Street Fighter V Review (PC)

The fighting game genre has seen a resurgence in recent years, with many dormant franchises, such as Mortal Kombat or Killer Instinct, making a comeback. However, one of the biggest catalysts for this rebirth is Street Fighter IV, as developer and publisher Capcom has proved that there’s still a big market filled with loyal fans eager to show off their skills across many different platforms.

The title has since seen different re-releases with extra content, from the Arcade Edition to the Super one to the final Ultra Street Fighter IV, which appeared across PC, PS3, Xbox 360, and even the PS4, so that Capcom’s team can get some experience working with Sony’s console.

Now, the next evolution is finally here, in the form of Street Fighter V, right before the eSports competitions for fighting games kick off. With the promise of old and new fighters, reimagined core mechanics, not to mention an evolving experience thanks to free and premium add-ons, the new experience looks like a clear winner.

Does Street Fighter V manage to perform a flawless victory or should it be knocked out in the first round? Let’s find out.

Story

Street Fighter V currently features a simplistic story mode, as Capcom plans on rolling out a fully featured plot, complete with cinematic cut scenes and other such things this summer. Right now, fans can only engage in brief prologues for each of the 16 different characters. What’s worse, they incorporate just a brief animated cut scene and a handful of single-round battles.

The AI is quite passive and does a poor job of introducing a newcomer to the core mechanics of the new title, not to mention the particularities of the various fighters. For example, FANG, one of the four all-new characters, brings quite a few brand new poison-based tricks to the established mechanics of the series, yet he only has two fights in his portion of the story, both against M. Bison.

While I can certainly see that Capcom has focused on getting the game up and running before competitions start, delaying a full-fledged story mode until summer to do this doesn’t seem like the best idea. Throw in the fact that the company has already explained that the new title is going to details how Charlie Nash comes back from the dead to go up against M. Bison and how it bridges the gap between IV and III, and the wait seems pretty tough for fans of the franchise’s lore.

Classic Ryu vs. Ken in Street Fighter V

Gameplay

Street Fighter V brings a more back-to-basics approach when it comes to its core mechanics and introduces some very interesting additions that reward experiencing every one of the 16 different characters.

There’s a bigger emphasis on the ground game and those that favored constant jumps in Street Fighter IV, and its different iterations will find that their aerial acrobatics are less efficient right here. The input timings are also much more accessible, so you no longer have to perfect your muscle memory to inflict the most damaging attack combo. Street Fighter V as a whole requires a bit less planning ahead and more living in the moment. Characters are way more varied, so you need to think on your feet and adapt to what’s happening on the battlefield.

One of the big new additions regarding gameplay in Street Fighter V is the actual V system, composed of V-Skills, V-Triggers, and V-Reversals, which can each be summoned by pretty basic button combos. As such, don’t expect to learn complex input strings, as with the fatalities in Mortal Kombat X. They do require decent knowledge of each character, so make sure you take a bit of time to explore them before jumping into the online mode.

First up are the V-Skills, which can be summoned by combining medium punch with medium kick. These vary depending on the character and can range from parrying an attack as Ryu to summoning a tornado as Rashid, or flexing your muscles as Zangief. These are situational in some cases, but pulling them off is among the core ways you can fill up your V-Trigger gauge, which takes over from the Ultra one from Street Fighter IV. They can certainly help in combat, but some are better than others, depending on your play style.

After filling up the V-Trigger gauge, you can unleash every character’s special attack by pressing the heavy punch and heavy kick buttons. These, once again, vary depending on the playable protagonist and generate some interesting results, with Rashid summoning a tornado.

Another gauge you have to take into consideration in Street Fighter V is the EX one, which allows you to unleash a character’s Critical Art. These are also quite flamboyant, including FANG engulfing his body in a toxic cloud, poisoning opponents who try to hurt him.

Speaking of characters, Street Fighter V strikes a very good blend of old favorites, in the form of Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Zangief, Vega, R. Mika, M. Bison, Dhalsim, Cammy, Charlie Nash, Karin, and Birdie. It also throws in four all-new protagonists, in the form of Rashid, Laura, Necalli, and FANG.

All of them are quite varied. Capcom has made just enough changes to the returning cast in order to respect their origins but also to tread new ground and make them feel fresh. Special props go to Ken, who is no longer just a rehash of Ryu, as well as to Vega, who can now discard his signature claw, losing his extra reach while gaining versatility regarding close-quarters combat.

The all-new characters are quite interesting. Rashid may sport a Middle-Eastern look, but his attacks are quite deadly, and his moves are pretty fluid. Laura is all up in your face and pretty flamboyant, emphasizing the capoeira style from her native Brazil. Necalli is chaotic in terms of fighting, using his claws, kicks, and slams to surprise opponents, and can suit newcomers, as he can inflict a lot of damage and mitigate some of the punishment from his foes. By far the most complex one is FANG, who not only uses for the first time in the history of the franchise poison attacks to deal damage over time but also requires players to strike a perfect balance between offense and defense in order to survive battles.

Stages aren’t that numerous, but they are quite interesting regarding design. Don’t expect to admire the sights that much, as Street Fighter V’s tempo is fast paced and requires constant attention if you want to emerge victorious.

Besides a missing full-fledged story mode, Street Fighter V right now also lacks a simple Arcade mode, so there’s no way to match up in a standard best-of-three competition against an AI-controlled foe. You can engage in the Training mode, which is pretty complex. There’s also the Survival mode, which pits you against increasingly tougher opponents and rewards you with currency to unlock new things, but it doesn’t really replace the quintessential arcade. What’s more, the credits can’t be spent just yet, as the Store isn’t yet available in the game.

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Multiplayer

As it stands right now, Street Fighter V is geared heavily towards multiplayer action. It lacks plenty of key single-player modes, so Capcom’s experience needs to make up for it. Unfortunately, it falls a bit short.

The matchmaking is erratic, the servers are unstable, and dropped connections are quite frequent. This is surprising, to say the least, as Capcom organized several beta stages across PC and PS4 in order to polish up the online infrastructure.

Visuals and sound

Street Fighter V takes the watercolor style seen in IV and builds on top of it with great animations, visual effects, as well as character models. The fact that it’s based on Unreal Engine 4 also helps it run quite well on various configurations.

The soundtrack also strikes a good balance between old and new, reimagining some classic character themes, while adding new scores to give each stage its own audio style. The voice acting is pretty good, respecting the established characters and delivering good performances for the four new protagonists. As a bonus, you can also select the Japanese voices.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion