[Console Games] Street Fighter 6 Review - Battle Hardened

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Capcom's flagship fighter is back in form with intricate but approachable fighting mechanics and a feature-rich package.In one play session, I'm honing my skills with my main man Zangief. In another, I'm walking a fully customized avatar through a bustling city, its streets lined with AI-controlled strangers I can challenge to battle at my leisure. In a third, that same avatar is dropped into a massive room filled with arcade cabinets and other players looking for a fight. Street Fighter 6 learns an immediate lesson from the content-bare release of its predecessor, as it offers a variety of significant features and modes right out of the gate. It is a robust, fighting game that is of a premiere quality. Street Fighter 6 is incredible; a return to form for the franchise that welcomes both new fighters and seasoned pros.

 

SF6 splits its content into three hubs: Fighting Ground, which most closely emulates the classic SF experience; Battle Hub, where players can congregate to challenge each other and compete in tournaments; and World Tour, which is a sprawling, globe-trotting story mode with an open world and RPG hooks. Each format centers around the classic Street Fighter style of 2D fighting gameplay, and that excellent core experience is what drives everything.Mechanically, Street Fighter 6 doesn't fall far from previous games in the series: You have multiple normal attacks, special attacks, Super Arts, and movement techniques specially designed for each of the roster's 18 characters. Some have an in-your-face style with heavy strikes and damaging throws, while others are better suited to keeping their distance and picking moments to strike. What distinguishes SF6 from previous iterations are the core universal mechanics shared by all characters. While the effects and execution are the same for each fighter, these mechanics have their own distinct flair and flourish of personality depending on the character you choose. These universal mechanics are also where much of Street Fighter 6's gameplay depth is.

 

The Drive system is SF6's new universal battle mechanic, and I'm amazed at how much it adds to a match despite being simple to grasp. By pressing the two medium attack buttons, I can parry an attack using Drive Parry, or, with Drive Rush, I can immediately dash forward out of it for a burst of speed that can catch opponents off guard or introduce new combo sequences. Functionally, players that are experienced with Street Fighter 4's Focus Attack Dash Cancel or Guilty Gear's Roman Cancels will feel right at home. By pressing both heavy attacks, I can initiate a Drive Impact that can stagger an opponent and leave them open, ensuring that overly defensive players can be opened up. If an opponent is backed into a corner, landing this will make them bounce off the wall, adding a variety of other strategic considerations and opportunities. Drive Reversals, meanwhile, allow me to block an attack and counter with a move that, while not very damaging, will help escape tricky spots. Finally, Overdrive lets me power up special attacks like the EX systems of old.These aren't unlimited, however, as each move uses up part of a Drive Gauge just below the health bar, and a fighter can "burn out," which slows their movement and makes certain offensive and defensive moves inaccessible for a period. The strategic implications of this system cannot be overstated, as these new tools do wonders for the overall fighting system. Drive Impacts in particular can swing the tide of battle in an instant, as catching an unsuspecting opponent with one will allow you to put a hurting on them. Keeping these tools in front of your mind is key to victory, and luckily it's not an overwhelming amount to recall. One of the major criticisms leveled at Street Fighter 5 was the rigidity of battles, with some going so far as to call it turn-based. However, these new mechanics make Street Fighter 6 feel more fluid.

 

Despite these differences, all 18 characters somehow feel balancedevenly matched. I imagine once the pros get their hands on the game, a few top fighters will emerge, but from the jump there was never a matchup I thought to be too difficult to overcome. Characters who have previously suffered in other areas have new abilities to make up for it--Zangief, for example, has a running throw with armor properties that can absorb projectiles, which are an old nemesis of his. The new fighters also fit right into the mold, perfectly complimenting the existing roster while also serving as a new puzzle for players to crack open. I've already seen some Manon players online that gave me nightmares, and can only imagine how much more potent these new faces will be in the hands of the Street Fighter faithful.No matter how simple Street Fighter 6 can seem, novice players are going to feel some trepidation when stepping into the ring for the first time. The game is ready for you, though, as Capcom has implemented a new Modern control scheme that makes controlling fighters more like Super Smash Bros. than traditional Street Fighter. This gives new players a foundation from which to learn, but that growth does have a ceiling. If you decide to transition to the Classic control scheme, players will need to learn the manual input controls that have been used since Street Fighter 2. While Modern controls did not translate well for me personally--I've been throwing quarter-circle Hadokens since I was six years old--I always appreciate the offer of a new stepping stone for novice players.

