Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition

The best 3DS game out there!

Posted 2 years ago By - Jay Acevedo

The current console/handheld/mobile device generation has seen its share of Street Fighter remakes; almost ports to a point where many wondered if Capcom wasn’t pushing its luck just a bit too much. Then, the 3DS announcement came and guess which franchise was going to be featured at launch?

Still, what Yoshinori Ono’s team was planning for the latest iteration of the DS handheld had a very special agenda. See, not only is Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition a port of an existing version, but also is the prime example of a company taking advantage of most of the 3DS hardware/software features and still deliver a great product that its praises deserve to be sung, even though it does usher in a lot of déjà-vu.

Compared to the other 3DS launch titles, Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition is jam-packed. 35 playable characters available right at the beginning, each with its own set of character customizations like costumes and personal actions, among others. In terms of modes, there’s the usual Arcade, Versus and Training but also 3D Versus (fights viewed from a shoulder third-person view) and Challenge, which has players subsequently perform moves as well as completing the bonus stages found beneath the Arcade mode (barrel/car crush). The game also has online play - with no lag - where players can jump right in and fight a random adversary alongside creating custom matches and friend lobbies. But that’s not all. On top of allowing up to six players join a lobby and play locally via wireless, Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition also has a Download Play feature. The number of characters and stages are limited, but I don’t think your best friend who has not yet committed to picking the game up would mind.

There’s also a nifty collectible mode where all your hard-earned Figure Points in Arcade, Versus and Online can be cashed-in for special figurines, which destined to be used in the StreetPass mode. Players will be able to assemble a team of five fighters that will automatically battle another user’s team, whether your system is in sleep mode or not. Every character comes in seven different figures from level one to seven for a grand total of 500. It’s not the greatest mode mind you, but it certainly adds another layer to the whole experience. Another quickie on these figurines, you’ll be able to trade them with your friends locally and also convert your Play Coins (the coins given based on the steps registered by the pedometer function) into figurine currency. Guess who went for a run the other day?

Control-wise, Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition captures as much fidelity off the XB360/PS3 counterparts as possible, but things are a bit different. See, the 3DS has almost the same button layout as a regular console controller with the low/medium kicks/punches mapped to the face buttons and the hi kick/punch to the left and right bumpers. It works, but in order to make it easier for the novices, Capcom has split the touch screen into four sections, all customizable via two control types: Lite and Pro. With the Lite type, two Special Moves, one Super Combo and one Ultra Combos can be designated on any of the four shortcuts. Now, Ryu’s powerful Metsu Hadoken can be performed with a simple stylus point rather than pulling the usual button/analog nub combination. The buttons will also highlight themselves, letting you know when your special gauges are ready to be deployed. With Pro, touch buttons can be set to perform basic moves, simultaneous button presses or specific moves like throws and focus attacks. With this set-up, Special moves and Super/Ultra Combos need to be performed manually. Being a rather experienced Street Fighter player, I found myself switching back and forth between control types. However, the point of introducing touch screen controls was to attract as many 3DS owners as possible to the game so at one point they consider a purchase. A smart decision that works rather well. Now, when you feel like your pride is at stake, there’s always the possibility to undesignate all touch shortcuts and play like the real deal.

There’s a few things that I didn’t touch in this review, like the non-animated backgrounds, the lack of Japanese voice-overs (that’s a bummer though) as well as the Tournament and Tag Team modes. I guess these “omissions” needed to happen so the game doesn’t lose its overall quality in the porting process. Keep that in mind as you can always go back to your PS3 or XB360 to feed that hunger.

3D

Not only does Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition look gorgeous in its normal 2D set-up, but it also looks relatively good in 3D. In the aforementioned third-person view, 3D adds noticeable depth. Unfortunately, there’s a performance difference as it constantly deals with framerate and ghosting issues. Like pretty much all 3DS games I’ve played thus far, it doesn’t add anything significant to the gameplay, but it sure looks cool for a few rounds.

Conclusion

Of all the developers who went and released their first 3DS efforts, Capcom was the one who surprised me the most. It may be their Xth version of Street Fighter, but they’re the sole development house who actually took the time to embrace the technology offered by Nintendo and create something great. It’s actually too bad the fighting genre isn’t everybody’s cup of tea because Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition is the handheld’s killer app.

I don’t remember when was the last time I said “Congratulations Capcom” in a very sincere, half-emotional tone. If I never did, let’s make this a first.