It's no secret that Mortal Kombat: Deception's Konquest Mode is one of my favorite parts of any fighting game. If you didn’t know that, you should have, but now it certainly isn't a secret.

From Shenmue to Hybrid Heaven, the illusive 1v1 fighting game/RPG is something I've been chasing for a while, and the day has finally arrived that I can say hello to the official ambassador for my beloved micro-genre. But it seemed unfortunate that such a Concept™, a Conmancept if you will, had to get its defining moment in a franchise I usually avoid. Street Fighter V didn't even launch with an arcade mode.

World Tour got me in the door, but the surprise of Street Fighter 6 is how it now has me hooked on Street Fighter gameplay. I know, truly shocking that someone who enjoys oft-derided Mortal Kombat games would see the light after experiencing kino.

My esteemed and beautiful backloggd family, I've even been playing a fighting game... online. Normally this bald boy can't make it through a single online match in MK or Tekken without ending up drenched in sweat, but starting out as such a noobie in SF I felt less pressure and therefore less critical of myself. I've spent way more time in the Battle Hub than I anticipated. The Conman has even played the daunting ranked matches (I'm only currently Bronze with Guile but I started at Iron and this is basically the first SF I've ever gotten into). I've played loads of the practice modes and combo trials, and I'm just having a blast learning and slowly getting better at the game.

This has gotta be, without a doubt, the best entry point to Street Fighter. The single player RPG campaign allows you to get to grips with the mechanics (I chose classic controls) and introduces you to the world and characters, allowing you to familiarize yourself with them and pick a main. Guile actually controls the least like the characters I'm used to in games because charge attacks are simply not part of my muscle memory, but something about him stuck and I'm in. What's even crazier is that retroactively this game has helped me break down my barrier to the other SF games: Street Fighter Alpha 2 is fire, which I discovered because it’s available to play periodically in the Battle Hub.

This is a content-rich and beginner friendly experience and I highly recommend it. For the first time ever I'm seriously doubting that the new Mortal Kombat and Tekken are going to live up to a freaking Street Fighter game in terms of personal appeal to me, a guy who hasn't even played 3rd Strike. While still based and Conmanpilled, World Tour feels slightly underdeveloped in a few areas such as the generic story, lack of environment/enemy variety, and artificial difficulty, so it can and should be expanded upon in future entries. Every fighting game should straight-up copy this. NRS, stop whatever you're doing and make Konquest 2. I saw the Krypt from 11, you know you want to.

I'm such a sucker I even went to Chipotle to get fighter points, but they didn’t just give me a tier-skip or whatever, it was enough points to get the entire fighter pass. Completing said fighter pass got me enough to get the subsequent pass. The passes also all include a retro Capcom game.

Reviewed on Jul 31, 2023


7 Comments


9 months ago

Completely agree, I've been playing SF for a long time but this is the first time I've ever felt comfortable jumping online and can actually feel myself improving (albeit slowly). It's been a fantastic game to throw on when I'm not feeling anything else.

9 months ago

Yeah it's a nice break from all the long rpg games and stuff I've been playing!

9 months ago

ditto best entry point. i give em mad props for being able to give classic/modern controls their own advantages and disadvantages without making one invalidate the other depending on playstyle. just wish the world tour thing's ai wa better. beat a level 20 enemy at level 5 or so by doing nothing but throws

9 months ago

but it is a long rpg!

9 months ago

teehee

9 months ago

@chandler this got especially bad near the end, so in the next version of this or the next game to try it, I’d hope they could maybe actually make the ai itself harder at those higher levels (like an overall world tour difficulty setting)

@Snigglegros You know what’s a long? Matches against someone with bad wifi

9 months ago

it's just kinda jarring that the wt ai is so fucked up in the first place - cause in the non story 1v1 against the ai, it's pretty damn solid depending on the difficulty you pick