Krackatoa

Okay. As a guy who's head deep in the likes of SFIV and BlazBlue, I can safely say this game has about as much depth as a box of dirt. As soon as I sat down with it, the breadth of the game was immediately apparent, and instantly abusable. My friends, who had been playing since July, immediately crumpled into a mess of salty tears.

Nearly every whiffed attack action is punishable on reaction for the win. Matches break down into "If you miss, you lose". Instant kill combos combos are plentiful, with a good number of characters being absolutely useless in comparison to others due to a combination of god-awful controls, terrible mechanics, hitbox issues and generally poor design.

It's fun, in the same sort of way Rock Paper Scissors is fun. Whoever wrote the Joystiq review was a bit too smitten with Pirates fighting Vikings. The game was completely devoid of strategy. The core mechanics are NOT solid. They don't even muster to "acceptable".

Even so, the game is only ten dollars. The game can generate a respectable amount of fun when playing with friends. Despite it's flaws, the chump-change pricetag might be worth it if you have a hard time perceiving game mechanics like a seasoned gamer, or you get mad lulz from LEONIDAS FIGHTING A NINJA!

@Kurian I play the meanest Dan Hibiki around... and on a keyboard.

Legendary Taunt Cancels? Yes Indeedy.

This makes absolutely no sense from a business standpoint and goes back on what Capcom reps have been saying over the past year in regards to a PC release.

First of all, the piracy of the original SFIV could be chocked up to the painfully broken GFWL DRM, which had so many security holes that it didn't even serve as a rudimentary deterrent. Despite tanking at retail (thanks to no marketing on Capcom's part, coupled with the fact that it was a delayed release...), SFIV cleaned up over Steam. Coupled again with Steam's fire sales, the digital market is primed for another, fresher installment. The new DLC is rumoured to add 6 more characters if it comes to consoles. That's 41 characters over the original 25 the PC crowd's had access to.

Secondly. People who are siding with Capcom here have to realize that this game is already finished. It's done. The port is done. The game runs on a computer. They have to compile some assets, delegate some QA to a bunch of peons, build a master disc and ship it out. No investment required outside of distribution.

If they stuck to digital distribution only, they could easily bypass ALL that. A retail release could be a box with a Steam voucher, like so many other titles are doing these days. This takes care of all Day One piracy outside of a leak from inside the company.

Another reason. The Arcade Edition is coming out soon. While it's lacking a lot of features that the console version had, the Taito board has already been split wide open and was a piece of cake to get running on most Windows PCs. This means as soon as an arcade dump pops up on the internet, everyone and their mother will have access to a fully functional version of Super, regardless of whether or not a PC release happens.

Quintessentially, in case anyone was paying attention, Super is getting what is likely a pay-for update soon over XBL and PSN. With this new update, they could set the launch for the PC version in tandem with the DLC, bundle it together, and easily charge the same price that Vanilla had at launch.

What this comes down to is a bunch of tight-arse Capcom suits who are running around scared thanks to an abysmal financial quarter, one that they willfully pushed Super's release out of for their own financial reasons (It released the following quarter).

You won't lose money from this, Capcom. Stop herping derp and get your act together.

Paul Robertson automatically counterbalances any Ubisoft scmultzoozleing.

They made El Fuerte substantially better, especially with Ultra Spark, which can be used to punish anything from jumps to whiffed medium/heavy normals on reaction.

He also got buffs to specific moves, and more health. They even get his Run-Stop-Fierce infinite loop in.

It's never been a better time to be a Fuerte player.

It's been confirmed for France. You can preorder it over Amazon. There's even new box art up.

Ha! I just pushed it back to June 30th. XD

Darn.

I think the French release date is still the 21st.

Actually, that picture is correct. The problem is it's an awkward camera angle, at an awkward camera projection, with shitty lighting.

Blame the 3D mockup guy.

TF2's updates are substantially smaller in scope, not to mention substantially cheaper. Valve has spent the last decade refining their development pipeline to shuck out updates for very little monies and QA time. They have spent a lot of money on this, and it pays dividends on all their titles (Which all conveniently run on the Source engine. A game mode that works in one title works in another after an hour of mucking about in Hammer).

There was no such initial investment on Capcom's part. SFIV was not expected to do as well as it did. All fighting games before it, outside of the Soul Calibur franchise, were financially lackluster. They built their engine "Git-er-dun" style, with little room for major engine alterations post-release. There WAS back-end for character additions post-release, as shown with the included unfinished system files for Deejay and T.Hawk, but once SFIV started to sell like virtual hotcakes, Capcom gave the Dev team the greenlight for a larger "Super" release.

They entertained the thought of a DLC-only or DLC release supported by a retail "Gold" release with the DLC included, but in the end, the trouble of rejigging all the code wasn't worth it with a limited development schedule. A complete retail release at budget pricing was/is/should be a good compromise. This ain't yo mamma's $120 Super Street Fighter II SNES cartridge. This is a $40 expansion-priced release, with a respectable amount of extra content. Far larger than any "update" that's ever happened in the fighting genre.

It doesn't matter how they sold it. A 40% roster boost, rebalanced characters and retooled matchmaking makes $40 a good value for what they're giving you. You should know, what with all your fighting game experience. You've shelled out double for half that content... Unless you were just making stuff up.

And even if they DID release Super Turbo (Or the supposed Super Turbo DLC package hypothetically supposed by Ono) a year later, how would that make SSFIV worth any less? That's like a year. More than enough to get a measly $40 worth out of a game. If you haven't gotten your money's worth out it in that time-frame, you've made a poor investment, and probably didn't like SFIV to begin with.

tl;dr - Be devoured by the wall of text thou hast wrought!