Super Street Fighter IV 3D Review (7.5/10)

You remember Super Street Fighter IV, right? If not, let me bring you up to speed. In February 2009, the fourth full SF game hit stores and as per usual for the series was critically acclaimed. One year on, we got the Super version of that title, featuring new characters and locations and once again well-recieved by the gaming world. Last December, it was announced that Street Fighter VS Tekken, a compilation combining two of the best loved fighter franchises in one epic battle, due for release in early 2012. What you would expect, then, would be for Capcom to solely place their focus on that major new addition, but that's not the case at all! However, while Marvel VS Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (9.5/10) was a worthwhile endeavour by the developer, it's hard to shake the feeling that Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition, released this week exclusively for Nintendo 3DS, is a step too far. The core gameplay experience is fine: everything from the 2010 version is here, the visuals are overwhelmingly impressive for a 3DS game and the soundtrack is as great as it ever was. Trouble is, the majority of gamers who will enjoy this instalment for all its complex button-mashing (there are touch screen controls, but these aren't a good substitute) and bizarro plots are likely to already have placed either the original or last year's update, or both, and so aren't going to find anything new here. I don't think there's much more I can say about this one- Street Fighter has always been and will always be a more fun experience when friends are gathered   around the telly to trash talk one another during a competition, and this 3D Edition does nothing to change that. If, for some reason, you missed out on Street Fighter IV, this is a good place to learn the basics of the gameplay, but it's still no substitute for the real thing on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.