You know you’ve got a good game on your hands when you pick it up at midnight and before you know it’s 7am, you’ve got to go to work and you haven’t had a wink of sleep.

Such is the case with Capcom’s Super Street Fighter IV, an update to last year’s long awaited sequel. To merely call it an update though would be selling the title extremely short – it’s the ultimate love letter to fans of the Street Fighter franchise, in short – it’s the Street Fighter formula, perfected. Well, almost.

I’m going to save both of us the time and effort and not insult you by wasting this space to tell you what Street Fighter is (but check out our review of the original Street Fighter IV here). No, what’s more important here is that Capcom has taken everything gamers loved about the fighter and tweaked the formula enough to retain the feeling of the original, yet make it feel incredibly new and refreshing at the same time.

"All the moves you remember are here..."

Chief among SSFIV’s improvements, and the easiest to notice (more on that later) are the inclusion of ten new characters to the mix. Eight of them should be familiar to Street Fighter veterans as Dee Jay, Guy, Ibuki, Dudley, Makoto, Adon, Cody, and T. Hawk have all been recycled from previous iterations of the franchise. I can’t tell you how excited I am to use T. Hawk and Dudley again as I was quite disappointed that they weren’t included in the initial Street Fighter IV release.  The great thing about these characters returning is that even though they’ve been tweaked to fit the Street Fighter IV style, playing as them feels incredibly familiar and like it should. For instance, I was able to pull off a number of different moves with these characters without even thinking. All the moves you remember are here and feel like they should. It’s not all Hadoukens and Tiger Uppercuts you know.

Two of the characters however are completely new to the franchise. Juri is a Tae Kwon Do expert with a takedown heavy moveset and Hakan is..ahem…an oil wrestler with some rather unique moves.  Of the two, I found myself learning more towards Juri since she has the better-rounded move set, but playing as Hakan is fun for another reason. Throughout the match, he keeps lathering himself up with Oil (featuring a rather amusing animation), and while this does leave him vulnerable for attacks, it also has its advantages; for instance the oil makes Hakan incredibly fast and evasive. He’s a perfect match for those fighters who tend to be more defensive.

The most impressive thing about Super Street Fighter IV is just how much Capcom listened to their fans to improve the formula. Undoubtedly, my favorite addition to the game is the fact that all of the characters are unlocked from the first time you play the game. This means no more playing through arcade matches just because I want to unlock Akuma to play my buddies online. There are still a number of unlockables to play through the game’s modes for, including alternate costumes, but including all of the game’s characters immediately allows players to get into the action against their friends sooner.

The game’s online suite is actually one of the areas of the game that has been revamped the most. The core gameplay is still the same, but there are a number of tweaks that franchise fans have been pining for since Street Fighter IV’s release last year.  Chief among these changes is the fact that there are now more online match types. Last year’s game only featured ranked and player matches, but SSFIV lets players partake in ranked, team and endless battle matches. The later replaces the player matches, and while it may sound like a suspect choice, the endless battles are a welcome and much more social experience than its predecessor. Up to eight players can be in a single lobby, which encourages fast, and frantic battles. I suspect that most players will take part in the team battles most, as they’re very reminiscent of a few of Capcom’s other fighting titles.

"...SSFIV introduces blind character selection to the mix..."

Undoubtedly though, the biggest changes to the game’s online suite are those which help keep the game balanced. It’s no secret that every character in Street Fighter IV has a counter character that plays almost perfectly against attacks, and it’s also no secret that there are a number of players in the Street Fighter community who would wait to see which character you pick and then pick said counter.  In an attempt to make games more fair, SSFIV introduces blind character selection to the mix; which requires all fighters to select their characters and Ultra moves before seeing who their opponents picked. Some may bitch that this ruins any bit of strategy, but it also stops these players from using cheap tactics to better their rank.

I must commend Capcom for finding a perfect spot in the difficult balance of accessibility and fan service. Much like the original Street Fighter IV, SSFIV is still easy for newcomers to pick up, and they’ll take to the simplistic controls well, but there’s a ton of depth here for those well versed in the series to discover. This time around, each character now has two ultra moves, and which one you pick will have a massive effect on just how you play your character.  Make no mistake about it, Super Street Fighter IV is still a difficult game to master, but at the same time, it’s a great way to get into the series.

When it was announced, Capcom caught serious flack for Super Street Fighter IV not being DLC – a decision now justified by just how impressive the package truly is. While still staying accessible for newcomers to the series who may pick it up, Super Street Fighter IV feels like a love letter to the Capcom fighting game community. Already have Street Fighter IV? You need this. Somehow missed the original? You need this even more.