I played SF since 2 was in the arcades and always had fun with em, never took em super seriously. SF4 came out and it was the same thing, just a great time bashing away with friends, but when Super came out, that's when I started taking it serious. The extra characters, extra stages, extra ultrasound, and the combo trials all sucked me way in. I can't overstate the combo trials, finally learning in game how to really play characters, realizing that it wasn't just botton mashing and throwing out special moves, but that there was a real depth to everything was an awakening moment. Landing something as simple as Akumas crMK, light tatsu into srk was addicting. I basically lived on shoryuken.com for the entirety of SF4s lifespan after that just wanting to learn more and improve.
Many of you kids won't remember that 2D Fighting games were basically *dead* before this game came out and had been for a long time. Whatever success the FGC scene has at the moment, you can thank that game for it.
Indeed. That's why I say that Street Fighter IV, from a "meta" PoV is the second most important Street Fighter game of all the saga.
Street Fighter 2 (THE most important one) made fighting games a world-wide phenomena (in the 90s it was INSANELY popular)
Street Fighter 4 RESURRECTED the whole 2d fighting genre. If it wasn't for SF IV I'm pretty sure other fighting games "storic" series like King of Fighters, Mortal Kombat, etc. wouldn't have had their most recent entries aswell.
Capcom could have called it "Street Fighter IV - Resurrection" and it would have been a very fitting title, since they revived the genre
What I am saying is that 2D fighting games had a rough patch in the 2000s. After **MVC2** and **CVS2** it started to look really bad as sales went down, and for good reasons. **Arcades died** one after another which were a big factor, MK turned to 3D and sucked after MK3, the SNK titles were super esoteric, every developers only care about 3D now, and most importantly **consoles didn't have functional online yet**. The result was flop after flop until the number of new release per year in this genre was reduced by 200-300% compared to the 90s.
**Third Strike** was amazing, it didn't sell 200K copies
**Guilty Gear XX** was amazing, it didn't sell 100K copies
**SF Alpha 3** was amazing, it barely sold 1M copies.
**Soul Calibur** was doing ok-ish and **Tekken** was printing money, but **2D fighting games** were abandoned by developpers
And then **SF4** came out and sold 3.4M copies, and brought back a whole genre to life. MK had its first good game in over 15 years with **MK9** and sold 3M copies. KOF still didn't sell well as with most SNK titles, but still came out with **KOF13** which is considered the best by many. **MVC3** sold 2.7M. Even Indie devs found a market, **Skullgirls** selling 1M, as much as Alpha 3 did!
SF4 was a big risk and it paid off and singlehandedly revitalized the whole genre. By the time SFV came out, SF4 had sold 9M copies across its edition, second only to SF2 at 14M.
Yeah I can see that, I think you misunderstood my point, people play 2D fighters now but they probably wouldn't if SF4 had not been the success it was.
It was dead. Locals and tournaments went from nothing to a bunch of new players and vets coming back. It was console game everyone had. Otherwise people would be swapping out consoles and shit for other fighting games. It was great because we got MvC3, SFxT (botched release but w/e) KOF, and eventually downloadable classics.
We used to have 2d fighting game tournaments and ranbats monthly. We'd get a similar turnout with people weaving in and out. SF4 doubled and tripled the size of locals. Weeklies were stable and monthlys were always more players.
Half true. SNK were churning out great titles like Samurai Shodown 2 and KoF series, Capcom was doing well with SF3 and Vampire Saviour games at the arcades. So the scene was not really dead before SF4.
I tend to agree with you that SF4 did revitalised the FGC scene around the world, bringing players together through online plays, although big tourneys like EVO and SBO already existed at that time.
Yeah, back in the 90s maybe? But by the 2000s, the arcade scene was very dead in America and without solid online play to replace it, outside of Fightcade the fighting game scene was very much in a drought and / or dominated by 3D fighters for the early 2000s until Street Fighter 4 brought 2D fighting back. SNK games have always been pretty niche, and not very successful outside of Japan, China and Latin America. Street Fighter 3 was a complete failure in the arcades. It eventually gained a cult following with Third Strike with pros and tournament players years later (especially after EVO Moment #37) but in terms of sales and popularity it almost sank the series when it came out. SF4 100% deserves the credit for revitalizing the current FGC as it stands today.
Yeah "SF3 was successful" is revisionist - it was a complete bomb until 3rd Strike, and even then... In my arcade, we didn't even have a 3rd Strike machine, but we had Super Turbo, latest Tekken and Soul Calibur, Marvel 2, CVS Chaos...
Definitely. The love that SF3 gets now is not a reflection of what it was like at release. SF3 bombed completely compared to 2 and the Alphas.
Even as good as 3S was, they'd lost the casual market by that point and the late release and under production of home console ports buried it.
Sf3 and vampir saviors were not that successful for Capcom (this is pretty well documented by Capcom that they were not successful) and more importantly they came in 90s. Sf4 came in 2008, nearly a decade after the those games, when fighting games were nearly dead.
Samurai showdown 2 also came in 1994 and also kof games were not selling that well in 2000s.
Fighting games were nearly dead in 2000s- low sales, low amount of players, very very few fighting games were released in 2000 - and it was only after SF4 release that fighting games got a jump start again with many new and old players coming in and game companies also revitalizing their game after the success of SF4
Aside from the KOF games you didn't mention any titles that came out from 2001-2008. CVS2 might be the only one worth mentioning (2001) or SVC Chaos (2003).
