Accessibility, depth, ridiculous pre-match posturing: Capcom's latest has it all.
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Street Fighter 6 hands-on: The world warrior is relevant (and fun) again
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As a pretty serious Street Fighter player I've been really enjoying the huge information dump Capcom dropped on us, and the icing on the cake was definitely giving people hands-on access to the game. I've watched so much match footage trying to get a handle on the state of the game.
Until I can play it myself, and it's more finished, there's only so much I can really say, but I'm very positive on the state of things, and the dev team behind all of this. They are just so obviously pouring in a ton of love and details. It's already blowing the SFV launch out of the water and I think there's still a lot left to reveal.
Sam's excitement for it is really one of the best signs though. This is what Capcom needed, to get people who are gamers, but not necessarily hardcore fighting game players, to feel like this is something fun to pick up.
The emphasis on the new meter mechanics and their ease of use over long combos, the new 'easy' control scheme as training wheels for people who want to just pick up and play faster, and what I suspect is going to be be a robust single player experience could add up to bringing in an audience that hasn't been interested in Street Fighter for years.
Until I can play it myself, and it's more finished, there's only so much I can really say, but I'm very positive on the state of things, and the dev team behind all of this. They are just so obviously pouring in a ton of love and details. It's already blowing the SFV launch out of the water and I think there's still a lot left to reveal.
Sam's excitement for it is really one of the best signs though. This is what Capcom needed, to get people who are gamers, but not necessarily hardcore fighting game players, to feel like this is something fun to pick up.
The emphasis on the new meter mechanics and their ease of use over long combos, the new 'easy' control scheme as training wheels for people who want to just pick up and play faster, and what I suspect is going to be be a robust single player experience could add up to bringing in an audience that hasn't been interested in Street Fighter for years.
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What's this "classic" and "modern" controller?? I only recognise this:
Or this:
When it comes to Street Fighter games! Hmmpf.
(Though seriously, Fighting games is one type of game I can't see myself playing with a modern style controller)
(Though seriously, Fighting games is one type of game I can't see myself playing with a modern style controller)
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Are you able to combine control systems at all?
Hadoken is easy, even for the uniniated, with a moment's explanation "quarter-circle down to forward, then punch". Couple tries to get the timing down and it's very easy. Shoryuken is harder (for me at least - the motion is far less natural, as you can't roll your thumb around the d pad), but still doable. Meanwhile, there are many other specials and combos that are far more mechanically difficult to execute. I'd like to use Modern for simplicity's sake, with the option of performing the classic combos for greater control (weak/medium/fierce) where possible.
Maybe the L1/L2 buttons could be used as a "hold for classic combos" button?
Hadoken is easy, even for the uniniated, with a moment's explanation "quarter-circle down to forward, then punch". Couple tries to get the timing down and it's very easy. Shoryuken is harder (for me at least - the motion is far less natural, as you can't roll your thumb around the d pad), but still doable. Meanwhile, there are many other specials and combos that are far more mechanically difficult to execute. I'd like to use Modern for simplicity's sake, with the option of performing the classic combos for greater control (weak/medium/fierce) where possible.
Maybe the L1/L2 buttons could be used as a "hold for classic combos" button?
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The game looks beautiful in some instances and ugly as hell in other parts (like Chun-Li's face). I'm not going to knock it too hard as it still early days.
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No, it's one or the other.
And to be super clear, the modern control system is more limited. You will not get access to all the moves. It's clearly meant for more casual players to have a way to enjoy the game with less practice, and won't replace the original control scheme. I highly doubt it will have any relevance on a competitive level and will mostly be restricted to enjoying the single player content and the more entry levels of online play.
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I'm sorry, but what are these tiny little insignificant buttons? You aren't playing real Street Fighter unless you can break your hands on the controls!What's this "classic" and "modern" controller?? I only recognise this:
Or this:
When it comes to Street Fighter games! Hmmpf.
(Though seriously, Fighting games is one type of game I can't see myself playing with a modern style controller)
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Interesting with SF VI coming I'll finally be able to buy a version of SF V that contains all the characters and etc soon. I've been casually playing SF games since SF II game back in the early 90s and have all of them on Steam now. I'll stick to the classic scheme, but I have no issue with the modern for those who want it. My one pet peeve is I don't want my characters changing so bring back shaved Ryu got d*mnit. I get older, but my favorite characters stay the same lol. Hopefully they have shaved old school Ryu as a different skin.
