Street Fighter 4 review

This was on my to do list and now I think im going to finally get around to it ><. For starters I've decided that this is my favourite fighting game ever, and part of that is cause I hate it so much sometimes. But I'll stray away from my opinion of the game... Critical reception first.

The music and sound effects EXACTLY what I'd expect from an arcade fighter. They make the game interesting, put you in the locale you're in... Even though it's pretty much all electronic music, but it still pulls it off nicely. Having it really loud makes you feel like you're in an arcade.... With exceptions...
Music - 2/3

One of the big reasons this is my favourite fighting game ever is because of the graphics. Let me begin by saying; ever since Tales of Symphonia I fell in love with cell-shading. And this game pulls it off beautifully. Sure it's 3D but it looks, feels and plays like a 2D fighter. Of course cell-shading also makes it look mostly like a cartoon, despite being 3D, but that sinks nicely into most cell-shaded games, especially games like this with anime cut-scenes. On top of this all, the art director is my hero, he managed to make the game look hand drawn, and that makes it the BEST cell shaded game I have ever played (sorry ToS.)
Graphics - 3/3

The story is INCREDIBLY lacking. I never liked having a story in fighting games, it makes it a lot harder to follow, Soul Calibur -tried- to pull it off and half succeeded, but still it's hard to get it all in. Street Fighter 4 might have been able to pull it off, the movie (I have heard) kind of works as an intro, but still there is one obvious flaw. There are too few cut scenes (2 per character; an intro and an ending) and they don't explain ANYTHING. Take Vega's for instance; his first doesn't explain why he enters the tournament, someone just tells him that people are around, and he's like; "so.... HE is here, and interpol as well." Then it pretty much just ends that. His ending one... He hacks into a computer get's some data and says something about Shadaloo (M. Bison's organization) living forever, but still, it doesn't explain anything... Although there are exceptions, Zangief for one, his story just makes it seem like he's in the tournament for the lulz.
Story - 1.5/4

2D linear plane FTW! Apparently the designer wanted this to play like Street Fighter 2 (with some improvements) and they succeeded big time. I've already explained the graphics, it made it look like Street Fighter 2, but it felt like it as well. It's got the combos generally associated with fighting games, pausing the game even brings up an arcade-machine style move list. The additions were really cool; a focused punch (pressing MP and MK at the same time) that (if you're hit while doing it but still pull it off) heals you and/or does a ton of damage to the opponent. a taunt (pressing HP and HK at the same time... don't know why you'd do it though, you'd get killed in the process) a super combo attack (filling up a gauge whenever you hit, when it got to max, you go super combo) and an ultra combo attack (filling up a gauge whenever you got hit) it all works well. However, there's one thing I, and others can attest to and its the FUCKING CONTROLLER. If I got my hands on an arcade stick controller for my Xbox it wouldn't matter so much, but you can barely do ANYTHING with the regular 360 controller. Some characters can pull off attacks (cause they're easy button combos that can just be spammed) but others are doomed to failure. I play as Vega (my favourite fighter since SF2, and decidedly my favourite villain ever) and even my spammable attacks (the roll and the wall jump) can barely be pulled off, and I'd die before I'd be able to do any of my other attacks (pulling them off would be a miracle... And Vega misses a lot with his Ultra, but thats the character, not the game). I've only seen one character pull off their ultra combo perfectly with a human player, and that's Zangief... Who is pretty much the Death Knight of Street Fighter 4 (just spam 3 attacks and you'll be fine.) Even the most basic attack in the game; the hadouken, is hard to pull off. It's not that bad for VS i suppose, cause everyone else have the same trouble, but it's terrible for arcade mode, especially because the AI can pull off all their attacks INSTANTLY, and will rape you several times before you can actually pass the stage (to say nothing of the last boss... And Zangief; never give the AI control over a spammable character.) It's just as bad, if not WORSE than the Sonic Shuffle AI, and it's what makes me hate the game, but love it... When you have a difficulty curve that's akin to a brick wall (one that takes FOREVER to climb over) it can be fun. And it's still a great way to let off steam.
Gameplay - 20/25

This section won't be as long and drawn out as it was with Sonic Unleashed. Extra costumes, extra taunts, unlockable content, achievements, downloadable content, blah blah blah. Standard fighting game (or almost any game) stuff. One thing that does stand out though is the voice acting. It's better than 4Kids, I'll give it that, but half the characters sound WAY off, while the other half sound dead on. Zangief, Vega, Ken, M. Bison, Seth are pretty good, although imagine my surprise when I was looking up Vega (to see if he was played by any Resi4 voice actor, cause he sounded kinda like a cross between Lewis and Saddler) and apparently he's played by the guy who played T.K. in Digimon Adventure 02 (and the second half of the movie). I laughed so hard, but he manages to do the job. The other half are kinda iffy... Or lame. Chun-li kinda sounds good... And the announcer is just another thing that reminds you of an arcade... Lame but cool at the same time. The WORST voice actor though is Ryu. He sounds like a total retard, it's annoying. One thing they failed at though is the dubbing. I understand it's hard to dub over japanese but isn't there technology to make the mouth movements a little better? I always thought there was, Gundam SEED never seemed to have any problem. This though, it looks TERRIBLE. Chun-li's lips are forming completely different sounds when she sees Vega and says; "Shouldn't you be dead?" It makes me twitch every time.
Misc. - 7/10

Overall - 34.5/40
It was good, not great, but good. Good enough to be worth buying, and good enough to keep playing (trying to hold back from throwing the controller at the tv is fun too.)