Street Fighter IV (2008): Arcade Specs, Cast and Credits
Street Fighter IV brought the series back to full-size competitive play in 2008. This sheet condenses the main facts about the original release.
Release and hardware
- Released: 18 July 2008.
- Arcade platform: Taito Type X2, built on a PC-style design with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400, Pentium 4 651 or Celeron D 352 processor and Intel High Definition Audio.
- Home versions: Windows PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, plus an iPhone OS release later updated (30 June 2011) as Street Fighter IV Volt: Battle Protocol.
Roster
The arcade game has seventeen playable fighters: the newcomers Abel, C. Viper, Rufus and El Fuerte, plus Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, E. Honda, Blanka, Zangief, Guile, Dhalsim, Balrog, Vega, Sagat and M. Bison, with Akuma hidden.
Home versions raise the total to twenty-five by adding Seth, Gouken, Dan, Fei Long, Sakura, Cammy, Gen and Rose, all unlockable. In the arcade, Seth and Gouken appear only as non-playable opponents.
Colours and stages
The arcade game gives each fighter two colours, while the home releases offer ten, eight of which must be unlocked.
The sixteen stages are Drive-in at Night (North America), Crowded Downtown (East Asia), Snowy Rail Yard (Europe), Inland Jungle (South America), Small Airfield (Africa), Beautiful Bay (South Asia), Old Temple (East Asia), Cruise Ship Stern (Europe), Historic Distillery (Europe), Deserted Temple (East Asia), Secret Laboratory (location unknown), Overpass (East Asia), Volcanic Rim (Oceania), Run-down Back Alley (East Asia), Morning Mist Bay (South Asia) and Pitch-black Jungle (South America). There is a seventeenth training stage, and in the home versions each stage has a variant with small cosmetic changes, selected with a shoulder button. The game has no bonus rounds.
Voice cast
Japanese and English voice actors are listed together for major roles, among them:
- Ryu: Hiroki Takahashi and Kyle Hebert
- Ken: Yuji Kishi and Reuben Langdon
- Chun-Li: Fumiko Orikasa and Laura Bailey
- Guile: Hiroki Yasumoto and Travis Willingham
- Sagat: Daisuke Endou and Isaac C. Singleton Jr.
- M. Bison: Norio Wakamoto and Gerald C. Rivers
- C. Viper: Mie Sonozaki and Michelle Ruff
- Akuma: Taketora and Dave Mallow
- Seth: Akio Ohtsuka and Michael McConnohie
Further pairings, Japanese first and English second:
- Blanka: Yuji Ueda and Talis Axelrod
- Dhalsim: Daisuke Egawa and Christopher Bevins
- E. Honda: Yoshikazu Nagano and Joe Dimucci
- Zangief: Kenta Miyake and Anthony Landor
- Vega: Junichi Suwabe and Doug Erholtz
- Balrog: Satoshi Tsuruoka and Bob Carter
- Abel: Kenji Takahashi and E. Jason Albrecht
- El Fuerte: Daisuke Ono and JB Blanc
- Rufus: Wataru Hatano and Chris Kent
- Dan: Toshiyuki Kusuda and Ted Sroka
- Sakura: Misato Fukuen and Brittney Harvey
- Fei Long: Yuichi Nakamura and Matthew Mercer
- Rose: Akeno Watanabe and Gina Grad
- Cammy: Miyuki Awashiro and Caitlin Glass
- Gen: Yohei Tadano and Michael Sorich
- Gouken: Toru Okawa and Rod Clarke
Key staff
- Director: Takashi Tsukamoto.
- Producer: Yoshinori Ono.
- Executive producers: Keiji Inafune, Takashi Nishiyama and Hiroshi Matsumoto.
- Main artist: Ikeno.
- Art director: Toshiyuki Kamei.
- Music: Hideyuki Fukasawa, with Masayuki Endou as sound director.
- Theme song: “The Next Door” by Exile.
- Opening movie: a 3D CG film directed by Toshio Ohashi, alongside 2D animated cutscenes directed by Tomio Yamauchi.
- Voice direction: Ryosuke Naya for Japanese and Taliesin Jaffe for English.
- Localisation: led by David Crislip, with translators for French, Italian, German, Spanish and Korean.
- Motion capture and animation: a large team of animators, modellers and effects artists, with several cooperating studios, including Dimps, Studio 4C and Polygon Pictures.
Capcom’s offices in Japan, the U.S., Europe and Korea each had marketing, production and quality assurance teams, and a long list of testers and support staff took part.
Further production notes
The game team included a lead game designer (Hirotoshi Shiozaki), battle designers (Taisaku Okada and Yasuyuki Oda), a technical manager (Hiroshi Waki) and a programming director (Ryosuke Nakano). Dozens of animators brought the fighters to life, while modellers, stage artists, effects specialists and interface designers built the look of the 3D-rendered, 2D-style gameplay.
The cutscenes were a significant project of their own. The 3D opening movie had its own art director, modelling, rigging, cloth simulation, lighting and compositing crews, and the 2D anime sequences involved a long roster of key animators, painters and background artists across multiple studios. Hideyuki Saito produced the animation and movie work.
Audio credits include a sound director, composer Hideyuki Fukasawa, and recording studios for both languages: Studio Mausu in Japan and Soundscape Inc. for English. The English voice recording was produced by Reiko Matsuo and Jonathan Klein, with John Sanacore as engineer.
The localisation team handled English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Korean text, with translators, editors, a content consultant and coordinators for each. Quality assurance involved managers, lead testers and a team of more than a dozen testers.
Marketing, publicity, licensing and support for the release came from Capcom’s divisions in Japan, North America, Europe and Korea, and a European stage guest list is also credited. The cooperating companies number several dozen, including animation, CG and voice production firms.
Why the credits matter
The sheer size of the credit list shows how far the series had come since its one-man-band origins in the late 1980s. The first game was made by a handful of people, while Street Fighter IV needed international teams for art, animation, voice work, localisation and testing. It also marks a return of several veterans: Takashi Nishiyama, who directed the original Street Fighter, and Hiroshi Matsumoto, who planned it, are both credited as executive producers here, linking the 2008 release back to the first arcade game of 1987.
Home console players also received extra content that the arcade lacked, including the full cast of unlockable fighters, extended colour options and alternate stage versions. Those additions make the home versions the fuller package.
