Having grown up near an arcade (rest in peace Fun-O-Rama, Hialeah, FL), I've got a knotty history with Street Fighter, but it's one that I cherish nonetheless. Though I was certifiably baffled by the original (my local arcade had the version with the huge rubber buttons), Street Fighter II seized me completely. And so on, well into the Alpha series, with a few odd turns into Vs.-land. (For some reason, Street Fighter III never took off in the ecosystem I inhabited. Maybe that says something.) At first, I thought Capcom was arbitrarily dropping the loaded numeral on Street Fighter IV. How come the other seemingly endless iterations can't count as true sequels? Is it the recycled sprites? I still sort of feel this way, but I'm willing to let it slide on account of effort: Capcom really tried with Street Fighter IV. What might just be my favorite game ever has been iterated on lovingly and carefully, and this has given me an excuse to get caught up in it all over again.

Street Fighter IV is Street Fighter at its best. It's not the obtuse canvas for virtuosity that Street Fighter III was, nor are its subtleties bogged down by anything like Alpha 3's alphabet soup of "isms." All the stuff that makes it go is more or less plain to see, and more importantly, easy to execute (comparatively speaking -- if double-quarter-circle motions give you cramps, expect no quarter from even this game). In the hands of someone who's merely okay at 2D fighters, the new system's discrete parts allow for the kind of nuanced play previously the strict domain of experts. Simple-to-execute "Focus Attacks" (think: interrupts that you can unleash by simply hitting both medium attacks) can be "dash-cancelled" to goad and lead opponents. Similarly, you can use up portions of your super meter to supercharge your regular specials. The results vary: the "EX" version of Guile's sonic boom goes real fast; meanwhile, Ryu's hurricane kick turns stationary, but hits your opponent a whole mess of times.


Old pros, on the other hand, will exploit the game's crazy, multi-layered grammar for Youtube-shaky-cam-worthy results -- stuff like canceling certain special attacks by inputting Focus commands when they connect, in order to cut losses after a block, or double-up an attack. It's the sort of stuff that I can sometimes pull off in training mode. The scant few times I do so in a real game reinforces the overwhelming impression I've gotten from playing Street Fighter IV over the past few weeks: that this game contains multitudes. In another life, I'd be mixing it up with the guys who write the FAQs. In this one, I'll have to settle for practice mode.

When I peer down that rabbit hole, however, what is essentially a whole new game emerges. Strict tiers exist in the hardcore Street Fighter IV community, constructed by some precise calculus developed through months and months of arcade play. In this world, a character like Vega is puny, and given equally-matched players, should hardly ever beat Sagat, who occupies the "god tier" all by himself. What does this say about me and my friend, old hands at 2D fighters and Street Fighter in particular, given that we rocked each other repeatedly in ways that defied this logic? It means, basically, that we're not playing the same Street Fighter IV that the guys on Shouryuken.com are, and that's fine. Our version is cool, too.