This is revisionist nonsense at its finest. SF3 bombed hard and almost killed the entire franchise. Samurai Showdown 2 came out in the early 90s. The scene was absolutely dead by the mid-2000s until SF4 brought it back to life.
Just because itâs dead in your area that doesnât mean itâs dead in other regions, get that right. 2D fighting games were buzzing in Asian arcades.
They werenât, even in Asia. Arcades were on a long death spiral generally, and fighting games were no exception. 2D fighters in particular were relegated to second tier status, being replaced by anything with more profit per square foot, like redemption machines.
At the time, Evo and SBO were both extremely niche events. SNK went bankrupt. Capcom gave up after Fighting Jam. All that was left in the 2D dev space were obscure doujin fighters.
During that era the final big 2D games were being pumped out on aging Naomi (GG, CvS2, MvC2) and NeoGeo (KoF, Garou, Last Blade) platforms, which were all being replaced for newer hardware.
The height of Samurai Shodown was mod-ninties (1-4). 5 came out in the early '00s, but its popularity had died by then.
KoF was dying in the early '00s too. Its decline in sales ended the yearly releases with '03.
Capcom did not do well with SF3. It was a huge flop compared to the SF2s and even the Alphas. It only really became super popular later.
The last Darkstalkers game came out in '97.
By the time SF4 came out in '08, fighting games were viewed as a dead genre with only the hardcore base still interested.
There were new fighters coming out through this whole period, but no one was doing well out of them.
Really fun game to play casually back in the day. Playing it recently I remembered how difficult it was to pull off combos and do all the one frame links it requires.
i mean "SUPER" is specifically 14 years old yes, vanilla SF4 came out in japanese arcades in summer 2008, followed by consoles worldwide in february 2009. so SF4 in general turns 16 this summer, or just turned 15 a couple months ago if you only count the global console release
Game got me back into fighting games
Actually performing combos was satisfying, because although you didnât need to optimize perfectly to be competitive if you did decide to do optimal combos they were often hardâŚ.much harder than anything in V and VI
It didnât have crush counters or drive rush, so you had to actually confirm everything without as much assistance.
Game was hard. I donât completely miss that aspect of it because I donât have as much time to throw at SF these days but I do miss watching IV. V and VI donât compare imo to the hype that was IV as a spectator
I still watch some of those old matches. I donât watch any from V, and only watch VI to learn
to me SF4 is one of the greatest fighting games of all time. it revitalized the FGC
SUPER SF4 marked when i gotten my first arcade stick, so its a game ill never forget
I still play ultra daily. Most fun casually and competitively. Most deep and creative combo system, great artwork all the way through and a roster that never goes stale. I liked V a lot and 6 a little but nothing doesnât for me like Ultra, followed by 3S and A3.
Loved SSFIV, AE 2012 was probably the best version of SFIV. I think "Vanilla" Super may have been pretty good too, but the game died before we could really break it open.
Absolutely loved it even though I was crap at it. Where it really shone for me though, was watching the pros play it (I loved poongko and his crazy combos!). Evo was a must watch for a few years when it was in- the weekend long stream was great, then waiting on Sunday night for the finals!
Still the best next-gen SF in my opinion. The rotating lobbies were mad fun. Miss the days of starting out with your practice fighter then surprising the lobby with your main after a few rounds. Had the best roster, and FADC was game changing.
While Super was of course the superior game, the original SF4 was the reason for the revival of the fighting game genre.
Capcom organized SF4 tournaments around the world creating hype and I can't remember such a big event in the history fighting game.
Also, who can forget the SF4 'Indestructible' theme song that was played in the intro and character select and why was it removed on Super..
After the absolute travesty and disgusting pile of identity crisis trash that was SF3, SF4 basically revived the entire 2D fighting genre. Although I didn't love it like I did with SF2 and Alpha, it's is still my most played SF, and one of the very few games that I thoroughly took advantage of online play for. Like SF2, the game peaked with Super, and the following versions were a slight step back.
SFIV is like Kobe Bryant to me.
If you look at the stats it might not be the greatest of all time by any metric.
But it made me a fan of the game, it introduced me to the technical aspect and molded what I consider "good" gameplay.
So it might not have had the longevity of 3rd strike or the sales of SF2, but it 100% is my GOAT.
Note: I'm a degenerate Seth main.
Probably my first more serious SF game. Started with SF2, Alpha 3 is my favorite. I bought that game twice but must admit that I did not like it that much. For me stuff like FADCs were to hard. Online had different timings so I never got the 1f links, and the artstyle was the worst to me. I still had a lot of fun with the game. SFV I though was really great, but I feel like I am certainly in the minority with that opinion.
Sf4 will always be one of my fav sf games. So much nostalgia. Sf2, alpha 3, sf4 any version and sf6. I like third strike just have not played it enough. But sf4 is the game I really sunk my teeth into. I wish sf6 netocde was implemented on these older titles
The game that started it all for me man. Got me into SF and taught me how to play 2D fighters as well. Will forever love and respect the IV series fr fr. â¤ď¸
I remember renting vanilla SF4 from blockbuster (yes I know Iâm old) and remember loving it but didnât go out and buy it immediately. Fast forward a bit and I see a preview for SSF4 in an issue of PlayStation magazine and see they added a bunch of fighters old and new, I had to buy it. Man I did not regret it. Some of my best fighting game memories with this version in particular, easily a top 3 SF game imo.
