Street Fighter IV looks absolutely phenomenal, and with Capcom’s newest trailer released, the full cast of characters is revealed. You may remember Capcom’s first endeavor at updating Street Fighter to compete with the success of other 3-D fighters, such as Tekken, Virtual Fighter, and Soul Calibur. Ask anyone has been fortunate enough to play the arcade version, scattered very scarcely across the US, and they’d tell you that Capcom has returned to its roots and has abandoned Street Fighter Ex in a trash can, while offering a very innovative spin on their traditional 2-D fighter.

Although battles continue to occur on the 2D plane, character models and backgrounds have been given a three dimensional graphical overhaul, an aspect of the game that should have been rectified in one of the three Street Fighter III installments. This visual update is beautiful; dishing out hadokens, sonic booms and drunken Russian bear hugs has never looked so impressive, and puts SF:EX to shame. The game offers 25 playable characters, thats 8 more than the arcade version, including the two computer-controlled opponents, Gouken, Ryu and Ken’s sensei as well as Akuma’s brother, and Seth, the new boss character. In addition to the vast amount of characters, their moves were also updated. Keeping with tradition, classic moves from SFII remain with some added extensions, as well as brand new combinations, Ultimate attacks, and a new feature know as “focus attacks.” These focus attacks offer the ability to counter, as well as opening up numerous combinations with the ability to cancel moves.

Capcom has set Street Fighter IV for release on February 17th for the Xbox 360 and the PS3 for the US, and on the PC in the second quarter of 2009. It will be released worldwide almost simultaneously, with releases in Japan, the US, and Europe all within a week of each other.

Watch the 5-minute long gameplay and character introduction trailer here.

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