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2012-03-28T03:48:00Z

Super Street Fighter 4.5: Arcade Tag Edition is the latest full priced expansion in Capcoms recent 2d fighting de-evolution. It fails to compete with Mortal Kombat or Tekken 6 in terms of content and fun, Street Fighter 4 or BlazBlu in terms of refinement and precision , and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 in terms of ... well... almost everything.

*points and laughs*

On a truly personal level, I cannot write this review without pointing out that Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was better than this game, and that this game is solely responsible its demise. It will likely kill Street Fighter 4, as well. I do not deny that my own personal bias plays heavily into these statements, and that many people will disagree with what I have to say.

Still...I am right. They are wrong. I will get into why a little later, but first lets review this damn game.

Yoshiro Ono has done what he does best: crafted another fine addition to the Street Fighter family. Notice that I say Street Fighter and NOT Tekken, because the truth remains that this game is through and through a Street Fighter game. The fact that half of the roster (and some of the tag mechanic) is...inspired... by Tekken is about as close as the relation ever gets. The Tekken side of the roster is fresh, new and exciting, but Tekken fans will likely pick this game up and put it down the instant Tekken Tag 2 hits the shelves.

The game looks like Street Fighter, sounds like Street Fighter. The menus are just a modified version of Street Fighter 4, complete with identical theme music and sound effects. Trial and Challenge mode are both just derivatives of previous Street Fighters. When you win via super move, the screen and sound effects are exactly the same as Street Fighter. Even some of the moves and style of the Tekken characters are lifted directly from absent Street Fighter characters. The character models and animations seem identical to their original Street Fighter versions, albeit a little less detailed or refined. Maybe..."toned down" is a better way to put it.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. I am simply being honest. In the games defense, Tekken Tag Tournament did pretty much the same exact thing over a decade ago, and that game was glorious. Much like Tekken Tag, this game pretty much dwarfs its source game almost completely, making any copy of Street Fighter 4 seem...very tradable.

Street Fighter fans will embrace this game as the finest one ever created. Ono has evolved the Street Fighter formula way beyond what players once dreamed possible, and still kept it simple enough to understand and execute as long as the player knows how to throw a fireball. In fact, it is pretty safe to say that the game features a much more forgiving learning curve than any other 2d fighter out there.

Ono has also crafted an extremely clever (and very risky) comeback strategy with "Pandora mode", which sacrifices one character and gives the player about 8-seconds of infinite "super meter". If the time runs out...they lose. It sounds very underwhelming but the activation is beautifully dramatic, and a victory via Pandora is easily as awesome as landing an Instant Kill in the original Guilty Gear. Trash talk is destined to ensue...

The tag system stands as the games centerpiece, and rightfully so. Two friends are able to team up and compete with two other friends, using tags to dance and switch in a ballet of Street Fighter awesomeness. A team can even spend their entire meter to allow both players to hop on screen and bash the crap out of their opponent, creating a heart pounding and riveting sense of cooperative play. This really is the best Street Fighter game I have ever played.

On that same note is the games greatest (and most catastrophic) achievement: Scramble Mode. In Scramble Mode, two friends team up against two other friends, and ALL FOUR players stay on the screen at once. The mode is totally insane, and an absolute blast with friends or online.

Online, the games structure excels but the execution is a frustrating and slightly disappointing affair. Matchmaking in ranked mode feels decidedly more sluggish than in Marvel vs. Capcom or Street Fighter 4, and the rematch option is mysteriously absent. Even worse is the current sound and latency issues. The game sports more lag than the two afformentioned Capcom fighters, and the sound just...cuts out...whenever.

Yup...whenever.

"HADO-... "

"..."

CRASH! CRACK! BLAM!

"HY-..."

"..."

...

What does Capcom have to say about this? Simple: it is Microsoft and Sonys fault. OH, and they also cannot fix the issue because it will create latency issues...

PSST! There already are latency issues.