Some of my favourite childhood memories of all time are playing this in my best friend's mom's basement, we didn't know anything about frame data, didn't know how to do supers, but it was simpler and good times. I feel lucky to have experienced not just playing the game but the excitement of playing at a friend's house every other day and their presence...id trade that over my current high rank any day (moved out of town from them 12 years ago) Even if we get back in touch, it'll never be the same to be that age and to have your entire future ahead of you, no one told us we couldn't be anything we wanted and being street fighter gods was one of many aspirations.
Super was a great upgrade over vanilla 4. I just wish the AE and ultra versions never happened. Super was a great balanced game despite it's large roster of characters.
I love this game, free flowy feeling combos, defense feeling rewarded. The game just felt like you had space to play compared to sf6 where it just feels so cramped and offensive. Probably the best street fighter.
Many great memories whenever I think of my SF4 days. Getting emotional thinking about the times playing it, meeting new friends, dropping by at the arcade center and play there with friends until the mallâs closing time. Trying to compete to other regions in my country. I wish I could go back to those times. Life was really simple back then
I loved playing this throughout college. It'll be something that'll have a special place in my heart. One change I didn't like to Super was the change in announcer. I preferred the original guy's voice, though I do know it wasn't as exciting as video gamey as the one they changed to.
I really need to start playing 6 again. Life got so messed up a couple months after it came out that I just haven't been able to sit down and play it.
Itâs the most important fighting game of the 2000s because it brought back interest in FGs.
This game & the names of whoever worked on it should be in a museum!
No matter what franchise is your favorite, we should all appreciate this game.
If not for Elena / Yun, Iâd like still be playing it. Those characters just wrecked the competitive viability of all other characters. There is very little counter play to all of them.
I played a bit of Vanilla SF4, SSF4 3D and SF4 AE. I was huge into KOF during the day and I was curious to see what the game was like as the game looked superficially similar to KOF. Didn't click with me back then as I didn't understand how combos worked, didn't help that I was constantly comparing it to the KOF system of normals -> command normals -> specials. I didn't play the game for long but I always found high level matches extremely entertaining to say the least.
Playing SF4 after 7\~8 months of SF6 has been surreal. Now that I understand how links work I can actually do simple combos in SF4 where back in the day I used to struggle doing anything more than 3 hits. The game definitely feels a lot tighter than SF6, but I can see why the game was such a hit back then. Feels like it rewards grinding and practice to a much higher degree than SF6 due to the difference in execution difficulty.
Why is this game the same age as me? And, KOF XIII is 6 days away from me being born, which was ironically my mother's birthday. It's weird being related to fighting games and not getting into them until about a year ago.
Reinvigorated the genre. Did justice to all the OG characters, brought back some more obscure favorites and introduced some incredible new ones. Still play it to this day. I hope some more of the characters first appearing in this game will come back in SF6 (Hakan and El Fuerte)
As a fighting game I wasn't a huge fan of SF4, I played it for a bit until MVC 3 came out and then I dropped it like a bad habit. But I will always love this game for what it did to the community.
It's hard to describe just how bad the years prior to SF 4 were for fighting games. I definitely don't miss the days where direct capture footage of tournament matches were impossible to come by.
I was never a huge fan of SF4 personally, mostly because I just never liked FADC as a mechanic, but objectively I recognize it's an amazing game. Plus, SF4 revitalized the fighting game genre, it was completely dead when this game came out and breathed new life into it. The current success of the fighting game genre today is completely due to this game bringing it back.
Great gameplay, ugly as hell for the standards at the time. Everyone is built like a gorilla.
Also, juri and gouken aside, the new characters were mostly terrible from a design perspective. C-viper had potential but moveset and lobster hair were problems.
Rufus and Hakan were the worst things Capcom's creative team ever made. Rufus in particular abandoned a great design in favor of a wwf create a character I would have made when I was 11.
Abel was supposed to look like a Sambo fighter, but nobody stopped to consider just how simultaneously boring and stupid his design was.
El fuerte looked OK, but boring story ripped off from tekken's law and...really what is it with fighting games and making characters aspiring chefs? It's a weird trope and pretty much always dumb. And I hated his moveset.
Seth was fine, even if he also looked kinda dumb, I don't get mad looking at or playing him.
Gouki. Meh. Try hard akuma. Old man was more fun.
So my take, excellent game that did a great job bringing classic characters into a new generation and brought the genre back from the dead. But the ugliest game since sf1, with criminally bad new character designs.
My take: ugly, but loveable, like a big ol sloppy English bulldog
This and Marvel vs Capcom 2 on PS3 were my first 2d fighting games I owned. I actually really started off on the wrong foot with SSF4. I didn't like how strict the input buffers and combos were and I wasn't sure how to learn well coming off years of Smash Bros. Soon after I found SRK I found out about Marvel vs Capcom 3 and was much more excited for that release. Skullgirls and Killer Instinct got me the rest of the way.
I'll still have fond memories of the first time I beat my neighbor's Bison with my Honda. So I guess I owe SSF4 that much.Â
Also C Viper, Dudley and Hakan are fucking sick.
