Street Fighter as a series… as a franchise… is the brass ring of fighting games. Street Fighter 2 is arguably the template that all other fighters are judged by, and its subsequent releases have been a series of peaks and valleys that follow in the spirit of that seminal release. So, here we are at the release of Street Fighter V… and it’s a mixed bag to say the least. It’s a fighting game that plays well enough, but is that enough to warrant your sixty dollars? At least, at this point in its release cycle? Let’s get into it.
Street Fighter V exists in large part because of a production/financing assist from Sony, hence the initial PS4 exclusivity. While visually the game borrows heavily from its predecessor, Street Fighter IV, it builds on that initial ascetic in interesting ways that gives it its own unique look and feel. The characters have a sense of weight and scale to them that was somewhat lacking in 4, which is helped not only by the revised art direction, but the slower rate at which characters move. Street Fighter V is a game that encourages you to think through your attacks and strategies, and in that regard it’s a good evolution of what’s come before.
Street Fighter V is great at pacing. Fights feel like duels- more than ever before, if you rush in and button mash, you’re gonna get punished. You have to have at least a basic understanding of the various attacks before you can dive into fighting locally or online. The controls and movements are as precise as ever, meaning that as long as you know what you’re doing, you’ll be working in unison with your character. The soundtrack is filled with ripping guitars that seem hilarious and over the top but somehow work given the context. All in all, Street Fighter V is a game that looks amazing, controls well, and is fun to play.
These points, while valid and vital to the making of a good fighting game, aren’t all that matter when delivering a final product. Unfortunately, it’s in almost every other regard that Street Fighter V fails horribly. Capcom has basically shipped half of a game. While there are promises of an update that will add the missing content this month (March 2016), one can’t help wonder why they didn’t just ship the game a month later than they did. Let’s go down the list of what’s lacking from this $60 game…
There’s no true story mode. Poorly drawn and obviously rushed comic panels serve as the “story mode” for the game as it currently stands. The art is accompanied by bad voice acting, and the matches are over in one round. The AI for each opponent is borderline nonexistent, and each character’s arc is completed in 3-5 matches. You can breeze through every character’s story in about a half-hour… if that.
Online fighting is still janky and inconsistent at times. The net code for fighting online strains against the demands heavy use puts on it. Sometimes matches work flawlessly. Sometimes you can’t even connect to the servers. Put simply, it’s an unreliable mess.
The online store isn’t up and running yet. You earn credits by playing the game, and in theory, you’d be able to spend those credits on characters, outfits, palate swaps, etc. That is, you could if the store front existed and was functional. As things stand, there’s nothing to do with the credits you earn. That’s to say nothing of the fact that pricing in the store is reportedly going to vastly outweigh the credits you can accumulate, meaning most players will have to purchase extra content with real money. It seems a cheap way to hide micro-transactions that isn’t necessary when most gamers have resigned themselves to living in the age of paid additional content.
Nothing is explained. Thanks to a robust set of features that allows you to study any match that’s been played in the game (all games from all players are recorded and stored for viewing), you can really learn a lot from watching high-level play. That is, you’d be able to do so if the game explained any of this to you. For new players who don’t even know what they’re looking for, these tools are next to useless. Additionally, there are game play elements that are never communicated. When you first launch the game, you’re forced through a one-time tutorial for Ryu. While that’s great if you’re a Ryu player, the specifics and nuanced moves for other characters are never touched on. It’s a terrible commission for a game that is seemingly built on the idea of bringing in new players.
Now, it’s very likely that the forthcoming update will fix many if not all of these glaring problems and issues. However, a reviewer can only judge the final product based on what is presented at the time of launch. As this game stands, it’s half-good. Luckily, the good half is the part that you actually play. Everything else- the brunt of content that makes up Street Fighter V is either missing entirely or severely lacking when compared to other releases in the genre. If you’re craving this game, I’d suggest waiting a month or two before purchasing it.
