Street Fighter 6
Reviewed on PlayStation 5
WHERE TO PLAY
A bombastic revival for Capcom’s beloved series of fighting games decked out with several fresh takes on the genre.DualShockers was provided with a copy of the game for review purposes.
The streets of Metro City are bustling, popping, with no sign of stopping. The asphalt beneath my sneakers is pounding with the beat of street jams as I skid down an alley in blazing-hot pursuit of some dude with a bao for a head. My reward, if I find the guy, is a year’s worth of all-I-can-eat shaobing—do I dare to dream?I’m flanked on either side by walls splashed in bright, colorful graffiti, though these soon give way to a couple of Mad Gear Gang goons, squaring up in their cardboard box helmets. They both come at me with fists clenched, but I’ve been trained by the likes of Luke and Chun-Li.
I am, dare I say it, astreet fighter, and these box-wearing cronies are no match for the moves I’ve learned from the best.
When Capcom first announcedStreet Fighter 6at EVO 2022, it was met with seemingly universal consternation from the fighting games community. Eyebrows were collectively raised at the preliminary logo, memes were quickly circulated regarding the tectonic heft of Ryu’s shoulder width. With the last mainline Street Fighter game having had an infamously subpar pre-release and launch, just the reveal of the next Street Fighter wouldn’t be enough to hype up the rabble. It took—and I quote—a series of character redesigns, several closed betas, a guest appearance from Li’l Wayne, and a splatter of color to transform Street Fighter 6 into a game the community could get excited about.
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Street Fighter 6 is every bit as substantial as it is stylish. Beefed out with three hefty modes at launch, the game boasts a Fighting Ground, a Battle Hub, and a World Tour the likes of which the Street Fighter series as a whole hasn’t seen since 1998’s Street Fighter Alpha 3.
The Fighting Ground and Battle Hub are more or less the usual suspects, but with a few fresh twists. Fighting Ground offers a variety of versus modes, each decked out with the game’s practically patented Real Time Commentary system. Meanwhile, the Battle Hub brings players together from across the world for PVP battles held via the dozens of arcade cabinets lining the arena. It’s a setup that reminds me of video game tournaments traditionally held IRL: the huge sense of community I’d get at on-location fighting game conventions is the same feeling that came over me when I first entered the lobby of Street Fighter 6’s Battle Hub. As of the game’s launch, each of its North American servers has been consistently populated with folks ready to flex the skills they’ve been honing throughout their single-player adventures in the World Tour mode. This is where Street Fighter 6 carves out its identity as not just a return to form for the franchise, but a revival of its traditions, a reinvention.
As if to make up for Street Fighter 5 having launched with no single-player arcade mode to speak of, Street Fighter 6 proudly touts a World Tour story mode spanning hours of adventure, hundreds of quests, and various dynamic street fights to dig into.
In the World Tour, you begin as a character of your own creation. The character creator offers customization on practically every facet of your avatar (for the record, I gave mine clockwork eyes, bullet-hole scars, and purple-to-white locks all pulled back in a braid). After learning a few tricks from Luke—the poster boy of Street Fighter 6—I hit the street with Bosch, another fighter under Luke’s wing, although not for long. Seemingly frustrated with the insistence on togetherness and teamwork, Bosch rejects Luke’s guidance and runs away to fast-track his road to strength elsewhere. Thus begins the plot of the World Tour mode, albeit a plot so basic and serviceable as to end up being forgettable.
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The driving force of the World Tour mode instead comes in its surprisingly effective genre mashup. Part fighting game, part beat-em-up, and even part RPG, the World Tour mode has you engaging random passers-by in versus combat, oftentimes pitting you against a swarm of street thugs a laFinal Fight, before demanding that you restore lost HP with such consumable items as Stupid-Spicy Chocolate and electric-blue energy drinks. Each of the items is bursting with flavor text—a handful of caramels, for example, is specifically Ironhard Caramels and “chewing them requires full-body exertion, providing slight damage resistance.” The flourish provided by these little tidbits and knick-knacks make Metro City feel lived-in and storied.