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Do you ever write articles? I know that's not your job, but while you say that Sam's excitement for it is one of the best signs every time I see a fighting game review I usually jump to the comments to see what your thoughts are. No disrespect to Sam (I still usually read the article) but we all know how you feel about fighting games and I usually want to know your thoughts.
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You've been able to buy a complete version for a while now, all the characters and costumes etc. Goes on sale all the time too.
There's a basic arcade mode, but it's not what I would call jam packed with good single player content. One thing I'm excited about SF6 changing. But it does have the largest character roster of any Street Fighter game to date.
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This is the most I've been excited about Street Fighter in at least a decade.
The beta can't come soon enough.
The beta can't come soon enough.
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I do sometimes. I wrote our review for Mortal Kombat 11, and Marvel vs Capcom Infinite. I interviewed the creator of Guilty Gear. If I have a chance to contribute to our Street Fighter 6 coverage I'll take it, especially if I can get some early time with the game.
Am I jealous that Sam got to play it already? Sure! But I'm glad he went and did his proper games journalist time with it, and give his early impressions as someone who's "a real gamer" but not a "fighting game player". Really great to get that kind of impression, we need it.
Sam has a leg up on me here since he got to play it, and I haven't. But I've been cracking out on all the details and footage and analysis and talking with my fellow FGC friends about it and have a pretty decent handle I think on the current state of the game.
The biggest question mark right now is the parry system. It seems pretty strong, given that the timing is lenient and there are no high/low parries, and you can in theory fish for perfect parries every time. (Though it seems like you might not be able to perfect parry on wakeup?)
I'm thinking of it right now as more of a shield mechanic than a parry, since it seems like they're expecting you to use it a lot to prevent your drive gauge being chipped out, and not necessarily to punish light and medium attacks.
One of the things that's neat about 6 is how they're drawing from every previous game's systems, but in new ways. So the drive gauge is new, but the way it can be chipped down and expose you to burnout is much like Alpha 3's guard gauge. And also like Alpha 3 you start the round with meter stocked.
We have SFIV-like focus attacks and FADC. Third Strike-ish parries. Access to multiple styles and levels of super like Alpha 2. And as we saw from the Guile trailer they're not afraid to bring back SFV's v-trigger as a super install, and his v-skill has become a normal special move.
I have a lot of confidence in this dev team, they're doing things right, all the signs look good, so I'm not overly worried. They'll tune it as they go, and patch it later as high level play exposes initial balance problems. But that's definitely the part I'm the most curious about how it will play out.
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The challenge with balancing move mechanics is that motion controls aren't just legacy, or 'gatekeeping', they serve a function in the way the game plays.
So to do a dragon punch/shoryuken you have to press forward, down, down-forward. It's not super tricky, but it does mean letting go of block or walking backwards and changing up what you're doing. If someone is jumping at you and you want to DP them out of the air you have to be anticipating it a bit or it's going to be harder to get that move out in time.
If you replace your DP with a simple button press it becomes much more powerful, because reacting with it in neutral becomes easier.
What I see Capcom doing is simplifying the Modern controls to give you some of that ease, but balancing it out by keeping it simple. You don't get all of your normals, just a selection of punches and kicks. You don't get all the different speeds of a fireball, or strengths of a DP, just a basic one.
So you get the easy to do button presses, you can react fast, you make less mistakes on execution, but you work with a more limited toolset. That means once you graduate up to higher level play, where those easy DPs could be a balance problem, you're also running against the issue of not playing with the full kit that high level play takes advantage of.
I think it's probably an elegant solution. And still plenty fun for casual players to use for all the single player content that's hopefully coming. Without creating competitive balance problems for more serious players.
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My question is, how hard will it be to transition from "modern" to "classic" controls? That seems not a learning "curve" so much as a learning "cliff".
I feel like anyone who has any desire to be truly competitive in this game should probably stick to "classic".
Or maybe they'll do a "modern" class and a "classic" class at tournaments.
I feel like anyone who has any desire to be truly competitive in this game should probably stick to "classic".
Or maybe they'll do a "modern" class and a "classic" class at tournaments.
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I think less hard than you're making it out to be.
Much of learning fighting games has nothing to do with getting good at quarter circle motions. Moving around the screen, understanding spacing and when to press buttons, and in this game just learning the various drive systems, will be the bulk of the real work.
Once you're more comfortable with that going into training mode for a bit to mess with throwing fireballs won't feel intimidating I don't think.