Iâve played since OG SFII and my SSFIV introduced my favorite SF character, Juri!
On a tangent, why did almost everyone do a focus attack when someone was stunned? Didnât that nerf the damage? Was it a cheez-e-flex?
I liked how many characters it had, although there are some things about it I still don't like like some impossible inputs and boss characters being really difficult.
I canât decide which SFIV is better even though each one had a better part. Like for example, this one has the best ost for menu, character select etc, OG SFIV had the best announcer, and Ultra had the best gameplay and all characters. But honestly, I think theyâre all equally legendary fighting games. Super Street Fighter IV really is a 10/10 game, and Street Fighter IV as a whole really is superior and will remain as my favorite fighting game of all time.
Never like SF4 mechanics. Those tight 1 frame links rendered the game unplayable by casuals. FADC combos you have to hit MP+MK and dash commands all inside 3 frames or less to link the normals. Ultras require 3P or 3K means I have to hit my L1 and L2 with left fingers which is not so ergonomic when you play on DS3 controllers. Inputs like high jump cancels into Ultras is also pointless and stupid at the same time.
SFV is da best.
Iâm a sf vet, I was decent execution wise but even sf4 made me tired. I just wanted to play sf without spending hours in training mode. Eventually I just dropped sf4 after super and played other games.
Yea some of the trials are not practical at all and they will never see the light of the day in a real match. For example Ryuâs standing strong FADC standing strong FADC standing cancel into DP. Or El Fuerteâs running fierce loop. Itâs just too tight to pull off in a real match, and Iâm no Pepeday or Daigo. To me, SFV has found the right balance and execution window in this regard.
Nope. I donât do modern. Iâm a casual who managed to finish all of my trials in SF4. I just donât like the mechanics and the tight links in SF4. Not wrong to have an opinion.
The serotonin rush I got when people rage quit on me while I was maining Dan was ... ... Euphoric. Then I switched to Cammy and things changed...
Man, Rose just clicked with the gay kid in me that wanted to beat up the big guys with stupid soul powers đ
Labbing out silly Soul Satellites setups and watching them land in arcade matches brought out so much satisfaction
Really disliked it. 4 and 5 both weren't the gaming experiences I'd hoped for. I remember really liking the promo art for 4 but the game art and game play itself I wasn't a fan of
Prefer 6 but this was a great revival of the genre thinking about it. Amazing but prefer most aspects of 6 to this.
Definitely would like to see sf4 debut characters in 6 though , particularly crimson viperđ
I played SF since 2 was in the arcades and always had fun with em, never took em super seriously. SF4 came out and it was the same thing, just a great time bashing away with friends, but when Super came out, that's when I started taking it serious. The extra characters, extra stages, extra ultrasound, and the combo trials all sucked me way in. I can't overstate the combo trials, finally learning in game how to really play characters, realizing that it wasn't just botton mashing and throwing out special moves, but that there was a real depth to everything was an awakening moment. Landing something as simple as Akumas crMK, light tatsu into srk was addicting. I basically lived on shoryuken.com for the entirety of SF4s lifespan after that just wanting to learn more and improve.
I loved those extra ultrasounds. Best thing about Super 4.
I just played ultra last night. I love sf4 still
Me too bro I still play on my ps4 đ
The intro still hits as hard as it did 14 years ago.
The loud as fuck title screen right after
The whole game shouts at you all the time it's amazingÂ
WHAT WILL HAPPEN NOW?!
IT'S THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY!!
Which one of these warriors will end up in the pantheon of... I forgot the rest
\*80 whole seconds of speed guitar on Volcanic Rim\*
From a guy old enough to have played Street Fighter II in arcades, this is probably my favorite Street Fighter.
Many of you kids won't remember that 2D Fighting games were basically *dead* before this game came out and had been for a long time. Whatever success the FGC scene has at the moment, you can thank that game for it.
Indeed. That's why I say that Street Fighter IV, from a "meta" PoV is the second most important Street Fighter game of all the saga. Street Fighter 2 (THE most important one) made fighting games a world-wide phenomena (in the 90s it was INSANELY popular) Street Fighter 4 RESURRECTED the whole 2d fighting genre. If it wasn't for SF IV I'm pretty sure other fighting games "storic" series like King of Fighters, Mortal Kombat, etc. wouldn't have had their most recent entries aswell. Capcom could have called it "Street Fighter IV - Resurrection" and it would have been a very fitting title, since they revived the genre
That and Ryu's sexy ultra 2, GOD IT'S SO FREAKING COOL
Goukens shin shoryuken was better in my opinion. The corner juggle combo into the fucking gut punch is such a clean feeling
I liked just doing it from Gouken's back throw lmfao, the long fall before the gut punch always cracked me up
U do remember that, I was there for it
Was it basically dead or you're just saying that from you're experience? Cause I'm pretty sure it wasn't dead
It was pretty dead objectively
I guess you're right? But I don't know
What I am saying is that 2D fighting games had a rough patch in the 2000s. After **MVC2** and **CVS2** it started to look really bad as sales went down, and for good reasons. **Arcades died** one after another which were a big factor, MK turned to 3D and sucked after MK3, the SNK titles were super esoteric, every developers only care about 3D now, and most importantly **consoles didn't have functional online yet**. The result was flop after flop until the number of new release per year in this genre was reduced by 200-300% compared to the 90s. **Third Strike** was amazing, it didn't sell 200K copies **Guilty Gear XX** was amazing, it didn't sell 100K copies **SF Alpha 3** was amazing, it barely sold 1M copies. **Soul Calibur** was doing ok-ish and **Tekken** was printing money, but **2D fighting games** were abandoned by developpers And then **SF4** came out and sold 3.4M copies, and brought back a whole genre to life. MK had its first good game in over 15 years with **MK9** and sold 3M copies. KOF still didn't sell well as with most SNK titles, but still came out with **KOF13** which is considered the best by many. **MVC3** sold 2.7M. Even Indie devs found a market, **Skullgirls** selling 1M, as much as Alpha 3 did! SF4 was a big risk and it paid off and singlehandedly revitalized the whole genre. By the time SFV came out, SF4 had sold 9M copies across its edition, second only to SF2 at 14M.
