Ha-Dou-Ken!

I have a soft spot for Capcom's Street Fighter series. It began with Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, carried over to the subsequent Alpha/Zero iterations, and more or less died down with the revamped cast of characters that accompanied the release of Street Fighter III. Because the attempt to render it in full-blown 3D has more or less been a disappointment, nearly ten years have passed since anything new worth writing home about has happened to this beloved fighting game.

That is, until Capcom released a trailer teasing at an upcoming Street Fighter IV already in development. So this is me (very belatedly) "writing home" about it.

Gamer or no, one has to concede that it's a very well made and, dare I say, stylish trailer. The manner in which the characters' sparring was rendered is quite cinematic, with the brushstroke motif making it look all the more classy. Further, there's a ton of fan service throughout the clip, the most satisfying of which just has to be the uber-fantastic Ha-Dou-Ken! at the very end.



In the onrush of speculation that followed, arguably the best is the following feature from GameTrailers dissecting the Capcom clip. It's very much worth playing if only for the catchy tunes (a remixed version of the background music from Zangief's stage).



Reading too much into it? Maybe. But as the initial development-stage gameplay footage go to show, a fair amount of the speculation has been spot on. Truly, it's a great time to be a Street Fighter fan.