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Pretty great 3d brawler of its era.
Hard as balls though.

Mechanically, there's quite a few things that separate it from others.
One, its charge attack system. The way they're implemented is pretty easy to under stand. Pretty nifty in many situations.
There are also attacks performed with combined inputs like Jump + Beat = a sweeping move which is really useful. I'd go as far and say it makes combat more complex than others for the time.
Some aspects of other beat em ups (mainly from the Snes era) are multiple pathways. One stage you'll be on a boat while in the flipside, you'll be in a Sega Theme park of sorts with a large Sonic statue.
There's also a shift button which is surprisingly useful for dodging enemy attacks. Just don't charge while shifting. It slows you down.

Big cons are how fucking unforgiving timeouts can be. The timer runs out so fast compared to other beat em ups. You might time out before your health drains.
Then there's the bosses while unique and cool, abuse the ever living fuck out of their super moves that give them invincibility frames. The last enemy gauntlet with the flying Grim Reapers was absolute cancer.

But yeah. Cool game. Cool playable characters with their unique quirks and such. Combat in general feels snappy and satisfying.

Its one of those games if you're REALLY used to other action games, muscle memory can fuck you up. Especially when dodging is concerned.

Memorizing patterns is a bit of a must to master combat. Alternate between weaving or parrying. Whichever suits you best.

Pretty neat when you get used to it. Really does look like an action movie when you're good enough to make a consistent flow.

Can't say I care much on how upgrades are handled. Not a big fan of dumping 1,500 exp 5 (kinda 6) times in a row for a small counter after a dodge. It's unique, I'll give it that. But its not something I'd want in other games.

Thankfully, checkpoints are really generous. Even if you restart the level, the game saves all your unlocked shortcuts. Bad if you don't have enough upgrades but it's your choice to take the risk.

All 'n all, its pretty neat. VERY punishing at first but rewarding. Flawed but still solid.

Also I like how I can spare the bosses to get the good ending but not long ago I keep slitting some mook's throat. But those lives don't matter.

Stop me if you heard this one before for a 3d Sonic game: Interesting idea but the execution falls flat.

It's weird. I don't have a problem the way teams work in stages. I don't even mind how combat works for the most part. I think the game does a good job using all 3 formations in this lil beat em up platformer. And it's pretty fast paced like a Sonic game should. Plus it's stage to stage with Special Stages to get emeralds. Like they took the classic formula (in terms of progression) with a twist. Hell, the stages themselves look more inline with classic Sonic than either Adventure game.

The problem lies in I feel.... in everything like the ground controls, stage length and just overall unstable jank. The controls feel very slippery especially in the Speed formation. It's so hard to keep in one direction when you so much as tilt your analog stick in the upper left or right, you go careening off to the sides. They don't appear every time but I also got deaths due to programming jank like not holding forward when going through a loop or ramp then falling off a pit. In Bullet Station, when I got to that part where I get shot though the cannon, I bounced off one of the rails in the flying formation to the very right. The pinball levels are just bad.
Stages in general take too long later on. 5 minutes was already stretching it but then they reach 10 and in Team Chaotix's missions, more than 20 if you get lost in the later missions. Team Rose has the perfect length for this type of gameplay.

Eh. I think it can be okay at best when you're playing as one team. Play with all 4, It gets draining.

After sucking Alpha 2's dick for a long time, I've to appreciate this more nowadays. Especially since this is Street Fighter's last hurrah to its Hyper Fighting roots that isn't the billionth Super Turbo rerelease.

Its probably the most juggle heavy SF and its the first fighting game to have "styles". A-ism is the most balanced while V-ism(too good) & X-ism(eh) aren't but thankfully got better in updates which nobody played. But I appreciate the crazy options

In general, I see this as the final evolution to THE 90s style of capcom fighter which I classify as fast as fuck with insane combos ala Marvel series, Darkstalkers and SF before 3.

So long, fast SF. I will miss you dearly.

It's alright. It more or less has the same structure as River City Ransom. Combat controls are pretty nice overall.
What isn't so nice is the way the RPG elements are handled.

My biggest gripe with the game is how enemy health (apparently) is scaled as you progress with the story. Including basic enemies from all the way to the first area who turn into damage sponges later on. I feel this defeats the purpose of the stats where I feel the only character stat that's noticeable is Stamina.

Funnily enough, that isn't the case for the bosses. Overall, I enjoyed almost all of them.
I saw some people have trouble with them, which I don't get. Their patterns seem pretty clear cut to figure out. If you're slightly patient, you'll find out much all their patterns with a death or two at most. Sometimes, you can even bum rush. Simple case of boss doing an attack -> you dodge -> boss is open (provided they don't have their temporary invincible mode on at the moment) -> attack.

The writing.... let's just say it's not my cup of tea (meaning cringe.) But at least the tone is consistent throughout.
More importantly, I can skip all cutscenes by holding one of the face buttons.
Though, I do like both the normal ending and the secret ending. Especially as someone who has played the japanese only Shin Nekketsu Kōha: Kunio-tachi no Banka.

Speaking of which: https://youtu.be/2cnG4_2VS5I

After liking the first game a lot and enjoying the sequels, I don't know what to expect aside from 4 fresh, new and younger faces and a story trying to build what little to no plot the arcade game had.

