Earlier in December 2015 Street Fighter V Beta 3 went live for beta test participants. It contained a number of familiar faces from the original beta, but as the beta continued three more characters made their SFV debut…

Street Fighter V Beta 3 Phase 1 – Laura debuts

A few minutes with Brazilian fighter Laura will quickly show you that this is a character who has a bunch of abilities focused on making sure that her opponent isn’t able to pile on the pressure and give her no room to breathe. The most useful special moves and V-gauge abilities are all focused on keeping the other player out of Laura’s personal space.

The Split River move, for example, is a snappy shoulder barge that pushes opponents back slightly and leaves them reeling momentarily, potentially disrupting players who want to pile on the attacks.

Laura also has a slightly limited – but still effective – projectile attack. The Thunder Clap special move sends a wave of electricity across the screen towards the opponent. If the Thunder Clap is used with a light attack button, the wave will move slowly and disappear after travelling a few feet. That move duration can be changed with the use of stronger special move attacks that result in the waves staying on-screen for longer.

All of this is great if you want players to stay away from you, but for the opponent that have closed the distance, Laura has a command grab – Sunset Wheel. This move sees Laura grab her foe, jump in the air and bring herself down on them. The command grab has to be performed at quite a close distance for it to work, making it another risky move; however, it could be useful for catching out players who aren’t expecting to get grabbed.

With all of this in mind, Laura might sound like a character who always fights at close range. Thankfully, the V.System also offers some fancy dashes and back-dashes, as well as a unique move akin to Abel’s Wheel Kick that covers good distance. Anyway, if you’re afraid of people playing pressure games and want to stop them from being all up in your business, Laura is worth a look.

Street Fighter V Beta 3 Phase 2 – Zangief and Dhalsim debut

The second phase of Street Fighter V Beta 3 brings with it an unusual sense of comfort and familiarity. Street Fighter IV was a game that was keen to show off the original World Warriors in a brand new 2009 fighter and Street Fighter V has begun by throwing in classic characters alongside the new arrivals.

Of those veteran fighters, Phase 2 of the beta introduced SFII favourites Zangief and Dhalsim. I was particularly fond of playing the Russian wrestler in SFIV so I was pleased to find that he became the first of the Phase 2 characters to be unlocked. Lariat moves, spinning piledrivers and those frightening running grabs are all present and correct, and whilst the spinning piledriver asks for a 360 motion in the command list (demanding that a player push forward and quickly rotate the stick or d-pad around in a clockwise motion before pressing a punch attack), those motions are just as lenient as they were in SFIV. Rather than make the full rotation, you can push forward and rotate around 225 degrees (to the up/back direction) and it will still count as a spinning piledriver when you push the attack button.

The V-System also offers some interesting options for Zangief – the V-Skill allows him to absorb one hit whilst the buttons are held and results in an attack when released. However, if this V-Skill is used during V-Trigger, Zangief will keep absorbing hits for a short duration. As useful as this can be from a defensive point of view, it’s still pretty risky because you aren’t able to do a whole lot else whilst you’re sitting there soaking up hits.

One thing that fans of the Street Fighter IV series will notice is that Zangief’s Banishing Flat (also known simply as ‘Green Hand’ due to Zangief’s appearance during the move) is absent in Street Fighter V. This was an incredibly useful move for Zangief players that wanted to pressure their opponents and it will be missed, but I think that the new V-System moves make up for its absence.

Dhalsim was unlocked for Street Fighter V Beta 3 players a few hours later on the same day and whilst I didn’t play him that much in Street Fighter IV, he still feels somewhat familiar.

Each Yoga Fire projectile is belched out in a mischievous arc, Yoga Flame attacks knock the player down and can be used in mid-air, and Yoga Teleports see Dhalsim vanish and reappear – either in the same spot or on the other side of the opponent.

The moves are familiar enough to avoid alienating fans of the older games, but the new animations and effects make everything feel fresh and new again. The stationary Yoga Teleport could have its uses when avoiding fast projectiles and a teleport that moves Dhalsim could be useful for escaping corner pressure.

Even without the special moves, Dhalsim still has great long-range normal attacks thanks to his stretchy arms, and the use of normal and special moves together can create some interesting traps. For instance, throwing out a Yoga Fire projectile that travels in a high arc might make an opponent block the high attack but Dhalsim’s arms are so long – and the projectile moves so slowly – that you could sneak in a low normal attack whilst the opponent is distracted by the fireball.

Dhalsim’s V-System abilities seem like some of the most gimmicky abilities we’ve seen so far in these beta tests. Despite this, they suit his character in Street Fighter V Beta 3 and may have some interesting applications in matches.

The Yoga Float V-Skill is almost exactly what it sounds like: Dhalsim floats in the air momentarily and during this time he can be moved freely left or right by the player. This means that if Dhalsim is floating towards a Rashid player looking to set up a dive-kick, Dhalsim can float out of the attack range to safety. Finally, the V-Trigger move Yoga Burner makes Dhalsim set the ground in front of him on fire, and anyone stood in the flames will see their health slowly drain (and converted to potential damage) until they escape the flames or the flames disappear. Since it’s potential damage, a good player could get that health back as long as they don’t take a hit, but this would be risky.

Street Fighter V Beta 3 Phase 3 – all previous Street Fighter V beta characters return!

There isn’t much to say about the final day of Street Fighter V Beta 3, but it was still a welcome surprise. Rather than giving players a new stage, feature or character, there was an update that unlocked all characters that have been available in the current and previous betas.

The update allowed players to select any character from the first beta (Ryu, Charlie, Chun-Li, Birdie, M. Bison, Cammy), second beta (Ken, Necalli, Vega, R.Mika, Rashid, Karin) and December’s beta (Laura, Zangief, Dhalsim). The only character who remained unavailable was Fang, who we have seen in trailers but haven’t had a chance to play in any beta release.

When Street Fighter V Beta 3 has all of these characters available at once, it reinforces the feeling that the game’s cast is diverse enough to keep everyone happy – maybe I don’t find Charlie too appealing, but it doesn’t matter because I can just play Rashid or Laura instead. Fans will have their favourites and these favourites will change over time as new strategies are discovered and balance patches are rolled out. In the meantime, Street Fighter V looks like it will be a solid addition to the series.

For more information on Street Fighter V, click the links below:

StreetFighter.com

Capcom Unity

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.

For more information on Street Fighter V, click the below links:

StreetFighter.com

Capcom Unity