I honestly don’t have much to say about Stret Fighter 6. Gameplay-wise, it’s great and very innovative in terms of accommodating for newer players. It was fun enough.

Unfortunately the presentation was where this game fell off for me. None of the new characters are particularly memorable in any way for me and there just doesn’t feel like there’s a whole lot of style when compared to other Street Fighter entries. This is a basic complaint but I didn’t like them taking away the series’ normal typically awesome menu songs with a generic rap song. Just didn’t feel as hyped because of it, which is something you should feel in a game where choosing fighters immediately leads to crowds cheering your name and celebrating you.

As good as a release for a AAA fighting game can do in 2023.
Solid base game
Good singleplayer content
Good multiplayer
good dlc release schedule
A lot to hammer out but leagues better than 5 at launch.
On god please play a character with an invincible wakeup.

This is possibly the best fighting game I've ever played, and by far the most time I've spent on one not with the words Super, Smash, or Bros. in its name. It's accessible, but deep, it controls extremely well, the new drive mechanics are such clever things to be used both by high-level players, but they can also be used by extreme rookies like myself to even the odds a bit when needed since they really don't require any skill to actually pull off other than knowing what button on the controller does what. Overall gamefeel is actually very good, with controls feeling extremely smooth (though in Street Fighter tradition, pulling of cancels and doing combos require some extremely tight timing), character animations giving real flair to the action, and feedback on succesful hits to the opponent is extremely satisfying. Like, you really feel it when an attack connects, and that's super impressive considering how fast paced fights still are.

The main mode I've been playing is probably Battle Hub, one of the most fun times I've had, like, ever with an online mode in a game, and even though I've spent most of my time there losing to people far above my skills, it's still so nice and casual that it doesn't really matter that much and I'm still having a great time learning and facing people in a casual matter (except for a few people who can't stand losing and have to be, uh, not very nice in the open chat, but that'll always be the case no matter the game.) Even when I feel like I've had enough of that, I can just go to one of the arcade machines to play some of Capcom's classic arcade games which are, to be completely honest, more often than not complete garbage games, but it's still so fun that they're there, and since there's a pool of games that get switched out between each other, I still did have good days where I could play games like Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Final Fight (which is a very good game, though one I'm very bad at.) Avatar and extreme battles are fun as well, though maybe better in concept than execution since they're both pretty dead most of the time, unfortunately, and the only avatars open to battle are usually people at, like, level 99 so it's usually not worth even trying for me.

Fighting Ground is a little bit of everything. Arcade mode, training, character guides, combo trials ranked; the basics of a modern fighting game, I guess. Arcade mode is pretty fun, though it feels a bit barebones storywise. I've beaten it with Cammy, Marisa, Juri and Manon, and 1CC'd hard mode with Cammy which honestly felt easier than normal in SF4, so maybe it could be tuned up a bit, but it's really not the main single player attraction any more, so I get why it feels a bit less substantial and challenging than before (or maybe I'm just... better than before? Probably a combination of both tbh.) Training mode isn't really for me since I historically always get bored with it, which is probably also why I've never gotten particularly good at any fighting game, but the character guides are extremely good for those who really want a deep dive into a character, as are the combo trials. I guess I've enjoyed my time ranking up my Cammy (I chose her because new design is really cool. I'm extremely basic when choosing a main in a fighting game, okay?) in ranked battles as well, but I'm not really that interested in the competetive aspect of video games, so it's not really for me. Nothing wrong with it as far as I can tell, though!

World Tour is... well, it's a good idea, I guess, and it starts out a lot of fun, but it's just too long. Creating an avatar in the surprisingly deep character creator is a lot of fun (even if I mainly created a monster with my Micolash (who is, of course, named after the Host of the Nightmare himself, and what I usually name my avatars, for some reason)), and getting to know the different Street Fighters is an absolute joy throughout, but the constant fighting just starts taking a toll after a while, and the story is complete garbage that there's way too much of. I don't even think it works all that well as a tutorial since even though it does try to teach you the game's different mechanics and how to fight different types of fighter, you can usually just brute force everything if you want to through level grinding or using stat enhancing items (or even healing yourself mid-battle.) I don't hate World Tour, most of it I don't even dislike, but it is very clearly the weakest part of an otherwise GOTY quality package. Also super weird how it seemingly doesn't have an ending? I don't know, maybe there's more story after the credits, but if not, they almost cut to black mid-scene after the final boss is defeated. Even as a hater of the story, I sort of hope something more gets added in the future.

Just so as to not end on a downer on this game: I love Street Fighter 6. I'm not going to be playing it every day for the next couple of years, but it is one of those games that I'm not going to delete from my PS5 either, because I know that I will get that desire to jump into it again occasionally to experience the greatness that is its gameplay and maybe try out other characters that look like fun (spoiler alert: everyone who's not a charge character is fun.) I have never before in my life paid full price for a fighting game before SF6 and I don't know what other would make me do so in the future, but in no way do I regret my decision here. Just a masterclass in fighting game design.

Oh, and I should also put the soundtrack discourse to rest once and for all. It's actually extremely good and fits the game perfectly, and everyone who says otherwise is either a) boring, or b) can't stand any piece of music that isn't super melodic, which is just not a good way to live life to its fullest. These are not my opinions, by the way, but objective facts, so you can try to argue it as much as you'd like against it, but that'd be like saying 1+1 does not =2, and that's just foolish.

This will probably be considered one of the best Street Fighter games up with Third Strike in about twenty years, the roster is lacking, the mental stack is nuts, world tour is mid, there’s not enough costumes and you have to pay for colors. I only bring all that up to show that this game is so incredibly smooth and fun that even all those negatives still have it at a 4 This will be my favorite fighting game of all time in about three years after some more characters and some balance adjustments.

Bumping a star off because the post launch support has been dogwater. Season passes full of shit for the avatar stuff that no one really cares that much about, little to nothing for the actual characters, 5 MONTHS between AKI and Ed, grossly overpriced cosmetics, it's fuckin shameful. I get that maybe it's a Quality vs Quantity thing (there were so many SF5 costumes that looked like shit), but come on now.

I really hope the positive buzz to Tekken 8 and the negative reactions they get regarding the season passes kicks them in the ass for season 2 and beyond so they can step their game back up.