Street Fighter IV/Gameplay

The game has the same feel as Super Street Fighter II Turbo, with several features from Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. Pressing both light attack buttons is still for throwing, and both heavy attack buttons are for the personal action or taunts. Both medium attack buttons are for the saving strike. Dashes and quick standing are also in the game. At the moment, C.Viper is the only character who can perform a high jump.

Controls
One player may compete against the computer, or two players may simultaneously compete against each other. Each player has an 8-way joystick and 6 buttons.

Buttons
The buttons on the arcade are typically laid out in the following fashion: The L, M, and H stands for light, medium, and hard respectively. In general, light attacks are less powerful and faster, and hard attacks are more powerful but slower, with medium attacks in between.

Joystick
The joystick works intuitively in that pressing left will generally move your character left, and pressing right will generally move your character right. But it is more important to think in terms of relative direction. For this reason, all instructions are given with respect to forward and backward since the left and right directions change purpose when your character switches directions.
 * If your character is facing to the right, then pressing left on the joystick means backward, and pressing right on the joystick means forward.
 * If your character is facing to the left, then pressing left on the joystick means forward, and pressing right on the joystick means backward.

The following directions assume that your character is facing right, the starting direction of every fight for player one, who begins on the left side:

Focus Attacks
Focus Attacks (known as Saving Attacks in Japan) are a new addition in SFIV. Pressing and holding the medium punch and medium kick buttons together initiates a Focus Attack, with the length of time that the buttons are held down determining the strength of the attack. In addition, the move may absorb up to one enemy attack, turning the Focus Attack into an effective counter. At the lowest strength level a Focus Attack does regular damage and will cause the enemy to crumple if performed as a counter. At the second level the Focus Attack will cause the opponent to crumple regardless of whether it has been performed as a counter. At the maximum level the Focus Attack crumples the enemy and is unblockable. When the opponent crumples they are unable to block the next hit, allowing for a follow up attack.

Focus Attacks can be cancelled by dashing towards or away from the opponent.

Focus Attacks can be used to cancel various regular and special moves, at the cost of 2 segments of the Super Combo Gauge. Should the Focus Attack be cancelled in turn (by dashing) then further moves may be added to the combo.

Ono has stated that this system was incorporated in order to shift the emphasis away from combos and toward a more realistic system he has compared to boxing, in which "the skill is in reading your opponent's move before he starts moving … We haven't forgotten about combos and linked moves, but saving makes it so that you have to read your opponent." The system aims to make ground attacks as viable a way of approaching opponents as jumping was in previous games.

Super and Ultra Combos
Super Combos are character-specific powerful special moves that use up the entirety of the Super Combo Gauge when performed. This gauge is filled by damaging the opponent and by performing special moves.

Characters may also perform Ultra Combos, which use up the entirety of the Revenge Gauge. This gauge is filled by being damaged by the opponent. Ultra Combos are performed by executing a characters Super Combo but using 3 attack buttons. The Ultra is a long and cinematic move featuring a lengthy combination of punches, kicks, etc. Along with the regular Super moves, the Ultra is the only time wherein the camera breaks from its normal fixed position to offer a more dynamic, cinematic view of the action. In Super Street Fighter IV, you can now choose from more than one Ultra.

Online play
Street Fighter IV will feature online gaming and is the fifth game in the series to do so (the first four being Super Street Fighter II X for Matching Service which was only released in Japan for the Sega Dreamcast, the Xbox version of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection, the Xbox Live Arcade version of Street Fighter II Turbo and the latest being Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3). Unlike other games such as Virtua Fighter 5 or Tekken 6, Street Fighter IV will reportedly not feature any item collection or customization. Producer Ono is also looking into the possibility of utilizing microtransactions for future downloadable content updates which might include new characters and stages, however, he stated that the final decision for that would be up to the Capcom as a whole.

Bonus Rounds
It is intended that the car-smashing bonus rounds from earlier Street Fighter games will return. Ono has claimed, "They'll be in there if I have to program them myself!" although he noted that there may be problems if the game's vehicles resemble models by real-life manufacturers.

Development
Before producer Yoshinori Ono pitched the idea to Capcom R&D head Keiji Inafune, the prevailing attitude around Capcom was one where a new numeric entry to the Street Fighter series would not have been made. There was initially a lot of resistance to Ono's pitching of a new Street Fighter game so many years after the original. However, in light of fan clamor as well as the positive reaction to Street Fighter II': Hyper Fighting on Xbox Live Arcade, Ono's perseverance finally paid off when Inafune gave the greenlight to the project. This would be Ono's first take on a new entry of the Street Fighter series.

On October 17, 2007, a teaser video showing series stalwarts Ryu and Ken fighting using a heavily stylized cel-shaded art style made to mimic Japanese sumi-e art was released officially announcing the game.

The game runs on the Taito Type X2 arcade board inside a Taito Viewlix cabinet, marking the first time that a roman numeral Street Fighter game will run on non Capcom-proprietary hardware. The arcade release will take advantage of the Type X2's network capabilities and will allow players in separate machines within the same LAN to fight each other. A playable version was shown at the AOU show on February 18, 2008.

Graphics
The characters and environments will be rendered in 3D computer graphics and appear to use a stylized cel-shading effect to lend the characters and environments a hand-drawn look. The gameplay video featured a full 3D, cel-shaded environment and characters, fighting on a 2D plane that shifted and rotated. The version of the game shown to EGM ran at consistent 60 frames per second.

The character designs will stay true to the Street Fighter II style, though Akiman no longer works for Capcom. The art director and character designer for Street Fighter IV is Daigo Ikeno.