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Street Fighter IV is 5 years old today

Remember picking SF4 up Day 1 (or at midnight)

Didn't really get much out of it (got sick of Sagat's bullshit in story mode and wasn't having much fun online)

As for favorite SF character...Vega
 
Pop-O-Matic said:
Did they seriously use to have wire fencing like that on the EVO stage? Because it looks hella badass, and they should totally bring it back.
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no, there were never any chain link fences at evo, this picture is from the SF4 national tourney back in 2009, a few months before evo. Daigo won both.
 
sf2fanatic said:
<---- goes and plays SF1 on psp
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That game ain't great!!!

You've reminded me of my first experience with game. I was in an airport and found an arcade. Completely shocked to see SF1, I threw quarters into that thing as fast as life would let me. I couldn't get the buttons to work, or the fireballs, or...well anything. Still, I had fun with it, but was upset that the one machine I find was broken.

Then I found out that the game itself was busted, not the cabinet lol

lazybones18 said:
As for favorite SF character...Vega
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I knew there was a reason I liked you.
 
Pop On Arrival said:
yeaaah, still my most played game. Made so many new friends just because of this fucking game, too. Probably my favorite game of all time, now. I don't remember a single game consuming me as much as this did.

sf4 <3
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SF2 did this to me. Destroyed my high school career.
 
Still an amazing game!

i play this daily and when friends are over its still a blast, one of the most balanced SF game i have ever played and i have played them all,
SF4 just has alot of character diversity and you can basically have a good chance with any character

just look at the last 5 SF4 evo champions
 
abstract alien said:
That game ain't great!!!

You've reminded me of my first experience with game. I was in an airport and found an arcade. Completely shocked to see SF1, I threw quarters into that thing as fast as life would let me. I couldn't get the buttons to work, or the fireballs, or...well anything. Still, I had fun with it, but was upset that the one machine I find was broken.

Then I found out that the game itself was busted, not the cabinet lol

.
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It was hard pulling off fireballs and shryukens in that game in general. But that hit damage ..lol
 
When I was finally able to afford a PS3, I bought SSF4 when I had gotten the system. I remember booting it up for the first time and feeling so excited... until I couldn't figure out how to play. Thankfully the good folks here taught me how to execute some of the motions (like the shoryuken and charge motions).
 
I got vanilla on launch and Super for PC sometime later. I've always been to lazy and intimidated to put in time into this game. With Ultra coming and my favorite SF character, Rolento included, I wanna get good before it drops.
 
Original arcade release: July 18, 2008
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I was about to say. I know it hasn't been exactly that long since I bought it.

My favorite SF character:
guile.jpg
 
I've put 900 hours into my 360 copy of super, I'm kinda scared to look @ how much time I spent on SFIV PS3... considering I played that version from launch until a few months before Super came out.. I bought a 360 strictly to play people online in this game... I have 3 arcade sticks.... and as much as I try to move on from this game I keep coming back to it. 20 hours on Blazblue, back to this, 70 on MVC3, back to this, 30 on Cross Tekken, back to this etc. Having 30-40 people hanging around 6 arcade setups when AE came out was dope as well.

SFIV da gawd, Ono and team blessed us
rejoice.png
 
It wouldn't surprise me if I played this game more than probably all the other games I've played combined going back to PS2 era. Nothing comes close and nothing probably will until SF5. I've always loved the franchise, I've been playing the series since World Warrior in 1992(on SNES though :p). But this is the first one that I really learned. The more I learned, the more I loved it. It made me want to attend local tournaments and I even attended EVO in 2011.

I've probably poured several thousands of hours into the SF4 series and look forward to increasing that total as USF4 will be coming out early next year. It's not perfect and has it's flaws, but it has its place in my heart because it was the one that started it for me. Don't be surprise if I'm one of those bitter SF4 fans when SF5 comes out and always proclaims that SF4 was better and these newer kids just don't understand.
 
