Street Fighter VI is incredible.
It surpassed my expectations—partially because my expectations were low (based on everyone's experience buying new PC releases, expecting day one developer apologies, glitches and bugs, overpriced pre-order and deluxe packages, etcetera)—but also because Street Fighter is a fighting game series, and despite liking the aspect of muscle and grappling, I've never been a fighting game player.
But then they released the Demo. That's already worth a bunch of points, because demos are rare these days. Then, the quality of the demo: the character customization is incredibly accommodating and varied—and the finer things such as limb-length affecting your striking range, just show the level of detail they were looking at. Then the open world. Wow, completely not expected. Though the demo was fairly small in scope, it becomes clear in the full game that Street Fighter 6 isn't just a Street Fighter game, it's a Final Fight game.
Capcom made a homage to Final Fight's arcade days, and combined it with the modern styling of Street Fighter, to produce a cleverly built single-player experience that's equal parts exploration, story, 1-on-1 fighting, and arcade-style beat-em-up. You get to do all this as your own character, mixing and matching Fighting Styles and Special Moves from the Street Fighter cast, and further tweaking your experience with various skill trees. Though clothing is somewhat limited, the customization still there...and as icing on the cake, everything you do carries over into the Battle Hub.
The Battle Hub is the online social lobby where you can hang out with 60+ over characters (switching to different servers at will to meet new players/network needs), chat, whisper, challenge to 1v1 using the SF6 cast, or do the most incredible thing: Avatar Battles, where your single player progress and experience carries over into a match-up with whomever you challenge. It's incentive to play single player to unlock all the SF6 Characters' fighting styles, and use them as your own custom character. Awesome.
The controls are what absolutely sold the game for me. The "Classic" scheme is the traditional "quarter-circle-back, quarter-circle-forward + Heavy Attack", but the Modern scheme is what will introduce a whole new generation to fighting games. Modern Controls make it simple: Light, Medium, Heavy, Special. No longer do you have to memorize complex combos and struggle to execute them flawlessly: you can use a "Combo Assist" button that lets you partially mash (while still needing to paying attention to your timing and execution), thereby simplifying the experience...while still letting you perform the Classic specials if you know the combination.
The community, so far, seems on the goofy side: what happens when you give a bunch of SF/Tekken Fighting Game players full character customization? Some really crazy and horrifically misshapen stuff, lol. Yet, so far, the community seems fairly nice and friendly. There's an emphasis on challenge, but the competitive edge isn't quite there in the experiences I've had so far. Instead, it's been about fostering experience and practice: the focus is less on Winning a match, and more on Learning from the match. Win or lose, you practice what you can, learn what you can, and strive to get better over time—a theme that runs through the single player story as well, in fact.
It's incredible, well-balanced as Fighting Games strive to be, very well put together, and amazingly accessible. I haven't personally experienced any bugs yet, not a single crash—and that's a rarity these days for a new AAA release. So yeah. I'm impressed.
Well, with all that typed, the dude in the screenshots above is my character in SF6, so if you play a huge musclebound brute and wanna use E. Honda's style to bearhug this goofball in some Avatar Battles, just add me!
Character Name: Bronx
Capcom ID: 4010264477
It surpassed my expectations—partially because my expectations were low (based on everyone's experience buying new PC releases, expecting day one developer apologies, glitches and bugs, overpriced pre-order and deluxe packages, etcetera)—but also because Street Fighter is a fighting game series, and despite liking the aspect of muscle and grappling, I've never been a fighting game player.
But then they released the Demo. That's already worth a bunch of points, because demos are rare these days. Then, the quality of the demo: the character customization is incredibly accommodating and varied—and the finer things such as limb-length affecting your striking range, just show the level of detail they were looking at. Then the open world. Wow, completely not expected. Though the demo was fairly small in scope, it becomes clear in the full game that Street Fighter 6 isn't just a Street Fighter game, it's a Final Fight game.
Capcom made a homage to Final Fight's arcade days, and combined it with the modern styling of Street Fighter, to produce a cleverly built single-player experience that's equal parts exploration, story, 1-on-1 fighting, and arcade-style beat-em-up. You get to do all this as your own character, mixing and matching Fighting Styles and Special Moves from the Street Fighter cast, and further tweaking your experience with various skill trees. Though clothing is somewhat limited, the customization still there...and as icing on the cake, everything you do carries over into the Battle Hub.
