Ultra Street Fighter IV: Capcom’s latest rebalancing act

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...-3-610x343.jpgGiven that Street Fighter X Tekken failed to capture either the hearts of fighting game players or the wallets of a wider audience, it’s little surprise to see Capcom dipping into the SFXT asset libraries for this, the third major revision to Street Fighter IV. Four of this game’s five new characters have been imported from the crossover title, but producer Tomoyaki Ayano insists this isn’t just a case of dropping a failed game’s models into the engine of one whose appeal endures five years on from its arcade debut.“They will definitely not just be copied and pasted,” he tells us. “The battle systems of the two games are completely different, so the characters will play completely differently. A lot of work goes into making these characters fit within the SFIV framework.”The absence of SFXT’s universal Boost combo system will certainly mean that four of USFIV’s five new characters play differently, but they sure do look the same. Final Fight’s German giant Hugo benefited the most from the Boost combo, which gave him mobility to go with his tremendous power. How he will fare in a game in which grapplers tend to struggle is for Capcom to figure out, but he has the tools to cope, including a handclap which nullifies projectiles.

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