Street Fighter V review – starting a fight

Price: £49.99

Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom and Dimps
Release Date: 16th February 2016
Age Rating: 12


A new Street Fighter appears only once in a console generation, but is Capcom’s latest up to their usual standards?

We’ve already awarded one 10/10 score this year, to XCOM 2, and we’ve got a feeling that there’ll be another one before the end of 2016. But the problem with Street Fighter V is not so much deciding if it deserves top marks but when. What’s being released this week is just the bare bones of what the game will come to be over the oncoming months, but even as it is it’s already an experience that’s hard to beat.

Street Fighter V is in something of a similar position to Splatoon when it was first released, in that the core gameplay is clearly very good but the content is relatively sparse. Although unlike with Nintendo, Capcom has made it very clear what will be out and when. They’ve also said that although you can pay to unlock things instantly all the extra DLC can also be earned through just playing the game.

We don’t want to dwell too much on what isn’t in Street Fighter V though, as the current content is more than enough to keep you interested in the short term. And besides, the most important question is the quality of the core fighting system. Given Capcom’s mastery of the genre it’s fair to have some degree of confidence about that, but the obvious problem is that Street Fighter IV hit its marks so well that there isn’t anything very obvious to do with a new sequel. Especially as the graphics remain relatively low tech.

Capcom’s solution to this problem is to embrace eSports and the game’s competitive element. That’s obvious in terms of the emphasis on online play and your online reputation, but also the more complex gameplay elements that Street Fighter IV largely eschewed. There’s no abandonment of more casual players though, in fact if anything the game makes more effort to attract new players by encouraging them to watch matches and to only use the new moves once they’ve got used to the basics.

The game’s willingness to embrace more complex mechanics is made clear in the return of the EX gauge from Street Fighter III, and a physical representation of how close to being stunned you are. The EX gauge is used to power up special moves and super combos called Critical Arts. But brand new to Street Fighter V is the V-Gauge, which builds up as you take and receive damage and can be used to activate three new techniques: V-Skills, V-Reversals, and V-Triggers.

V-Reversals require a single segment of the V-Gauge and initiate powerful counter attacks. V-Skills are different for each character, but most often they’re used to deflect attacks or expand your movement options; while V-Triggers use up the whole gauge and do things such as increase your power for a short time, perform unique attacks, or activate character-specific abilities such as teleporting.

That all sounds confusing on paper but in practice the new moves are all very easy to pull off and if you don’t use them, but your opponent does, they’re still not instant game-changers. They do however allow for a great deal more nuance in your tactics, and are vital for more advanced play.

In terms of the characters available from day one you’ve got a total of 16 fighters, that range from wouldn’t-be-Street-Fighter-without-them types such as Ryu and Chun-Li to bizarrely dressed female wrestler R.Mika and the even more obscure Karin, both of whom are from Street Fighter Alpha 3.

The four brand new fighters are Laura, an electricity-wielding Brazilian fighter that seems to be meant as a sort of female Blanka; Rashid, a Middle Eastern fighter with the power to create tornados; poison-obsessed assassin F.A.N.G; and supernatural Aztec warrior Necalli.

Unfortunately though the game hasn’t really made it any easier to learn these new characters, and although there is a helpful tutorial that goes through the basics it abruptly stops before it gets to any of the complicated stuff. The story mode is rarely more than two fights per character (it’s meant merely as a prologue to an upcoming update) and doesn’t explain anything, which means you’re back to figuring things out in training mode – which still refuses to do anything as simple as show a list of moves while you fight.

Since the only other single-player option is a simple Survival mode it’s clear again that Capcom want you to learn by playing and by watching others. Which is exactly how it used to be if you go all the way back to playing Street Fighter II in the arcades. In fact it’s obvious that that kind of community spirit – waiting for your turn (any single-player mode can be interrupted by an online fight request) and cheering on the local experts – is exactly what Street Fighter V is trying to emulate.

Fighting games nearly died out during the PlayStation 1 and 2 era, as arcades closed all over the world and slow connections made fighting games impossible to play online. With Street Fighter IV that changed, but with Street Fighter V online play has transformed from an optional extra to the heart of the experience.

Or at least that’s the idea. The spectator mode won’t be added until ‘soon after launch’, and neither will the ability to add anyone but existing friends to your Battle Longue. Meanwhile, daily challenges and the single-player challenge mode aren’t due till March.

The cinematic story expansion is being added, for free, in June and six new characters have already been announced for this year (Alex, Guile, Ibuki, Balrog, Juri, and Urien), which again you can either pay for straight off or earn with in-game currency. Capcom are promising that there’ll be no Super Hyper Turbo edition though. This is the only version of the game there’ll ever be, with everything else being added digitally over time.

This means we’ll be returning to the game multiple times over the months and years to come. And unless something goes terribly wrong we’re sure that 10/10 will come eventually. But for now you’ll just have to put up with what is merely one of the best new fighting games of the generation.

In Short: Street Fighter transforms itself from just a game to an entire entertainment platform of its own, or at least it will do once all the content is up and running.

Pros: Perfectly refined combat system, that’s both more complex and more accessible than ever before. Impressive range of online support options and fun new characters.

Cons: A lot of important options and content aren’t available at launch. The game’s tutorials still aren’t explicit enough for new players.

Score: 8/10

Formats: PlayStation 4 (reviewed) and PC