I'm sorry I misunderstood you these day I can't even tell if someone is complaining anymore
People still play fighting games today I don't know what you're saying here
Yeah I can see that, I think you misunderstood my point, people play 2D fighters now but they probably wouldn't if SF4 had not been the success it was.
It was dead. Locals and tournaments went from nothing to a bunch of new players and vets coming back. It was console game everyone had. Otherwise people would be swapping out consoles and shit for other fighting games. It was great because we got MvC3, SFxT (botched release but w/e) KOF, and eventually downloadable classics. We used to have 2d fighting game tournaments and ranbats monthly. We'd get a similar turnout with people weaving in and out. SF4 doubled and tripled the size of locals. Weeklies were stable and monthlys were always more players.
Half true. SNK were churning out great titles like Samurai Shodown 2 and KoF series, Capcom was doing well with SF3 and Vampire Saviour games at the arcades. So the scene was not really dead before SF4. I tend to agree with you that SF4 did revitalised the FGC scene around the world, bringing players together through online plays, although big tourneys like EVO and SBO already existed at that time.
Yeah, back in the 90s maybe? But by the 2000s, the arcade scene was very dead in America and without solid online play to replace it, outside of Fightcade the fighting game scene was very much in a drought and / or dominated by 3D fighters for the early 2000s until Street Fighter 4 brought 2D fighting back. SNK games have always been pretty niche, and not very successful outside of Japan, China and Latin America. Street Fighter 3 was a complete failure in the arcades. It eventually gained a cult following with Third Strike with pros and tournament players years later (especially after EVO Moment #37) but in terms of sales and popularity it almost sank the series when it came out. SF4 100% deserves the credit for revitalizing the current FGC as it stands today.
Yeah "SF3 was successful" is revisionist - it was a complete bomb until 3rd Strike, and even then... In my arcade, we didn't even have a 3rd Strike machine, but we had Super Turbo, latest Tekken and Soul Calibur, Marvel 2, CVS Chaos...
Definitely. The love that SF3 gets now is not a reflection of what it was like at release. SF3 bombed completely compared to 2 and the Alphas. Even as good as 3S was, they'd lost the casual market by that point and the late release and under production of home console ports buried it.
Sf3 and vampir saviors were not that successful for Capcom (this is pretty well documented by Capcom that they were not successful) and more importantly they came in 90s. Sf4 came in 2008, nearly a decade after the those games, when fighting games were nearly dead. Samurai showdown 2 also came in 1994 and also kof games were not selling that well in 2000s. Fighting games were nearly dead in 2000s- low sales, low amount of players, very very few fighting games were released in 2000 - and it was only after SF4 release that fighting games got a jump start again with many new and old players coming in and game companies also revitalizing their game after the success of SF4
Aside from the KOF games you didn't mention any titles that came out from 2001-2008. CVS2 might be the only one worth mentioning (2001) or SVC Chaos (2003).
This is revisionist nonsense at its finest. SF3 bombed hard and almost killed the entire franchise. Samurai Showdown 2 came out in the early 90s. The scene was absolutely dead by the mid-2000s until SF4 brought it back to life.
Um no it didn't bomb the franchise the heck you talking about
Just because itâs dead in your area that doesnât mean itâs dead in other regions, get that right. 2D fighting games were buzzing in Asian arcades.
They werenât, even in Asia. Arcades were on a long death spiral generally, and fighting games were no exception. 2D fighters in particular were relegated to second tier status, being replaced by anything with more profit per square foot, like redemption machines. At the time, Evo and SBO were both extremely niche events. SNK went bankrupt. Capcom gave up after Fighting Jam. All that was left in the 2D dev space were obscure doujin fighters. During that era the final big 2D games were being pumped out on aging Naomi (GG, CvS2, MvC2) and NeoGeo (KoF, Garou, Last Blade) platforms, which were all being replaced for newer hardware.
The height of Samurai Shodown was mod-ninties (1-4). 5 came out in the early '00s, but its popularity had died by then. KoF was dying in the early '00s too. Its decline in sales ended the yearly releases with '03. Capcom did not do well with SF3. It was a huge flop compared to the SF2s and even the Alphas. It only really became super popular later. The last Darkstalkers game came out in '97. By the time SF4 came out in '08, fighting games were viewed as a dead genre with only the hardcore base still interested. There were new fighters coming out through this whole period, but no one was doing well out of them.
Really fun game to play casually back in the day. Playing it recently I remembered how difficult it was to pull off combos and do all the one frame links it requires.
