If one thing is important in fighting games, it’s being given the necessary tools to become better. Admittedly, fighting games in general have gotten better in recent years at doing this – Guilty Gear being the stand out mention here – but for Street Fighter 6 to keep growing its audience, it has to help players improve.
Street Fighter V had combo trials, sure, but most of them were not really practical for improving your performance in real matches. For me personally, anything I used in matches I picked up from YouTube, and while there’s an argument that all this information is readily available on the web, imagine a world where it’s available right at your fingertips.
Having gone hands on with far more than what the recent demo offers, I can say that this dream is alive inside Street Fighter 6.
The training mode in Street Fighter 6 has been completely overhauled to teach new players all the basics and then give them the tools they need to get better at fighting in the street. A lengthy tutorial kicks things off (which you can skip if you’re a fighting game pro), giving new players the opportunity to start off slowly with the basics before picking a character they like the look of.
Each character has a very decent interactive tutorial that’s way better than anything seen in previous Street Fighters. I got to look at JP’s tutorial – SF6’s big bad – and I was amazed at how detailed it all was. In SFV, you had a few screens running over the moves, V-Skill and the like, being over after a few short minutes. In SF6, each move is broken down into proper segments, teaching you when those moves are best used and their various properties. Giving you scenarios and then a moment to try each move for yourself before you move on is key for learning.
Half way through the tutorial everything gets a bit meta, with JP telling me himself how best his moves were used, commenting that close range fighting was beneath him. It’s a fun twist that makes me excited to see what the other characters tutorials will entail.
Next I got to try Cammy’s combo trials, with this returning feature now broken down into three sub segments: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. Improving over SFV’s version, you really get the sense that these combo trials could be used in a match. They felt natural and practical.
Another great thing about the trials is the natural curve they have in showcasing a character’s potential, slowly introducing things like Drive Rush as you progress into the higher difficulty tiers. It’s really exciting that news players are going to be able to fully utilise these tools, hopefully meaning we will see a wider pool of decent players in online games!
For those wanting that shorter offline experience and a chance to beat up some fools, the traditional arcade mode returns, offering a bunch of rounds to fight through, while using amazing art to tell each character’s story. I went hands on with Ken’s story, which dives into how found himself in a spot of bother during SF6. With online multiplayer growing and the create-a-character World Tour, the arcade is likely to be one of the least played modes in the game, but it’s still great to have this classic form included.
Of course, I couldn’t step away from the preview without trying as many characters as possible. Well, all of them, in fact.
From the previous betas and previews, I’ve already been hands on with a fair few of the roster, so focussed on the fresher faces. Dee Jay returns after being last seen in Street Fighter IV. SFIV’s Omega mode turned Dee Jay from a charge character to a motion character instead, and I remember thinking at the time that he felt much better to play, even if it wasn’t his default style. In SF6, Dee Jay is now a hybrid of the two, using charge for some moves and motion for others. It’s a decent change, even if playing as him feels a little underwhelming – this could change once all the pros get their hands on him and work out some remarkable combos, of course.
Shifting back to Cammy, she has some incredible mix-up potential. Having been knocked down a peg through updates to SFV, she’s back in full force in SF6. Her ability to hold her specials means you have the power to force a mistake out of an opponent, and the Hooligan Combination benefits from this greatly. Throwing it out in V was generally an easy read, but now, if the opponent reacts and you hold, it can lead to a whole host of opportunities for you. Even then, the Hooligan Combination has four different moves that you can follow up with, so it’s a massive guessing game for your opponent.
There’s also been debate over previous Cammy footage over whether you could still perform her Cannon Strike from a regular jump in, as it only looking like it could be performed from the Hooligan Combination. Well, I’m happy to report that you indeed can perform it from a normal jump in. My girl is back!
The other three characters I delved into were Dhalsim, Manon and JP. Dhalsim’s teleports are now performed by pressing back or forwards and all three punches or all three kicks. Instant air teleports used to require a decent execution, but they’re now so easy I’m concerned it’s going to make Dhalsim a little too strong, giving him free reign to move around how he pleases, teleporting in and out of combat. A potentially frustrating experience for sure.
Manon is fine for the most part, but has the potential to two or three shot opponents, which I’m not sure is a good thing. It’s not as if she is slow and has to really work for the damage. She gains medals while playing and once she has five, her command grabs do roughly 40% damage, which is nuts. It could be a case that her command grabs are easily read and there’s no real issue, though we’ll need more time with the game to really find that out.
Finally, there’s JP. Now, I really like the idea of JP, as he’s reminiscent of Glacius from Killer Instinct with a little of Mortal Kombat’s Noob Saibot thrown in for good measure. He’s all about maintaining distance and not letting opponents get close, but it’s a little worrying how easy it is to keep opponents at bay while he sends out a ton of projectiles. Oh, he also has teleports so his manoeuvrability is pretty good too. Once people have learnt how to properly utilise his skill set, it’s going to be a real challenge facing him in online matches,
The rest of the SF6 roster were also fun. Lily seemed great, if not almost a carbon copy of T-Hawk, while I was looking forward to playing Marissa, but she felt a little vanilla. Zangief felt like Zangief, and doesn’t feel that different from his previous iterations, while Blanka, E. Honda and Chun-Li all no longer have the ability to button bash out a special. They now require a motion movement and button press which I’ll be honest is very healthy for the game. Players used to get away with button bashing and picked those characters for that reason, but they are forced to learn actual moves which is brilliant.
Street Fighter 6 has the potential to be the very best game yet in this fighting game franchise, expertly bringing together both hardcore and casual players with a range of modes and an exciting roster. It really feels like Capcom has thought of everything and between Fighting Grounds, World Tour and the Battle Hub, Street Fighter 6 is one incredible package. June can’t come soon enough!
