Street Fighter 6 – Review
Our Score: 9/10
Street Fighter 6 is the latest entry in a legendary fighting game franchise that has stood the test of time and technology. Capcom has been on a roll of incredible game releases lately and Street Fighter 6 is now one of those games.
Streets Aren’t Rough
Visually the game is quite impressive. The new muscle system is pretty sick, especially when you see the muscle ripple and jiggle when in action. This makes moves feel weighty and punchy which in a game that’s all about the footsies, it’s great visual feedback. The game has some issues with hair rendering which looks like it has FSR even on PCs with it off. However the game runs great on all platforms and keeps performance parity even on the last gen PS4 consoles.
World Tour mode is visually less impressive. The NPC character models in particular look a bit flat and not as detailed but it’s not that big of a deal. The world and lighting is pretty good, especially Metro City at night. NPC framerate here is also lowered outside of combat which is a shame. They same to run at 15fps until you’re closer to them.
World Tour Returns
Unlike most story modes in fighting where you swap characters every chapter, that’s not the case here. Game has you slowly learn moves by picking a master. So you get to pick who you want to play as with their moveset. This makes it easier to learn character movesets. First, you get to create a custom character. You can make them as realistic or as wacky as you wish. You can also save character presets or use other people’s presets by inputting their “recipe code”. Your clothes also have stats that affect you like in RPG games, and like most good RPGs, this features a transmog system so you can look your best while also sporting the best gear.
World Tour also does a phenomal job of teaching you the basics of the game. Instead of it being one tutorial at the start and leaving you, it incorporates the skills in mini-games and challenges. So you get to practice by repetition at a very good pace. You can learn to do charge inputs or motion inputs through this. Or have a challenge to block for 10 seconds or get a perfect KO or how to hit enemies in the air. The game is constantly throwing these at you so you’re subtly building skills. Like in Karate Kid, you’re basically doing Wax-on, Wax-off.
The open world also features sidequests for you to get more gear, items and challenge your custom character’s skills further. The “Legends” or your master are really fun to interact with as well. They feel like characters and not cardboard cutouts of your favourite street fighter characters. And the cutscenes are pretty awesome in the world tour mode. They’re thankfully not boring conversations or simple images most of the times.
Taking It To The Streets
There are two ways to play online. You can either go to the battlehub and be in a public lobby with your avater or you can just do it from in the game menu and get matches while you train.
The online netcode is amazing. This is the most important aspect of any modern fighting game and Capcom have nailed it. I was able to play with people across the globe without any issues. Even if they had a bad connection or we were on 200ms ping, the game was smooth and felt more than playable. There’s also a lot of players around the initial skill level who are also learning. This leads to actually good matches against someone your level.
Also your rank is character dependent so you don’t have to worry about losing your main rank with a new character.
Training
Street Fighter 6 has phenomenal training and practice modes. First thing I did was jump into the character guide section which gives you the basic rundown of how to play a character, what their strengths are, their weakness, their prominent buttons etc. Then I went into Combo Trials for Ken and they’re actually good. There’s levels to it starting from beginner which has you to do basic combos, all the way up to those super crazy combos that are useless in matches. But these combo trials are great to see what your character is capable of, how moves can chain into each other and to even find combos you are comfortable with.
Then there’s the training mode. It’s got a plethora of options to practice different scenarios. They have presets to practice things like anti-air moves. Or you can set up your own. There’s a ton of options but the best feature is having a “Save State”. So if you want to practice something like a combo after a Level 3 Super, you can just save and load it at the end of the Super so you dont have to watch the whole cutscene every time.
There’s also an option to slow down gamespeed so you can practice inputting combos. And my favourite is the Framedata bar., If you know fighting games, you’ll have heard of framedata. It basically tells you the number of frames a move is active. This allows you to know whether you are faster afer a move or the opponent. It’s super vital once your’re used to the game. The game has an inbuilt setting that shows you the framedata and whether you’re in advantage, have armour or invulnerability etc. Now, you dont have to go to other websites to look up framedata or feel its super complicated. It’s very simplified.
And the best part is, the game has a breakdown of all this in the options of the training as well.
The tutorial is also there for all the 3 control types. Classic is your old school 6 button arcade style. Modern simplifies things by removing the need for motion or charge inputs so you can focus on the fighting rather than the input. And then there’s dynamic which is offline only and is basically for super newcomers to get a taste. The other two modes are tournament viable btw so you can use Modern controls in the official tournaments for the game.
Final Verdict
Street Fighter 6 is one of the best fighting games out there. It has fundamentally changed how fighting games should be and if you have even a slight interest in it, you should absolutely get this game. It’s an incredible game for both experienced players and newcomers.