Super Street Fighter IV: relearning everything from scratch

I'm amazed at how my view of Street Fighter has become refreshed with Super Street Fighter IV. Nothing overly major was changed. What has changed are only smaller tweaks to the overall game, but it's amazing how different a character like Rufus, my main pick from the previous game, can be so different with just a different ultra move.

Ten new characters were introduced to the game and the only other major change to game play was that every character, new and old, has two ultras to pick before a match, meaning old characters received a new one.

My old pick, Rufus, received a new ultra called big bang typhoon. While his old ultra, space opera symphony, was a powerful juggle combo that was considered by many one of the best moves in the game for it's versatility, big bang typhoon was dismissed as a simple anti-air ultra with less capacity to combo into it than his first ultra.

Then I tried it in online matchmaking and decided to stick by it except for certain match ups that demand space opera symphony. Why did I choose an ultra combo that even experienced players dismissed? For punishing mistakes online. BBT is extremely useful to use whenever your opponent makes mistakes from far away since it not only moves Rufus forward but also has a vacuum affect that interrupts them.

Just one different move and suddenly I want to experiment with the game all over again. I jump onto training mode test it on a variety of scenarios like baiting fireballs and punishing whiffs.

The same thing can be said of other characters. Zangief got a new ultra that crushes dragon punch attempts. Guile got sonic hurricane, something many thinks he can actually use unlike his old one. And Bison has a new ultra that let's him leap over annoying fireball spam. Factor in the ten new characters and their own two ultras and you get a reason why Super Street Fighter IV is such a big deal.

The match ups change greatly. Your experience in a fighting game is basically about the match up between your character choice and who your opponent chooses. Suddenly people who threw so many fireballs against me must be careful of big bang typhoon as it goes through fireballs. If Hakan chooses oil combination hold, suddenly I can't jump anymore for fear of his ultra since it catches jumpers.

If you think this game is an inconsequential remix to the original, you are sorely mistaken. The battlefield has changed considerably with the rise of the likes of Cody and Juri. While last year's SFIV revived the fighting game genre, SSFIV keeps the train chugging at a considerable pace.

It's also worth mentioning that the music is actually good for once.