Edit: We would like to confirm that we will be re-reviewing Street Fighter V in June.
It’s a new era of Street Fighter, we’re finally away from the many rehashes of Street Fighter V after many years. Now with Street Fighter V comes a console exclusive title that has promises it will be the one and only edition of Street Fighter V that will stay as a PS4 exclusive. With all this riding on its back, it’s up to Street Fighter V to kill their 8th generation console debut. Unfortunately Street Fighter V only manages to make a small impact in their debut.
I just want to say first that Street Fighter V is an excellent fighting game, and the gameplay is absolutely fine. It suffers from being a game that should be great, but due to some of the choices made with the release of the game it’s just a good game. Although the major issue with Street Fighter V won’t be an issue in a years time, I am reviewing the game that releases on February 16th 2016 so I just can’t look past the serious lack of content that will be on the disc at launch.
Fighting games in the past were not known for content, but that has changed with games like Mortal Kombat which offers multiple single player and multi player modes which were all ready to play at launch. I can see some people liking that content is spread out throughout the year, so they have a reason to keep coming back to the game to play the added modes which I must add are free updates. I’m not a fan of it, and with the amount of games that come out per year, I might not even come back to the “complete” game so I won’t get benefits of waiting out for content that should be there at launch.
One of the very few modes that are available at launch is “Story” which isn’t to be confused with the big story mode coming in June. The story mode at launch are actually character stories which provides a backstory for each of the characters in Street Fighter V.
The stories include three one round fights with voiceovers and still images in-between each fight to bridge each fight together. Each story is extremely short, and lasts around 7 minutes between each character which means you can finish them all in less than 2 hours. I understand that there’s the big cinematic story coming in the summer, but these character stories could have been much more in depth, and are already over before they really get going. Even just bumping each one to 20 minutes, would have provided over 5 hours of content rather than under 2 hours of content.
The other single player mode is survival mode. In survival mode you can take pick any of the 16 characters available to run the gauntlet against other fighters. Throughout a survival run you will earn points, and with these points you have to choose a battle supplement which includes health recoveries, attack/defense increases and V-Gauge boosts. You will need to spend the points wisely throughout the mode along with making sure not to lose too much health during battles. It’s a fun mode for sure, not one I’d use much but it’s worth playing and a good challenge for all skill level players.
There’s two modes that’s I’m surprised are not in, which are arcade mode and being able to play Versus against a CPU. Although there is a training mode were you can go against the CPU with a difficulty switch, it just doesn’t have that same drama that a Versus CPU would have with it actually having rounds and an end to the fight. In practice mode the health regenerates when it reaches zero. Not having an arcade mode is another big hit for the game, as it’s just something all fighters should have, it’s what made fighter games what they are today, and just feels wrong not to have one in. The worst part is, I haven’t heard about these being patched in at a later date.
Now this is the part of the review were things are going to get a lot more positive. One of these positives is how impressive the visuals are. Everything looks fantastic in Street Fighter V, the character models, the stages, everything looks incredible. I’d go as far as saying that it’s one of the most visually impressive games on the PS4 yet. The stages which mostly take place in different parts of the world really manage to showcase how great these visuals are.
Each stage has many things going in the background whether that be a group of people trying to flip over a car or someone selling fruit. Each stage can be interacted with in its own unique ways, for example you can help the group in the background flip over the car by slamming the other fighter to ground. It’s these things that are going on in the background along with the interactions that really make these stages come alive, and each one feels unique because of it.
The big addition to gameplay in Street Fighter V is the V-Gauge which offers unique abilities and characteristics for each fighter in the game. The V-Gauge is filled up by taking hits from the other fighter or being land your V-Skills. V-Skills are totally unique to each character with abilities such as being able to nullify the other fighters attacks and projectiles. V-Reversals uses up one of the blocks of your V-Gauge, and if done it will release a counterattack against your opponent, and again these counterattacks all vary between each character. Finally you have the V-Trigger which is the big attack which can range from super attacks, power ups, as well as other abilities. This is the perfect move for what might be a comeback on your end. The V-Gauge definitely lives up to being unique, I’ve played as each character in the game, and they all managed to feel unique. The attacks, the abilities, everything felt specific to that character.
The Final Verdict
Now lets get this out there right away, Street Fighter V is a good game. Street Fighter V however doesn’t live up to its potential because it’s just so lacking and bare bones at launch. I’ve never reviewed a video game that has this much “coming soon” content that isn’t DLC. I feel if the developers could not have everything they wanted in the game ready for release, then it should have been delayed until the summer. If you can wait it out then I suggest waiting until later this year to pick up the game when everything has released because it’s still a very good fighting game that’s worth the purchase but just at a later date.
+Incredible art style and visuals
+Fun gameplay
– Too much content “coming soon”, not enough to justify full price at launch
– Character stories is a great idea on paper, but is poorly implemented in the game
Final Score: 7/10
