It's impossible for someone who loved Street Fighter II when they were ten to review Street Fighter IV impartially as it's basically one huge love letter to its most popular predecessor (a bit like this review is to Street Fighter IV). If you're over eighteen then feel free to precede every superlative that follows with an expletive for maximum effect. If, when I was ten, I somehow saw into the future and witnessed Street Fighter IV then I would've hunted down Steven Hawking (somehow, alright) and held a gun to his head until he created a time machine. Fortunately for all concerned that didn't happen though, and now I can play it any time I want to, in my living room, and that is a great thing.

Chronologically, SF IV takes place between Street Fighter II and III, but this is a game that doesn't need a story - and Capcom couldn't have possibly made it any more blatant that they're fully aware of this. The anime scenes that occur at the start and end of the arcade mode are truly dreadful, shoddily animated and rarely make much sense at all. In arcade mode, before the final boss (more on him in a minute), each character has their own rival to fight - a short cut scene explains the "why", except there rarely seems to be much of a reason. But hey, it's not important; the appeal of the game lies in the simple joy of two people beating seven shades of um, Shadaloo out of each other. The story is merely dressing (although if you tried telling me that when I was ten I'd have cried "heresy!" - if I knew what the word meant). Street Fighter has always been primarily a game for two people to play together, but if you have no friends and/or your mother won't let you play against all the bogeymen on the Internet, there are many things to do solo, even if they do invariably consist of repeatedly hitting another character. Apart from arcade mode there are the challenges, which consist of the usual survival and time attack modes, as well as a trial mode, which teaches you pretty much all the combos you could ever hope (that being the operative word) to learn for your chosen character. The trials really give an insight into just how deep this game goes, if you ever want to take it that far. You could spend a very long time indeed just getting to know one character really well. Trophy support also adds longevity - although unless you're a Street Fighter prodigy, a fair portion of it will be forever out of reach.

Despite its gorgeous 3D graphics, the gameplay still takes place on a two dimensional plane, which, if you ask any self-respecting Street Fighter fan, is the only way they'd want it. People who complain that it's just exactly the same as old the Street Fighter but with shiny graphics simply don't get it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it - just make it look a million times better and add enough subtle tweaks and nuances to keep long time fans happy. We can't have Street Fighter becoming merely a retro game; the core gameplay is timeless. I really like the idea that the new, younger generation of gamers can grow up playing this. Compared to SF III, it has been simplified somewhat - but not in a bad way at all (there'll always be a few that disagree and I'm aware that some of SF III's ardent followers will probably be angered by such a statement - just remember, that like any review, it's only an opinion). There's been a conscious effort on Capcom's part to make it more accessible to newcomers.

The aforementioned trial mode will definitely help you get to grips with the game and improve your chances of winning fights if you're new to the series. The input commands required for special moves are more lenient, which doesn't feel like dumbing down - it just means it's not quite as brutal for giving d-pad players blisters. For every hit you take now, a revenge meter builds up and once you've taken enough of a pounding, you can perform an Ultra Combo, which, if it successfully connects, takes pretty much half of your opponent's health away in one fell swoop. This means that the tide of battle can turn more frequently than it ever did in past Street Fighter games. If you become complacent with your lead then it's likely you'll pay the price for it. These Ultras are no blue shells like in Mario Kart though, where you would get unfairly penalised just for being in the lead; granted, they do give the losing player a helping hand but you still have to make sure you perform them when and where you want to. It's very easy to waste them and even a semi-experienced player will quite often be able to pre-empt their arrival. I won quite a few online games by knowing that as soon as my opponent's revenge meter was up, all they were going to do was attempt to perform an Ultra Combo - the none-more-satisfying sunburst effect you get when you win a match like this (or with a Super Combo also) makes the temptation hard to resist. The better player will nearly always win, which is to say it doesn't feel at all random, but unlike Street Fighter III, there is at least a chance of a relative newcomer, if he's lucky with the occasional Ultra Combo, being able to occasionally win the odd fight.

