst I've ever seen.įocus attacks can be countered with throws and armour-breaking moves, and you can also do cool things like dash cancel them mid-charge to counter an opponent's expectations, or use focus attacks to cancel out of a number of regular/special moves. He got focus attacked here, here and here. Oh, and they look awesome too – we particularly love the ink sprays as they launch. Again, focus attacks are simplicity themselves to execute, but add a vital tactical option for both basic and advanced play. Hitting an opponent with a charged focus attack stuns them, dropping them to their knees and allowing you to get another attack in. While charging you can block one attack, and then counter-attack when you release or it's fully charged (which is then unblockable). Every character has a focus attack and it's executed with medium punch and medium kick (you can tap them or hold them to charge it up). It's simple, easy to execute and ties in wonderfully with one of the new systems – focus attacks. Another system that returns (from SFIII: 3rd Strike) is tapping light punch and light kick to throw. Crimson Viper's Thunder Knuckle, for instance, crosses over the opponent in EX form, while her Seisumo Hammer will track the opponent (the normal version, which is a ground pound, requires the player to judge an opponent's distance and use light for close, medium for mid-range and heavy for further away). For other characters EX moves can be more modified. Suddenly Ken's fireball does two hits, his dragon punch does four and his spinning kick launches faster, goes further and also does more hits. The best part is that executing these moves is simplicity itself – instead of hitting one punch or one kick for a special, hit two.
Street fighter 6 dumbed down full#
Doing this uses up one of the four segments on your super bar, so it gives you an alternative to waiting for your super bar to be completely full – you can portion out modified moves any time you have a segment ready to go.


The basic idea is that you can modify any special move into an EX version which does more hits and/or changes the attack animation. In terms of returning mechanics, the EX system is back, and we couldn't be happier. Several return from Street Fighter III, while new inclusions help round out the gameplay.

The team has created a fantastic set of mechanics, too. This also ties in with a slightly more measured pace, which helps make the game feel less twitchy and more rhythmic. As amazing as it was for advanced players, this is not a game in which you'll need to master the frame perfect art of tapping forward to parry. Another example is the fact that the parry system has been discarded. What this means is that you can concentrate more on when you're going to unleash a certain move as opposed to simply getting the movement out. The timing and motions on inputs required for special moves are just that little bit more relaxed than in previous titles, for instance. What it does mean is that the game doesn't get too bogged down in technical play and precision input that only the top players will be able to enjoy. This is a game to be played and mastered over months or years, not hours. In Street Fighter IV, however, accessibility is not at the expense of depth – far from it. If something is accessible it can surely only be enjoyed by noobs or 'casual' players, whoever they are. Most people assume it's a synonym of 'dumbed down'. Now, normally 'accessible' is seen a danger word in the world of videogames.
