Online play is one of the best things about Street Fighter IV. I’ve encountered very little lag online, and sometimes it honestly feels like I’m playing against someone in the same room; it’s that good. There have been one or two occasions where there were problems, but that’s not Capcom’s fault and could have easily been my opponent running a P2P in the background. For those of you with no arcade and no dedicated fighting game fanbase where you live, playing this online is a great choice.

Are there any problems, though? A few, but they’re minor. Things like extra character colors, profile icons, and so on are mostly unlocked through challenges and some of them are either insane or poorly documented. For example, a challenge for Sakura might involve doing a combo of a jumping punch, a standing close punch, an EX hurricane kick, and juggling the opponent with her Ultra. That’s fine, but another combo using the exact same notation will instead require you to ’super cancel’ out of a special uppercut, and that’s not going to be immediately obvious to new players. A few other challenges require truly ridiculous finger speed, and this could be disappointing to others.

Perhaps more seriously is that while the metagame is still young, there may be a few problem characters. Chief among these is Sagat, who retains his incredible attack speed, reach, and hitting power from Capcom vs. SNK 2. Zangief also seems to be extremely powerful in the hands of good players, though it’s too early to tell if either of them will completely dominate the game.

Overall, this is a worthy new game in the series. It has enough familiarity and depth to appeal to genre veterans, but is simple enough that new players can get into it without being overwhelmed. I think it’s well worth the price of admission, and you should give it a try. Just do yourself a favor, and find a good Saturn clone pad or arcade stick. You’ll enjoy SF4 a lot more that way. The only real problem is the sheer number of players who think they’re being clever by only using Ryu/Ken/Akuma and trying fireball into uppercut traps; it’s pretty easy to defeat this sort of thing, but not exactly fun.

And for those wondering, “What about Super Turbo HD Remix?” I say to you: HD Remix and SF4 are different games and play differently enough that I enjoy both. Neither makes the other obsolete, and fighting fans would do well to try each one.