capcom is at it again with spearheading the entire fighting game genre into new innovations, for better and worse. there's a lot they got incredibly right, but i think the game is held back by a few mechanics and strange design choices when it comes to its base roster.

coming from the perspective of a passionate fg and sf enthusiast, a lot of the characters in this game currently feel more like gimmicky anime game characters than they do street fighter characters. blanka and honda both being base roster is kind of insane in this day and age when most of the playerbase has matured past enjoying simple and obnoxious knowledge check-type characters. the only newcomer that fully feels like a street fighter character is luke, and he was already in SFV. chars like manon and kimberly feel like pure gimmicks, whereas chars like marisa and JP just have such high damage that any mistake wins them a round. it feels like they're playing vastly different games from the other characters that have to play neutral and work for advantage. they tend to not be too fun to fight against or watch high level play of. they did do a great job with most of the legacy characters, but some of the balance of these newcomers just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. a lot of this could be remedied with adjustments to damage scaling, but i feel a few of them are simply obnoxiously designed at their core.

i think this game is going in a very good direction. it may have some scrubby characters, but the overall mechanics don't shy away from complexity and situational awareness, and that's a breath of fresh air for a modern fg. with some good DLC additions and patches to change up the tuning of damage/mechanics, SF6 really could be fantastic and surpass the last season of SFV. for now, this is still probably the best launch of a street fighter game to date.

hell, i even like world tour.