Also, if you haven't played a modern Street Fighter and are thinking back to the old SF2 style days, the input leniency is much better now. It's way easier to be consistent, the game engines are very forgiving with "I'm pretty sure you meant to throw a fireball there".
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My advice as someone that played Killer Instinct for a while with combo assist enabled before realising what it was is to just skip the "modern" controls entirely if you have any desire to be competitive or just learn the game properly.
If, on the other hand, you just want to play casually with your friends while drinking beer then the "modern" controls are a good fit.
Unfortunately fighting games are one of those genres where a little practise goes a long way and it's very easy to end up in a spot where in real world terms you're pretty bad at the game but at the same time also overwhelmingly better than your friends who basically never play. For those guys the modern controls will be great since it will allow them to just hit buttons and stuff will come out.
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Wow. I'm so excited by this news, I'm breaking out my Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie on VHS (that's no typo!) tonight.
Say what you will about the movie, but I loved it: The soundtrack, the fights, the opening...being Gen X isn't all bad!
Say what you will about the movie, but I loved it: The soundtrack, the fights, the opening...being Gen X isn't all bad!
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BloodyCactus
Ars Praefectus
is jamie and luke supposed to retire off ryu+ken? i kinda lack interest in all the new characters. still never got fei long in sfv the roster feels so bloated now.
the roster feels so bloated now.
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Don't get me wrong, I see it as an excellent solution for a mechanically complex game. I understand why the inputs are what they are, and I'm not accusing anyone of gatekeeping or anything like that.
Idk, maybe I just need a proper single player mode (with various difficulty levels) to learn the controls properly. I was bad at Super Smash Bros until I set out to get all the trophies in Melee, which required me to get much MUCH better at the game. The muscle memory I learned from that has transferred to later games in the series and I've maintained my skills. My primary experience with SF (and most fighters in general, with SSB and Soul Calibur being the exceptions) in on cabinets, where I haven't had the time (or quarters) to develop the skills necessary to compete.
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It was a great film, though the English dubbing was... okay. I have a soft spot for 90s dubbing of Japanese shows/films, but I can't deny that the dub does not exactly hold up, at least compared to stuff like Slayers or Evangelion.
is jamie and luke supposed to retire off ryu+ken? i kinda lack interest in all the new characters. still never got fei long in sfv
I mean, the last two main entries in the series had 40+ fighters, and the Alpha series eventually broke 30+, so it's not like SF has been lean for at least 20 years now. And while Ryu/Ken are iconic, they've been slated for replacement since about 1997. Either that, or have them play the role of old masters fostering the new generation rather than centerpieces.
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I've never been a competitive Street Fighter player -- more of a casual fan that buys a current-gen system for a new entry -- and the buzz and information around SF6 is exciting. Capcom seems to be making up for the faulty SFV launch, and I'm eager to see how things go.
Also, Sam's enthusiasm and write-up did a great job in providing excellent info and a supportive, fun fandom.
Also, Sam's enthusiasm and write-up did a great job in providing excellent info and a supportive, fun fandom.
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They put a lot of work into making it look nice (I need to buy a new copy of The Complete Works of Street Fighter II Movie 映画資料全集 to replace one destroyed in a flood）and the Japanese OST complements the visuals quite well for the most part. However, it doesn't really work well as a motion picture extravaganza. It's nice to see your favourite characters but there are too many, it has a weak story, and most fights are shockingly brief, which is a bit of a let down for a feature film based on a fighting game.
I was also not thrilled that the English dub replaced all the music with random other music. (I bought both volumes, which apparently use QSound.)
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I get it, but I really feel the opposite. If we go by the rumored roster leak, which seems pretty legit, we're getting all 8 original World Warriors back, and 8 brand new characters, and I'm way more excited about the new characters.is jamie and luke supposed to retire off ryu+ken? i kinda lack interest in all the new characters. still never got fei long in sfv
I've played the old ones for years. I know what they're about. Fresh ideas and fresh blood excites me. I think they're keeping the original 8 as a hedge, it's a way to make sure people who haven't played in a while or have nostalgia for the old games have something familiar. And it's smart.
But new thinking for the series is awesome, one of the reasons I'm looking forward to all the reveals. Seeing a new character trailer is going to be great for my hype levels.
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I've not been a fighting game guy for literally decades at this point, so I'm never going to be the target market for a game like this.
That said, I like the way it looks, though as in every game except Smash, there are just too many moves to keep track of.
That said, I like the way it looks, though as in every game except Smash, there are just too many moves to keep track of.
