Street Fighter 6 (2023) [PC] review

“Some people want it to happen, some people wish it would happen, others make it happen.”

-Michael Jordan

I’m a fan of fighting games. That might be a little bit of an understatement, actually – I play a ton of them. I’m good enough to know how good I’m not, which is better than many and worse than most, but I also suspect that being good isn’t the key to the genre. No, fighting games are about improvement, about learning something from every match, and it stands to reason that a fighting game focused on those points might be a great example of the genre. That said, let’s take a look at Street Fighter 6.

I usually do my best to avoid flowery language, though I’ll admit that effort doesn’t always translate to results. So when I talk about why I love fighting games, I’ll attempt to avoid discussing the adrenaline rush that comes with a really exciting match, the searing jolt of finally having a mechanic or combo or matchup click in your mind, the way that after enough time practicing your hands will get that perfect move out almost on their own…any of that. Those are definitely all things you need to feel rather than read, and I’m not the one to tell you anyway. I haven’t been to a tournament in years.

What I can describe, though, is the way that people act when you’re playing at anything beyond the absolute most basic button-mashing levels. I’ve put a lot of time into Street Fighter 6, and for every instance of toxic behavior I encountered, there were ten times someone thanked me for a match, asked me for tips on how to beat my strategy or offered me tips on how to beat theirs.

In my experience that’s how the fighting game community, or FGC, operates. I’m on the fringes, admittedly, but I’ve always found it to be this way. I’d pin that on the almost meditative experience of humble self-improvement that goes into learning a game like this.

Street Fighter 6, more than any fighting game I’ve played, wants you to love that experience the way that I have for years. It doesn’t just have a tutorial, it has an entire honest-to-god tutorial-game in the form of the World Tour mode, which is both tens of hours long and is also absolutely worth playing for all of them regardless of skill level because of how unnecessarily endearing it is. It has character-specific guides, including combo advice, move mechanics, and more. It has a training mode that offers everything down to specific responses to various moves, helping you develop the snap reflexes necessary to counter at the right time. At no point does any of this condescend. That’s not what it’s about. You’re new, but we’re all students here, so let’s get to work.

We’ve got around 20 characters this time around, with a decent mix of both old Street Fighter standbys and newcomers so there’s a good chance you’ll find someone appealing. The newbies tend to map to previous fan favorites, many of whom stuck around if that’s your preference.

New protagonist Luke is a clear Ryu analogue, for instance, but he brings a more in-your-face MMA style to the role. Meanwhile, his rival Jamie has Ken energy combined with a unique buff mechanic to spice up his drunken boxing. Ninja-cheerleader-graffiti-artist Kimberly has elements of both Chun Li and Guy, while ballerina-judoka-supermodel Manon is our new Zangief-eriffic grappler. One wonders how these guys find the time to have four or five careers at once while also traveling the world and fighting in tournaments, but you have to respect the hustle.

Pick your favorite and then pick your poison – you’ve got a variety of modes for your fighting pleasure. Remember how Street Fighter V launched in what can best be described as “a state?” Rest assured, then, that 6 has an arcade mode with story segments for each character. It’s got a survival mode. It’s got Extreme Battles that add in modifiers to mix up the experience. Even if you aren’t interested in playing with others, you’re free to play with yourself. Street Fighter 6 will happily enable you, and all without a post-launch update.

Heck, maybe you don’t have a favorite. That’s fine. In the World Tour mode, you can make your own character – your Avatar – and send them into Final Fight’s Metro City for an open world adventure packed with both goofy humor and Fighting Games 101 education. It cannot be overstated how fantastic this is, and “it’s a really big tutorial” doesn’t do it justice. Fans of the Yakuza series and Street Fighter lore are well-served putting some time into World Tour. You’ll collect gear. You’ll fight thugs. You’ll be attacked by killer Roombas. What’s more, you can customize your Avatar to turn them into a finely honed fighting machine with mix-and-matched special moves from a variety of characters. You can also customize them to look like a hideous monster. You’ll see plenty of those when you play online.

You should, by the way, play online.

The Battle Hub is where the heart of the action is, where you’ll meet other fighters and where you’ll really start to learn how much you don’t know. It’s a long-standing adage in fighting game circles that online play can’t really stand up to in-person battles thanks to network latency and such, and there’s a lot of truth to that, but you should take what’s offered if it’s good. Street Fighter 6’s online is, in my experience, pretty darn good. Much like toxic play, I found notably poor latency to be rare; maybe one match out of twenty had an issue, though your experience could vary based on your connection. There’s a Ranked ladder to climb, Casual matches if you’re less interested in that, a fantastic lobby system where you can set up fights and interact with other Avatars (or even set up Avatar fights if you’re into that) and even a rotating set of Capcom arcade classics set up for free play. You can absolutely play Street Fighter II via Street Fighter 6 if that’s what you’re into.

As for the actual combat, it’s the modern Street Fighter you know and love with a couple twists. These largely revolve around the Drive system, a replenishing energy bar that can be spent a few different ways. You can enhance your special moves using Drive, for instance, rather than spending super meter. There’s also some Drive-specific moves – the Drive Impact, a variation on the previous games’ Focus Attacks that allow for an unblockable strike to surprise your enemies; the Drive Rush, a quick cancel for mix-ups; the Drive Parry, a defensive maneuver that’s a godsend against fireballs; and the Drive Reverse, a quick counter that shoves the enemy back to get you out of a bad spot. Drive management is of the utmost importance in combat, and it’s fortunate that the game’s happy to help you begin to figure it out.

Combine some of the most refined and polished content ever seen in a fighting game with a rock-solid combat engine and superlative presentation and you’ve got a winner. Street Fighter 6 leans into the urban style of the World Tour mode’s Metro City with a hip-hop soundtrack and graffiti aesthetic. The graphics pop like the first time you saw Street Fighter IV’s calligraphic ink splashes. The soundtrack’s some of the best you’ve heard since Guile’s theme. You can put on an honest-to-god commentary track to accompany your matches, and there’s multiple commentators in both English and Japanese with subtitles. Capcom didn’t spare any expense.

This, in the end, is a game that nails what fighting games strive to do: it wants to stick in your head. It will if you’ll let it. You’ll be visualizing combos and pondering linking moves the way you used to think about falling Tetris blocks. You’ll meet new people, you’ll lose again and again, and maybe with time, effort, focus and a little help you’ll start to learn what winning feels like. Most importantly you’ll enjoy all of it, even the losing, if you’ll set your ego aside and open yourself up to becoming better a little bit at a time. All this, delivered without apology or concession. The theme of the day, from the game’s trailer to the World Tour mode right down to the lyrics of the soundtrack, is that no matter who you are, put in the work and you can do this.

It’s one of the best games I’ve ever played. Check out Street Fighter 6.

PIXEL PERFECT

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Cory G. believes the pen is mightier than the sword…well, depending on how sharp the pen and sword are. A child of the ’90s and a prolific writer, he strews his work about like Legos made of words, just waiting for your brain to step on them. He enjoys a devilish challenge, so when it comes to talking about some of the more difficult games out there, you might just run into the Infernal Accountant Mage. Some advice: hold on to your soul around this guy, and don’t sign anything. Read more at popzara.com.