Ahhh Street Fighter 4.... I promised in-depth impressions, so here they are
The graphics, for one, are incredible. It strikes the perfect blend of realism to cartoon. Unlike, say, Dead or Alive, Street Fighter finds the sweet spot without looking to fake. Screen shots and videos look great, but you have to see it in real life. From Blanka's surprised eyes when Sagat initates his Ultra to the way a simple fireball looks, everything seems like it was nailed right on the head.
The sound effects seemed spot-on, although I couldn't really hear the music. All the voices and everything seem intact, which was nice.
The new Ultra system is great, as none of the ones I've seen yet have been particularly overpowered. It gives a fighting chance to anyone who eats a few attacks in a row. The strongest ones I've seen so far are Sagat's and Zangief's, but I've only seen about a 3rd of them.
The gameplay itself is off the hook. It's a perfect blend of old school gameplay with a few new school mechanics (button-press throws, Focus attacks, EX special moves). It's nice to play and have a 4 hit combo be worthwhile again. Seeing all the characters we played when we were younger recreated in smooth, detailed 3D models (SFEX doesn't count) is pretty awesome. They also re-did alot of attacks, as I noticed Sagat's medium kick looks completely different now. I only got to play as 3 characters (Sagat, Dhalsim and Zangief) because of the lines but they all had plenty of new animations to keep things interesting.
I busted off a nice win streak the first time I played the game (it was when I was Sagat). I was going up against a good Blanka player who had obviously been playing the game quite a bit since University Pinball got it, so I picked Sagat because A) I like him alot and wanted to see his new animations and B) Because Markman mentioned he was pretty buff. The match against the Blanka player went to the 5th round, but I pulled out the victory. It was pretty cool to have the scene going again (at least for awhile), as I got to play against 8 or 9 people before I had to face the same person again. When I picked Dhalsim, I went against a pretty decent Bison player and only got 1 round on him. Sim seems sooooo slow now, although I may have just been using him incorrectly. I couldn't really get anything to work out with him though and I was unimpressed by his Ultra (it's a huge fireball). With Zangief I had to play against the Blanka kid again and he was turtling like crazy and since I was Zangief (who I don't normally play) I didn't really know how to combat it. I used EX versions of the 360+K move which worked for awhile but I eventually lost. I don't even think I got a round. The game is straight up great though, the whole time the people I was with and the other guys playing were just shooting the shit about the game, talking about moves, new characters, who's good etc.... It was alot of fun.
I wasn't really sure how to use the Focus attack system well, but the kid that works there was using Ken and was taking advantage of it. You can somehow use it to counter-attack and trigger a stun on the opponent, but I didn't read up on the game much before I played so I wasn't sure how to do it.
Unfortunately, because some of the people were playing to win instead of to learn, I didn't get to try and of the new characters. I knew that I didn't stand a chance if I picked one of them, and I didn't wanna wait another 30-40 minutes to play again.
Also, Asian, I think you can use Tiger Knee as AA. It was working out for me, at least. EX Tiger Knee was pretty nasty in general, I was using the hell out of it during my streak.