Street Fighter 6 Notes by Compthug
A new excellent entry for the legendary franchise of Street Fighter by my favorite company in existence, Capcom <3 featuring Arcade, Ranked, Casual, Battle Hub and World Tour modes with amazing new mechanics. Street Fighter 6, what a fantastic game. I bought the game two days after it came out. Learned a couple of combos and my mind was embedded with a few things for Guile from Street Fighter 5 and my fighting games fundamentals are solid. Then, I hopped on Battle Hub to play with people and test the waters, I probably played a hundred matches in the same session that day yo haha! The game just gets better with every match, it started to grow on me at an immense pace. Pause. It is much better than I expected. Also, I loved the battle hub idea where everybody play at the cabinets and can also roam and fight with their avatars, I have seen some really creative ones like Albert Wesker from Resident Evil, Ryo Hazuki from Shenmue, Sagat, Hugo, Dudley, etc. I tried to make my avatar look like me haha! Here is a picture of yours truly’s avatar:
Resembles me, right? Haha! Anyways, I tried World Tour and did few things there, it wasn’t something I am excited for, but I actually did enjoy it a little bit. I think being able to interact and learn moves from characters in the main roster is great and hilarious to see my avatar with them. Awesome cutscenes too. You roam in Metro City and can travel to meet other characters in different countries, you fight in the streets to get many different things like colors to use on your clothes, level up to fight tougher opponents and progress in the story, some nice jobs to earn the bread. I used Marisa style throughout my entire run in World Tour, and I did not feel that I needed to level up to progress because I am good player and understand the game very well, so it was easy for me to exploit the CPU. I rushed through it to get the trophies; I still hop in there from time to time, though. I also love the fact that when new characters get released, Capcom adds them to World Tour and you can meet up with them in certain areas, we’ve already seen that with Rashid. I am excited to see A.K.I, though! Loved her soundtrack, I’ve been listening to it a lot lately. She seems to be a problem.
In addition, the new mechanics are superb, especially Drive Impact. This game introduced Drive Rush, Drive Impact, Drive Reversal, and new form of Parry. All of which consume from the Drive Gauge underneath the health bar, and you enter burnout if the excessive spending results in emptiness, which is a situation you should avoid as much as possible because your options become limited and you’re vulnerable to Chip damage and Drive Impact, especially near the wall because you will be in the stun state if you get hit with Drive Impact. That explains why resource management is extremely important and a big part of the game, which also makes it more fun. Well balanced too. Drive Rush is used for combo extension or starting up a pressure and getting closer to your opponent, can also be crucial to end a match if used wisely and that is almost a necessity at high level play. Drive Reversal is used to escape an opponent’s pressure. I rarely saw Drive Reversal being used in the game, and I almost never use it. I remember the only time I used it was against Lily’s Condor Spire because I believe she is plus on block when she does that.
After a few days from playing the game, I witnessed who I consider to be the most badass, elegant, and probably one of the best designed characters in fighting games, the Gentleman of the Abyss, the Lord of Delusion, the one and only, JP. What an amazing character, and after witnessing his win pose? Me playing him as one of my main characters is fucking official, no discussion. His move set is excellent as well, this character controls the match from full screen and his kit has every tool that you can think of in Street Fighter, Fireball (can be faked to bait jumps and parry to drain the drive gauge) full-screen overhead, full-screen command grab, air throw, teleport, spikes that hit anywhere in the screen, his loadout also contain arguably the best reversal in the game (Amnesia) that breeds mad mix-ups chance and can lead to full punish and you almost can’t whiff-punish his regular buttons in neutral and he can do countless setups that can be super fancy. Excellent character, definitely my favorite newcomer. Here is an image of him:
I like the newcomers a lot, especially JP and Marisa. Manon design is awesome, but I do not play her. I always prefer characters with safe strategies because I am mostly a defensive player, and I also like characters with high damage output, even if their defense is not the best. Marisa is the heavy hitter of the heavy hitters. This character is a menace, a female Roman gladiator that’s almost identical in size with Zangief haha! Oh my god. I don’t believe there is a character in the roster, whether a male or female that hits as hard as her. If you mash unsafe specials on her and she blocks, start thinking about the next round, B. She also has a good damaging command grab, which gives her more options to oppress her opponents. Great character. The main roster is nice, I am super excited to see more characters from the previous Street Fighter games, especially 3rd Strike in the art design of this gorgeous-looking game. I want to see Dudley, Makoto, Ibuki, Hugo, Sagat, Yun, Yung, etc. come back. I am mostly excited to see Akuma, though, arguably my favorite character in the series. I am wondering how his moves will look and how strong he is! Can’t wait until next summer to witness him joining the roster! I am loving this game so far.