Street Fighter 6 is a triumph in fighting games that I believe sets a new standard for 2D fighters by making it more accessible to players through its comprehensive settings. Capcom did a much better job with the launch of Street Fighter 6 compared to its lacking in substance predecessor Street Fighter 5 by adding World Tour which is a campaign that is like Yakuza in the sense that it does not take itself seriously, an open online battle hub, and the fighting grounds! It's the most amount of content a Street Fighter game has launched with.
World Tour: Like I stated, it's an open world Yakuza like campaign where you travel across the world. Now I make the comparison to Yakuza because it can get pretty wild like that game. You will be fighting refrigerators, cyber robots and many more crazy enemies. World Tour is basically a huge tutorial because it teaches you what Street Fighter is about and how to play the game. The main areas you will mainly be in are Metro City and Old Nyshall. While the art direction is really good its graphical fidelity is a bit dated. It may feel like it's a little too easy at the beginning but it picks up in difficulty and you will have to sharpen your skills. World Tour is what I started with in Street Fighter 6 because I thought it was a good way to help me learn the controls and about its diverse array of characters. However my one major flaw of this mode was I felt that the progression of levelling up your character was pretty fast at first and then it got slow. This ended up feeling like a Ubisoft game where I was just grinding continuously to get more strength by fighting other people on the streets. This is because I was not powerful enough to do the missions easily. I believe a little bit of grinding is okay but it got a bit much by the end of the game. It's also a very repetitive game so I wished there was more mission variety present. This made the length of the game longer then I believe it should have been. My next flaw is minor but I think that there should have been a level recommendation present here for the missions because I went into some of these missions thinking I was powerful enough and then it turns out I was not. For example in Chapter 13 when I went into the The Suval'hal Martial Arts Tournament thinking I was levelled up enough and turns out I was not. This mistake would not have been made if they had a level recommendation for each of the missions like Ubisoft does with Assassin's Creed. While not a big issue it would have been appreciated for me at the very least so then I know when I should initiate into a mission or tournament. The amount of depth the World Tour mode has is impressive and it took me 18 hours to beat the main story. There is a lot of replayability in World Tour because you can not only play around with the different styles from the masters, which I will go more in depth later there are also a lot of side missions even though these missions are very short they can be fun. I tried a few side missions and they were decent, like for example one of them you had to fight Retsu multiple times which was really short but was fun. The base game I already felt was good and these side missions aren’t substantial by any means but I was not expecting them in here so they are a welcome addition. Now the story of the World Tour mode is nothing special but it was engaging enough for me to be curious about the answer to what is strength? It starts off with you going to a master named Luke where you go to his basic training course on how to fight. I liked the concept of Luke being a mentor for you and role playing as a student of one’s training course. What I did like was the rivalry dynamic of your created avatar and Bosch where they are both students for the same master. I found myself engaged in meeting all the masters for them to end up being my mentors that guide me to finding the answer to strength. World Tour is a great addition to Street Fighter because fighting games tend to not have a lot of single player content but this mode added a lot to the single player experience since it took me 18 hours to finish it! That is pretty substantial.
Battle Hub: This is a traversable online battle hub where you take your created character from World Tour and you can either fight with your avatar, fight others online using the standard Street Fighter characters or you can even play classic Capcom games at arcade machines within this open hub which is really cool! For the most part the connection in matches is very good because they use Rollback netcode. It also has cross play as well so you can invite your buddy to a fight regardless of what platform they are on! Within the hub there are also cool callbacks to other Capcom franchises like cut outs of 8 bit Megaman and as well as some of the Street Fighter characters. Doing a Battle Hub in a fighting game is something I have not seen before and Capcom really have done a great job with making sure it's condensed but packed with things to do. They also made it have personality to not make it generic or dull looking but instead pleasing to the eye. Overall, Battle Hub is an excellent addition to Street Fighter because you can battle with your friends or other people with your custom avatar, play a rotating selection of classic Capcom games at arcade machines, and best of all make fun memories.