The Battle Hub is the online social lobby where you can hang out with 60+ over characters (switching to different servers at will to meet new players/network needs), chat, whisper, challenge to 1v1 using the SF6 cast, or do the most incredible thing: Avatar Battles, where your single player progress and experience carries over into a match-up with whomever you challenge. It's incentive to play single player to unlock all the SF6 Characters' fighting styles, and use them as your own custom character. Awesome.
The controls are what absolutely sold the game for me. The "Classic" scheme is the traditional "quarter-circle-back, quarter-circle-forward + Heavy Attack", but the Modern scheme is what will introduce a whole new generation to fighting games. Modern Controls make it simple: Light, Medium, Heavy, Special. No longer do you have to memorize complex combos and struggle to execute them flawlessly: you can use a "Combo Assist" button that lets you partially mash (while still needing to paying attention to your timing and execution), thereby simplifying the experience...while still letting you perform the Classic specials if you know the combination.
The community, so far, seems on the goofy side: what happens when you give a bunch of SF/Tekken Fighting Game players full character customization? Some really crazy and horrifically misshapen stuff, lol. Yet, so far, the community seems fairly nice and friendly. There's an emphasis on challenge, but the competitive edge isn't quite there in the experiences I've had so far. Instead, it's been about fostering experience and practice: the focus is less on Winning a match, and more on Learning from the match. Win or lose, you practice what you can, learn what you can, and strive to get better over time—a theme that runs through the single player story as well, in fact.
It's incredible, well-balanced as Fighting Games strive to be, very well put together, and amazingly accessible. I haven't personally experienced any bugs yet, not a single crash—and that's a rarity these days for a new AAA release. So yeah. I'm impressed.
Well, with all that typed, the dude in the screenshots above is my character in SF6, so if you play a huge musclebound brute and wanna use E. Honda's style to bearhug this goofball in some Avatar Battles, just add me!
Character Name: Bronx
Capcom ID: 4010264477
Category Screenshots / Muscle
Species Human
Gender Male
Size 1920 x 1080px
Listed in Folders
I typed a lot, so to summarize:
The dude in the screenshots above is my character in SF6, so if you play a huge musclebound brute and wanna use E. Honda's style to bearhug this goofball in some Avatar Battles, just add me!
Character Name: Bronx
Capcom ID: 4010264477
The dude in the screenshots above is my character in SF6, so if you play a huge musclebound brute and wanna use E. Honda's style to bearhug this goofball in some Avatar Battles, just add me!
Character Name: Bronx
Capcom ID: 4010264477
Thanks for the in depth review! Knowing i don’t have to try do rotation move inputs on keyboard makes the game so much more appealing, and knowing that there’s a single player story mode is wonderful! Fingers crossed it goes on sale next month for the summer fest. But I may still get it even if it doesn’t
Hugely positive perspective there buddy—exactly the kind of inspiration I'm hoping can be shared with folks!
I say the game is worth it for people who have even a bare minimum interest in brawling games, whether that's fighting, beat-em-up, wrestling or otherwise, just because of how incredibly accessible it is. But you're absolutely right about waiting for a sale, that's a choice everyone should consider these days. But because of that, I really hope the game experiences multiple waves of new players, keeping the community fresh with folks looking to learn, improve, and enjoy the game.
I took a gamble based on my experience with the demo and what I learned about how the rest of the game would play...and so far it hasn't disappointed me. Many cheers for the appreciation of my little review there, definitely glad I could be a even a little bit helpful!
I say the game is worth it for people who have even a bare minimum interest in brawling games, whether that's fighting, beat-em-up, wrestling or otherwise, just because of how incredibly accessible it is. But you're absolutely right about waiting for a sale, that's a choice everyone should consider these days. But because of that, I really hope the game experiences multiple waves of new players, keeping the community fresh with folks looking to learn, improve, and enjoy the game.
I took a gamble based on my experience with the demo and what I learned about how the rest of the game would play...and so far it hasn't disappointed me. Many cheers for the appreciation of my little review there, definitely glad I could be a even a little bit helpful!
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