What I think of Street Fighter V’s new techniques and systems

If you write for the video game industry, you likely have one series you’re willing to do just about anything for in order to cover. In my case, that franchise is Street Fighter. So when I was told that Capcom was going to hold a press-only Street Fighter V play session, I made damned sure I was going to be on that guest list.

So with my tournament stick under one arm and a notebook under the other, I went to Capcom ready to breakdown and note every little design detail about Street Fighter V.

It’s one of those game obsessions where I could talk for hours about the smallest technical details — and subsequently kill normal human beings, who don’t care about fighting games, with boredom. So if you want a detailed analysis of the basics from the version of Street Fighter V Capcom is currently running, you came to the right person. If you want to learn about the characters as well — click here for my breakdown on the Street Fighter V version of Ryu, Chun Li, Nash/Charlie, and M.Bison.

The basics

The basic rules of movement and attacking in Street Fighter V are pretty much identical to the Street Fighter IV system. The classic six-button control scheme is in place, with three levels of punch (jab, strong, fierce) and three levels of kick (short, forward, roundhouse). You still deal with blocking high by holding the stick back, with low block being a diagonal back plus down position.

It has no air blocking, à la the Alpha series, retaining the classic risk and reward balance of jumping into an opponent. Dashing is also available for all characters; a dash forward is a double tap towards the opponent, and a dash back is a double tap away. You still activate throws with two buttons, in this case low punch (Jab) and low kick (Short). You also reverse throws with the same input, just like Street Fighter IV.

Quick recovery from a knockdown is any two buttons pressed at the same time before the body hits the floor. Taunt is still hard punch (Fierce) and hard kick (Roundhouse), but an important, meter-based feature is now tied to this button input (which I’ll explain later) that will make taunting something players will only be able to do at certain times of a match. The cornerstone of Street Fighter IV’s base design, Focus Attack, is gone. Ultras are also out. (Thank you!)

One technical aspect that’s carrying over from Street Fighter IV is the ease-of-execution. The designers of Street Fighter IV experimented with ways of making the game more accessible to people who had poor execution skills, so they designed an input system that was incredibly forgiving. This wound up creating shortcuts when performing certain moves as well as some other unexpected behavior. So if I want to execute Ryu’s shoryuken (uppercut), I can give the game one of two inputs: The traditional way, which is forward, down, down-forward, forward + punch. Or the shortcut way, which is down-forward, down-forward + punch.

It also has an Alpha Counter, but it’s called V-Reversal. Alpha Counters/V-Reversals are countermoves that a defending player activates during block, and these act as an offensive breaker. These come usually at the cost of some sort of meter. In the case of Street Fighter V, you execute V-Reversals by pressing toward or away plus three kicks or three punches (the exact direction and button type is character specific), while the defending character is in a blocking frame of animation. This winds up costing one block of V-Gauge (which I’ll get to in just a few sentences).

The V-System

Street Fighter V features three meters: the Stun gauge, the V-Gauge and the EX-Gauge.

The Stun-Gauge is just a visual representation of how much consecutive damage a character requires until they go into a dizzy animation. In other Street Fighters, this is something players with knowledge of the game’s internal damage scaling properties could calculate in their heads. Now it doesn’t require a ton of knowledge to recognize if your character is in deep shit.

The EX-Gauge is Street Fighter V’s EX Move and Critical Art (AKA Super Move) meter. EX moves are essentially pumped-up special moves, which require spending one block of the EX-Gauge (which is chopped up into several blocks). A Critical Art is the game’s big damage move that requires an entirely filled EX-Gauge. So depending on the matchup, a player may want to spend the EX-Gauge tossing pumped up EX Special moves or save that meter to threaten the opponent with a potentially huge damage attack. This meter also retains its value between rounds. So if you finished round one with half an EX-Gauge, you’re starting round two with half an EX-Gauge.

You fill the EX-Gauge either executing a special move, making the opponent receive damage, or taking damage. I absolutely hate the aspect of gaining meter by taking damage, but I noticed that the amount of EX earned by taking a hit was not as significant as performing special moves and dealing out damage.

I can’t say the same about V-Gauge. This meter fills up somewhat similarly to EX-Gauge, but it seems to reward taking damage a bit more. It also fills up whenever a V-Skill is activated, which is performed by hitting middle punch (Strong) and middle kick (Forward) at the same time.

V-Skills are essentially what replaces the Focus Attack concept from Street Fighter IV, and depending on the character, this feature winds up having different properties. For some characters, the V-Skill acted like a one-hit parry (one hit, in that you couldn’t repeatedly parry a multihit move), for others, it activated a special move with unique properties which seemed tied to projectiles by either absorbing, reflecting, or passing through. Empty V-Skill activation into thin air didn’t seem to fill the V-Gauge very much, if at all. I had to make the V-Skill actually do something to reap any worthwhile meter building benefits.

What are we filling the V-Gauge for, anyways? The V-Trigger. When a character activates a V-Trigger, they’re put in a special state. For most characters, this state lasts a certain amount of time and can buff any number of attributes. For example, V-Triggered Ryu gains an insanely quick fireball and more damage. M.Bison speeds up and his normal dash is replaced with a fast-as-hell teleport that is immune to projectiles. These character’s V-Trigger state is timed much like activating a V-ism in Street Fighter Alpha 3 or a Custom Combo in Street Fighter Alpha 2.

The designers are also doing something interesting with the V-Gauge, in that different characters have different sized V-Gauge’s. The average size seemed to be two V-Gauge blocks, but at least one had a three-block meter. The advantage is that the character gains an additional V-Reversal opportunity, but they wind up having to fill an extra block to gain V-Trigger.

Also, unlike the EX-Gauge, the V-Gauge does not retain its value between rounds. So if you have a full V-Gauge towards the end of the round, use it.

An OG’s first impression …

I like some of the things that the designers are trying out in Street Fighter V. Probably my most favored alteration is that they dropped the concept of Ultras. If Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is the most eloquent example of implementing a comeback mechanic in a fighting game, Street Fighter IV’s Ultra meter then is the most hamfisted. It needed to go.

Street Fighter V’s V-Trigger is a much more subtle comeback mechanic in comparison. It changes the dynamics of the match over a longer period of time. If I am in a losing position and activate V-Trigger, I’m attempting to tilt the entire table to my advantage in a strategic way. Where in the same situation using an Ultra in Street Fighter IV, I’m just tossing a Hail Mary, hoping I set you up for damage I really shouldn’t have earned.

That role that Ultras played in Street Fighter IV is given back to the “Super Move mechanic”, Critical Arts, in Street Fighter V. Unlike IV, there’s more emphasis on that big offensive strike being earned. The quickest way to gaining a Super is damaging the opponent and not using EX-Specials, which require more strategic thinking and skill.

Are V-Skills a better design option than Focus Attacks? I’m still not sure. I’m not a hardcore proponent or naysayer of Street Fighter IV’s Focus Attack system. It was a good compromise that got players pestering Capcom to bring back parries to shut up. There’s no more Focus Attack Canceling into Ultras, and the EX-Gauge can be used to focus on more immediately important stuff, namely EX-Specials and Critical Arts.

I’m convinced that V-Skills, however, will wind up playing a much more diverse role than just something to make the parry/focus attack players happy. This will likely become clearer when Capcom reveals more characters.

I think a solid Street Fighter foundation is developing in Street Fighter V. Parts of it are experimental, but my initial impression is that it is more thoughtful than Street Fighter IV’s base design.