Gameplay: Now onto the gameplay which impressed me the most with Street Fighter 6 because of how accessible Capcom has managed to make it. Usually fighting games aren’t my thing because of how inaccessible or the amount of button combinations you need to remember in order to pull off really cool combos. Due to how accessible the game is I feel like for the first time in a long time I actually have a decent chance of winning against people and actually have fun! Street Fighter 6 has really raised the bar in accessibility for fighting games because they decided to make a modern control button scheme where instead of each button being assigned to a left punch or a right punch to make things more complicated they simplified it to make it easier for casuals to learn the controls. You can also map the buttons to your liking which adds to how accessible Capcom has made this Street Fighter entry! The classic controls are still there though for the people who prefer that control scheme. I’ve been mainly using Luke because he is on the cover of the box so I felt like maining him! The gameplay in Street Fighter 6 feels amazing because of how good it feels in my hand to play. Two new mechanics were added to Street Fighter 6 which are Drive Impacts and Drive Parries. To start, Drive impacts are hard hitting attacks that your opponent has to hit you multiple times in order for them to stop it from being executed. When your opponent is successful at breaking your drive impact you will get stunned and big damage can be taken so I would suggest pulling a drive impact when they would least expect it! Now onto Drive Parries which are special blocks where you can block your opponents attacks so you do not take significant damage when someone throws a punch or kick at you. When I was pulling off these drive impacts I felt like a badass doing them because of the animation that would happen when I pulled it off. However you do need to use these mechanics wisely because it relies on a meter so you cannot spam it. When your meter runs out you will have to wait for your bar to regenerate in order to use a drive impact or drive parry again. I like how the mechanics rely on a meter because then it cannot be abused by players and it will have to be used strategically. If there was one flaw I had to point out with the gameplay it would be how I feel that the grabs are a bit too overpowered and take too much of your health when they are pulled off. All in all, Street Fighter 6 has the best and most accessible gameplay I have seen in a fighting game because of how accessible it is and how it feels in my hand.
Fighting Grounds: The fighting grounds is the standard fighting mode where you will find all the modes like arcade, training, extreme battles and much more. Furthermore, another way Capcom raised the bar in making Street Fighter 6 accessible is the fighting grounds because it contains a training mode where you can train with any character against AI. It has a bunch of settings like for the parameters, simple training settings where it contains combo practice, anti-air practice and much more! It also has settings in the training mode for the environment, for the dummy AI, recording the practice dummy actions. You are able to save your training settings as well. There are tutorials in case someone does not know how to play the game or wants to learn a control scheme. These tutorials are meant to teach you all the mechanics and the stuff you need to know to be good at Street Fighter 6. The great thing about the tutorials is that they indicate if its difficulty is beginner, intermediate or advanced. It is truly one of the most comprehensive and in-depth training modes I’ve ever seen in a fighting game. Then there are character guides which show you how to do a character’s specific moves and combos. Each character has their own combo trial where you can practise their combos. Combo trials can be helpful for people that want to learn how to pull off those cool and stylish moves! If you don’t wanna go to the battle hub to start a match you can just matchmake from the fighting grounds menu which is nice for convenience. What is new to the Street Fighter series is that there are extreme battles. These have specific rule sets and winning conditions such as reaching a target score of 30 000 points before your opponent does by doing powerful attacks and completing optional challenges during the fight. Gimmicks are present in these fights as well where it can make the battle exciting! For example you can have a bull charging at random times during the fight so when he comes you have to make sure to jump in order to avoid getting run over. Adding dumb things like this makes the offline and online experience of these fighting games fun and enjoyable.
Conclusion: Most of the time fighting games do not tend to win me over but Street Fighter 6 absolutely ended up winning me over! With an incredible level of accessibility that helps new players like myself get into the series, A good world tour mode that taught me what Street Fighter is about, and with a solid amount of content at release this is arguably one of the best fighting game packages I have ever played. It is also the first time in many years that a fighting game has given me this much enjoyment since Marvel Vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds and PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale. Those two are absolute classics! Street Fighter 6 feels like Capcom took all that they learned from the failed launch of Street Fighter 5 and made a statement that this series is here to give Tekken 8 and Mortal Kombat 1 a run for its money. I give Street Fighter 6 a kickass 9/10. I absolutely recommend this game if you were wanting to get into this series but felt intimidated by how hard fighting games can be to learn or are a veteran of the series there is something for you here! Street Fighter 6 is One of my favourite game releases of 2023 so far.
