Get hyped! Super Street Fighter 4 is on the way!

By Hans Wuerflein

It’s official.  Super Street Fighter 4 is on the way!

Announced last week for a Spring 2010 release on the PS3 and Xbox 360, the sequel, of sorts, will feature eight new characters, new Ultra combos, and some balance tweaks to take account for the new fighters.

Three of the eight “new” fighters have been announced so far: Juri, T. Hawk and Dee Jay.

T. Hawk and Dee Jay are returning from Super Street Fighter 2, and were originally planned for Street Fighter 4, but were cut due to time constraints.

Here’s Dee Jay:

And now  T. Hawk:

Juri is an all new fighter.  the details that have come out about her so far are that she is working for Seth, that she’s Korean (a first for Street Fighter characters), and that she uses moves based on Tae Kwon Do.

Here’s what she looks like:

Other rumored fighters include: Dudley, Ibuki, Cody, Guy, Adon and Makato from past games, and a new character named Hakan, but that would put the new character count at ten, so either some of those are bull, or Capcom has some surprises up their sleeves.

Now, to address some criticisms I’m hearing around the gaming world over the announcement.

First, that this should have been DLC.  No, it shouldn’t have, because it is making such big changes to the game that I’m not entirely sure it would be possible, especially since, at least at one point, the 360 had limits on patch sizes.  Plus, it would limit the number of players with access to the content and, if they did it like Rock Band’s DLC, could potentially cause problems it players attempted to play it offline.

Next, there’s the complaint that it’s ripping off customers, releasing a slightly updated version not that long after the first.  This is just stupid on multiple levels.

One, by the time this is released, the first one will have been out for over a year.  People pick up other franchises on an annual basis, and this is actually changing and adding more than most of those ever do.

Two, they’ve announced that it won’t release at full price, which I’m guessing means either $30 or (more likely) $40 as opposed to the now normal $60, so people picking up the new addition aren’t getting hit too hard, and those that held out (or missed out) the first time around will get a heck of a deal.

And three, Capcom has said that they will be offering a reward of some sort to those that bought the first edition too to thank them for their loyalty.

Seriously, this is a great update to one of the best fighting games in recent memory, so stop complaining and get to waiting impatiently for the next five or six months like the rest of us.