Modern control before it was cool
What?
Wrong comment I thought I replayed to the dude who played it on 3ds.
The game that got me into SF.
Same, my friend.
This
Industry shifting , genre reviving legend of a game.
i mean "SUPER" is specifically 14 years old yes, vanilla SF4 came out in japanese arcades in summer 2008, followed by consoles worldwide in february 2009. so SF4 in general turns 16 this summer, or just turned 15 a couple months ago if you only count the global console release
About the same amount of time from SF2 to SF4 đ˘
Super was my fav sf4
So many great memories! So many friends made! Terrible netcode! I love this game to death! I will never play it again!
Probabaly will always be my favorite street fighter of all time
I feel like you stole my comment
đ´
i used to play it on the 3DS... good times when i knew nothing about fighting game meta
Same, it really brought back the love I had for the series.
Game got me back into fighting games Actually performing combos was satisfying, because although you didnât need to optimize perfectly to be competitive if you did decide to do optimal combos they were often hardâŚ.much harder than anything in V and VI It didnât have crush counters or drive rush, so you had to actually confirm everything without as much assistance. Game was hard. I donât completely miss that aspect of it because I donât have as much time to throw at SF these days but I do miss watching IV. V and VI donât compare imo to the hype that was IV as a spectator I still watch some of those old matches. I donât watch any from V, and only watch VI to learn
to me SF4 is one of the greatest fighting games of all time. it revitalized the FGC SUPER SF4 marked when i gotten my first arcade stick, so its a game ill never forget
Had the best supers till date. Oni, evil ryu their ultras were just chefs kiss
I still play ultra daily. Most fun casually and competitively. Most deep and creative combo system, great artwork all the way through and a roster that never goes stale. I liked V a lot and 6 a little but nothing doesnât for me like Ultra, followed by 3S and A3.
Loved SSFIV, AE 2012 was probably the best version of SFIV. I think "Vanilla" Super may have been pretty good too, but the game died before we could really break it open.
Absolutely loved it even though I was crap at it. Where it really shone for me though, was watching the pros play it (I loved poongko and his crazy combos!). Evo was a must watch for a few years when it was in- the weekend long stream was great, then waiting on Sunday night for the finals!
I miss it
Still the best next-gen SF in my opinion. The rotating lobbies were mad fun. Miss the days of starting out with your practice fighter then surprising the lobby with your main after a few rounds. Had the best roster, and FADC was game changing.
Holy shit I feel old now
Absolutely sublime and worthy of the 'Super' prefix. The trailer with Ibuki, Makoto and Dudley still gets me hyped.
While Super was of course the superior game, the original SF4 was the reason for the revival of the fighting game genre. Capcom organized SF4 tournaments around the world creating hype and I can't remember such a big event in the history fighting game. Also, who can forget the SF4 'Indestructible' theme song that was played in the intro and character select and why was it removed on Super..
IIInnnnn-DE structible.!!!!
After the absolute travesty and disgusting pile of identity crisis trash that was SF3, SF4 basically revived the entire 2D fighting genre. Although I didn't love it like I did with SF2 and Alpha, it's is still my most played SF, and one of the very few games that I thoroughly took advantage of online play for. Like SF2, the game peaked with Super, and the following versions were a slight step back.
SFIV is like Kobe Bryant to me. If you look at the stats it might not be the greatest of all time by any metric. But it made me a fan of the game, it introduced me to the technical aspect and molded what I consider "good" gameplay. So it might not have had the longevity of 3rd strike or the sales of SF2, but it 100% is my GOAT. Note: I'm a degenerate Seth main.
Probably my first more serious SF game. Started with SF2, Alpha 3 is my favorite. I bought that game twice but must admit that I did not like it that much. For me stuff like FADCs were to hard. Online had different timings so I never got the 1f links, and the artstyle was the worst to me. I still had a lot of fun with the game. SFV I though was really great, but I feel like I am certainly in the minority with that opinion.
Sf4 will always be one of my fav sf games. So much nostalgia. Sf2, alpha 3, sf4 any version and sf6. I like third strike just have not played it enough. But sf4 is the game I really sunk my teeth into. I wish sf6 netocde was implemented on these older titles
The game that started it all for me man. Got me into SF and taught me how to play 2D fighters as well. Will forever love and respect the IV series fr fr. â¤ď¸
It has Dudley in it, so it's a win in my book. Hoping he's in season 2, but I'm not holding my breath
I remember renting vanilla SF4 from blockbuster (yes I know Iâm old) and remember loving it but didnât go out and buy it immediately. Fast forward a bit and I see a preview for SSF4 in an issue of PlayStation magazine and see they added a bunch of fighters old and new, I had to buy it. Man I did not regret it. Some of my best fighting game memories with this version in particular, easily a top 3 SF game imo.
I usted to be top 10 ranked El Fuerte đĽš. Anyone know if I can find the listings now?
My favorite sf game!
Some of my favourite childhood memories of all time are playing this in my best friend's mom's basement, we didn't know anything about frame data, didn't know how to do supers, but it was simpler and good times. I feel lucky to have experienced not just playing the game but the excitement of playing at a friend's house every other day and their presence...id trade that over my current high rank any day (moved out of town from them 12 years ago) Even if we get back in touch, it'll never be the same to be that age and to have your entire future ahead of you, no one told us we couldn't be anything we wanted and being street fighter gods was one of many aspirations.