This is actually the perfect segway into what I think makes this the weakest of all of Capcoms recent fighting games: Capcom itself. Behavior that began with Street Fighter 4, and worsened with Marvel vs. Capcom 3, has truly exploded into suspicious territory with Street Fighter x Tekken.

Twelve...count em...twelve fighters on the disc are simply locked, and must be purchased. What else is there? Around 100 Costumes, the full range of customizable colors, gems that provide buffs, some stages...the list goes on. Fans who were forced to dump $100-$150 a piece on Street Fighter 4 and Marvel vs. Capcoms content are now being forced to DO IT AGAIN. The games designer trumpeted customization as the future of fighting, but if you do not fork out the dough...you get two colors, some gems, eight stages, and 75% of the roster.

Anyone reading this review probably knows what I am talking about: It has become quite an issue in the media. Detractors (and Capcom ) have gone as far as to say that fans are just being greedy, and complain too much. Outraged fans all sing the same thing in unison: "Capcom is killing the industry".

Well, they all have it wrong. The fans are not being greedy: Capcom is being greedy. They are they are killing their own franchise- NOT the industry. They are simply destroying their own financial and commercial integrity via shoddy incomplete products, and bad customer relations. Capcom will probably not suffer, but the fighting genre will again be destroyed and lay dormant for another decade.

Does this figure into the Street Fighter x Tekkens overall quality? Absolutely.

When compared with a game like...say...Tekken 6, Mortal Kombat, or (even though it isnt a fighter) the recent SSX: all of Capcoms fighters are a failure. The developers of the former games dump content and quality all over its fans, and have reaped insane revenues as a result while fans beg for DLC. Conversely, Capcoms games are all selling....decently. Street Fighter and Marvel both sold a few million copies total...and SFxTekken will probably perform on or under par.

Street Fighter x Tekken, despite being the best Street Fighter installment, is just a mod of Street Fighter 4 marketed as a complete game, and sold with over a fourth of its total content locked away in the name of profit. Just like Street Fighter, and ESPEICALLY like Marvel v Capcom, this game COULD

COULD

COULD have been legendary. Instead it is simply passing the time as fighting fans await Haradas Next Tekken, Skullgirls, Dead or Alive 5, and so on. A game that could have broken new ground and magnetized a few million more fans to the fighting genre has instead alienated and insulted its core fanbase, while barely impressing people on the fence.

This game is the definition of bad business.

If you like Street Fighter, if you have friends who like Street Fighter, if you are interested in getting into Street Fighter, or are just hankering for some good, casual, fighting fun...buy this game. WELL...okay, buy this game in like...six months or a year...when the full content is unlocked and Capcoms lousy sales force them to sell the whole thing as a full game for probably 40 bucks.

Street Fighter x Tekken is a great game, but it is also an underwhelming game as far as the genre is concerned. Capcoms producers are guilty of not understanding how to wow the crowd, and they fail to see the power of word of mouth. They could be using their fighters to create an entire culture of fans. Instead, they did not even want Street Fighter 4 to get made in the first place, and after it succeed still do not have the faith required to maintain its popularity. Instead they are destroying it with oversaturation and unethical business practices.

In conclusion, and defense of jaded Capcom fans, I want you to consider the following story as a perfect metaphor for WHY exactly Capcom fans deserve better, and why Street Fighter x Tekken kind of sucks:

Resident Evil 4 is heralded as one of the greatest games ever made. What a lot of people do not know about it is that Capcom originally designed it as just another Resident Evil. ANOTHER cash-in like Nemesis and Code Veronica. After several years of development hell, Shinji Mikami, the games producer (and creator of Resident Evil), took over development of the game and AGAINST CAPCOMS ENDLESS WISHES, reworked the game and changed the series formula. This is one of the only times in the history of Capcoms games that the company allowed a creator to do this. They were not allowed to directly interfere with its development. Even a year before the game was released, Capcom was pressuring Mikami to finish it and release it. They consistently threatened to fire him.

