But there’s a few bugs to squash
[Update: Players have been reporting various bugs with the PS4 version across the net. While I didn’t encounter any of these in my roughly 20 hours of testing outside of the ones mentioned here, it’s important to be aware of them.]
Ryu and the gang are back yet again folks for another go at your wallet. The good news? Ultra Street Fighter IV on PS4 is legitimately one of the best releases yet, which is now available digitally for $25, clocking in at 14GB. It’s a good thing because for starters, the PS4 console installbase is thriving, leaving plenty of room for long-term community growth — until Street Fighter V presumably hits sometime next year of course.
It’s the smoothest it’s ever been, and I’ve had no real issues in terms of lag or framerate drops. Courtesy of Lab Zero’s drivers, PS3 fight sticks will work on Ultra Street Fighter IV, and in my experience, they work pretty well. Like Mortal Kombat X (and unlike Skullgirls 2nd Encore) though you’ll need to have a controller signed in and constantly connected for each arcade stick. The DualShock 4 yells at you now on the title screen, which is a plus.
Ultimately, if you count Super, Arcade Edition, and the previous Ultra upgrades, this is just another edition in a long line of re-releases, albeit without extra content. Although long-time fans who have been playing since 2008 (such as myself) will be able to spot the mechanical differences, the vast majority of the playerbase isn’t getting anything earth-shatteringly new.
For reference, Ultra previously introduced six stages and five characters (with all but one from Street Fighter X Tekken). Nothing has changed content-wise outside of included costume DLC.
At this point there are 44 characters in all, and you can select a fighting style from every different iteration of the game. It’s pretty comprehensive, but again, most people aren’t going to dig into all of the configurations for every fighter. In other words, if you already have a previous version of Ultra, especially on the PC, you’ll probably just want to stick with that, as it’s proven to work well at this point.
1080p60 on a console is nice, and only the most trained veterans will be able to notice the minor input lag from the previous generation to the PS4 — since it’s going to be the new de facto build for tournies, you can only assume this will be patched soon, but nothing has been confirmed yet from Capcom. The menus are a bit slower compared to other versions, which seems like a bug — still, it’s not a dealbreaker unless you compete at a high level.
In terms of my netcode testing, all of the matches I’ve played have been very smooth. My main issue has been finding games, which you can likely chalk up to a launch-day “wait and see” crowd. I can’t predict the future in terms of the adoption rate on PS4, but so far I don’t have any major issues to report. We’ll update you if that changes.
Ultra Street Figher IV [PSN]