Router said:
I remember everyone freaking out over the first screens calling it EX3. So much drama.
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I literally stopped following news about this game when I first saw the screens. I felt so betrayed that they did away with 2D hand drawn sprites for 3D polygonal graphics. So I already wrote it off thinking the game would suck because I hated the SFEX series. I bought the game anyways when it came out just because it was Street Fighter and I can't at least not give it a shot. It didn't take that long to win me over though.
 
I remember being so happy to learn that the japanese version I imported could be played online here in the states. I said to myself "cool, I don't have to buy another copy"

Since then I've bought sf4 about 5-6 different times on ps3 and 360. Will be doing so again for ultra.
 
Rose is my girl, there will be manly tears if she isn't in SFV.

This was the game that got me into fighters big time (yup an '09er) always loved playing SF2 casually but I went in on this and bought the TE Fightstick to go with it.

Game of the gen for me, not many games I can say I've played weekly for four years.
 
SFIV is a game I stopped playing competitively a long time ago (I prefer playing the faster airdash style games), but goddamn if I still don't love watching it.

I remember the first time I played SFIV in a Japanese arcade back in 2008 while I was studying abroad. It was this crazy cool moment where I sat down at the machine and realized that Street Fighter was back.

Happy fifth, SFIV. You fucking rock.
 
I was in Texas for three months when the game released on 360. It was back home in Scotland waiting for me for almost a month before I finally got to play it properly. I did have a quick single round as Ken in a gamestop though, haha.

It was the first fighting game I played and learned properly. Started with Ken before switching to Ryu, and clocked up somewhere near 900 hours on vanilla before Super arrived. I managed to complete the trials and get the achievements literally days before the update's release. I found it all quite difficult!

Played Super for about 600 hours before making the transition to stick and embarking on a wild quest to get every character in the game up to B rank online (still got six left to do, ha). 2000 hours on this game in total and it's still the game I play if I find myself with a free hour or more at home.

In between I've bought several copies of the game to give to friends and bought and finished the 3DS version too. I have it on steam despite not owning a PC. I'll get Ultra on release and I'm sure there will be at least 1000 more hours of play on that.

I've also went back and played a lot of classic fighters I'd previously never touched, or played and didn't really appreciate, because of the genre knowledge I've gained through SFIV.

The best game.
 
Thanks to this game, the genre has flourished since then and the FGC has never seen more spotlight. And even after all this time it still commands the most entrants at EVO and next year will probably be the biggest thanks to the update.
 
Great game, never played beyond vanilla though. I can play ASW and NetherRealm games with ease but Capcom fighters kick my ass with the timing.
 
Was looking forward to the game ever since the announcement, but it wasn't until I saw the US commercial that the "Holy shit, next gen Street Fighter is happening" reality set in. While I didn't put as much time into it as say, the two Vs. games that would come out later, it's still probably one of my most played games this generation.

As for favorite character, gotta go with Cammy.
 
My favorite new character to come to 4 has to be Juri. Love watching WeirdoNeo videos on youtube.

As for favorite overall character? I probably don't have one. Too many iconic likable characters to pick an overall favorite.
 
My favourite character is definitely Rufus. And I don't mean just Street Fighter; he's the greatest fictional character of the 21st century. So thanksful they didn't go for his original, dour design.
 
Like many people in this thread, 4 was responsible for reigniting my lost love for fighting games that dated back to SF1 and Way of The Exploding Fist. Thanks to a certain online retailer I got my copy of SF4 4 days before the launch date here in the UK and have played it and it's successors almost every day since. Bought 4, Super 4 (twice) and AE on the 360. AE on the PC. AE on the PS3 and Super on the 3DS.