World Tour: Like I stated, it's an open world Yakuza like campaign where you travel across the world. Now I make the comparison to Yakuza because it can get pretty wild like that game. You will be fighting refrigerators, cyber robots and many more crazy enemies. World Tour is basically a huge tutorial because it teaches you what Street Fighter is about and how to play the game. The main areas you will mainly be in are Metro City and Old Nyshall. While the art direction is really good its graphical fidelity is a bit dated. It may feel like it's a little too easy at the beginning but it picks up in difficulty and you will have to sharpen your skills. World Tour is what I started with in Street Fighter 6 because I thought it was a good way to help me learn the controls and about its diverse array of characters. However my one major flaw of this mode was I felt that the progression of levelling up your character was pretty fast at first and then it got slow. This ended up feeling like a Ubisoft game where I was just grinding continuously to get more strength by fighting other people on the streets. This is because I was not powerful enough to do the missions easily. I believe a little bit of grinding is okay but it got a bit much by the end of the game. It's also a very repetitive game so I wished there was more mission variety present. This made the length of the game longer then I believe it should have been. My next flaw is minor but I think that there should have been a level recommendation present here for the missions because I went into some of these missions thinking I was powerful enough and then it turns out I was not. For example in Chapter 13 when I went into the The Suval'hal Martial Arts Tournament thinking I was levelled up enough and turns out I was not. This mistake would not have been made if they had a level recommendation for each of the missions like Ubisoft does with Assassin's Creed. While not a big issue it would have been appreciated for me at the very least so then I know when I should initiate into a mission or tournament. The amount of depth the World Tour mode has is impressive and it took me 18 hours to beat the main story. There is a lot of replayability in World Tour because you can not only play around with the different styles from the masters, which I will go more in depth later there are also a lot of side missions even though these missions are very short they can be fun. I tried a few side missions and they were decent, like for example one of them you had to fight Retsu multiple times which was really short but was fun. The base game I already felt was good and these side missions aren’t substantial by any means but I was not expecting them in here so they are a welcome addition. Now the story of the World Tour mode is nothing special but it was engaging enough for me to be curious about the answer to what is strength? It starts off with you going to a master named Luke where you go to his basic training course on how to fight. I liked the concept of Luke being a mentor for you and role playing as a student of one’s training course. What I did like was the rivalry dynamic of your created avatar and Bosch where they are both students for the same master. I found myself engaged in meeting all the masters for them to end up being my mentors that guide me to finding the answer to strength. World Tour is a great addition to Street Fighter because fighting games tend to not have a lot of single player content but this mode added a lot to the single player experience since it took me 18 hours to finish it! That is pretty substantial.
Battle Hub: This is a traversable online battle hub where you take your created character from World Tour and you can either fight with your avatar, fight others online using the standard Street Fighter characters or you can even play classic Capcom games at arcade machines within this open hub which is really cool! For the most part the connection in matches is very good because they use Rollback netcode. It also has cross play as well so you can invite your buddy to a fight regardless of what platform they are on! Within the hub there are also cool callbacks to other Capcom franchises like cut outs of 8 bit Megaman and as well as some of the Street Fighter characters. Doing a Battle Hub in a fighting game is something I have not seen before and Capcom really have done a great job with making sure it's condensed but packed with things to do. They also made it have personality to not make it generic or dull looking but instead pleasing to the eye. Overall, Battle Hub is an excellent addition to Street Fighter because you can battle with your friends or other people with your custom avatar, play a rotating selection of classic Capcom games at arcade machines, and best of all make fun memories.
