Street Fighter 6 – 3rd Year Strike
Street Fighter 6 Year 3 is upon us and there’s a new Ultimate Pass to purchase. It includes 4 new fighters, their additional outfits and colors, 1 new stage, and 5800 drive tickets. With all these additions on the horizon, COGconnected thought it would be a good idea to look back on the triumph that has been Street Fighter 6 Year 2, and discuss the few ways Capcom can improve upon the game.
Street Fighter 6 remains an incredible game. For many players, it stands atop a phenomenal stack of current gen fighting games like Tekken 8, Mortal Kombat 1, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, etc. Capcom gives the game plenty of attention throughout the year, tweaking the minutia of every detail. There are events all the time, and every month has a fresh Fighting Pass, with new goals leading to different player rewards. Each year has introduced 4 new fighters, which will bring the total roster to 30 fighters by the end of Year 3. This feels like a much more complete roster than it did 2 years ago. With each new character comes new story routes in World Tour, and new moves for player avatars to learn. There’s several hours of content with each character, even if one ignores the traditional time spent in Versus, Arcade, and Practice modes.
Year 2 in Review
The fighters from Street Fighter 6 Year 2 were M. Bison, Terry Bogard, Mai Shiranui, and Elena. All 4 fighters ended up being real hits. Bison is an essential franchise villain, and a classic charge fighter. His inclusion will likely have major ramifications of World Tour’s story. Terry and Mai are from SNK’s Fatal Fury franchise. They did a great job of giving players a small look into the Fatal Fury world, ahead of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. Elena’s height and capoeira fighting style kept her feeling unique. She also gave Street Fighter III fans hope that more characters from that series are on the way.
The Street Fighter 6 Year 3 roster was announced in a hilarious trailer starring pro wrestler Kenny Omega. They are Sagat, C. Viper, Alex and Ingrid. As of the writing of this article, Sagat, the first of the four new characters, is playable. Sagat is a classic series villain. He was the end boss of the original Street Fighter, and was the second last boss in Street Fighter II. He plays almost like a taller version of Ryu and Ken, with his tiger fireball and uppercut. Sadly he only says “uppercut” when delivering a tiger uppercut in Street Fighter 6. Sagat’s new design has him wearing a tiger skin over his shoulders. It’s very in line with a lot of the hobo-like designs of classic characters in Street Fighter 6.
Year 3 Characters
C. Viper is an undercover agent from Street Fighter IV. I didn’t use her much on PS3, so I’m excited to see how she plays in Street Fighter 6. Her look has been updated to have a white suit, and hair loose from her iconic braid. Alex is the original main character of Street Fighter III. He’s a large blonde firefighter, and really cements the Street Fighter 6 roster as having a lot of essential characters. Ingrid was originally in Capcom Fighting Evolution, which recently reared its ugly head in Capcom Fighting Collection 2. I don’t know many story details about her, so I’m excited to try her content in World Tour.
We have access to Year 3’s new level right away, and it’s Proud Spire. Proud Spire is an updated version of Sagat’s Street Fighter II Thailand level, and I couldn’t be happier for it. On top of being a new level for Versus mode, Proud Spire is also a new area in World Tour. Sagat has settled down in a small Thai village, where he is treated as an “Emperor”. There are six sidequests to complete, and a new minigame about chopping wood flying at the player avatar. The entire package is a great addition to World Tour.
New Content Is Not Cheap
Although Street Fighter Year 3 looks to be an excellent extension of a near perfect fighting game, there are still some issues Capcom hasn’t addressed. The main problem is the cost of bonus content. The Street Fighter 6 Year 2 Ultimate Pass was $70 CAD, and Year 3 is $80 CAD. Year 2 had 2 stages and 7700 Drive Tickets, and Year 3 has 1 stage and 5600 Drive Tickets. That’s one less stage and 2100 less drive tickets for $10 more. The Year 2 pass was already overpriced, and now the Year 3 pass costs more and has less value. These passes also don’t contain outfit sets 3 or 4 for the main roster characters. They only include the outfits for the DLC characters.
Another problem is the insane cost of Fighter Coins. 250 Fighter Coins cost $6.99 CAD. A character outfit costs 300 Fighter Coins. So a player can’t even buy one outfit for $7. Even if players could just buy outfits for $7, that would still be a ridiculous expense. Remember, Street Fighter 6’s base game is also a full paid game, not free-to-play. It is possible to earn Fighter Coins through Fight Pass, but only with Premium Fight Pass. Premium Fight Pass costs 250 Fighter Coins. If a player fully unlocks all the monthly rewards of a Premium Fight Pass they get 250 Fighter Coins, which is the cost of a Premium Fight Pass! So the maximum reward for a Premium Fight Pass is the next month’s Premium Fight Pass for free, which puts the player in a perpetual state of earning zero Fight Coins. What’s the point!?
Avatar Creation Could Use Some Love
My last complaint is that World Tour avatar creation could still be much more robust. There are constantly new articles of clothing to unlock, but there could be more body options. The hair and tattoo options are especially slim. There just isn’t enough to make a fighter conjured from your imagination. The WWE 2K games have a phenomenal character creation system that I wish the Street Fighter devs would look at. The game is flawless when it comes to creating move builds, but some obvious work needs to be done in the appearance department.
Street Fighter 6 is a phenomenal fighting game achievement. Every year has added tweaks and content to keep the game atop its throne as the best modern 2D fighter. Year 3’s content really makes it feel like we have a much more complete roster. Sagat has been a joy to play so far. But the value of the Year 3 Ultimate Pass is a bit less than the Year 2 Ultimate Pass, and it costs a bit more. Street Fighter 6 was already pushing consumer limits in terms of what they were charging for its extra content, and it’s getting a bit worse. Hopefully they can improve this over time before fans have to vote against these practices with their wallets.
***PS5 code provided by the publisher***