 

The easiest place to learn SF6, in either Modern or Classic style, is in Fighting Ground, which is the "traditional" SF experience. This is where you'll find familiar modes like Arcade Mode, online ranked and casual matches, and offline versus modes. This section's shining feature, however, is its Practice area, which houses some of the best in-game tutorials the series has ever had.Practice Mode has the classic freeform Training mode fans expect, but it also holds full tutorials for the game's core system as well as character guides and combo trials for all 18 characters on the roster. These character guides are a deep dive into what makes each fighter tick, as it explains not only their special moves, but also the best situations in which to use them. While I am a Zangief main, I've spent time in these modes to be confident enough with Marisa to take her online, and it didn't take me long to get there.

 

Street Fighter 6 is a robust, fighting game that is of a premiere quality ... Street Fighter 6 is incredible; a return to form for the franchise that welcomes both new fighters and seasoned prosan elegant one: I can activate my fight stick as "Player 1" and my normal controller as "Player 2," and switch between the two at will depending on if I'm moving around Metro City or fighting a Mad Gear member. While this does mean extra space is needed for two controllers at once, I appreciate the convenience of the easy switch every time I want to use it.

 

Your avatar also takes center stage in the Battle Hub, which is the final section of the Street Fighter 6 experience. This is basically a middle ground between World Tour and Fighting Ground, where players bring their avatars into a massive dome lined with arcade cabinets. You can sit down at a cabinet and wait for a challenger while training, or you can join a queue of players already seated, the digital equivalent of putting a quarter on the machine.

 

This brings me to one of the major sticking points of any fighting game in the modern era: Netcode. Street Fighter 6's netcode sings, no matter who I'm fighting or, incredibly, which server I'm logged into. I made sure to log into the North America, South America, and Asia servers during my review time, and nearly every match I played in all three felt like my opponent was sitting in the room next to me. That's not to say it's perfect, as personal internet connections also are a major factor in performance, but the advent of rollback netcode has been a major boon to the entire fighting genre, and Street Fighter 6 is the latest beneficiary. I had a couple of matches in the North America region that did have some netcode issues, but my online play experience as a whole has been overwhelmingly positive.f you want some variety, you can venture over to the classic games section of the hub, which offers full arcade ports of games from the classic Capcom catalog. Street Fighter 2, Final Fight, and Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo were all available during the review period, and every one of them ran beautifully both when playing free play and shooting for the top of the leaderboard in High Score Challenge. Or, if you want something more novel, you can walk into the center of the arena and challenge anyone in there to a fight using your avatar, with each fighter based on their current World Tour builds. These fights can get wacky whether you're in them or spectating them, and they were always a welcome change of pace after multiple matches at the arcade machines. I expect Battle Hub to be a major hangout when the game launches, and while I cannot predict how the online experience will hold up when that happens, I can say that my time for this review was clean as a sheet.

 

Fighting games in the modern age live on through their extra content, and Street Fighter 6 is no exception. Capcom has not only already confirmed the first four characters coming via downloadable content, but, much like Street Fighter 5, the game will feature its own economy complete with multiple currencies--Drive Tickets that are earned in-game, and Fighter Coins that can be earned in-game or purchased separately--as well as a battle pass which will offer avatar gear, emotes, and other perks in both a free and premium track. Given how strong the base game is, having more content and being able to play the game in different ways is an exciting prospectcan't get enough of Street Fighter 6. It's been my last thought when I go to bed and my first thought when I wake up. It has a beautifully constructed fighting system, but also offers modes that take the game very seriously and, in other cases, not seriously at all. There are some small issues with performance in World Tour, but none of those are enough to derail the overall package. With the releases of new Tekken and Mortal Kombat games, it very much feels like we're in a new golden era for the fighting game genre. Thankfully, Street Fighter 6 steps into the arena looking good and fighting fit.

 

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/street-fighter-6-review-battle-hardened/1900-6418073/