Capcom’s Street Fighter 6’s reveal at the end of this year’s Pro Tour booked the table for the next entry in perhaps the most beloved fighting series of all time. After meager product launches at launch, Street Fighter V, which launched in 2016, has recovered to give fans plenty of features, fighters, and content at the end of its life. Street Fighter 6 hopes to avoid those early stumblings by including a variety of game modes from the start, but my hands-on time during Summer Game Fest 2022 in Los Angeles, California was just that. to see how the matches play out.
The core gameplay is definitely from the three matches I’ve been through, but I’m probably most intrigued by the real-time commentary. This feature, offered by recognizable members of the fighting game community, is a smart evolution of the genre; After all, sports games have had real-time commentary for decades, and esports has become a huge part of the fighting game community.
In my demo, I could choose between two individual game analysts: Jeremy “Vicious” Lopez and Aru. Vicious offers dynamic commentary in English, while Aru is for players who want to analyze Japanese. Before entering a match, you can choose the personality of each match, as well as the color commentator. I can’t wait to see the final list of analysts and how they combine to complement each other. Unfortunately, there were no black commentators in the build I played, leaving my players to take on the difficult task of going it alone.
After choosing Vicious’ English commentary, I chose from two stages and four characters (Ryu, Chun-Li, Jamie and Luke). While engaged in combat, you can use the four directions of the d-pad to choose the face you want your character to create – while the determined face always exudes Ryu’s beauty, I chose the face gnashing of teeth (you can change faces as many times as you like until the match loads, leading to some hilarious grimace moments if you so choose). Once you’re in it, warriors will enter the arena with unique walking animations and even a screen showing their key stats and interests outside of combat.
Matches play out in a familiar fashion, with Hadoukens and overhead lanes circling, and even the one-man commentary counter does a decent job of keeping up with the action. During my gameplay, Vicious noticed and invoked things like using projectiles to sense each other, extreme actions, and even when a character is cornered and takes a lot of damage. . I also appreciate how commentators don’t just respond to attacks or special situations; when I finished the match with a basic low kick, Vicious commented on how I had launched a kick “from where” my opponent wasn’t expecting, while tension increased when he learned that both We are both ready. .
The commentary is a great feature that helps develop the series and the genre in general, but make no mistake: The gameplay is equally impressive. I enjoy taking control of Ryu as I battle Chun-Li’s familiar nemesis and take on a new challenger, Jamie. Jamie’s Chinese drunken fist provides a unique puzzle to solve, but my familiarity with Ryu shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Meanwhile, I’d love to experiment with Luke’s high-energy, fast-paced style, especially since he debuted in Street Fighter V after I last signed up with that title.
Street Fighter 6 is making all the right moves so far. While I’m a bit hesitant about the commentary thanks to years of repetitive analysis in sports titles every year, the time (and practice) of the game has made me confident of a powerful commentary booth. A dynamic, two-player game that you can customize can provide not only the atmosphere of a match, but how it can expand my knowledge of Street Fighter tactics in general. After I get Street Fighter 6, 2023 can’t come anytime soon.
