Father of fighting games gets super upgrade
Gone are the days of roaming a local arcade to play the throng of would-be challengers 
and pretenders to the throne of the best local fighting game champion. In its place are home consoles designed to push the power of the arcade. Fighting game franchises have had to keep up or suffer irrelevancy or, worse yet, extinction. The earliest king of the genre, Street Fighter, has had a challenge of sorts: continue forward or go the way of its ride-a-longs of the ‘90s. Super Street Fighter IV attempts to continue the tradition with mostly success.
Super SFIV, at its core, is a fighting fan’s dream. A robust engine with plenty of options 
for either the novice or the advanced, SSFIV makes playing a fighting game easy. Even if you haven’t played since the heyday of SFII, there’s a lot of compelling content here to draw you in and get you started in the world of competitive digital fighting. Various modes are here, ready for a deep dive, and there are more than enough new characters and old stalwarts to make fighting interesting. The general rule of thumb is, if the character was in SFII and its derivatives, SFIII or SF Alpha, there’s a good chance they are available for play in SSFIV.
Fight locales associated with many of the characters are available with a great soundtrack accompanying them. SSFIV does an exceptional job of reminding more experienced fighting enthusiasts of the Street Fighter origins and piquing the curiosity of newer fight fans. The controls also hearken to the old days, so much so that it’s easy to pick up and play and learn about the different systems afforded to each character. Most new characters will play like an older character on the roster so it’s easy to learn the nuance of fighting with a newcomer if you’re experienced with previous SF games. If you aren’t experienced, there’s a great tutorial mode that runs through combo and movesets of each character to teach the basics. That varied level of depth goes a long way toward replay value.
My one gripe out of all the loveliness that is the mixed nostalgia fest of SSFIV is that it’s Capcom being Capcom as usual. For the uninitiated, Capcom gained a reputation in the ’90s for having a solid franchise in Street Fighter II but not being able to count to three. The constant upgrading and reissuing of SFII got old quickly. And, quite frankly, Capcom hasn’t learned its lesson because Street Fighter IV should not have multiple retail versions of its upgrades. Arcade Edition should have been an update that could be bought digitally and downloaded to patch the game up to whatever version Capcom wanted consumers to have. Even when the original version was released, the capability was there. This just screams of cash grab and Capcom being ignorant of tiresome tactics wearing on the fan base. The fact that Ultra Street Fighter IV — one more version beyond this one — exists is proof positive of this.
Other than the fiasco of multiple versions, Capcom has a solid winner on its hands with the fourth entry in the long-running series even as it fades into the background in favor of SFV. If SFV is not your cup of tea, but you want to stay current with the world of Street Fighter, SFIV is a good balance and at the right price now to delve into the world of Ryu, Ken and Chun-Li.
modes to choose from. If you’re not informed, you might be a little lost trying to understand just where you should start. With a varied plate to choose from, at the very least the modes are interestingly designed and add value to an already-packed game. 
Festival takes that concept and turns it on its head. With Festival, you’re tasked with moving around a typical Animal Crossing town in the form of a large board game. The town is transformed by spaces that can be events, Stalk Market sale stops and visits from the usual assortment of guests that visit a normal town in the franchise. 
the game. For example, 
a nightmare and a chore to actually control. The Fighter flaps his arms to stay afloat and even with both balloons still present, this is extra hard to do and maintain. More often than not, I don’t lose balloons because an enemy popped them; it’s because I landed in the water, was eaten by the large fish or steered myself unwittingly into the lightning I was desperately trying to avoid. Precision flying this is not. To get a sense of what it’s like to control the Fighter, imagine if the horrible Ice Climbers were flying instead of jumping terribly up a mountain. 
And while the game is barely playable, the soundtrack also manages to squeak by in presentation. It is a sad day when I declare that a soundtrack from Metroid sound director Hip Tanaka is irredeemable. There is nothing that makes me want to listen to this, and nearly everything that Tanaka has created gets high marks from me. The songs aren’t memorable, there are few songs there anyway, and the lack of varied sound effects is disconcerting. Add the soundtrack woes to an underwhelming graphical palette and the game overall is a mess.
further bubbles. After a certain number are cleared, the ceiling of the well lowers, inching closer to a visible line. Once the line is crossed with a bubble, the game is over. Basically, it’s reverse Tetris with bubbles instead of lines. The trickiness in mastering the game comes in popping the bubbles. There are different techniques to achieving the results that you want, but it really comes down to knowing how to aim and learning the fabled bankshot off the side of the well.
With its simplicity in learning, Bust-A-Move quickly distinguishes itself as fun to play. I requested the game for my 14th birthday, and I’ve had a blast playing the original since. There are other games in the series, but this one is the best out of all of the sequels and spinoffs of the series. The controls aren’t too stiff, though sometimes I have complaints about the particular way a bubble bounces or sticks a little too easily to the first bubble it comes close to. Yet, the controls aren’t horrible. 
play begins: For every line cleared, a small amount of energy is added to a magic meter. Fill up the magic meter and you get what we’ve termed at 
The game shines in its visuals, which benefit from that Disney touch. The game is bright and colorful and designed in the way of Disney games and animation, meaning it’s top-notch through and through. The graphics are still good for an N64-era game and haven’t aged badly. The soundtrack has aged well, too, and is still one of the best of the era. Each character’s stage is memorably themed and stands out enough for you to remember it well after your game is over.
checking out by itself. On the other hand, the difficulty and rating system make it a frustrating experience. If you’re used to the rubber band 
friendly. If you didn’t start with Super Mario Bros., stop right now and go back and study up that game. The sequel is designed to be set up and buoyed by the original. If you start here, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
This frustrating tactic of punishing the player for being too good is exactly why the follow up to Super Mario Bros. would have never flown in America and why we didn’t see the game until a full five years after its release in Japan. People traditionally play Mario to relax, not be thrown backward in a never-ending loop of anger and frustration. This doesn’t appeal to the mass players and it’s cheap and perverse that Mario is used in this way.
Mastering powersliding means a world of difference in race times, especially when you have bragging rights at stake. Old mechanics, such as the weight class concept, are still present but it seems everyone has a better representation with respect to how a class really controls. The lightweights feel like, well, lightweights. The heavyweights actually feel like they’re heavy to handle.
Palace is interestingly laid out and the graphical quality of the castle still blows away the competition 20 years later. Watching Mario run around, run and jump and be Mario but in a non-2D sprite is pure heaven for Mario lovers like myself. 
The soundtrack makes up for the illness-inducing gameplay. The soundtrack is fantastic and it’s worthy of a mainline Mario game, easily. From running around in the plains of Bob-omb Battlefield to traversing numerous obstacles to take on the King of the Koopas, Mario 64 is a dream come true in terms of audio pleasure.