Capcom's brilliant fighting game expands the genre in new directions - Street Fighter 6 Review

Times have really changed. I can’t imagine telling the seven-year-old me playing Street Fighter II Turbo that one day, I won’t have to learn all those complex button combinations to pull off fancy moves. Or that moral lessons like learning the answer to “what strength is” will be part of my goal, right alongside side jobs such as making pizza. You might be asking yourself, what happened to the series where folks yelled “Hadouken!” and wrecked sports cars for points? It’s still here, but it’s definitely evolved with the times.

Street Fighter 6 incorporates all of the surprising elements I mentioned above while still honoring the legacy of the fighting game series that many of us grew up with. The dynamic roster, impressive visuals, and fast gameplay feel familiar. At the same time, RPG elements, hip-hop beats, and easier controls provide something for the newer crowd.

It’s clear Capcom is fighting with all it’s got for the hearts and minds of an established fan base of gamers in their mid-thirties or older, assuming they were born when the original Street Fighter was released. But the developer and publisher is also putting in the work to stay relevant to a younger group that may be checking out this series, or fighting games in general, for the first time.

There are plenty of things to do in Street Fighter 6. In fact, it’s more like three games in one, as expressed by the three main game modes: Fighting Ground, your classic arcade-style fighter; World Tour, a single-player RPG-style story campaign; and Battle Hub, an arcade where you can play classic Street Fighter games, hang out with your buddies, or take on other players online. With so many options and play styles in Street Fighter 6, I felt a little overwhelmed at first, but it wasn’t long before I came out swinging.

World Tour mode served as my tutorial and the bulk of my play time. I started by creating my own original character, with the ability to customize everything from their hairstyle and voice to their eyes to their fighting stance. Once my character was created, I was able to take to the streets and explore Metro City.

Fans of Final Fight will remember this city from the popular beat ’em up series, which in and of itself provided a blast of nostalgia from the classic Capcom franchises I played as a kid. Street Fighter 6’s take on Metro City isn’t exactly open-world, but it did provide a refreshing addition to the Street Fighter formula. I spent a lot of time running around and challenging random residents to fights, building my experience, and buying new equipment with the zenny I earned from side quests.

World Tour mode is also the home of Street Fighter 6’s story, which is quite cheesy. My character arrived in Metro City to work for a company called Buckler Security and served as a mentee to gym coach Luke. Luke is basically the new Ryu, using mixed martial arts training to teach “deep” lessons about topics like “finding what strength is.” Even after jetting around the city and heading to different world locations, I still have no idea what the hell Luke meant by that. The predictable plot points and one-dimensional characters just didn’t win me over.

Whatever my disinterest in Street Fighter 6’s story, though, World Tour mode let me run around and Shoryuken random citizens of Metro City. In fact, I was able to equip my created character with moves from all of my favorite Street Fighter legends, which was plenty compelling. The game offered multiple cosmetic and system-level ways to build my fighter, as well a huge variety of missions and a world that changed between day and nighttime. It was well worth playing, even if the story was more goofy than satisfying.

When I was ready to swap to Fighting Ground mode, I had eighteen characters to choose from, including fan favorites like Ryu and Ken, and new additions like Kimberly, a child prodigy who graduated college and became a ninja.  Each character has their own storyline and fighting style, and I loved that I could change the controls from classic to modern mode, a new control scheme designed to make completing finishers and combinations easier for newer players. Long gone are my days of memorizing the correct combinations to pull off E. Honda’s Hundred Hand Slap as a kid.

Don’t go thinking that the simplified control option means the game is dumbed down in any way, though. Street Fighter 6 adds in new elements to battle that forced me to think strategically even when using modern controls, especially in the harder matches deeper into a character’s story. The best addition is the Drive Gauge, a meter that allowed me to initiate special attacks but which I had to monitor and use wisely.

An online component is something almost any modern fighting game needs to provide for a complete gaming experience, and Street Fighter 6 outdelivers all expectations in this area. It would’ve been enough to just have the traditional online versus mode in Fighting Ground, but Battle Hub totally changes the game. I was able to take my Afro-sporting created character from World Tour into an online social space where I could battle other players or just wander around and look at the cool character creations that other folks have come up with. Battle Hub is a truly standout mode, and future fighting games are going to feel a lot less lively without something like this

One thing that’s less hype about the World Tour and Battle Hub modes is that they’re the main place for buying and spending Street Fighter 6’s premium currency, Fighter Coins. This currency can only be purchased with real money and is used for a bunch of microtransactions, unlocking everything from new cosmetic options for created characters to new stages to fight in to eventually new DLC characters altogether. Paid DLC is nothing new for Street Fighter—Street Fighter V added something like thirty characters across five seasons of DLC drops—but there’s still something demoralizing about spending anywhere from $60 to over $100 on this game, depending on which version you get, and still being asked to drop more if you want to pick up some stylish new gear. For what it’s worth, though, I’ve managed to have hours of fun without paying for any extras so far.

Let’s not end on a downer, though, because microtransaction nonsense aside, this is a great game. Street Fighter 6 presents the full package, with plenty of options for fans of the series and fighting game enthusiasts alike. The variety in play styles and what you can do raises the bar for what to expect in your average fighter, while also making it easy to jump into a quick versus match with friends or just sit around and lurk in the online lobby. Even dozens of hours into my fighting journey, I’m still always finding new things to explore and spend time on. With a fresh infusion of hip-hop music and cool comic-book visuals, Street Fighter 6 is easily the fighting game to check out in 2023.

SCORE: 4 STARS OUT OF 5

PLAY IF YOU LIKE:

• The Street Fighter series. Any fan of Street Fighter will want to play Street Fighter 6. The series has really managed to evolve and bring in fresh new elements without losing the soul of the series. With plenty of returning characters from the original games and new characters to boot, this entry won’t disappoint.

• Mortal Kombat 1. The classic debate between Mortal Kombat versus Street Fighter has been around since the first Mortal Kombat released in 1992. If you are excited for the upcoming Mortal Kombat reboot or are a general fan of the Mortal Kombat series, then you may want to check out Street Fighter 6, as it’s definitely the template folks will use to judge NetherRealm’s next game when it arrives this fall.

• Fighting games in general. In addition to the game mentioned above, if you happen to like Tekken, Marvel vs. Capcom, King of Fighters, or even Rival Schools (yes, I took it there), then Street Fighter 6 is the next game you should try. It’s a clear evolution of the fighting game genre, so regardless of what got you into this type of game, you’ll want to see how Capcom is shaping things for the future.

💬 Are you planning on playing Street Fighter 6? And who is your favorite character? Let’s talk it over in the comments section.