This is less true of the other countries you drop by on your titular world tour. For the most part, none of these offshore locations come close to offering the same huge hive of activity as Metro City. Russia, for example, consists only of a wrestling arena; Italy, likewise, is just the Colosseum. Some of the countries are wider in scope than others, and the storydidhave me spending more time in Metro City than anywhere else. But I was a tad disappointed when I’d finally gone through the extensive process of unlocking India—a process which involved spending an outrageous amount of zenny on a statue with ‘yoga powers’ before chasing down the charlatan that sold it to me and challenging him to a fight—only to learn that there was little for me to see and do in that country outside of being formally introduced to Dhalsim.
The 18 characters comprising Street Fighter 6’s core roster are scattered across the literal globe of the World Tour mode: as you travel and meet each one in their respective country, you’re given the chance to become their student and adapt to their fighting style. Becoming the disciple of one Zangief, for example, lets you adopt his trademark ‘slow-n-heavy’ fighting style. The more you fight with your master’s style equipped, the more of their moveset you can unlock for your own plucky little custom World Tour avatar to perform. By the end of my own World Tour, I could pull off moves like Chun-Li, Cammy, Ken, and Kimberly all in the span of one fight.
“Street Fighter 6 is not just a return-to-form for the franchise, but a revival, a reinvention.”
When I wasn’t learning the way of my masters’ fighting styles and movesets, I was in their DMs, or hanging out with them as a friend. I gave them gifts notjustbecause maxing out our bond would allow me to summon them into battles, Assist-style, but because these guys were so thoroughly lovely to spend time with.
Getting to know Cammy meant getting to know more about her upbringing and familial relationships. And through bonding with Ken, I learned more about the source of his strength. The characterization and character development here are nothing short of top-notch, completely optional though they may be. Technically, I didn’thaveto max out my bonds with any of the headline characters to progress through the World Tour, but I’m so glad I did. It ended up being the highlight of the mode for me, giving me a greater appreciation of the characters when I went on to play through the roster via the Fighting Ground and Battle Hub modes.
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While each of the modes differs in form and content, all three modes contain what is functionally the same core fighting experience. As a Street Fighter veteran, I am more than happy to say that the Classic controls here contain every bit of the finesse I’ve always loved about such, well,classicStreet Fighters as SF2 and SF3 Alpha. Street Fighter 6 also comes with Dynamic and Modern fighting systems (Modern being the default), which feature pre-built combos and uncomplicated button configurations respectively.
Street Fighter 6 also adds a new mechanic to the iconic street fighting formula via its bespoke Drive System, which weaves elements of tactics and dynamism into each fight. At the start of each match, you’re allotted six bars of Drive Gauge, which can be exchanged for a variety of techniques ranging from offensive to deflective. One of the techniques on offer here is the Drive Parry, which is, as parrying in fighting games go, incredibly approachable and versatile. Though simple to grasp at first, pulling off the Drive Parry becomes exponentially more rewarding once you begin to master the art of smart timing and hit box precision. Couple this with the vivid strokes of color that paint the screen whenever you use your Drive Gauge, and you have moves that are both fun to perform and gorgeous to watch.
Street Fighter 6 might well be the most visually expressive game in the series since 2011’s Street Fighter 4, if notthemost visually expressive game in the series so far. Menus, movements, and even the RPG-style skill trees in Street Fighter 6 are all punctuated with a bright splattering of bombastic color, making for a perpetually stunning presentation. Frankly, I can’t get over just how stylish this game is, how much personality it has, how perfectly the graffiti and fashion fit together with the street-savvy soundtrack, which plays out like a mixtape in a beatbox on your shoulder.
When you get knocked down, you get up again. The Street Fighter franchise might have been out for the count last generation, but Street Fighter 6 puts it back on its feet and back into the ring in style; it’s a series comeback if ever I’ve seen one. Determined not to stay on the sidelines, Street Fighter 6 is poised to be the definitive fighting game for the next generation.
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