The Super Combo meter of old has four bars and you need to fill all four of them if you want to perform one. Single bars, however, can be used instead to perform an EX move, which is basically a stronger version of the standard special attacks during which the character flashes yellow. New to SF is the focus attack, which is a charged move that's performed by holding both medium punch and kick. This move allows you to absorb any received damage and perform a counter attack. There are a few different stages to the move, getting more powerful the longer you charge for. A full strength focus attack is unblockable and will cause your opponent to fall slowly to the floor, providing an opportunity to get another few hits in. It goes deeper though, of course: it's possible to cancel special moves into focus attacks, which can then be cancelled themselves. The game's intricacies will become more apparent over time and with more practice, but it's producer Yoshinori Ono's intention that the focus attack should become an integral part of SF IV's gameplay.

Every single character from Street Fighter II is present and generally a lot more fun to use than they were back in the day, thanks in part to the extra spectacle added by the graphical overhaul. Characters from other iterations are also present (and let's be honest, there were a lot of different Street Fighters in between proper sequels) including Cammy, Fei Long, Dan (a joke character that Capcom created as a mockery of beat 'em up rival SNK's characters), Sakura, Gen and Rose - these are all exclusive to the console versions and have to be unlocked by beating the game with the already available characters. SF IV has four fighters who are completely new to the franchise: Abel, a French mixed-martial arts fighter; El Fuerte, a manic, Mexican wrestler type with a strange obsession with cooking; Crimson Viper, a female US spy; and Rufus, an obese American fighter who is impossibly quick for one so fat. This being Street Fighter, it'd be wrong to compare these characters I've known for only a week with those I've been familiar with for eighteen years. The cast of SF II must surely be the most iconic and easily identifiable videogame pugilists on this planet, so it's hard, or even nigh on impossible to introduce new ones that immediately have the same appeal. As well as characters, there are a few other kinds of unlockables too; I particularly appreciated unlocking the ability to have each character speak in their native tongue - it's a very nice little touch.

The worst aspect of the game is definitely the audio. Please, Capcom, I'm begging you: release a patch that makes the title screen music instrumental. "In-de-structible" has been stuck in my head for the last week and it's the most horrendously cheesy J-Pop imaginable - trust me, you'll know exactly what I mean after having the game for one day. Changing it to the Japanese language version makes it a bit more bearable as you can't make out any words, but it's still horrible. As you may expect if you've played any Street Fighter game of the last decade, the fight announcer is also pretty annoying. The sound of hits connecting is pretty much as satisfying as it should be; feel free to knock a mark off the overall score for the sound alone if you want, but in this reviewer's opinion, as terrible as it often is (the audio, not my opinion), it doesn't prevent the game from being stupendously enjoyable. Given that, apart from mentioning the poor anime quality earlier, this is the only real criticism paragraph, it seems an apt place to mention the Arcade Modes unfortunately-named final boss, Seth - this guy will surely make you want to throw the controller at the TV on many occasions (fight the urge though, as it'd be really stupid to break your own TV). Cheapness and unavoidable attacks are the order of the day here; he reminds me of Jinpachi in Tekken 5 and how you seemingly had to keep retrying for that one go in ten where the CPU would take pity on you and not defend your every attack and crush you with a series of unblockable moves.

Visually, Street Fighter IV is the ultimate tribute to Street Fighter II; the character models all have that hand drawn look but when you perform an Ultra Combo and the camera pans around and zooms in, prepare for a huge surge of seratonin. It's a wonderful thing to behold - especially when you're the one doing it. Most stages may still consist of onlookers performing very simple, repetitive animations in the background, but it could be argued that, for those who remember SF II fondly at least, this adds somewhat to the nostalgic charm. This is a game that knows it's a game and many people, like myself, will love it for that. Only an idiot could say that it looks rubbish. It's clear to see the amount of careful consideration, effort and love that has gone into achieving the game's distinctive, vibrant visual style; the animation is just so fluid, which makes it all the more satisfying.

No doubt there'll be SF III/Virtua Fighter / Tekken / Soulcalibur / Mortal Kombat (lol, surely not actually) purists that'll disagree with the following statement, but I bet by and large they'll be vastly outnumbered by the beat 'em up fans that don't: Street Fighter IV is the greatest fighting game ever created. Only Capcom can do this kind of thing with this much flair; it's a game that will definitely create a massive online community and, unless there's some kind of apocalypse, it'll thrive for a very long time indeed.

Reviewed by Luke Shaw for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).