Ultra Street Fighter IV (360) – Decapre is not the clone she appears

Capcom’s final update of Street Fighter IV is released in stores, instead of just as a downloadable add-on – in what may be the best value game of the year.

Street Fighter IV is one of the very few games we’ve ever given 10/10 to. That doesn’t mean the game is perfect but it does come closer to that impossible accolade than most, with a near faultless execution of almost everything it sets out to do. As a result we were happy to give minor update Super Street Fighter IV the same mark, but Ultra Street Fighter IV is a little more complicated.



This is the retail and downloadable version of Ultra Street Fighter IV which contains all the content from the original game and all of its subsequent expansions and downloads. The ‘ultra ultimate edition that has everything on one disc’ release spoken about in our interview with Street Fighter’s European community manager.

But although it’s out new this week the Ultra content was first released in June purely as an add-on, which is what we’ll primarily be discussing here.


Intended as the last paid-for update for Street Fighter IV, Ultra offers little in the way of major changes – just a few new characters and some minor tweaks and extras. But although none of the additions seem significant in themselves there are so many of them, across all aspects of the game’s content, that the download ends up feeling like far better value than it first appears.

The new characters will be what everyone’s interested in first of all, although you can’t help but notice that four of the five have clearly just been repurposed from Street Fighter X Tekken. They are good, distinctive characters though – and quite different to most of the existing Street Fighter IV roster.

The most accessible is probably Poison, from Final Fight, who despite her use of a whip plays the most like Ryu and Ken. She may not be busting out any hadoukens but the controls are the same, allowing you a fighting chance even before you begin to learn her more unique abilities. Giant wrestler Hugo, from Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact, is also an easy character for beginners; although as the epitome of slow but powerful we’ve never found him very interesting.

Elena though, from Street Fighter III, has always been a favourite and her capoeira fighting style allows for some of the longest range overhead attacks in the whole Street Fighter pantheon. She and Rolento, also originally from Final Fight, are very technical characters though and you’ll need a lot of practise to get the most out of them. Although Rolento’s high mobility and use of a nightstick make him both a good close-quarters and medium range brawler, and very easy to play at a basic level.

Ultra Street Fighter IV (360) – only Dhalsim has longer legs than Elena

The fifth character is Decapre, who’s previously only appeared in Street Fighter-related fiction. She’s a clone of Cammy but although visually she’s not very interesting at all, she does play quite differently from her genetic sibling. Mixing charge attacks and a range of dash, slide, and launcher moves she’s an interesting combination of play styles that veterans are certain to appreciate.



Ultra Street Fighter IV also offers up six new stages, and we particularly liked the Jurassic Park/Dino Crisis and Final Fight ones. Once you start getting into the more general gameplay changes though we’re sure it’s all going to sound like gobbledegook to non-fans.

For example, you can now delay getting up if your character is knocked to the floor, in order to fake out your opponent, and there’s a new feature called Red Focus which allows you to absorb multiple hits, at the cost of your super meter, and immediately segue into a counter-attack.

Being able to start a match with two ultra moves, instead of having to choose just one, is a welcome change too – with the game decreasing the damage they both do to compensate. There’s also a new online play mode in the form of 3 vs. 3 team battles, where each team-mate fights on until they’re defeated but health is not restored between rounds.

Getting into the real technical stuff there are subtle changes to almost all of the existing cast of 39 other fighters, with balancing changes that increase the power of attacks, alter a character’s starting health, or removing a frame of animation before a move starts. It’s the sort of thing only the experts will notice, but they’ll also appreciate that Capcom has future-proofed themselves against any of the changes not working out as you can choose yourself which version of each character you play as.


But not everything is aimed purely at hardcore fans, as the ability to use training mode online makes it an immediately more appealing option, that no longer involves you sitting on your own for hours struggling to learn the moves. Training mode will even simulate different network latencies for you and save your set-up so you don’t have to spend minutes getting back into it.

The only disappointment is that Trials mode has still not been updated since Super Street Fighter IV, which is a shame as it’s a good way to learn a new character. But then we can only help that if and when Street Fighter V is finally announced a complete rethink of the series’ single-player and story modes will be top of the agenda.

Ultra Street Fighter IV is a litany of small changes (recording offline matches is another good one) but as minor as they all are individually they do add up to a perfectly worthwhile upgrade. And while the add-on version may only have been for the hardcore this full-blooded retail release should prove ultra hard for anyone to resist. As well as being the definitive version of the best fighting game of the last generation.

In Short: A determined effort to drag Street Fighter IV even closer to perfection, and as a retail release fantastic value for money for even the most casual fan.

Pros: The same Street Fighter IV magic as always, and as minor as the Ultra changes and extras seem they’re all for the better. Apart from maybe Hugo all of the new characters are worthy additions.


Cons: There’s an underlying laziness in the choice of new characters for the Ultra content. Single-player modes still need improvement.

Score: 10/10

Formats: Xbox 360 (reviewed), PlayStation 3, and PC

Price: £19.99

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Dimps and Capcom

Release Date: 8th August 2014

Age Rating: 12

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