Ultra Street Fighter IV Review (Doctor Timbrwulf)
Hmmm... What do I think of Ultra Street Fighter IV? Well, this is my impressions so far as of creating this review, as I haven't tried every character nor explored every aspect of the game, but here's my thoughts so far.
Playing a 2014 game in 2025, it's starting to show its age, but it still plays amazingly well, and is arguably much better at the way it offers additional content than later titles (I've read that SFV and SFVI both have micro-transactions, which have made the game series worse for long-time fans of the franchise). DLC is a one-time flat fee, and the bundle I got had about a fourth of what's already available.
Game play is actually not bad. There's a lot of options to choose from, whether you want a long match or short, easy or hard, etc. The opponents are challenging, but not so badly that I couldn't get good over time with practice. This seems to be designed with an arcade stick in mind, however, as I have difficulty pulling off the special moves with just the joystick and buttons on my Steam Deck. I kept getting pummeled by the hardier characters.
Multiplayer is sparse, unfortunately. Not very many people play USFIV anymore, which is a shame because it would be more fun playing with people. Most of the time, I don't connect to anyone, or I connect to someone with a bad connection. I'm guessing that many players have moved on by now to SFV or SFVI.
I'm kind of stunned as to what Capcom has introduced since the previous titles. I know this is a fighting game, but I didn't actually expect there to be not only some innuendo, but also straight-up hateful insults between even beloved characters. There's also the issue of... ehm, what little outfits there are of some characters. 😳 I already don't like the attitudes of Poison and Juri, and yet they have some of the most revealing outfits by default. I ended up stopping playing as Poison because I was quite uncomfortable, not only with her outfit but her barrage of selfish remarks and insults; I prefer using either Cammy, Chun-Li, or Ryu, anyway. I can only guess that the horny guys, who like the characters I don't like, don't care about their attitudes... 😒
I haven't fully explored the characters' stories, but IMHO the storytelling feels a little weak. It would be nice to have deeper background, maybe even some recap on past experiences, especially in Arcade Mode, but it's treated like it's a new game with no solid background. The animated sequences also suffer from poor English dubbing over what obviously was originally intended to be Japanese, which I am somewhat surprised by. I would've thought Capcom would hire an animation team to properly animate the mouths to English, but... eh, whatevs. 🤷🏻♂️
Yet, despite the lukewarm positives and morally questionable character designs and dialogue, I am still recommending this game... for now. I got the game for dirt cheap, bundled along with some of its DLC - it was all for less than $4 during this year's summer sale. Also, I am aware that mods exist for this game, so there's that to consider if I don't like what's in the base game. If I find other questionable things, I might update this review.