The first day of PAX South 2016 started with my visit to the Capcom booth where I got some great hands-on time with Street Fighter V.
For a long time Street Fighter player like myself, Street Fighter V felt very comfortable and familiar. I easily slid back into playing with Ken and dialing in some of the moves I used to use in Street Fighter IV. The new Unreal Engine 4 under the hood really complements the game and I’m assuming allowed the developers to focus on mechanics and not on netcode or limitations that might have required a major overhaul of the old MT framework used in last gen games such as SFIV, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and Resident Evil 5.
The game feels a bit faster paced than the previous game, which is welcomed by me since Street Fighter III is my favorite in the franchise and that was much faster paced. Also, the details on the characters is quite stunning.
Besides trying out Ken and Karin in my own playtime, I watched a pro match with one fighter using Birdie. Birdie seems to have let himself go and is sporting a huge gut. The physics that moves and deforms the characters’ bodies was awesome and very satisfying as Birdie jumped and got hits landed on him and seeing the effects on him shows a lot of attention went into the character modeling that blows away SFIV, which is quite an achievement since I always thought that game looked amazing when I was playing it.
Street Fighter V will launch with a roster of 16 playable characters. According to Capcom, you will only need one version of the game to enjoy all the content and updates going forward. Players can earn “fight money” with single and multiplayer modes and that in-game currency can be used to unlock new skins and upcoming fighters. Players can also unlock the in-game fight money with actual money transactions.
The game can also be balanced dynamically (so no more “super” or “ultimate” versions) and character roster updates will be released in seasonal time frames similar to Killer Instinct’s update model.
Street Fighter V punches the streets of PC and PlayStation 4 on February 16th.
