« A FOND FAREWELL TO STREET FIGHTER 4 »

Super Street Fighter 4 is just hours away from official release.  Some of you lucky people out there are already playing the game.  I am obviously thrilled about Super Street Fighter 4 and for its potential impact on our fighting game community.

However, I also feel a tinge of sadness for leaving Street Fighter 4 behind.  This is the first time I have felt such a thing for a videogame.  As I traded in Street Fighter 4 the other day, I felt like I was saying goodbye to a friend.  That's silly, you say! What a geek, you say!  Well, I've lived and breathed Street Fighter 4 months before the game released on consoles, living the scene vicariously through Gootecks' podcasts and videos from arcade players in southern California. 

After the game released on consoles on February 17th of last year, I logged over 300 hours of playtime on my Xbox 360 copy alone and a few hundred more on my Playstation 3 copy (It's amazing I've spent as much time on the game and still am only intermediate skill at best haha).  I've been to many tournaments and have hosted a few as well in that time, having many nail-biting matches and making many great friends. 

In September or so of last year I started writing for iPlayWinner, giving me yet another perspective on the game as part of the fansite media.  Add to all that time the many streams that I have watched and the time I have spent trolling forums at NeoGAF and SRK and you can see that Street Fighter 4 has been a significant presence in my life.  It's been one hell of a ride.

And that is just my personal experience with the game.  Street Fighter 4 has been such a huge revitalizing force in the fighting game genre that even the game's haters out there have to give it that due.  While some companies were indeed still putting out a few fighting games (such as Namco and Sega) with varying degrees of success, many considered the fighting game genre to be in decline, especially the 2D perspective fighting game.  It is astounding to me that Capcom considered the release of Street Fighter 4 a "risk", and that people like the game's producer Yoshinori Ono had to fight to convince the company that it was a risk worth taking.

So, as Super Street Fighter 4 ascends to take the crown from Street Fighter 4, I'd like to bid a fond farewell to the game that has done so much, and extend gratitude to the folks at Capcom for taking that risk in releasing the game.