Street Fighter V shows how Capcom wants to make fighting games — and players — better

What you won’t like

Critical Arts link off damned near everything

I almost had nothing negative to say about Street Fighter V’s comeback mechanics, but then I saw someone land a Critical Art by canceling Ryu’s Dragonpunch. Then I went into training mode and canceled a low forward kick into a Critical Art. Then a standing Jab.

Palm, meet face.

This is either laziness, or Capcom thinks the player base isn’t ready for legit super-move design. The granddaddy of super-move design, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, should be the example to follow here (Team Ninja’s Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is a good one as well).

Super moves in fighting games should be designed to make a certain element or style of play dangerous during the latter half of a round. The classic design is the projectile-gobbling super move that will pass through a fireball and hit the opponent. This super move is designed so that I have to specifically trick the opponent into throwing a fireball at the wrong time.

When I can land that super move off something as mundane as an easy to execute combo, it dumbs-down the strategic potential of the move. A lot. It makes everything I do incredibly dangerous for the opponent. I don’t want that. I want to think my way to a K.O.

Jumping over cornered opponents

In Street Fighter IV, I thought being able to jump over an opponent in the corner was a technical glitch — something Capcom had to pay to the game engine gods for bringing Street Fighter to a 3D environment. It’s reappeared in Street Fighter V, and now I am convinced Capcom thinks it’s a good idea. I hate it.

Here’s the thing: When I am backed into a corner in Street Fighter, I am in one of the worst positions in the game. I’ve given up my capability to back up and gain space, and now my opponent has the vast majority of control over the spacing and pacing of the match. I’m not dead, and my opponent isn’t out of danger, but my options are far fewer.

My opponent being able to cross my character up, which is jumping over a character and having the ability to choose between an attack that hits me on one side or the other (forcing me to guess which side to block), stacks my disadvantage. They have an additional guessing game that I don’t have, and one way of preventing the cross up from happening, such as altering where I am standing, is gone.

I’m sure a case can be made for this being a great idea. Maybe the person jumping in and putting themselves in the corner is the trade-off. In practice, I don’t see it playing out well for the person who was originally in the corner.

Are we sure this artwork is by Bengus?

When Yoshinori Ono, lead on Street Fighter V, told me that Bengus would do the character art in the story mode, I was hyped as hell. Bengus (pen name) was an illustrator in Capcom of Japan’s art department during their incredible ’90s run. This was a time where that art department pumped out some of the greatest concept art, marketing illustrations, and 2D sprite work in the industry. Bengus was involved in a lot of Street Fighter art that we covet today.

As a huge fan of Bengus’ work, I find the illustrations in Street Fighter V’s story mode shocking. I’m not a stickler for accuracy on stylized artwork, but the anatomy and proportion decisions are creatively strange. In some cases, they are just visually unappealing and inconsistent. The line work also lacks depth, and the sense of volume on shapes is really hit or miss. I get the sense that these were quick competent thumbnails for a more finished piece, that were blown up, quickly inked, and colored.

It’s nowhere near the quality of the sort of work I am use to seeing from Bengus. It’s not even close to what I expect to see from the franchise, from any artist. I hate going on record negatively criticizing an illustrator’s work like this, but what happened here? This is so far off-base from what I expected. If it’s Bengus or not, these illustrations come off like the artist was rushed.

Capcom … give me a log-in feature

Maybe this is something that will clear up on release, but throughout the beta and into the review version of Street Fighter V, the Capcom Fighters Network system has been a pain in the butt all because of one minor flaw: I can’t log in or out of my Fighter ID.

This creates quite a few issues. If for some reason the Capcom Fighter Network logs me out or doesn’t recognize my copy of the game, it asks me to create a new log-in. If I try entering my Fighter ID, it just tells me my Fighter ID has already been claimed (no shit!).

Or what if I have a sibling? What if I share my PS4 with someone else in the house? We both have to use the same Fighter ID? What if I am really good and they’re not? We have to share the same stats? And what if I can’t connect to the Internet? I can’t play, then.

At the very least, please implement a manual log-in and log-out option.

Conclusion

People who got into the fighting game community with Street Fighter IV may not want to hear this, but from a base design, Street Fighter V is by far the superior game. Capcom has paved over and smoothed out a lot of the things I didn’t like about Street Fighter IV’s design. A lot of those issues created poor play habits, which makes it feels like Capcom is making small steps to mature the game, and in turn is trying to mature how the player base plays fighting games.

With that said, Street Fighter V has some missteps. Capcom creating a great comeback mechanic system, yet allowing the most damaging moves in the game to combo off of very simple set-ups, is baffling. The Capcom Fighters Network absolutely needs a log-in and log-out feature. And I don’t know what Capcom did to the artist that worked on those illustrations (did they rush them? Did they piss them off? Did they not offer enough cash?), but they need to correct whatever they did so the artist (presumably Bengus) can push out great work.

So, who should pick this up? Everyone that’s into fighting games. If you’re into Street Fighter, chances are you already have Street Fighter V preordered, and you’re here to see if I validate your opinions on the game (or you want to invalidate mine). If you’re going to stick with Street Fighter V, I think that’s a good decision. If you’re thinking of skipping it, you’re going to miss out on something enjoyable.

Score: 90/100

Street Fighter V releases Tuesday, February 16. Capcom provided GamesBeat with a copy of Street Fighter V for PlayStation 4 and PC for review.