Still Playing: Super Street Fighter IV

After hundreds of hours of playtime across Street Fighter IV's four major revisions, I ought to be a lot better at it than I actually am. The more of the game I watch - and I watch it a lot, too much perhaps, from weekend tournament streams to lunchtime YouTube binges - the more I understand about Capcom's remarkable fighting game. I'm just not getting any better at it. I have an Xbox Live win rate of 50.8 per cent; I am the very definition of slightly above average.

It's taken Capcom a while to get there, but a consensus is rapidly beginning to form that this is the most finely balanced Street Fighter game there's ever been. 2010's Super SFIV came close, but Capcom undid all that good work with 2011's Arcade Edition (AE), inexplicably nerfing some of the less powerful characters and releasing a game dominated by just a handful - Third Strike's Hong Kong twins Yun and Yang, their countryman Fei Long, SFIV newcomer C Viper, final boss Seth.

The most recent balance patch, named Arcade Edition ver 2012 - only Capcom could give a patch an official title and make you wait several months for it - has addressed almost every complaint Street Fighter IV's passionate community had about AE. There is no consensus on the top ten characters, let alone the top five. At last month's Evo 2012, essentially the fighting game world championships, each of the top eight finalists played a different character.

The finer points of balance affect me as a spectator, sure, but not so much as a player. Balance is assessed on the understanding that all players are of equal skill, able to perform the game's trickiest combos and capitalise on the smallest of openings without their execution letting them down. I am not one of those people. In my hands, everyone is mid-tier at best.

It has, however, had a positive effect on the Xbox Live experience. The early days of Street Fighter IV online matched you up against Ken after Ken; as the game aged and the casual players drifted away, Ken was replaced by Ryu. The Ryu match isn't especially hard - in fact, it isn't at all, as facing him so many times means I know the match inside out - it's just frightfully dull. The community has shorthand for boring Ryu players: Dryus. They're gone now, mostly.

I've changed characters several times during SFIV's lifespan. I gave up on Ken, to whom I'd been loyal for about 15 years, when the volume of Xbox Live hatemail and sideways workplace glances became too much. I learned Rufus, then dropped him after he began to dominate US tournaments and I felt guilty; no-one wants to be accused of tier whoring. I picked up Seth, only to drift away when it became clear that you needed skill far beyond my meagre abilities to compensate for his glass jaw (he has the lowest health in the game).

My current obsession is Evil Ryu, which I realise is odd given my thoughts on his non-evil equivalent. He's another glass cannon, with low health but high damage output and some of the flashiest combos in the game. I learned long ago not to care about winning or losing - you already know my win rate - and instead set myself little personal goals in matches. Land that combo; try out that new set-up in the corner; spend three entire rounds coaching an opponent into making a single specific mistake at the very end of the match. It's these little meta-games that dampen the impact of a hard-to-take loss, that keep me coming back time after time.

Rose Ball is the best of the bunch, though. One of Rose's special moves, Soul Reflect, deflects an opponent's projectile back at them. Both players pick her and jump back at the start of the round; one throws a fireball, and the game begins. It's a test of execution - the timing's quite tight - but really it's about the little things you can do to change the pace and put your opponent off: the slightest step forward can make a huge difference against a foe who's just settled into a rhythm. It's best in local multiplayer, set to best of seven rounds and with both players starting with a sliver of health so that the first hit means death, but it's a rare delight online, too.

There's a regular group I play with. Some are better than others; most are better than me. But at one point late in a session - just as the wine's running out, normally - someone hits the random select button, and for the rest of the evening, the usual gripes about character balance and cheap tactics, the fear of losing and being sent to the back of a waiting line of eight players, couldn't be further from your thoughts. Suddenly you're playing Street Fighter as designed by the Three Stooges, a slapstick melee of dropped combos and fluffed inputs, where players try to win entire matches with throws, and missed opportunities are countered not with massive damage but a cheeky taunt. Where the tension evaporates and an entire eight-player lobby - your opponent included - loudly cheers every rare moment of skill. Where you're as close as you're ever going to get to those multiplayer sessions in Street Fighter's first heyday, the smoky basement arcades and crowded living rooms of years past. Where the game rules are changed on a whim, and balance is yours to define.