Gameplay: Now onto the gameplay which impressed me the most with Street Fighter 6 because of how accessible Capcom has managed to make it. Usually fighting games aren’t my thing because of how inaccessible or the amount of button combinations you need to remember in order to pull off really cool combos. Due to how accessible the game is I feel like for the first time in a long time I actually have a decent chance of winning against people and actually have fun! Street Fighter 6 has really raised the bar in accessibility for fighting games because they decided to make a modern control button scheme where instead of each button being assigned to a left punch or a right punch to make things more complicated they simplified it to make it easier for casuals to learn the controls. You can also map the buttons to your liking which adds to how accessible Capcom has made this Street Fighter entry! The classic controls are still there though for the people who prefer that control scheme. I’ve been mainly using Luke because he is on the cover of the box so I felt like maining him! The gameplay in Street Fighter 6 feels amazing because of how good it feels in my hand to play. Two new mechanics were added to Street Fighter 6 which are Drive Impacts and Drive Parries. To start, Drive impacts are hard hitting attacks that your opponent has to hit you multiple times in order for them to stop it from being executed. When your opponent is successful at breaking your drive impact you will get stunned and big damage can be taken so I would suggest pulling a drive impact when they would least expect it! Now onto Drive Parries which are special blocks where you can block your opponents attacks so you do not take significant damage when someone throws a punch or kick at you. When I was pulling off these drive impacts I felt like a badass doing them because of the animation that would happen when I pulled it off. However you do need to use these mechanics wisely because it relies on a meter so you cannot spam it. When your meter runs out you will have to wait for your bar to regenerate in order to use a drive impact or drive parry again. I like how the mechanics rely on a meter because then it cannot be abused by players and it will have to be used strategically. If there was one flaw I had to point out with the gameplay it would be how I feel that the grabs are a bit too overpowered and take too much of your health when they are pulled off. All in all, Street Fighter 6 has the best and most accessible gameplay I have seen in a fighting game because of how accessible it is and how it feels in my hand.
Fighting Grounds: The fighting grounds is the standard fighting mode where you will find all the modes like arcade, training, extreme battles and much more. Furthermore, another way Capcom raised the bar in making Street Fighter 6 accessible is the fighting grounds because it contains a training mode where you can train with any character against AI. It has a bunch of settings like for the parameters, simple training settings where it contains combo practice, anti-air practice and much more! It also has settings in the training mode for the environment, for the dummy AI, recording the practice dummy actions. You are able to save your training settings as well. There are tutorials in case someone does not know how to play the game or wants to learn a control scheme. These tutorials are meant to teach you all the mechanics and the stuff you need to know to be good at Street Fighter 6. The great thing about the tutorials is that they indicate if its difficulty is beginner, intermediate or advanced. It is truly one of the most comprehensive and in-depth training modes I’ve ever seen in a fighting game. Then there are character guides which show you how to do a character’s specific moves and combos. Each character has their own combo trial where you can practise their combos. Combo trials can be helpful for people that want to learn how to pull off those cool and stylish moves! If you don’t wanna go to the battle hub to start a match you can just matchmake from the fighting grounds menu which is nice for convenience. What is new to the Street Fighter series is that there are extreme battles. These have specific rule sets and winning conditions such as reaching a target score of 30 000 points before your opponent does by doing powerful attacks and completing optional challenges during the fight. Gimmicks are present in these fights as well where it can make the battle exciting! For example you can have a bull charging at random times during the fight so when he comes you have to make sure to jump in order to avoid getting run over. Adding dumb things like this makes the offline and online experience of these fighting games fun and enjoyable.
Conclusion: Most of the time fighting games do not tend to win me over but Street Fighter 6 absolutely ended up winning me over! With an incredible level of accessibility that helps new players like myself get into the series, A good world tour mode that taught me what Street Fighter is about, and with a solid amount of content at release this is arguably one of the best fighting game packages I have ever played. It is also the first time in many years that a fighting game has given me this much enjoyment since Marvel Vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds and PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale. Those two are absolute classics! Street Fighter 6 feels like Capcom took all that they learned from the failed launch of Street Fighter 5 and made a statement that this series is here to give Tekken 8 and Mortal Kombat 1 a run for its money. I give Street Fighter 6 a kickass 9/10. I absolutely recommend this game if you were wanting to get into this series but felt intimidated by how hard fighting games can be to learn or are a veteran of the series there is something for you here! Street Fighter 6 is One of my favourite game releases of 2023 so far.