Street Fighter V Version 1.07 Report
Version 1.07 of Street Fighter V has arrived, and since COGconnected’s last update, we’ve got three new characters, a Cinematic Story Mode, and a whole mess of new content. Most of this article will cover my thoughts on the new story mode, but first, all that other stuff.
Our new characters are Ibuki, Balrog, and Juri. Of the three characters, I was definitely most excited about Balrog, but I don’t see myself using any of these characters as much as Alex or Guile. Ibuki is fairly well rounded, Balrog is a punch only charge character, and Juri has only 3 special moves. As an interesting piece of trivia, I noticed that Balrog’s ring attire features buffalo, which don’t make sense in North America, but in Japan, Balrog’s name is M. Bison (a play on Mike Tyson). So in Japan, their Balrog is called M. Bison, their M. Bison is called Vega, and their Vega is called Balrog.
I found out in this update that the Season Pass only covers the 6 extra characters; it does not include any levels or costumes. There were three new levels available: Las Vegas, the Kanzaki Family Private Beach, and the Capcom Pro Tour Arena. I thought I would receive levels with my Season Pass, so I was a little upset when I found out I had to purchase Vegas and The Beach with my in-game Fight Money.
Then I realized that the Pro Tour Arena could not be bought with in-game Fight Money, and was a whopping $10 or $25 as part of the Pro Tour DLC Pack (the level along with some costumes). Not only has Capcom gone back on their promise of making everything purchasable in-game, but the prices for this DLC are ridiculous. There are new beach costumes and Pro Tour costumes that cost $4 each. For the OCD gamer like myself, this wouldn’t be so huge of a deal, except the Pro Tour level appears as a nagging blank spot in level-selection (with a little golden shopping cart marker). I have fully supported Street Fighter V so far, and it still plays like a 9.5, but I hope Capcom makes some changes to their now offensive purchasing system.
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“Not only has Capcom gone back on their promise of making everything purchasable in-game, but the prices for this DLC are ridiculous.”
The good news is that Cinematic Story Mode is awesome! It’s not an automatic update, so to get it you’ll have to go into the store. It’s totally free, but a fat 8gb download. Like the existing Story Mode, Cinematic Story Mode features only one round fights, but unlike the sketchy anime panels we’re used to, the new Story Mode features fully rendered cutscenes. There are very well composed, and the story is a very interesting bridge between Street Fighters IV and III. Not all questions are answered, and there’s a lot of useless moments (there are a lot of characters to feature after all), but on the whole, I was very impressed. I would have loved a mode like this in all the other Street Fighter games. If Cinematic Story Mode is replacing Arcade Mode, I’ll take it!
Early on you will realize that you don’t always play as the hero, or as the left side fighter, and it was refreshingly fun to guess which fighter you would take on in each battle. There are frequent, short load times between each cutscene, which could have been avoided. Like the other Story Mode fights, all of the fights are easy, and will not test your skills until the very end of the game (when Bison whooped me – the last 4 or so fights were a bit of a challenge). Only the Nash vs. Bison fight gave me any real trouble.
At times it’s a shame to find out who’s unimportant to the story: Ken, Chun-Li, Laura, and Alex were almost completely unused. There was a little too much Karin and FANG, but at the same time, it was awesome to see characters like Nash, Necalli, and Rashid shine. The whole mode features two hours of cutscenes and about four hours of gameplay.
So all-in-all Cinematic Story Mode is great, and there’s a lot of new content, but Capcom now has in-game purchases that can only be made with real money, and they’re incredibly expensive. But Street Fighter V is a strange and evolving game, and it’s got at least one more big update planned. Hopefully, by the end of these updates, Street Fighter V will be the undisputed champion of all fighting games.