Street Fighter 6, unlike the previous entry in the series, launched feeling like a complete experience. If you're looking to play with friends, there are plenty of options for a more social experience, ranked mode gives the most competitive players plenty of goals to work towards, and newcomers or fans of single-player games have a large, fleshed out story mode to explore. I spent almost all of my time in Street Fighter 6 playing against friends in private lobbies or playing ranked matchmaking online. I gave the story mode a shot, and while I've seen lots of praise for the mode, I quickly bounced off of it. It felt a bit too much like a middling MMORPG where I'm just walking from point to point doing things without really having much interest in why I'm doing them, and the performance issues I encountered also kept me from wanting to continue with the story.
The base roster is a microcosm of the game's goals; there are plenty of classic characters for longtime fans of the series, but there's also lots of new blood, which feels appropriate for a game that hopes to usher in the next generation of fighting game fans while respecting the legacy of what made Street Fighter what it is today. I'm not sure exactly where I stand on this spectrum, as someone whose first entry into the series was Street Fighter 4 but also did not play it often, and also played Street Fighter V on and off for a few months. I also appreciate the game's return to the hip-hop influence that it also embraced in Street Fighter 3, which inspires the game's overall presentation and soundtrack.
In terms of mechanics, I really enjoy the Drive Gauge system for adding so much of a push-and-pull to each round. Starting with a full gauge makes it tempting to go on an all-out offensive with powerful Overdrive (OD) moves, guard-breaking Drive Impacts, and the Drive Rush dash, but this can quickly drain your resources and put you in Burnout. Burnout is a dangerous state where you can no longer perform any actions that spend any stocks of your Drive Gauge, you take increased blockstun from attacks, and being knocked into a wall by a Drive Impact will stun you, leaving you open to a huge punish from your opponent. I really enjoy the risk/reward of this system, and how it tests your patience; do you want to use some of your Drive Gauge to get in quickly or deal some extra damage on a combo, do you want to use it to get yourself out of a tricky situation, or do you want to abstain from using it for now so that you don't risk putting yourself in Burnout? It adds a lot to the game's mental stack, weighting your options against each other and also taking your opponent's Drive Gauge into account; if they're close to Burnout, you could go for a Drive Impact or a Super Art to try and force the issue.
I believe that Street Fighter 6 does a great job of setting itself up for the next generation of fighting games, and sets a high bar for other games in the genre. I know that the current implementation was pretty popular, but I think a more tightly focused single player mode would have been a bit more interesting to me personally.
The base roster is a microcosm of the game's goals; there are plenty of classic characters for longtime fans of the series, but there's also lots of new blood, which feels appropriate for a game that hopes to usher in the next generation of fighting game fans while respecting the legacy of what made Street Fighter what it is today. I'm not sure exactly where I stand on this spectrum, as someone whose first entry into the series was Street Fighter 4 but also did not play it often, and also played Street Fighter V on and off for a few months. I also appreciate the game's return to the hip-hop influence that it also embraced in Street Fighter 3, which inspires the game's overall presentation and soundtrack.
In terms of mechanics, I really enjoy the Drive Gauge system for adding so much of a push-and-pull to each round. Starting with a full gauge makes it tempting to go on an all-out offensive with powerful Overdrive (OD) moves, guard-breaking Drive Impacts, and the Drive Rush dash, but this can quickly drain your resources and put you in Burnout. Burnout is a dangerous state where you can no longer perform any actions that spend any stocks of your Drive Gauge, you take increased blockstun from attacks, and being knocked into a wall by a Drive Impact will stun you, leaving you open to a huge punish from your opponent. I really enjoy the risk/reward of this system, and how it tests your patience; do you want to use some of your Drive Gauge to get in quickly or deal some extra damage on a combo, do you want to use it to get yourself out of a tricky situation, or do you want to abstain from using it for now so that you don't risk putting yourself in Burnout? It adds a lot to the game's mental stack, weighting your options against each other and also taking your opponent's Drive Gauge into account; if they're close to Burnout, you could go for a Drive Impact or a Super Art to try and force the issue.
I believe that Street Fighter 6 does a great job of setting itself up for the next generation of fighting games, and sets a high bar for other games in the genre. I know that the current implementation was pretty popular, but I think a more tightly focused single player mode would have been a bit more interesting to me personally.