Street Fighter V saw its second beta go live for PS4 and PC users in October, providing players with more new characters to play with in training mode and ranked matches. The initial batch of characters in the first beta showed some early promise but as I’ve discovered over the various beta phases, these other fighters open up many more possibilities for interesting match-ups…
Beta 2 Phase 1 – Ken, Necalli, Vega and R. Mika unlocked
Ken’s list of special moves is as you’d expect – fireballs, dragon punches, and hurricane kicks are all present and correct.
His V.Skill – Quick Step – lets him run forward and ends with an attack if you hold the buttons. However, the attack variant sees him stop a little shorter – without the attack-ender he seems to run more than half the width of the screen.
Ken’s V-Trigger allows flaming uppercuts on all three strengths rather than just Fierce, red fireballs that cause a knockdown at any strength, and flaming hurricane kicks (again, irrespective of the attack strength used). He also has too much airtime on his dragon punches for players to run under opponents with Quick Step whilst they are still coming down to earth, but it could be useful for pressure games.
I played against a CPU-controlled Vega for a while and it looks like that will be a particularly interesting pairing – Vega likes to fly horizontally across the screen and come down on slower players, but Ken’s Quick Step could make timing less predictable and might allow Ken to run up and dragon punch before Vega has even set up his own attack.
Necalli has both motion and charge-based special moves and already presents some interesting situations for a Necalli player and their opponent.
A special named The Disc’s Guidance is a charge move that functions like E. Honda’s Sumo Headbutt, launching Necalli further across the screen depending on which strength of punch is used. It will undoubtedly be useful for corner pressure and attacking at a distance, and tested against Ken’s (non-EX) fireball it goes through the projectile.
Raging Light acts like a rising Tomahawk Buster and launches Necalli upwards and forwards, which can launch an opponent into the air or catch someone jumping towards him. It also works well when paired with the Valiant Rebellion special; a stomp move which can pop an opponent into the air with the heavy attack, allowing for a Raging Light follow-up. Additionally, Necalli also has a command grab, although the grab range feels somewhat short at the moment, so it could be fairly risky.
Vega, as you would imagine, has a move set that is fairly familiar to his Street Fighter IV commands – Izuna Drops, Flying Barcelona Attacks and more are all present and correct, and he can still fight without his claw.
Beyond all of this, the Switching Claw special sees Vega pull out and put away his claw rather than toss it to the ground, so you no longer have to worry about scrambling across the stage to pick it up. Activated with two medium attacks, his V-Skill sees him flourish with a spin attack if the buttons are held. A short press will result in a spin with no attack, though – with this, you can fake out players expecting you to miss the spin attack and be left wide open.
R. Mika’s specials are a mix of evasive hops, command grabs and, er, bum attacks. Whilst she could be considered as a ‘grappler’ character, she already seems a lot more nimble than SFIV’s Hugo or Zangief and her move list has no 360 or 720 motions. At the moment it’s hard to know how the specials can be used in combos, as Shooting Peach pushes the character back too far for any follow-ups. The unique attack ‘Lady Mika’ (f+HP) at least acts as a launcher and her V-gauge abilities are nice and playful, with the Nadeshiko assist calling in another character to potentially set up combos and the Mic Performance ability powering up throws to as much as 1300 damage (enough to KO some characters in one move).
There was a bit of trouble towards the end of the beta phase when I was met with the dreaded “Unable to log in to game server. [2100e]” message. I had to cut my testing short as a result but already, these four characters make the SFV roster seem more varied and interesting…
Beta 2 Phase 2 – Rashid and Karin unlocked
Rashid’s special moves are all performed with quarter-circles and single buttons – he has a Tomahawk Buster-style forward attack, can use small whirlwinds as projectiles and has a nice horizontal flying kick that’s hard to think of an equivalent for. Perhaps it’s akin to the flying kick of Mortal Kombat’s Liu Kang… but that’s a stretch.
There’s also an unusual Vortex Strike special which is like a moving spin attack and can be directed forward, upwards or forwards in a rising fashion. The projectiles fire forward or upwards depending on the strength of the attack and will be great for keeping players at a distance, and his flying kick is useful for catching players out when they think Rashid can’t reach them. That kick can also become a dive kick if performed after a jump, but it only works after a forward jump, so players looking to stay back and try to fish for a dive kick opportunity will be disappointed. That said, Rashid’s V-Skill is excellent, propelling him into a forward jump that can be cancelled into a dive kick when any kick button is pushed.
Karin‘s moveset is built around motions and follow-ups, starting with a fireball motion performed with a kick attack that results in a command dash. This dash has various enders and happens so fast that the follow-ups have to be done in a very small window, but for people with good execution it shouldn’t be a problem.
She also has a kick combination and what looks like an overhead punch combo as special moves, the latter including follow-ups of its own. Meanwhile, with the V-Trigger active, her hands begin to glow and a set of new special moves and follow-ups for custom combos are available. These can push the player back a lot and knock them down, although the range of different strikes and enders means that it will take a while to figure out which combos should be used in which situations. Karin is certainly one of the more execution-dependent characters I’ve seen in the beta and she will present a satisfying challenge to people who enjoy practising the custom combos.
Beta 2 – in summary
After trying the batch of new characters offered by the second beta, it’s much easier to appreciate the kind of game that Street Fighter V is shaping up to be. Each of the characters feels immediately useful and you can quickly see how their special moves and V-gauge abilities can help them in various match situations. People will still come away from the beta with ‘favourite’ characters they enjoy using because of the way they prefer to play the game (I’m personally a fan of Rashid’s mobility and pressure) but nobody feels overpowered and every character is enjoyable to use in its own way. Whilst this is still a beta and the characters may yet be subject to future balance changes, it’s helped to make Street Fighter V a much more exciting new-gen fighter.
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