Best Xbox 360 Fighting Game: Street Fighter IV.
Now, this may be debatable among some of you viewing this article, but rest assured I will do my best to cover every reason that makes this game and this series in general, quite simply, the best.
Why this game you may ask? Let's quickly cover why I didn't nominate the other contenders for this prestigious title of best Xbox 360 fighting game.
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Contender number two? It's a toughie but going to have to go with Tekken, but why isn't it the best? For the following reasons: 1- Probably the biggest reason why this game doesn't take the number 1 spot would have to be the game revolves too heavily around comboing your opponent, which in turn, creates a whole giant vortex of cheapness from which pro and noob alike cannot escape.2- Juggles are a little bit ridiculous 3- personally I feel the gameplay itself doesn't flow as well as other fighting games.
And number three ladies and gentlemen I have to say Soul Calibur IV, the reasons this one cannot attain the top slot among awesome fighting games is: 1- Spammers, yes the wonderful world of spamming, no matter how much skill you posses leave it to Kilik, Amy and Cervantes to ruin your day with 42% health combos. Trust me, you will cry at some point from playing this game online. 2-stuns, if you're playing against another player who is fully adept at using a character with stuns, I'm sorry sir you are royally screwed. But don't get me wrong I love the game, and you will win with skill, but it's just really not that balanced.
yes, there you have it folks those are the three runner up titles that I have selected, but in my opinion neither comes close to comparing to the experience that Street Fighter IV delivers.
Now, when I say Street Fighter IV, yes this includes Super Street Fighter IV, they are the same game for the purpose of this article. First point I will touch on, is how friendly this game is to newcomers and pro's alike, when first playing this game you might ask, where's the depth? these characters only have like three special moves and no obvious combo's! Well sir, this game is filled with depth, in fact, so much depth I don't even like to think about it because it gives me vertigo. Seriously you're not going to be scoring huge 100 plus hit combo's on your opponent, but the gameplay is just so devilishly satisfying.
You can play against people online for hours even if you lose every single match and you're almost always guaranteed to learn a new trick to add into your own personal technique. For instance a common problem I had when I first started playing against human opponents, was going against a Ryu, a pretty commonly chosen character, and my character of choice. At the time I was having my troubles I was playing Blanka, for those of you unfamiliar with this character, he has no projectiles. And when you play versus a Ryu you are going to be experiencing a whole lot of the word "Hadouken!" the term hadouken is the name of the projectile that Ryu, among other characters shoots, in the form of a ball of energy that doesn't agree with your current physical status. Your first natural instinct will tell you to jump the hadouken, but oh no, Ryu has another special move, the Shoryuken, which is basically a flying uppercut, which again does not agree with your current physical status. And when you combine never ending streams of hadoukens mixed with shoryukens for anti-air you're going to end up with REALLY angry noobs. But with a little bit more knowledge, the experienced player can easily get around this with a focus attack, which is an attack that can absorb one attack and returns the damage to you in the form of health. Once you do this you can absorb the attack and dash forwards to gain ground on your opponent. It's things like this that make Street Fighter IV the best fighting game for the 360.
Which brings me to my second point, the actual balance of the game. If you were to hear someone talking about street fighter and hear them say that the game was balanced, this sir, would be a complete understatement. Since this game doesn't revolve around fixed combos i.e. combos that have to be executed in an exact fashion the same time over and over again, such as
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The game doesn't focus on grotesquely huge fixed combos, instead you play on more of a "hit to hit" exchange of battles within the battle. What I mean is the player has to focus more on finding an opening and taking it as well as outsmarting the opponent. From there combos are possible, but you most likely won't be devastated by said combo unless your opponent has a charged super or can combo into an ultra. Which brings me to ultra's, a newly added way to balance the game. If you take a substantial amount of damage from your opponent you will fill up your ultra meter enabling you to preform an ultra combo. But the genius behind the ultra combo is that it's not just a combo that will take down a large amount of the opponents health, but that it helps level the playing field, because the less health you have the less damage you will take from your opponent, and if you hurt them they will be taken down to your level more quickly enabling you to win a round especially if your opponent becomes careless. Another means of balancing out a match is giving different characters more or less health, for instance Akuma trades in a lot of health for becoming a very versatile and deadly opponent. The only draw back is that he can't take nearly as many hits as say Ryu or Guile, but what he gains is attack power coming from the fact that he has three different projectile moves with EX versions, including an air hadouken and can phase across the map becoming un-hittable, also probably the biggest reason for his health tier would be his ultra which will deal around 50% health if the opponent is at full health aptly titled: "Wrath of the Raging Demon" also known as "Instant Hell Murder" these implementations all make the game fair for any character.
Even the boss character is playable coming in on the bottom of the tier list although, which is probably a good thing. Thanks to all these balance measures, any skilled player can recover from being hit with a couple of good combos if they just play smart and learn their enemies techniques. Thus forcing the opponent to play smarter and not bag an easy win, there's always a way to come back which always keeps players from becoming discouraged and totally giving up on the game.
Now, the third, and final point I will cover: Community. Yep, community. Capcom rules when it comes to hearing out what the people want and always trying to further improve upon the old formula's. But more importantly you can play this game in tournaments all around the world and win cash. I can't think of anything better than playing a game and getting payed for it, I'm sorry but I just can't, especially for the bragging rights and being recognized for your skill, it's just all too good of a deal. But again, whether taking on the pro's, or just taking on your friends, there's always reason to keep improving yourself.
So, in all, Street Fighter is now, and always will be the greatest fighting game, not just for the Xbox but across all platforms, just for these main points: 1-easy access for newbies and pro's alike 2-balancing is superb 3-the game forces you to use strategy to win instead of just whoever gets the first couple huge autocombo's in wins the round. 4-Tournaments mean money and money equals good 5-all characters have a chance to win due to implemented features such as the focus attack to discourage spamming 6-Hours of fun whether it be personal training to better yourself or hours of battling with your friends and rivals. I could seriously go into MUCH deeper intricacies of the game but I think this covers why Street Fighter is a more dynamic and user friendly game than anything else you will find on the market to date.
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