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The Modern control scheme is basically designed for you then. It controls like Smash, direction+button, and it also tones down the number of moves to keep track of. You only need to think about something like forward, back, and down + a special button.
Time will tell how it works out, but I think they're smart to realize that there's an audience that finds the number of things to think about overwhelming. And I don't blame you, I've got thousands of hours into playing these games, it's not reasonable for anyone to think that's normal. And when I pick up a new character in a game even with all that experience it takes me a while to sort out remembering all their moves too.
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Even Smash has somewhere over 1000 different moves at this point. You can learn each individual character pretty quickly, which is all you really need to play casually and have a good time, but if you are playing competitively you also need to know all the moves your opponent might do and how to shield/dodge/punish those moves, how to recover from them if you can't avoid the hit, not to mention the movement differences between characters.
The difference with Smash is that the moves themselves aren't remotely mechanically difficult to perform, so you can spend most of your time learning how to use the moves effectively, rather than just practicing how to use them at all.
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[I do sometimes. I wrote our review for Mortal Kombat 11, and Marvel vs Capcom Infinite. I interviewed the creator of Guilty Gear. If I have a chance to contribute to our Street Fighter 6 coverage I'll take it, especially if I can get some early time with the game.
Am I jealous that Sam got to play it already? Sure! But I'm glad he went and did his proper games journalist time with it, and give his early impressions as someone who's "a real gamer" but not a "fighting game player". Really great to get that kind of impression, we need it.
Sam has a leg up on me here since he got to play it, and I haven't. But I've been cracking out on all the details and footage and analysis and talking with my fellow FGC friends about it and have a pretty decent handle I think on the current state of the game.
Even as I read this article, I was already thinking, I would like TWO reviews (or a two-part?) when the final game is released.
As an old-school hardcore fight-gamer, I want the details and nitty-gritty from Aurich (Deep-dive into the netcode is always a good read)
But as someone who has also let life interfere with getting any significant play time, I really want to hear what Sam thinks
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I used to be a Street fighter guy until Soulcalibur came along and redefined how well the combo cross fighting controls could work.
Now , I'm too old to be competitive beyond the occasional local versus. But I found SF5 incredibly boring.
Now , I'm too old to be competitive beyond the occasional local versus. But I found SF5 incredibly boring.
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Not sure why you got a downvote. There are so many great fighting games under the sun that not liking this one or that one isn't really something that deserves downvotes.
I'm sure plenty of people find this or that game subjectively boring or uninteresting. It's not a big deal
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I loved Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat in the arcade as a teen in the early 90's, sadly as I've aged and the aches and pains of the 40's means my hands just can't do the special moves reliably anymore, and I've given up on trying any of the modern fighting games... This easy mode may get laughed at by the purists, but it looks like I may be able to enjoy playing a fighting game again, arthritic knuckles be damned. Looking forward to trying this with my son (who will probably still wipe the floor with me).
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I don't think that's really true outside of Tekken 7, and even there it's a bit more nuanced of a discussion.
In reality the majority of motions I've seen across a bunch of games are generally of the half-circle/quarter-circle forward/back motion or variations on that (E.g. DP being forward-down-forward, etc).
Now I guess if we're talking combo strings there are definitely some crazy ones but you certainly don't have to be able to pull of some 20 button string to just enjoy the game or even necessarily be competitive...
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Does Smash really have fewer moves? Or does it just feel that way because they're mainly assigned to directions?
Just going by Captain Falcon in Melee, I count 10 ground normals, 5 air normals, 4 ground specials, 4 air specials, and 2 grabs which lead to 4 throws. I wouldn't say (many) other fighting games/characters have significantly more moves than that. (And with that Modern control scheme in SF6, I think some characters could well have fewer that that.)
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It was a great film, though the English dubbing was... okay. I have a soft spot for 90s dubbing of Japanese shows/films, but I can't deny that the dub does not exactly hold up, at least compared to stuff like Slayers or Evangelion.
is jamie and luke supposed to retire off ryu+ken? i kinda lack interest in all the new characters. still never got fei long in sfv
I mean, the last two main entries in the series had 40+ fighters, and the Alpha series eventually broke 30+, so it's not like SF has been lean for at least 20 years now. And while Ryu/Ken are iconic, they've been slated for replacement since about 1997. Either that, or have them play the role of old masters fostering the new generation rather than centerpieces.
I'm glad my favorite (Chun-Li) is coming back for SF6 but I can see why some would be upset about Ryu/Ken. Why does one old character need "replacement" when other old characters do not receive calls to be replaced?
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