Street Fighter 6 is a fighting game develop by Capcom. It releases on multiple platforms in June 2023, such as Ps5, PC, Xbox. It bringing up the trend of fighting game again.
“Street Fighter 6 Is Already Steam’s Most Played Fighting Game Of All Time” from kutaku.com
https://kotaku.com/street-fighter-6-steam-broke-record-capcom-netcode-1850500159
“Street Fighter 6’s player count doesn’t just make it the most-played fighting game in its own franchise, it’s also got more players at launch on PC than series rival Tekken 7 (18,966) and more than NetherRealm Studios’ Mortal Kombat X (15,743) and Mortal Kombat 11’s (35,147) all-time peak player numbers according to SteamDB.”
Street Fighter 6 player hit an all-time peak of over 66,000 Steam players on the release day. For comparison, its predecessor Street Fighter 5 only hit an all-time peak of 14,783 players when it released in 2016.
The new record of EVO 2023 registration record
EVO stand for Evolution Championship Series. It is an annual esports event that focuses exclusively on fighting games. It has been held at various venues across the Las Vegas Valley since 2005.
Here is registration number and most entered games by country from EVO website.
https://www.evo.gg/news/evo-2023-breaks-multiple-all-time-registration-records
I played Street Fighter 6 and watched some top players match in tournament on Youtube, I would say it is the best series in Street Fighter series. It makes great improvements to the game mechanics and makes the game even more exciting to play and watch.
Street Fighter 5 vs 6, reasons of success
In Street Fighter 5:
Beside its core component V-Trigger, it’s same as other fighting game that contain normal moves, special moves, super arts and the goal is beat the opponent until it running out of vitality. The V-trigger bars are located in the bottom of left and right corners. After being hit by an opponent, the V-trigger bar meters will be replenished. If a V-trigger bar is full, you can perform V-trigger skill to gain advantage in current battle. It helps the weak side get a big counterattack or revenge easily. On the other hand, it is rewarding you for making mistakes. I think Capcom did it on purpose to narrowing the skill gap between intermediate and veteran players. And through V-trigger, it brings the flashiest comebacks to make the match more fun to watch.
Sounds good, right? Let’s imagine the similar situation in another case. In the middle of a boxing match, boxer B is in a bad situation because he is a rookie, but against champion boxer A, boxer B is almost KO. Suddenly, the referee gave boxer B a gun because of his bad situation. And then boxer B shot down boxer A. Boxer A lost the fight and didn’t get a chance to use his gun that holding in referee’s hand. Were both boxers have chance to use all their available tools? Is it fair enough and really enjoying to watch? Even I didn’t mention the imbalance of V-trigger between characters. But it seems not fair.
Possibly the most enjoyable match to watch in history – Let’s have a look into the most historical moment in fighting game that everybody excited and enjoy to watch in EVO 2004. The Evo Moment of “Daigo Parry”. It is a portion of a “Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike” semifinal match. During this match, Daigo Umehara (using Ken) made an unexpected comeback by parrying 15 consecutive hits of his opponent’s (using Chun-li) “Super Art” move while having only one pixel of vitality. Both players can access all their tools from the beginning. His victory is because he made a difficult operation. He made a comeback while in a bad situation. It’s totally fair for both players. This is a convincing result.
The Imbalance of V-trigger – Beside the unfair, you can imagine the imbalance of V-trigger between characters should made the situation worser. I’m not saying that the unique skills of each character can’t be well balanced. But if those skills playing a key role in winning a match, it will be more difficult to deal with. I am not saying the development team is bad. At least they successfully bring back Street Fighter series to top fighting game after Street Fighter 4 released. I would say they chosen a hard direction to achieve their goals in Street Fighter 5. It gave a bad experience in game balance to players. A character is good or bad only depends on how strong his V-trigger is. Such as Balrog, a boxer character in Street Fighter 5. He can finish his opponent easily by land a target combo stomps into V-Trigger cancel. Here is after a punch cancel into a V-trigger and finish with a super art. Even though it is not the most powerful one.
In my opinion, a good fighting game basically should have a fair gameplay experience. Good character balance is the most important foundation for fair play.
In Street Fighter 6:
A new milestone after a lesson learns – No unique V-trigger any more. It replaces with a Drive gauge system for all character. Drive gauge is a bar below the characters’ vitality meters that enable the use of Drive abilities.
It can restore over time slowly. Performing aggressive action such as walking forward or landing attack to the opponent will make the restoration faster. It reduces by performing Drive abilities, blocking or hitting by corresponding moves. Here are some important features related to Drive gauge:
Drive Impact – A forward-moving attack that can withstand 2 hits of attack and launches opponents on hit, costing the attacker one bar off of the drive gauge. The user takes grey health damage for any attack withstood which can recover over time. Opponent hit by drive impact will reduce part of their Drive gauge and slide down slowly for a chance of follow up attack.
Against blocking opponents, it causes them to stumble backwards. If the stumbling opponent is against corner, it causes a crush, breaking their defence and fall into a slide down animation for a follow up attack.
It is an effective offensive skill to attack the blocking opponent or perform a great counter attack in battle.
Drive Parry – It’s a stance of parry, costs half a Drive bar to start. while it’s active, slowly reduces the Drive gauge. Successful Parry an incoming attack will replenishes the Drive meter.
