Read in our review why Street Fighter 6 is a fantastic comeback for the series and why it's the perfect game for pros, newcomers and casual players alike.
Street Fighter is one of the most legendary series in gaming history. Especially since Street Fighter 2 in 1992, the franchise held a special place in the industry, which it continued to hold onto for many years.
However, 2015's Street Fighter 5 felt like a misstep. Minimal innovations and a lackluster content offering led to disappointment among fans upon release and a hit for this long-standing franchise. Now, Capcom has redeemed itself though: Street Fighter 6 is a fantastic game and a successful comeback for the series.
Better & More Accessible Than Ever
Street Fighter 6 is split in three modes: Fighting Ground, Battle Hub and World Tour. Fighting Ground is the simplest one: this is where you fight each other. Duh. This is the most classic offering here, if you have played a fighting game before you will be familiar with this part of the game.
If you just want the pure fighting experience, Street Fighter 6 will be an absolute delight. The game looks and feels incredibly good. Everything in this game is so beautifully and stylishly designed. It never stops to surprise how freaking cool and confident this game feels. One of the reasons why the gameplay feels so good, is the new Drive System.
This meter allows your fighter to do one of five special abilities: Drive Rush, Drive Parry, Drive Reversals, Drive Impact, and Overdrive. Each one costs a different amount and offers different advantages in the fight. Should your Drive gauge be emptied, you will enter a “Burnout” stage. If you’re burned out, you will be more vulnerable to attacks and can’t use any Drive actions until the meter is refilled.
This is a super clever and engaging mechanic, which creates a new layer in the tug-of-war during fights, which I really enjoyed in my time playing the game. Kudos to the team at Capcom for coming up with such a good new system.
And kudos for introducing the so-called “Modern” controls. With this control scheme, all the infamous and complex button inputs, like quarter- or half-circles, are simplified. Now, firing a Hadouken only requires a button press. While experienced pros might scoff at the idea of something like this, I found these controls to be perfect for me.
While I really enjoy fighting games, I never had the willpower (or time) to fully invest in getting to know one character and their special moves and abilities really well. The modern controls allow even someone like me to feel like an unstoppable badass in fights. What a wonderful addition for the more casual players. We expect this one change alone to make Street Fighter 6 one of the go-to party games of 2023.
Putting The "Street" Back In Street Fighter
An exciting new addition for the Street Fighter series is World Tour, which is the single-player story mode in SF6. You create your own character, in a creator tool that can only be described as bonkers. You can do anything with your digital avatar here and if you really let loose and create a hideous monstrosity, it makes World Tour an absolutely hilarious experience.
Because your character is the main protagonist here. You train under Luke to “find your strength” and become a top-fighter. For this purpose, you roam around the (small, but dense) open world of Metro City, playing main quests, doing side activities and decking your fighter out in the newest and freshest gear.
So yes, this is Street Fighter as an RPG. If you expected something huge and incredible though, you might be disappointed. The Yakuza games seem like a clear influence on World Tour, but the mode never quite reaches the heights of those games. However, I have to emphasize that playing this mode was super fun and that this game’s impeccable style particularly shines here. Yes, the writing is pretty cringy and no, the world isn’t the most interesting or engaging. But playing through the story and slowly improving your fighter was really fun.
It’s also pretty nice how the classic Street Fighter characters are integrated here. They are masters and coaches, who you meet one-by-one throughout the story. Once you get to know them, you can adapt their fighting style. And even more importantly, you can mix and match their special abilities. So if you want to have a Hadouken and a Spinning Bird Kick equipped at the same time, you can.
Getting to create a unique mix of abilities in this way was super fun to play around with and was a big factor in my enjoyment of the mode. And hey… numbers go up, you get to upgrade your character with skill points, what’s not to love? The absolute best thing about World Tour, however, is the fact that you can challenge literally anybody on the street to a fight. Anybody. This is absolutely hilarious and never stopped being fun.
Playing Like It's 1992
Last, but definitely not least, is the Battle Hub. This is the online component of this game and it’s another knockout. Multiplayer lobbies and traversable spaces in fighting games are controversial, but we can’t imagine anyone having a bad word to say about the Battle Hub.
Here, your self-made character from World Tour walks around a huge arcade hall, where you can physically go to arcade cabinets to challenge other players to fights. This is mostly a gimmick, but a really cool and fun one, that quickly won me over with its charm. And yes, it can feel like hanging out in an arcade, especially if you watch other fights by standing near a cabinet. Really, really fun.
And if you don’t like online lobbies or just want to quickly jump into ranked or unranked matches, you can just do so over a menu. It’s brilliant that Capcom offers the choice of doing it either way here.
Overall, Street Fighter 6 is just brilliant. The devs have really nailed every aspect of the game. Fighting feels better than ever, the modern control scheme is a very welcome addition for noobs like me, the Battle Hub is a wonderful way of curating the online experience and the World Tour is a fun and entertaining way to play the game solo. What a knockout.
- Rating: 9/10
- Release Date: June 2, 2023
- Developer: Capcom
- Publisher: Capcom
- Genre: Fighting Game
- Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S & PC via Steam