Street Fighter IV, The inside word (Part 1)

With the launch of Street Fighter IV right on the horizon we took some time away from watching YouTube combo videos to have a word with Capcom’s UK PR Manager and all round awesome chap, Mr Leo ‘Electric’ Tan. Questions needed answering and he’s just the man to do it.

Here is part one of our interview, with part two to follow next week.

Well, it’s been a long wait but the end is in sight, are you looking forward to the public getting their hands on Street Fighter IV?

Leo: First can I say thanks for making me sound cool! Just for the record, I actually am really cool. Am I looking forward to the public playing Street Fighter IV? Definitely. The more people are playing online the better. The better for my online rank! I intend to abuse the last six months of daily play and utterly annihilate everyone I meet online in launch week. I realise this is bad PR practice, but I figure it’ll be my only chance to win some matches. After a week everyone else will be better than me and then it’s the bottom 10 per cent of players for my Ryu. That it’s the return of the greatest fighting game of all time after what seems like an ice age of no Street Fighter is secondary to the joy I will experience obtaining cheap victories.

Just kidding! It’ll actually take less than a week to reach my skill level.

I’m glad to see EX Moves made the transition from Street Fighter III, how integral are they to the new fighting engine?

Leo: I think it depends mostly on your playing style and which character you use as to how important they are, but certainly they should form part of everyone’s game. From winning a projectile contest with a well-timed double Sonic Boom to focus-cancelling a fierce Dragon Punch to juggle with an EX Hurricane (that’ll make sense once you’re playing), most situations can be turned around with an EX move. Though if I’m playing against a Blanka I like to save up my Super bar so that I can punish a blocked Spin Attack (top tip there!).

With the addition of Ultra combos it seems that players no longer need to hold back on EX Moves for fear of never filling their super bar. Is that the reason for Ultras?

Leo: Ultras are, as Ono-san the producer has said, a good way for players on the brink of defeat to fight their way back. That’s quite different from Supers, which are rewards for aggressive play more than anything else. They’re also a way for the highly-skilled to show off, as they can be used in only very specific ways in combos that often require a very tight link or a focus-cancelled juggling move. They don’t have the flexibility that a Super has, which is only fair as they do a fair amount of damage, especially if fully-charged. They have a lot of different uses so I wouldn’t like to say they’re specifically a replacement for Supers. And you should never have been afraid of using EX moves in the first place – banked damage through an EX is always more preferable than holding out and hoping for the opportunity to use a Super. Unless you’re playing Blanka!

With the full roster announced, I’m sure people are already picking their favourites. Is the initial roster restricted? Basically, I want to know when I can play with Cammy.

Leo: Not everyone is available from the get-go. You’ll have to finish the game on Arcade mode to unlock new characters, with each character bar Akuma, Gouken and Seth tied to completion with a specific character. I’m not saying which is which. (It’s C. Viper for Cammy).

Who are you happy to see made the cut from the Super/Alpha series?

Leo: Fei Long is a beast! I love his rushdown game and his new command grab is just horrible. Cammy also gets dusted off from time to time and her English voice is SEXY, but mostly it’s Fei Long. I am secretly glad Deejay isn’t in the game, because his flow is directly at odds with how I like to play, but I realise other people might not agree. Other WRONG people. I never really played Gen before so I’m enjoying experimenting with him, but mostly it’s about Fei Long. He has a Personal Action in which he just lies down and yawns. How can you not want that in your game?

Part 2 will be up next week to quench your slathering thirst for more Street Fighter IV goodness. Be sure to check it out as we will be giving away an excellent RetroGT Street Fighter T-shirt from the choice below!