When I got it on day one I went straight into the process of unlocking Akuma who I then toyed around with for a few weeks before finally settling on Rose instead. These days, she's taken a bit of a back seat as I'm still upset at her only reliable reversal being removed in AE because people whined about it too much. In a way it was a good thing though because it made me experiment with other characters more. I'm now flitting around between Rose, Ryu, Akuma, Sagat, Juri, Cody and Evil Ryu with a couple of charge characters that I completely suck balls with.

Over 2000 hours across it's variations and dying to double that with it's future versions. One of the best of the generation for me and top 5 of all time.
 
Oichi, any good stories of what it was like back in the early days of the arcade version of SF4? Were people winning with Balrog's Jab straight only, did Gief dominate early on, did people realize immediately just how ridiculous Vanilla Sagat was? Things like this I'm really curious about if you remember any of this stuff.
 
Actually this was probably my least played SF title, it was fun but i stopped a couple of months after AE was released...while i'm still playing 3d Strike regularly


But i still can remember the first day i got to play this at home, dat hype
 
The game is gorgeous to look at and I'm sure it plays amazingly well but heres the thing... I suck at fighting games :(
 
Just got back into playing it thanks to EVO. It hasn't been a perfect resurrection of the franchise but in hindsight, I am so happy this game is alive and well.

I'm not great with El Fuerte but I gotta love a luchador who yells "It's Super Dynamic Cooking Time!" as he jumps into battle.
 
I have SF4 and SSF4 and those were the last one's I got because I was skeptical if they would update it again (which I guess I was right since Ultra's coming out). SF4 was my first ever SF and it took me 3 days to learn how to do a hadoken. The reason for this is because I didn't play a fighting game in years and never took them seriously so I didn't know how to do special moves.

Once I learned how to read the moves list and what all the swirls meant, I was off and kicking butt.

My Favorite Characters
Personality - Dan Hibeki / Sakura
Design - Q / Poison (I could never decide between)
My Best Character - Guy / Guile
 
Great post OP!!

SFIV is still the game that I have been most excited for during this whole console generation. I still remember how I digged through the internet on a daily basis like a frustrated archeologist fresh out of university, only to find the smallest pieces of new info or the latest absurd rumors. It also made be realize how passionate fighting game fans have remained over the years and how much I enjoy watching their tournaments. I also must have made my girlfriend crazy with all my own speculation and discussions throughout these 5 years!

Heck, even the latest reveal of Ultra SFIV has made me jittery with excitement again, even though at this point I have accepted that I'd rather watch the game being played than play it myself (mostly due to not having an arcade stick and the fact that I somehow never liked the way characters jumped in this iteration compared to the older sprite based games - too floaty for my taste; though I do realize how this one nitpicky thing is limiting my enjoyment!)

SFIV did made me start noticing how interesting fighting game design philosophy is, and how good of a topic it is to talk about. It really proved to me that the (2D) fighting game genre is like a golden time capsule from the glory days of (Japanese) game design, just like the 2D platformers and shmups, but with an even longer lasting appeal and more pernament relevance due to the competitive scene. Just like RTS games and some FPS games, these fighting games really are lifestyle games, i.e. games you pretty much play or otherwise identify with for life. This is what should allow them to have a permanent place in the gaming pantheon as well.

So, may you live forever Street Fighter (but please not exclusively in numero 4 form)!

Edit: Oh, and my favorite warriors design wise: Alex, Hakan, Chun-Li, Juri, Gouken and Oro (apart from Ryu & Ken of course).
 
Seven Force said:
Was looking forward to the game ever since the announcement, but it wasn't until I saw the US commercial that the "Holy shit, next gen Street Fighter is happening" reality set in. While I didn't put as much time into it as say, the two Vs. games that would come out later, it's still probably one of my most played games this generation.

As for favorite character, gotta go with Cammy.
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Loved that commercial. Always thought they should have went with that sick puppies song over indestructible in vanilla.
 
To my knowledge this is the only game in existence that has allowed mere mortals to move away from concept of winning/losing and in achieving transcendence, create art through fighting.


Quite an accomplishment.
 
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