With Street Fighter IV bringing 2D fighters back to the forefront a few years ago, bringing with it an interesting visual style with a balanced and deep gameplay. As expected, Capcom have followed trend and the release of the Super version seen in that past with the franchise. The question being with the options of download content now being available to developers was the brand new release really needed?

There has been an introduction on a number of new characters in the Super release. Unlike Street Fighter IV you will have all the characters unlocked from the beginning, making every character instantly selectable upon loading the game the first time. Meaning Capcom has removed the need to play through the arcade a number of times. All the new characters have different styles meaning there is something to cover every players taste. Some of the new characters are stand out like Hakan the greased up Turk who seems very strong, and Juri who is very fast.

With the introduction of the 10 new characters, Capcom have also introduced two ‘ultra moves’ for all the characters new or old. You can chose which move you wish to have at your disposal before the battle, in doing this it has added a little more to the gameplay. Hakan and Juri are the only two new characters on the roster with the other 8 new characters being characters that have featured in previous version in the franchise.

It is hard at the moment to gauge who is going to become favourites in the new game, but this will become clearer once online has been player more frequently, and users get to grips with the new characters. Eventually this will lead to clever new strategies come to light among the best players on LIVE.

Along with the new characters there have been some alterations to the gameplay. Some of the changes have taken place with the character with them being tweaked. So the characters are now balanced and the moves are two. The game has also had some new online modes added, as well with some new challenges making the game offer more than Street Fighter IV.

During the Arcade mode you will find yourself coming faced with bonus stages which has brought back smashing up a car and barrels like in the previous entries in the franchise. Which many users will have fond memories of it they’ve followed the franchise. Other than this there has not been many changes made to the Arcade Mode. Once you have completed Arcade Mode the bonus stages become unlocked in Challenge Mode.

Online is where the game modes and changes are present, and the change has only improved the community for Street Fighter players. Some of the best changes are the introduction of the replay channel, which lets users record their bouts and play them back. This also keeps the best bouts from the community in a whole and lets other people watch them, and learn from them in some cases. There is also the introduction of the online Team and Endless battles, this lets a group of friends play together, and chat to everyone in the room throughout play.

Back to the original question, the answer is yes, it is clear there has been changes made that easily warrant the full release. [blippr]Super Street Fighter IV[/blippr] has once again brought 2D fighting games back to the forefront. With the introduction of new characters and the moves, the developers having chance to tweak the game and make it more balanced, and the introduction of new modes makes Super Street Fighter IV the game for fighter fans to own, if not the best fighter available right now.

With it being priced like a usual expansion pack meaning you are not coughing up top dollar for the game again (if you purchased Street Fighter IV) it is really worth its value.

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