I remember the first time I played Street Fighter II. I waltzed into my local Blockbuster and said "gimme somma that there Street Fighter", and then played until I could no longer hold the controller. Little did I suspect that nine years later Capcom would still be cranking out new Street Fighter titles. For the EX series, Capcom has handed over the reins to Akira, a developer that consists largely of ex-Capcom and Square employees. How do they handle the series? Let's put it this way; they haven't done anything innovative enough to mess it up.

I'm going to be honest here; I'm tired of the Street Fighter series. Capcom has milked this franchise in ways I never though possible. Making sequels is fine, but making sequels that play just like its predecessors is not. Marvel vs. Capcom, SNK vs. Capcom, Ronald Mcdonald vs. Capcom, no matter what spin you put on it, the series is going nowhere. What Akira has tried to do is move the series into a pseudo 3D world, not a true 3D environment; that would be too big a step for the series to do all at once. That said, this game is not miserable, but I just want you to know where I am coming from.

Being the risk taker that I am, I'm going to mix up my review style this time around, so we'll take a look at the sound first. It's probably best I start here because this was my favorite part of the game. The music is not only well done, it sounds very good. In my opinion (which I suppose this whole review is) the music fits the mood, and does a nice job complementing the fighters. The sound effects are nicely done, although there is nothing revolutionary. Overall not a bad job in the audio department.

The gameplay is just like any other Street Fighter title. I haven't played Street Fighter with any regularity for many years, and I still knew all Ryu's moves. Other than a few simple combo maneuvers his moves are exactly as they were nine years ago. If you are a seasoned veteran, bump the difficulty up immediately, don't even waste your time on the default setting. I'm no Street Fighter expert, but I never lost a game on Normal difficulty. Don't be intimidated by this game being "3D" you can pick it up no problem. Why do I keep saying this game is not truly three-dimensional you ask? I'll tell you. The characters are composed of polygons, not sprite based like most of the SF games, but you fight on the same plane the whole time. There is no sidestepping, moving in and out of the background, nothing. If you perform a particularly devastating move, the camera will move around and get closer to the action. This is the only time that the game feels "3D" at all. Unfortunately when the camera zooms like this it is difficult to maintain perspective, making you vulnerable to attack.

Akira knows you've logged about 23,451 games of Street Fighter, so they did do an admirable job of adding options to the game. You can choose to fight in the Original mode, or Arena battle, which has Tag battle, and Dramatic Battle inside. The Original mode is where the meat of the gameplay is, and where I spent the most time playing. In this mode you select a character, and fight your way to Vega (known as M. Bison everywhere else). On your quest you are able to recruit your fallen opponents to help you on your quest. Once you have an ally, you can "tag" them by pressing L2 and R2. The computer also has allies, and will sometimes pit two, and sometimes three opponents against you at a time. This adds a nice twist to the gameplay, while keeping the feel of the original games. After you beat the game, and as the credits roll, the fight continues. In a nice touch, the computer sends six generic fighters after you. It only takes one hit to kill them, and it's not particularly challenging, but it is a nice touch. This is the only time I noticed any bad slowdown, but it was during the credits, so it was inconsequential. Even though I didn't have a problem with the game's speed, it didn't appear to run as fast as previous incarnations of the series. Capcom has promised the game will be optimized to run faster when it is released worldwide.

I also spent a fair amount of time using the Character edit mode. Since the Character edit mode was primarily in Japanese it was difficult for me to use, but I got the gist of it. You are given a character named "Ace", who has no special moves. You can purchase moves by accomplishing certain goals while fighting with him. This is a nice feature but it could use some more features, I can't fault Akira for putting it in though. Innovation is a GOOD thing.

The graphics are on a whole, unimpressive. The characters look respectable, though they could use some anti-aliasing. The backgrounds are pathetic. Playstation2 characters with Playstation quality backgrounds don't mix well, making this title look bad. The characters look like their 2D counterparts, and as one would expect from a SF game, are colored vividly. There are some nice effects when you pull off a special move or a combo, which helps take your mind off of the hideous backgrounds. The bad news for gamers worldwide is Capcom has not taken any measures to clean up the graphics for its domestic release so you are out of luck.

Those of you who love the series will probably enjoy the game. Those of you waiting for a great title to bring you back to the series probably won't enjoy it quite as much. Make no mistake about it, this game is fun to play, but so were the other fifteen SF games. I had the most fun playing this against friends, but friends aren't always around, and this title isn't much fun alone. There's just nothing new here to warrant spending $49.99 of your hard-earned dollars.