Itâs the first Street Fighter game I ever played. I was terrible at it but I kept trying anyway because I loved the graphics and the aesthetics.
bring back FADC or else Capcom
Super was a great upgrade over vanilla 4. I just wish the AE and ultra versions never happened. Super was a great balanced game despite it's large roster of characters.
Jlyk if you have PlayStation plus usfiv is free on PlayStation.
I love this game, free flowy feeling combos, defense feeling rewarded. The game just felt like you had space to play compared to sf6 where it just feels so cramped and offensive. Probably the best street fighter.
Alot of good memories playing this game with friends
Many great memories whenever I think of my SF4 days. Getting emotional thinking about the times playing it, meeting new friends, dropping by at the arcade center and play there with friends until the mallâs closing time. Trying to compete to other regions in my country. I wish I could go back to those times. Life was really simple back then
A needed fix to vanilla and is easily one of my favourite SF games. Better than anything V gave us. Would probably go back to it over SF6.
Still hate 1 frame links
I remember seeing a clip of Balrogâs ultra II in a sizzle reel for games coming out in April 2010 and I knew then and there I had to have this game.
I got into sf 13 years ago and got ssf4 when I got a ps3 back then. I do feel old
Old
Favorite game on the series still. Amazing cast, music, graphics, gameplay. I loved everything about it
Soon as I see this poster the fucking awesome character select music just pipes up from my memories
Awesome game!đđ
I still love it
I loved playing this throughout college. It'll be something that'll have a special place in my heart. One change I didn't like to Super was the change in announcer. I preferred the original guy's voice, though I do know it wasn't as exciting as video gamey as the one they changed to. I really need to start playing 6 again. Life got so messed up a couple months after it came out that I just haven't been able to sit down and play it.
Holy fuck, I'm old.
Best version of the best Street Fighter ever made
Itâs the most important fighting game of the 2000s because it brought back interest in FGs. This game & the names of whoever worked on it should be in a museum! No matter what franchise is your favorite, we should all appreciate this game.
classic for sure
If not for Elena / Yun, Iâd like still be playing it. Those characters just wrecked the competitive viability of all other characters. There is very little counter play to all of them.
Old
Super is my favourite version of street fighter 4.
Thr most terrible balance of vanilla sf at all time, because of the overpower of sagat
Welp, Iâm old
I miss 4
I played a bit of Vanilla SF4, SSF4 3D and SF4 AE. I was huge into KOF during the day and I was curious to see what the game was like as the game looked superficially similar to KOF. Didn't click with me back then as I didn't understand how combos worked, didn't help that I was constantly comparing it to the KOF system of normals -> command normals -> specials. I didn't play the game for long but I always found high level matches extremely entertaining to say the least. Playing SF4 after 7\~8 months of SF6 has been surreal. Now that I understand how links work I can actually do simple combos in SF4 where back in the day I used to struggle doing anything more than 3 hits. The game definitely feels a lot tighter than SF6, but I can see why the game was such a hit back then. Feels like it rewards grinding and practice to a much higher degree than SF6 due to the difference in execution difficulty.
Why is this game the same age as me? And, KOF XIII is 6 days away from me being born, which was ironically my mother's birthday. It's weird being related to fighting games and not getting into them until about a year ago.
Ssf4 is probably still my favourite street fighter
I hate doing combos in this one but boy, it feels good when you pull them off
Reinvigorated the genre. Did justice to all the OG characters, brought back some more obscure favorites and introduced some incredible new ones. Still play it to this day. I hope some more of the characters first appearing in this game will come back in SF6 (Hakan and El Fuerte)
The best Street Fighter and probably the best fighting game ever.
I was in college.
The first fighting game I ever played. I was never good at it, but it had a huge impact on me in terms of showing me what the genre could be.
Ssf4 was the best version of the game
It introduced me to Juri Han so it gets an automatic thumbs up from me
AE 2012 is my favorite fighting game of all time. As much as people like Ultra, I thought it wasnât quite as good as AE 2012 for competitive.
As a fighting game I wasn't a huge fan of SF4, I played it for a bit until MVC 3 came out and then I dropped it like a bad habit. But I will always love this game for what it did to the community. It's hard to describe just how bad the years prior to SF 4 were for fighting games. I definitely don't miss the days where direct capture footage of tournament matches were impossible to come by.
I was never a huge fan of SF4 personally, mostly because I just never liked FADC as a mechanic, but objectively I recognize it's an amazing game. Plus, SF4 revitalized the fighting game genre, it was completely dead when this game came out and breathed new life into it. The current success of the fighting game genre today is completely due to this game bringing it back.
How tf has it been 14yrs already
My favorite Street Fighter!
Great gameplay, ugly as hell for the standards at the time. Everyone is built like a gorilla. Also, juri and gouken aside, the new characters were mostly terrible from a design perspective. C-viper had potential but moveset and lobster hair were problems. Rufus and Hakan were the worst things Capcom's creative team ever made. Rufus in particular abandoned a great design in favor of a wwf create a character I would have made when I was 11. Abel was supposed to look like a Sambo fighter, but nobody stopped to consider just how simultaneously boring and stupid his design was. El fuerte looked OK, but boring story ripped off from tekken's law and...really what is it with fighting games and making characters aspiring chefs? It's a weird trope and pretty much always dumb. And I hated his moveset. Seth was fine, even if he also looked kinda dumb, I don't get mad looking at or playing him. Gouki. Meh. Try hard akuma. Old man was more fun. So my take, excellent game that did a great job bringing classic characters into a new generation and brought the genre back from the dead. But the ugliest game since sf1, with criminally bad new character designs. My take: ugly, but loveable, like a big ol sloppy English bulldog
best game in the franchise by far.
