Street Fighter typifies a certain kind of mindset when it comes to immediacy in games. You hear it from the console gaming crowds (although SFV is available for both PC and PS4) – why spend time fiddling with INI files and downloading drivers and patches when you can put in the disc, press the button and go? It’s just like the arcades, they say – you put your coins in, pick your characters and within seconds you and your friend are enjoying a few rounds of Street Fighter with minimal amount of fuss. Such a strong legacy and association with immediacy has to bode well for Street Fighter V, surely?
Struggle Fighter
On day one, Street Fighter V greeted its players with missing features, occasional disconnects and long wait times where you don’t know if the game is actually doing anything or if you need to close the application and start over. Those who are able to get into one of the game’s available modes and start playing will find SFV to be very enjoyable… however, my first impressions when drafting this review led me to believe that I had bought an entertaining and refreshing fighter experience shackled to a wonky infrastructure that was struggling to hold everything together. Being able to play in the training or story modes whilst the game searches for online opponents is a great feature that worked well in the later SFIV games, but when this leads to connection errors terminating your play session in a single-player game mode, it can be frustrating.
V is for Very fun
And it’s a shame that I have to start the review in this way, because when you aren’t getting tied up in technical issues SFV is great fun. Matches are fast-paced, normal moves are more damaging than before (and more satisfying as a result), the animations and effects are excellent, and the roster has something for everyone. Whilst there are a few new faces, the classic characters are still given a slight twist with the V-System abilities. Have you ever wanted to play a Zangief with armour abilities or an R.Mika that powers up her throws by delivering peppy monologues to the viewer? SFV lets you do these things and more. The V-System takes the playfulness of USFIV’s Omega Mode and turns it into a standard mechanic, making every match satisfying in its own way.
It’s a gameplay feature that adds a lot to the game, but even without it Street Fighter V has one of the most well-rounded casts in a Street Fighter game for a while, where none of the initial 16 fighters feels like a wasted character slot. Coming from Street Fighter IV – which in its latest Ultra iteration features eight “shotokan” characters (loosely built from the Ryu template of “fireball, dragon punch and hurricane kick”) – the amount of variety here is welcome, and whilst charge and grapple characters exist in the game, you won’t be asked to perform triangle-input supers; Zangief’s 720 is about as intimidating as the motions get. Combined with the forgiving motion interpretation of SFV, this means that you’ll rarely suffer from input anxiety when playing random select sessions with a friend. Admittedly, this could all change when new characters get introduced as DLC, but for the moment it’s a great cast.
The faces and places of Street Fighter V
However, not everyone wants a Street Fighter V review that’s all movesets and gameplay systems, and happily the presentation of the characters and the environments is excellent. Even though SFIV’s fighters already had a charming cartoony quality with their bright colours and lively animation, each fighter in SFV’s roster immediately has a lot more personality, whether that’s from the way they behave in their idle stance, the facial expressions during more spectacular moments in fights, or just extra lighting and texture detail offered by new-gen technology. Elsewhere, the stages often impress – a lot of fuss may have been made over the dynamic, changing environments before release, but the backdrops have plenty of detail and colour irrespective of the stage interactions that may be triggered during matches. Whether the presentation and style of SFV will be as memorable as that of its predecessor remains to be seen, but generally matches are as enjoyable when spectating as they are when playing.
Fighter fun
What all of this means is that in-between a rushed front-end and some flaky activity behind the scenes, there’s a really fun fighting game, and the gameplay modes that are present on release can make idle evenings disappear in a flash. The single-player challenges offer incentives with in-game rewards, the battle lounge presents a simple but pleasing environment for two players to enjoy casual matches, and CFN works well at creating a unified player base amongst PC and PS4 owners. One mode that’s less impressive is the tutorial: much like the one seen in later betas, it covers movement, jumping, attacks, throws, guards and the V-System – however, it doesn’t mention stun, EX moves, Critical Arts (the equivalent of super combos), crush counters (unique attacks that send opponents reeling and leave them as open as they might be after a focus crumple in SFIV) or other advanced techniques, and with no manual in the retail PS4 game, that can be a problem. There’s still a lot in the game to keep players occupied though… and despite concerns about online play, I see fewer connection errors every day so I’m hoping that things will only improve. If you’re looking for something with the quality and robustness of Ultra Street Fighter IV, it might be worth waiting until the missing features get patched in, but if you just want to enjoy a new and fun Street Fighter game and accept that a few rough edges need smoothing out in time, it’s still worth a look.
Street Fighter V is out now for PC and PS4. More information can be found at StreetFighter.com and Capcom Unity