Last week players in Japan got their hands on Ultra Street Fighter IV for the first time. After the event players were able to go online and fill out an online survey highlighting their experience which you can read below.

Hey everyone, Tomoaki Ayano here.

It’s only been a week since the location test, but every night since I’ve been having dreams about balancing.

We held the location test in six locations throughout Japan, and many people provided us with valuable feedback. To everyone who gave us some of their precious weekend time to play the game and fill out the questionnaires, thank you very much! We’re going to use the data you gave us as the basis for our next round of balancing.

In today’s blog I’d like to share with you some of the data we collected. Please note that this data is from the web questionnaire only, as of Nov 24.

â– Please give us your overall impression of this Alpha location test.

Looks like most people were generally satisfied with the location test. The feeling I got at the test was that people were happy with the new characters and the balance changes for their own characters, but felt dissatisfied with the information given concerning the balance adjustments and the new battle systems. We’ll take this feedback to heart and try to eliminate the negatives for our next location test. We’d also like to respond to the people who wanted the location tests to be held a little closer to where they live!

â– Please give us your overall impression of the new characters Rolento, Poison, Hugo, and Elena.

Rolento

Poison

Hugo 

Elena

We’re still in the middle of balancing these characters, but comments like “Elena’s strong” and “Hugo’s weak,” and comparisons between Rolento’s current incarnation and his previous version are among the feedback we’ve got so far that really stands out. In particular we got a lot of opinions about Rolento’s slide.

For Poison, we received a lot of requests to increase her movement speed; and we also got a lot of feedback about her appearance… Seems like there are a lot of hidden Poison fans out there! Haha.

â– Please give us your overall impression of the new battle systems.

Ultra Combo Double

Red Focus Attack

Delayed Wakeup

Ultra Combo Double is the system we’ve received the most feedback about since its announcement. At the location tests, it seems there were a lot of players who took a liking to it. In particular, people who picked the new characters often chose the Ultra Combo Double option. However, there were many players who felt that the Ultra Combo Double option didn’t really suit their character, and boy did they let us know! We’ll be thinking of a way to address this before the final version is released.

As this was the first time most players saw Red Focus in action, they didn’t really get a good grasp of this new system and told us that they needed to spend more time using it. After they have played with it a lot more, I believe players will have a better understanding of the meter cost, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of using it. I think opinions will change as we hold more location tests.

Similarly, players also didn’t really get a chance to fully explore the delayed wakeup mechanic. This will also just take time and experience to get used to. I hope we can balance it in a way that will expand options for both the attacker and the defender.

Well, that’s all for this week. See you next week!

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As for the US location tests, those begin today! Players in Southern California will have their chance to play Ultra at Super Arcade for the next few days and I personally can’t wait to see what feedback comes back from the event. For those itching to watch the action live, you can tune into the Capcom Fighters channel either tomorrow or Sunday as we stream Ultra SFIV from 3pm-5pm (PT).