2D or not 2D, that is the question. Some say that it’s a dying art form, but that it doesn’t mean this fails to use the grunt that the Xbox 360 provides. The backdrops are beaming with colour and detail – even after notching up hours of play you’ll still spot new things – and the animation is astounding with screen-filling special moves and some clever shadowing effects. The 2D characters are a little pixilated – especially when compared to the artwork found in Guilty Gear and Blazblue: Calamity Trigger – but they can be made smoother via an option in the menus. Don’t make them too smooth though or they end up looking a tad blurry.
Amazingly, even though it has one dimension less than Street Fighter IV it feels remarkably similar. The character rooster is just as balanced while the online mode is also very alike. You need a bit of patience though – there aren’t that many people playing online at the moment, so you might find yourself sitting in a lobby on your lonesome or having to play the CPU until somebody real turns up. Or if you decide to enter somebody else’s lobby then you have to wait until they’ve finished fighting before challenging them. You can pick from ‘winner stays on’ or ‘looser stays on’ but as there’s no points system (in Street Fighter IV points were added or deducted from your profile depending if you won or lost a match) it’s not quite as enduring as Capcom’s brawler.