Fighting games have never been my forte, I enjoy them, but I have never mastered any of the complex attacks or combo’s which usually results in my defeat. With Street Fighter IV on PlayStation 4, I went in having not played a single Street Fighter game since 3 and it was better than I thought it would be.

The game obviously made its return on PlayStation 3, but it was not that well received, due to some issues with the hit boxes and such, something I would never have noticed of course, but the hard core fans did, so Capcom spent a lot of time refining the mechanics, also adding more characters and listening to fan feedback to make Street fighter IV the best game it could be and all that work has come together with Ultra Street Fighter IV, but it has not come together perfectly.


Like many games before it, the game has made the leap from last gen to current gen, but as the game was built for last gen with a very specific look, when it was ported over the look did not flow across quite as well. When you get close ups of characters in the intro and ending sequences there are blurry textures as well as odd lines to be found and while you might not think of this as an issue, as they are as much a part of ever fight as the actual fighting it is a problem.

The rest of the visuals are pretty ok, the background elements pop and show signs of life, some clipping is notice able with the background characters, but as you will be focused on the fighters with their moves looking flashy and powerful with the effects around them. The sound is done nicely, with characters having conviction with their words, the downside is when characters sound so different when they are defeated, I had to check the character names a few times there.


The fighting is really well done, if I was not told that it had been changed from the original release to this one, I never would have noticed anything, and in fact I still didn’t. Landing moves and jumping all worked for me and the odd time I pulled off a reversal attack, well that worked too. In fact the fighting is so well done, it makes me wonder how the original plays, to see if it is as different as marketed.

Perhaps the thing I enjoyed most about the fighting is that the combo’s that I remember from my Super Nintendo days still work here, of course, there are many more combos, some are well beyond me to pull off, but knowing how to do some made me smile. Of course, those brief moments when I did something super impressive, without ever meaning to were also charming and in the story mode, meeting new characters I had never seen before was fun, but seeing the ones I knew was even better.


Ultra Street Fighter IV might not be a game that everyone can enjoy, there is a level of detail to be found in it, that I simply do not get, but even at a novice level like my own, I had fun with it. Bundling all the extra fighters and costumes as well is a nice touch, so if you are looking for a good fighter, you can’t go too wrong here.