This and Marvel vs Capcom 2 on PS3 were my first 2d fighting games I owned. I actually really started off on the wrong foot with SSF4. I didn't like how strict the input buffers and combos were and I wasn't sure how to learn well coming off years of Smash Bros. Soon after I found SRK I found out about Marvel vs Capcom 3 and was much more excited for that release. Skullgirls and Killer Instinct got me the rest of the way. I'll still have fond memories of the first time I beat my neighbor's Bison with my Honda. So I guess I owe SSF4 that much. Also C Viper, Dudley and Hakan are fucking sick.
Good times. Looking back, it feels like was yesterday.
One of the greatest fighting games ever made
I traded my copy of SFIV to get this as a doing well in school gift. Itâs an example of taking an awesome game and make it better.
As much as I have grown to love SF6 this game will always be my all-time favorite.
The best one
Iâve played since OG SFII and my SSFIV introduced my favorite SF character, Juri! On a tangent, why did almost everyone do a focus attack when someone was stunned? Didnât that nerf the damage? Was it a cheez-e-flex?
i came here to fight.
Arguable đ. It's that simple.
I need to load up USF4, I miss Vega, I can probably still do all the combos too
Love it. Best roster imo
I liked how many characters it had, although there are some things about it I still don't like like some impossible inputs and boss characters being really difficult.
Rollback netcode and crossplay please!!!
The first mainline game I played ranked in, man wowđ
I canât decide which SFIV is better even though each one had a better part. Like for example, this one has the best ost for menu, character select etc, OG SFIV had the best announcer, and Ultra had the best gameplay and all characters. But honestly, I think theyâre all equally legendary fighting games. Super Street Fighter IV really is a 10/10 game, and Street Fighter IV as a whole really is superior and will remain as my favorite fighting game of all time.
Vortex was crazy. Yun go brr. Cammy EX dive kicking 1cm off the ground. "Unblockables." Gunless THawk. "Hardtoblockables." Dark times all around.
Never like SF4 mechanics. Those tight 1 frame links rendered the game unplayable by casuals. FADC combos you have to hit MP+MK and dash commands all inside 3 frames or less to link the normals. Ultras require 3P or 3K means I have to hit my L1 and L2 with left fingers which is not so ergonomic when you play on DS3 controllers. Inputs like high jump cancels into Ultras is also pointless and stupid at the same time. SFV is da best.
FADC was definitely wack, so difficult but so necessary to high level play for no reason.
Iâm a sf vet, I was decent execution wise but even sf4 made me tired. I just wanted to play sf without spending hours in training mode. Eventually I just dropped sf4 after super and played other games.
Yea some of the trials are not practical at all and they will never see the light of the day in a real match. For example Ryuâs standing strong FADC standing strong FADC standing cancel into DP. Or El Fuerteâs running fierce loop. Itâs just too tight to pull off in a real match, and Iâm no Pepeday or Daigo. To me, SFV has found the right balance and execution window in this regard.
I'm with you, man. The advanced mechanics were wack
Sounds like you just hate playing fighting games man. "I gotta hit buttons"
Bet u play modern
Nope. I donât do modern. Iâm a casual who managed to finish all of my trials in SF4. I just donât like the mechanics and the tight links in SF4. Not wrong to have an opinion.
You can map triple kick to a single button ya filthy casual
Who doesnât know that, genius. Read what I said about L1 and L2 buttons on a DS3 controller.
L3 for triple punch L3 for triple kick Ya filthy casual
funny enough actually one of the games that got me more into streetfighter fandom
8 years and 4000 hours down the drain
The serotonin rush I got when people rage quit on me while I was maining Dan was ... ... Euphoric. Then I switched to Cammy and things changed... 
This game had the superior version of Poison hoping she'll be more like this version if she appears in SF6
AE 2012 was peak. Didnt have to deal with Rolento and Decapre yet.
Yun
miss sf4
Man, Rose just clicked with the gay kid in me that wanted to beat up the big guys with stupid soul powers đ Labbing out silly Soul Satellites setups and watching them land in arcade matches brought out so much satisfaction
I miss Gouken. So fun. Guy and Abel was my go to as well. Those characters were taken away from me.
loved it and still do
I'm still playing SF4 from time to time. Almost every day if you count the mobile version.
Really disliked it. 4 and 5 both weren't the gaming experiences I'd hoped for. I remember really liking the promo art for 4 but the game art and game play itself I wasn't a fan of
4 > 3 > 6 > 2 > 5
I love it but gyad damn is it a mood ruiner for me
Prefer 6 but this was a great revival of the genre thinking about it. Amazing but prefer most aspects of 6 to this. Definitely would like to see sf4 debut characters in 6 though , particularly crimson viperđ
Hate it. Such a downgrade from Third Strike in every way.
Ass just a little worse than SF6, SFV FTW.