The stance automatically parries multiple hits while active. If an attack is parried within the first two frames of a Drive Parry, a Perfect Parry will trigger. It causing a slow motion and paint effects.
At that moment, the defender has a faster recovery time. A chance to perform punish counter and launch a combo to punish the attacker but deal 50% less damage. Also, perfect parry replenishes the Drive meter more than normal parry.
Drive Rush – A fast, green-tinted forward dash that can be perform while enabling Drive Parry or a cancellable normal move.
Costs 1 Drive bar for normal Drive Rush, and 3 Drive bars if cancel from a normal move. If you perform an attack in Drive Rush, that attack will result in a longer hit or block stun. It offers the advantage of combo possibilities and safer situation while the target blocks the attack.
Bournout – The character fall into burnout state and grow grey while the Drive gauge is empty.
Although Drive gauge will restore over time but offensive and defensive abilities are severely impeded:
- Special moves cause chip damage on block, which can KO.
- Drive abilities cannot be use, it means lose some offensive and defensive options.
- Extra 4 frames of block stun will apply in every blocking. It means some escapable attack will become inescapable.
- Stun, only happen while defender in burnout state. If hit by Drive Impacts or against corner in block stun period after blocked a Drive Impact in burnout state, it causes the defender to stun. It’s a dangerous situation to defender that will follow up by attacker’s combo. After a stun, the Drive gauge is fully restored.
Play style between Street Fighter 5 and 6
In Street Fighter 5:
In typical Street Fighter 5 Match, both players finding a defence mistake from each other. Try to land a combo start from a single hit and maximize the damage with their resource (super bar and V-trigger bar). So, both players will walk around and using some reliable move (punch or kick with good distance and recovery time) to seek a chance.
In this manner, they both become more focus on defence. Because a single mistake can result in certain damage. Especially if the opponent’s Super or V-trigger bar is full. There’s no reason to play aggressively if it’s not about to be timed out. Even it’s about to be timed out, if you have more vitality than your opponent. You can just escape and wait for timeout to win this match. So, you can see two situations in most of the time. Both players walk forward and backward like dancing around. Another situation is one player chasing another because of nearly timeout. The same happens with most fighting games.
In Street Fighter 6:
Elements related to Drive gauge change the typical play style in Street Fighter 6. It tends to encourage players to play aggressively.
Reward of being aggressive:
- Simply walking forward will restore the Drive gauge faster.
- Landing attack will restore Drive gauge and reduce opponent’s Drive gauge at the same time. More Drive gauge meter mean more chance to perform Drive abilities to take advantages in offence and defence. On the other hand, it also reducing opponent’s chance of perform Drive abilities. Offense seems to be the best defence strategy.
Higher risk of being passive:
- The corner pressure – Drive impact puts pressure on the player heading towards the corner. Because of the crush effect will trigger by against the corner while stumbling backwards after block. So, moving forward and push the opponent to corner is the best way to survive in a match.
- Risky blocking – Blocking is easiest way (holding backward/crouching backward) of defence but becomes a worse defence strategy while you can parry. Because it reduces Drive gauge and may even lead to Burnout status if Drive gauge is empty. It turns out replace blocking with parry is the effective way in defence.
Negative effects of Burnout:
- Perform blocking while in Burnout status deals chip damage and may even lead to KO. Extra 4 frame block stun added while blocking.
- Attack by Drive impact causing stun. Direct hit or stumbling backwards against corner after block will result in a stun status.
The game mechanism reward attackers no matter successfully hit or being block. Defender perform blocking is riskier than before. So, the player’s play style becomes more aggressive. More close-range engagements lead to more intense combat than ever. It turns out the match become fast-paced and more exciting to watch than Street Fighter 5. I rarely saw a round ending with timeout in Street Fighter 6 Tournaments. Here is a tournament match from Gamers8.
User-friendly than ever:
Modern Control for casual and intermediate players:
- Simple input – Controls in fighting games are complex than in other games. Casual player might getting frustrate because of this complexity prevent them from having a good experience, even giving up. Modern Controls attempt to bridge the gap between casual/intermediate and veteran players. It is a default option of control style in settings. Although it deals 20% less damage, lack of certain normal moves and special moves. But it simplifies all the complex input in special moves and super arts. Also, the original input still available.
- Perform Combo like a pro in no time – By holding an assist button and press attack button repeatedly, it will perform an auto combo and finish with a super art. No need to practice combo with those complex input and you are good to go. Now you can enjoy combat without having to practice for several hours or days. If you want to access all your character’s moves in Classic control mode, you can slowly shift to original input. Until you are comfortable with it and then switch to Classic control.
A parry for every player
Parry, first appears in Street Fighter 3 and was powerful but for veteran player only. It requires player to memorize attack pattern and execute them with forward input for each attack. It can’t be achieved without a certain level of practice. But now, you can just hold the button for Drive parry easily. It will auto parry any incoming attack. No need to memorize attack pattern like veteran player in Street Fighter 3. No mater you are a causal, intermediate or veteran player, if you have good reaction to perform Perfect Parry, it will gain a huge advantage in battle.
Conclusion
With Modern control and improved battle mechanism, Street Fighter 6 become more user-friendly and more exciting to play. Now, it’s easier than ever for every player to enjoy Street Fighter. And it is a best entry point in Street Fighter series. I believe more mainstream audiences will be willing to join. Perhaps, this will be one of the masterpieces in the history of Street Fighter and a fighting game for every player.