Now that E3 is over, we have a wealth of footage from Street Fighter V. The game isn't coming out until next Spring, but we have a pretty good idea of what the game is like.
Compared to Street Fighter IV, Street Fighter V appears to be faster. Critical Arts (the new name for Super Combos) do huge damage, and many of the basic combos hurt a lot. It's unclear how much the damage values will change before the game releases, but it is exciting to see the flow of matches are very different from Street Fighter IV at first glance.
A few weeks ago, I asked a lot of Street Fighter fans what they would like to see in the upcoming game. Filtering out the many character requests (Juri being the most popular), I got a lot of cool ideas of how to bring Street Fighter up to speed with other modern fighting games. Street Fighter IV revitalized the genre in 2009, but its list of features looks archaic compared to the many fighting games that followed in its wake.
So here's a list of features we'd like to see in Street Fighter V in no particular order, from small cosmetic requests to features that are absolutely necessary.
Simplify.
A common misconception among new fighting game players or those who aren't deep into Street Fighter: “more complicated = better!”
Not the case. Many elements of Street Fighter IV were unnecessarily complex, to the detriment of our enjoyment of playing the game. So there are a few ways they could simplify the game and still keep the competitive depth.
-Ease up on the Ultra inputs. The Ultras in SFIV were two motions + triple button press. The most egregious example of this were Ultras for grappler characters, which required two FULL 360 inputs AND pressing three buttons. There's also Charge Ultras, which look like this (Charge Back, Forward, Forward, Back, Forward ) It's common for players to set “cheater buttons”, or a macro that hits 3 Kicks/Punches at the same time because it's just not comfortable to do the normal way. The Critical Arts in Street Fighter V will have simpler inputs than Ultras, and I hope it's a change that stays.
( 360+360 + 3 Punches) could easily be simplified to (360 + 3 Punches) and it would be better. I would even be okay with the Skullgirls & Street Fighter x Tekken method of having a universal input for Supers.
-Ease up on weird inputs. Hooligan Combo Input is intimidating to new players and somewhat awkward to do for anyone who isn't already good.
360 inputs cannot be done without jumping...unless you practice a lot! Either put in anti-jump protection for 360s (Skullgirls has this) or simplify them to half-circles (which has been hinted at for SFV).
Oni has an air dash that requires a quarter-circle back+punch in midair. Why not just simplify it so you can just...press dash in midair?
-Delayed Wakeup. Change the command to “hold down on the joystick” PLEASE.
-One Frame Links. The timing on Street Fighter IV combos is notoriously strict. You cannot simply hit the buttons in sequence, you have to time them well. Some of the combos are so demanding that people developed the “plinking” strategy which is really weird and involves hitting the Select button to make the timing easier? I'm not very clear on it, but I do know that I avoid playing SFIV because combos feel awkward to me.
I'm not saying to remove the more demanding combos from the game entirely. I'm saying that you can ALSO give players alternatives. Street Fighter x Tekken and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 have easy, guaranteed combos if you just hit Light, Medium, Heavy, Heavy. They don't do much damage but they allow new players to have something to fall back on. Auto Combos in Persona 4 Arena are weaker than an actual combo you create, but they are a base for new players to build on or fall back to if they are overwhelmed. Target Combos in Street Fighter IV were limited but appreciated: they allowed you to hit a predetermined button sequence quickly to get a combo. Ibuki has several of them:
So ease up a bit on the super-tough 1 frame links. Give some more Target Combos out. Maybe bring back an equivalent the “Cross Rush” simple combo from SFxT.
Help New Players.
Street Fighter IV has no playable tutorial. There's an in-game manual (that's hard to navigate) which teaches you the commands. In the modern era of fighting games, that's not acceptable.
Skullgirls, Guilty Gear Xrd, Killer Instinct, and Dead or Alive 5 have transcendent tutorials that teach you EVERYTHING about the current game AND gives you strategies to carry over into other fighting games. In my eyes, it's simply not acceptable to go the Street Fighter IV route and have no tutorial.
So put in the effort this time. Don't half-ass it with a manual. I want a full tutorial in the game that's on par with those games I mentioned above. Trials must return, but I also want move details.
Let me access a move list quickly and easily in the pause menu. Show me the special properties of each move in this menu, as well as the frame data. Let me tag moves on the screen in case I want to remember them.
Explain how links, Target Combos, and Cancels work in the tutorial. They're still an important part of Street Fighter, so the game should teach you about them.
Street Fighter is the most popular game in the genre. It should be setting the standard for other games to follow, and I want other games to have great tutorial materials.
Character Customization
This has been in previous Street Fighter games, so it's not such a large request. In Street Fighter x Tekken, you could alter the color of every part of your outfit and it was really cool. It meant that everyone online could have their own unique version of a character.
Killer Instinct gives you different costume pieces that allow you to dress up your character like you want. Dead or Alive 5 gives each character a variety of hairstyles and glasses for each of their costumes. It would be nice to have in Street Fighter V!
-Voice Customization. This was in Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter X Tekken, so it's not an unreasonable request. Please allow us to set the language of each character individually so no one would be subjected to Sakura's English voice.
If they were REALLY cool everyone would speak their own native language like in Tekken, but Capcom won't put in that much effort. Imagine Chun-Li speaking Chinese in her intro or Dhalsim speaking Hindu.
Good Netcode
Street Fighter IV's netcode was acceptable. But the netcode in Killer Instinct and Skullgirls are exceptional. The netcode of Street Fighter V should live up to this.
Of course playing fighting games locally is preferable, but online multiplayer IS important. There are players who simply don't have a local scene or can't travel often. Then there's those of us who just feel more comfortable playing online. So make the online great!
Good Training Mode
I have a list of features wanted in Street Fighter V's training mode:
-Hitbox viewer
-Online training
-Replay & Save State. Allows players to replay a certain combo, making it easier to practice against it without requiring a second controller.
-”Record” function to save cool combos for later viewing
-Move Details- show if an attack hits Mid, Low, or High as it is performed
-Press Select+direction to teleport into a corner
-Set Character-Specific options in the Pause menu (how much oil does Hakan have on?)
I may be missing some things, so please add them to the comments if you have ideas. I will be participating in the Street Fighter V beta and giving lots of feedback, because I want Street Fighter V to be better than IV in every way. I want it to take notes from other fighting games to improve itself.
So far, I like how Street Fighter V looks. There's higher damage with no “get out of jail free” options like FADCs. The new V-Trigger & V-Skill systems are nice replacements for Ultra Combo. It has more than a few elements from Street Fighter x Tekken so none of you will ever beat me.
I hope it can live up to the impossibly high expectations.
If not there's a lot of other fighting games to play now.
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