izigame.me

EDITED 2/2/2024 So, forty hours later, having put much more time into every aspect of the game, my opinions of the game as a whole have become much lower than when I started out. What I said below stands - the game's accessibility, QOL, and design as a fighter feel like a new bar. They're incredible. Most of the new fighters are fantastic. It's a great game where it matters, as a fighting game.
The rest of the game is comically terrible. Take World Tour, a grindy, unfinished mess of a story mode, with production values that genuinely feel like Sonic 06. A mode where when you fail sidequests, you have to talk to the NPC again and skip through fifteen lines of dialogue just to give them another attempt. A mode where, outside of the starting area of Metro City, every Master's area is a tiny room with three NPCs.
Or, take Battle Hub, the second of the three major modes. Nobody plays Battle Hub anymore. The game released barely over half a year ago and it already feels vestigial. And why wouldn't it? Why on Earth would you play Battle Hub over matchmaking, when matchmaking can be done while playing any other mode, has more features, and is ten thousand times faster to just play the game?
Well, it's obvious why, which is Capcom execs and shareholders. Clearly seeing dollar signs at mobile games and Genshins, Capcom seems to have worked backwards from creating things for the battle passes and currencies and other bloated junk. So they landed on avatars and avatar items, and Battle Hub (aka Street Fighter Playstation Home) and World Tour (half-baked unfinished RPG mode) were stapled on to support it. It's a game built around exploiting you and mugging you for your money.
I can't speak enough to how stupid, yes, stupid, these decisions are. Street Fighter is not a mobile game. The model of selling you new PNGs doesn't work because characters in fighting game take months if not years of development and a lot of money. You can't normally fight with the avatars. They aren't visible in matchmaking. And the cost of all this is a game that feels cheaply made and nakedly exploitative, where it seems like it is trying to piss you off and you can't even impulse buy anything by design.
It's frustrating to imagine the amount of additional polish the fighting game in this fighting game could have had if so much time and money wasn't wasted on cruft. Why is there no music player or customizer? Why do characters only have two round intros and one set of far too long non-randomized victory lines, even though recording more lines would have been easy? Hell, why is there so little music variety? I had to mod Marisa's theme because i was sick of hearing her repetitive Monday Night Football music a hundred times in a row.
This game is a fantastic fighting game stapled onto a complete joke. Unless you're confident you will enjoy playing online, don't bother at all.
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I'm completely astonished at how much I enjoyed this game once I finally bit the bullet and got it (like I knew I would eventually.) I was not at all expecting it to complete overtake every fighting game I've ever played as my favorite of all time, but somehow, they actually did it. I like it more than SF3, MVC2 and MVC3, even GG Strive, and I'm shocked to compare it favorably to any of those. It's just THAT good.
I could go on and on about why, from the incredible leap forwards in accessibility and QOL, the genius game design that subtly teaches you the actual fundamentals of fighting games just by playing it, the fantastic tutorials that teach you the best way to play every individual character and the equally fantastic training mode that lets you instantly set up practice scenarios against the opponent who was SPDing you with Zangief on wakeup fifteen times a round. It's fun to learn and fun to play and easier to get into than any fighting game in history has ever been.
But I still can't recommend it, because the scummy underhanded business practices are so awful, even for Cap "Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Ultimate Edition" Com, that they're still jawdropping. I've enjoyed the game so much that I thought about picking up Rashid. Well, sorry, unlike every fighting game with DLC, I can't just get Rashid, I have to buy Street Fighter Funbuckz. Rashid costs 350 Funbuckz and the lowest denomination is 250. Oh, well, I'll get the next highest denomination and get AKI too. Haha sorry, the next highest is 610. Well, fine, I'll get a costume for Marisa. How much is 610 Funbuckz? It's $13. $13 for one character and a costume I can unlock by playing the game.
Or, if I was an insane person with no comprehension of money, I can get the character pass for $30 to get Rashid and three characters I'll probably barely play.
Meanwhile, the game is pushing Rashid on me everywhere, since there are "rental tickets" that let you use DLC characters for an hour (how generous!) and he even shows up in the single player Arcade mode regardless of whether you have him or not. And don't think you can play DLC characters, or this game at all, with a friend through Steam Remote Play or anything, because they disabled that. Yes, they disabled remote local multiplayer for a two player fighting game.
I ended up spending nothing at all and being reminded of why I didn't want to buy this in the first place. Fire your accountants Capcom.