Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition brings the total roster to 39, adding four new characters into the battle with Evil Ryu, well-known twins Yun and Yang from Street Fighter® III, and an all new character, Oni. Each with their own unique move sets and super combos, these new characters are beautifully rendered in the trademark Super Street Fighter art style. All the returning characters in the roster have also been rebalanced, from subtle changes such as recovery speeds to more drastic hit box alterations.

The updated Replay Channel allows players to share their favourite battles with other players and makes it easier to watch matches for the best “Street Fighters” available. The Replay Follower allows tracking for 5 favourite players with notifications when new replays are available from this set. Proud players can distribute their data to up to 50 friends via the My Channel Advanced feature. Matches by featuring the best-of-the-best can be viewed on the Elite Channel where players can watch replays of the top players by filtering out matches with lower scores.

Joining the SF4 roster, you have:

1. Rolento
2. Poison
3. Hugo
4. Elena
5. Myterious 5th Character!!

A lot of feedback was sifted through to find the best ways to balance the characters in the SF4 update. Top players from the US and Japan were consulted, as well as all the wonderful feedback provided through the Capcom Unity forums and Capcom Japan surveys.

To properly balance the character, we had to think of what the “personality” of the character was, and in effect, how to play to those strengths. It was rather daunting, but I definitely feel the characters are headed in the right direction.  Provided below are some examples of the changes made.          

Chun-Li

The improvements to Chun-Li will allow her to play a stronger offensive game as she now has more opportunities to knock down

• HP increase to 950
• EX Kikoken knockdown on hit
• EX Hazanshu armor break

Balrog

The improvements to Balrog will allow for him to play a much more aggressive playstyle which he is known for.

• Dirty Bull now has longer range
• Buffalo head has reduced recovery
• Lower charge time for higher levels of Turn Around Punch

Dudley

The improvements to Dudley will allow him to go toe to toe with others at a distance a lot better than before.

• Short Swing Blow completely throw invincible
• Increased damage on all target combos
• Larger hitbox on attacks (e.g. Kidney Blow)

T.Hawk

The improvements to T.Hawk allow him to pressure the opponent better with new offensive options and movement, lowering his dependency on command grabs.

• Crouching middle kick now special cancelable
• Faster walk speed
• Improvements to Ultra 2

So with new characters, battle balance, and a slew of other features that will be slowly leaked out in the near future, I’m sure the question of price has been on your mind. To that extent, there are two options of ownership, the digital upgrade path and the stand alone disc.

If you own Super Street Fighter 4 or Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition, you can download the update for $14.99. This will upgrade the game as is, with all your data intact. The other option would be to buy the disc version, which will give you all DLC costumes for all characters released until now, as well as future content (to be discussed in the future). This option is available for $39.99.