Video Game Preview: Street Fighter V Might Just Fight The Moonlight

Published February 11, 2016

This is our war, Street Fighter IV V

We’re well into the current console generation but there is something sorely missing. While we’ve had our fair share of fighting games lately, there is a distinct lack of a certain rising dragon fist. Fortunately Ryu and ‘friends’ are returning to the PC and PlayStation 4 for another installment of the hit fighting game franchise.

Name: Street Fighter V

Genre: I am Jack’s Smirking Revenge

Players: 2

Multiplayer: Online

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4

Developers: Capcom, Dimps

Publishers: Capcom

Release Date: 16 February 2016

Price: R600 (PC), R900 (PS4)

Now we’ve been around Street Fighter IV for quite some time. The game first appeared in Japanese arcades in 2008 and has gone from strength to strength over the recent years. We’ve had countless updates and tournaments but now it’s time to to get to know the new kid on the block.

The Gang’s All Here

Well maybe not the whole gang, but it’s a pretty good gang none the less. Street Fighter V boasts a launch roster of 16 characters, with a mix of new and familiar faces. While the current roster may not contain everyone’s favourite fighters, it’s still a pretty solid line-up.

The 16 launch fighters are as follows:

Chun-Li

Nash

Birdie

Necalli

M. Bison

Cammy

R.Mika

Vega

Karin

Rashid

Laura

Zangief

Dhalsim

F.A.N.G

The following characters make up the games first wave of downloadable characters:

Alex

Guile

Balrog

Ibuki

Juri

Urien

It is important to note that while the downloadable characters are DLC, players are able to earn in game currency which can be used to unlock them instead of using real money.

There is really someone for everyone in Street Fighter V. From what we’ve seen of the roster so far each character is different and unique enough to warrant your attention. While there are people who are dead set on who they’re going to main already, once people get to spend more time with each character and develop new strategies we’re probably going to see a pretty diverse competitive roster.

It’s An All Out War

What’s a fighting game without various game modes? While Street Fighter V offers a lot of what we’ve come to expect from fighting games in the past, a lot has been done to update them to the current generation of gaming.

You will get your tutorials and training mode that will help you prepare for combat both online and off with with various improvements to the training mode to help you practice those more difficult to pull off combos. There is also a character story mode that will show you the stories behind the cast of fighters. In this story mode you will be able to unlock new costumes for fighters by completing their unique arcs. Even though the game comes with stories for each character, there is an free update scheduled for later in the year that will bring even more story content.

While Street Fighter V seems to be quite strong in the single player department, it really is the multiplayer that is going to make or break the title. There will be local and online multiplayer available to players, with the online play offering both competitive and casual matchmaking. The competitive matchmaking will see players fighting it out for online ranking points to see who is the ultimate street fighter. These points will divide players into different ranked tiers which will separate the master from the young grasshopper.

What comes next is probably one of the most important aspects of the online play and is probably going to help Street Fighter communities grow the most. The Capcom Fighters Network is going to help players connect those around them, helping them sniff out the local players as well as specific rivals. The Capcom Fighters Network will also provide players with a Fighter Profile which will detail player’s stats and also provide replays of previous matches.

Even though one might expect what has already been detailed to be the sum total of of game modes available for Street Fighter V, Capcom seems to be going all out with post launch updates and will be releasing more at a later stage. There’s a lot to do in Street Fighter V and it is glorious.

Show Me Ya Moves

Now this is something that is going to make some Street Fighter players. While Street Fighter V isn’t making any intense changes to the core move-sets of classic Street Fighter characters, they are making changes to some of the gameplay mechanics.

Street Fighter IV introduced the Focus Attack which let players take a hit in order to unleash powerful counter-attacks. This mechanic took quite a bit to master as it required almost impeccable timing to get right. While this mechanic became a defining trait of Street Fighter IV, it will not be returning in V. Instead Capcom has implemented the V-Gauge that now allows for some more interesting moves.

The new V-Gauge meter builds up whenever a player takes a hit and allows for some new techniques. V-SKills, V-Reversals and V-Triggers are all new moves to Street Fighter V and will vary by fighter. The V-Skills are unique to each character while the V-Reversals are counter moves that each character can do. Where it really starts to get interesting is the V-Triggers, which look to have some pretty intense effects on matches. V-Triggers will consume the whole V-Gauge meter in order to unleash a special boost to each character. This can vary from a set period of stronger attacks to things like enhanced moves. The V system looks to add quite a bit to the latest iteration of Street Fighter and might be the cause of some serious upsets in competitive play.

Street Fighter V is not all about drastic changes as we will see the return of the EX Gauge which will still build as you land hits on your opponent. Exhausting the EX Gauge will allow for special moves as well as the new, and rather intense, Critical Arts. These are essentially the super combos of old and create spectacular ways to deplete your opponents life bar.

While these changes will probably be met with quite a bit of apprehension, they do make for an interesting change to the gameplay we’ve gotten used to over the years. It’s going to be interesting to see how the competitive scene develops around these new mechanics and how the game will develop in the competitive scene.

There Are Some Rules Here

Everything sounds great so far for Street Fighter V but that doesn’t mean it has been entirely well received. While the complaints regarding the gameplay changes are understandable and expected, there are a couple of things that have put a bit of a damper on the Street Fighter Community.

The most valid complaint against Street Fighter V is that the game has unfortunately dropped the Xbox as a supported platform. It’s strange considering Xbox is the platform of choice for competitive Street Fighter IV, but the change was made for a pretty valid reason. In order for Street Fighter V to support cross-play the game could only be available on the PS4 and PC. This is in itself a understandable reason that Xbox didn’t make the cut and so in order to grow the Street Fighter V community in a sustainable way, sacrifices had to be made.

Other complaints however have not been as clear cut and understandable which have caused far more controversy which is realistically rather unwarranted. While stylistic changes have been made to the game across regions, the core gameplay has stayed the same throughout and so we’ll all be playing the same game against each other, nothing drastic has happened.

With all this information in mind, let’s take a brief look at what exactly we should hope to see and hope to avoid from Street Fighter V:

Ultra Combo Techniques:

It’s Street Fighter for the current generation.

Gameplay changes freshen up the fighting.

New post-launch content model means we won’t have to fork out for Super Duper Street Fighter V Ultra when the next update for the game arrives.

Whiffed Moves:

Competitive scene requires previous Street Fighter players to pick it up.

It might become an insane grind to unlock post launch characters.

Players might wait a while for their favourite character to be added before picking it up

So that’s it for Street Fighter V for now. You can look forward to Street Fighter V punching it’s way onto the platform of your choice on the 16th of February.

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BiPolarBear

Gaming Author at Geek Node

The best person to offer the worst opinion. Paul's interests include adding 100 hour JRPGs to his backlog and dark walks through dungeons. You'll probably find him rambling on about old man Nintendo or that crazy newfangled eSports thingy.