But as soon as I got through half of the first level and the second story segment, I made a realization: This is basically a port aside from the graphics and redesigns. A remake disguised as a new sequel. I knew animations were the same but I honestly didn't think entire levels would be as well.
I wanna say I was disappointed but given how rare the series is as a whole (from what I imagine overseas) makes me think of a couple of reasons why that is:
1. Someone wanted to port the game to make up for the canceled dreamcast port of the original game now that they have a more powerful console in their hands.
And 2. Take advantage of online. In the Xbox's case you don't need an additional network adapter like the PS2 Phat model since the game is by enlarge, a multiplayer game.

As for the game itself, it's Spikeout but with that classic mid 2000s beat em up aesthetic (which somehow makes the game uglier than its arcade counterpart.) I joke but at the very least, some locales didn't transition too terribly. I do admire they went through the effort to redesign every playable character and bosses, even bosses that are clones/recolors.

I like the new playable characters, erm... gameplay wise.
Spike Jr. is.... well... Spike Jr. with a couple of small differences.
Jackal is by far the worst one. Some slow moves, really bad throws. He's sort of a combination of Jr. and Tenshin but worse.
Min Hua is pretty much Akira from Virtua Fighter. Same animations and all. She's probably the most combo friendly character to play as making her my favorite. Because she's so short, some high attacks will barely graze her. Unintentional, maybe, but I'll take it.
Fiona is a special case because her moveset was lifted from Alberto, a character from Spiker's Battle. Same with Void (a story unlockable) whose moveset was taken from Gorn from Spiker's.
You can unlock pretty much every boss and miniboss in the game which is stuff I always like. Special requirement is to be on normal/hard mode, do a 4 hit combo on the boss before death all without getting hit (but you can get hit by their mooks though. And trust me, the 4 hit combo thing is more generous than it might seem if you're good at grab attacks.

Just like the original game, it's hard. But fun. You can map all sorts of inputs which makes performing some of these moves more comfortable to pull off on a controller. And it's probably me, I think hits have more of an impact than the arcade game.

Battle Street mode is pretty much the arcade mode. You can turn on the oh-so unforgiving timer, continues and even friendly fire if you want and transitions to online play. You can even switch difficulties. Stages also unlock after doing the story mode so you can replay the entirety of one stage. So this is a nice way to experience the original game in this new coat of paint.

Now for the big cons...

The way story mode was handled is kind of horrendous lol
Thing is, there are no continues or checkpoints to be seen anywhere. You can switch on easy mode... but only if you die twice and you can't switch Story mode difficulty willingly. It's not so bad in a few story segments if you're decent at the game. Its those couple of two or three that sour the whole decision to not have continues. Story segment 3, and especially 7 suck major balls cuz they're one of the longer stages which makes dying really tiresome.
Health kits restore very little health as you'd expect unless you're playing easy mode. By the way, enemy AI is pretty much the same, even damage. Only difference is that health items restore more health and bosses don't have invincibility frames after getting knocked down.
You know you're unforgiving when even God Hand has more generous checkpoints. But at least there's no timer by default.

The story just.... exists... but it is pretty funny though. The story starts with Spike missing... nothing much happens.... then at the beginning of the final level, Spike comes out of nowhere. Spike Jr. is pretty much an asshole to everyone, especially the female characters. Lots of raised questions dropped. Game acts like its wrapped everything up. It's the high cheese levels only to come out of this era of games.

Can I just say that the game doesn't teach you how to actually play the game unlike the arcade demos. No even a character movelist. I would know given my experience with the series.

I imagine that's why this game got review bombed in the first place. Reviewing an entry to a relatively unknown series whilst going in not knowing how the game even works PLUS whatever I said during my story mode rambling.

I still enjoyed my time with it. If you want Spikeout with more characters, online co-op (if you can get it to work) then you might get a kick out of it. For newcomers, I'd just look up how to play on the web (Gamefaqs or the jp wiki) and play the story on easy mode. That's all I can say if you want the best experience possible.

If you want a beat em up with over-the-top action, at blisteringly erratic speeds, rewarding combat once mastered and loads and LOADS of machismo..... Fuck it. Urban Reign, God Hand and Spike Out: Final Edition will do you fine. I'll even throw Yakuza 2 in there. That game can grow hairs from underneath the dual layered disc.

But if you pine for panty shots from women ages 16-25, J-rock with some SoundCloud mumbles mixed in there accompanied with combat with the complexity of your average Simple Series title (with characters just as complex), run, don't walk..... to a Sex therapist cuz that's the least punishing place I could think of for its core audience.

For real, it's a dumb lil brawler that's unapologetically pervy but loads of characters to play as and encourages replayablity. Not that I'd go back to any previous "missions" personally but I'm sure someone will. And hopefully that same someone refers to my piece of advice on paragraph 2 if they have the symptoms listed.

It's Final Showdown. I would've given it 4 or 5 stars if it wasn't more barebones than Final Showdown on ps3 and still a farcry from VF4Evo.

Weird character models, weird lighting, features like replays gone and lobbies are awkward as fuck to get around now. Features that were in previous VFs are now dlc. Inconsistent netcode, inconsistent netcode, inconsistent netcode and inconsistent netcode.

Fine for people who never played the games before and it's nice to get SOME rerelease but other fighting game series had better means of returning to the spotlight.

*Edit: It's nice they added a search functions for rooms but wake me up when they added Type S costumes and Hyper Fighting mode.