When Street Fighter V first hit the shelves amid the rumours of a lack of story mode and a handful of the main characters (Still no Blanka!!!) being released at a later date as DLC, I downright refused to pick up the game. As the content dripped in throughout Street Fighter V’s first season I became more and more tempted to pick it up but I waited until this season was complete with a story mode and the addition of Guile and more before I decided to finally play it.
My only regret is that I have lost a year of time I could have spent playing this game, I have become obsessed with it: Listening to the soundtrack at work, streaming every fight to YouTube so that I can watch back and analyse the gaps in my fight right up to watching YouTube tutorials on how to play better as my chosen character (Ken if you were at all interested).
Gameplay
It’s Street Fighter. As far as Fighting games are concerned it only has one equal in the mighty Tekken, although a very different style of fighter is present between the games. Where Tekken presents itself as a game of juggling; Street Fighter is more of a game of back and forth with much closer battles happening with people of equal skill.
Appearance & Music
The general aesthetic of Street Fighter V is the same cel shaded style that worked so perfectly in the 4th installment of the franchise. This is not to say that everything is exactly as it was in SF IV, there have been a handful of character model tweaks since the game with Ken and Ryu models undertaking the biggest changes of all (Ryu’s Beard anyone?!) and whilst I appreciate the shifting of Ken away from being a shameless Ryu clone, I personally went right back to the original costume the moment I unlocked it in the games Story Mode.
The music (as it has with every release) has changed up all the character themes for a modern era whilst still keeping the general catchiness and overarching themesong of each fighter in place. I have had the Ryu and Ken themes in my head for 5 days straight now and I am not doing myself any favours by constantly listening to them either.
Story
The Story mode of Street Fighter V revolves primarily around defeating a series of fighters, one by one in a cinematic story in the same vein as other fighters like Soul Calibur and Persona 4 Arena, in order to collect statues to put an end to M.Bison, and his Dark Moons…And…That’s it. Other than that, the story (If you can really call it that), is nothing more than cheesy B-Movie action drama – A lot of fun, but you just need to….Turn your brain off for a minute.
Verdict
I have LOVED Street Fighter V, whilst I can understand the frustrations of certain characters not being in the original release I feel that this is nothing new to Street Fighter fans (there are no less than SIX versions of Street Fighter 2 before you get the full game.) I certainly agree that Capcom should have been completely open about their plans for DLC characters and spilled the beans sooner about being able to unlock characters through in game fight money.
I personally felt this way of unlocking characters feels like a throwback to the old days where you would need to complete the game 3-5 times before you unlock certain characters and can’t help but think if Capcom had marketed it this way; the issues would have been quickly pushed aside.
But alas; that is not the world we live in.
Purely due to my obsessions with Street Fighter V and the hooks that it got in me, I have to rate this season a whopping 9/10. Without all the content involved I would rate it a 7/10 as it would feel like a half finished game.
Don’t forget! We will be holding a Street Fighter V tournament HERE in November.
Reviewed by Luke.
If you are interested, you can watch some of my fights below (watch me get my ass kicked)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yN7yXV8Xz8