After Resident Evil 4, Mikami left Capcom and started his own studio. He has given countless interviews about how bad it was to deal with them, and how they constantly argued with him every time he wanted to put more content into the game.

Think about it.

A Crossover That Stands Tall Among It's Bretheren

2012-03-27T13:25:00Z

When most people think about a fighting game, the average gamer will mention Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat while dedicated fans of the genre will go down a list of several fighting games, one of them being Tekken. I've personally been a dedicated Street Fighter fan for several years now and never got too into the Tekken series. I played quite a bit of Tekken 3 in the arcade and picked up Tekken 4 and rented Tekken 5 when they came out, but I never became dedicated to the franchise. Street Fighter X Tekken takes what most fans of the fighting genre wanted and put it into a game. Straying far away from most of Capcom's crossover titles, Street Fighter X Tekken takes everything that made Street Fighter the game it is today and combined it with not only members of the Tekken cast, but features from the Tekken Tag Tournament games.

Street Fighter X Tekken takes a little time to warm up to. The fighting mechanics are all the same for most of the respected cast, sharing their moves from the most recent titles. There are quite a few things to remember going into the game however. Realistically you do not have two life bars in fights. When one bar runs out, the match is over and the winner is the person standing, which can make matches extremely frustrating when you're unable to switch out due to either a continuous combo or a launcher not connecting. Something else to consider is that most of the Tekken characters have a special stance they need to be in to perform certain moves, which can also lead into problems in the middle of a match. There is also the Pandora system, which I ultimately found useless in almost every match I played in both the Arcade mode and Online mode. Something else included in Street Fighter X Tekken is the new Gem System (similar to the card system in Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom's Heroes and Heralds) which has the ability to make or break matches depending upon which gems a player chooses and how well those gems suit the player's style.

The different modes that are offered in Street Fighter X Tekken are very similar to what you would see if you looked at Super Street Fighter IV. Arcade Mode is typical, pick your characters and fight random teams until the end, however you do need to pick the actual tag teams that were preset in order to witness the cutscenes and understand the full story of the game which can lead to some complicated times with characters that are hard to use. From Arcade we go to Online which is exactly what you would expect. Online mode consists of Player Matches, Ranked Matches, Endless Battle, and a new mode called Scramble Battle, which has you team up with another person and take on another team in an all out brawl against the enemy team.Searching for Ranked matches is similar to how Marvel Vs. Capcom is setup, forcing you into a match without allowing the selection of a lobby. Player Matches are the same way, however Endless Battle and Scramble Battle allows you to choose. The matching system is still off balance when it comes to finding someone of similar skill, but Capcom is working on quite a few things to enhance the experience. Sporting a similar ranking system to Street Fighter, players earn Battle Points for winning ranked matches and lose them for losses. Capcom did take the advice of the community and incorporated the Replay Channel into Street Fighter X Tekken with enhanced features. The Replay Channel functions more like an actual television channel, allowing you to select a category and subcategory, which then starts a series of continuous replays that players can save into a channel of their own to go and watch at a later time. Players have the ability to go into Trial and learn all of the character's moves and combos and there's the all new Missions, which has players defeat opponents under certain circumstances.

When it comes to playing the game with all of the mechanics involved, it looks and plays like Street Fighter but feels more like a Tekken game. The adjustments take some time adjusting to and the online community uses some of the cheapest tactics, but overall the experience is amazing and I personally feel the need to learn how to better myself as a player.

Nice Combination of Two Greats of the Fighting Game Genre

2012-03-11T03:01:00Z

I waiting a few days before posting a review because I wanted to get a feel for most of the features and characters first.

This is a great game. It takes getting use to for both sides, even for street fighter people, since the mechanics and ways to fight are very different from any recent fighter. In fact, this has been compared to the old crossover game, Capcom vs SNK 2. Now it would seem as though the Tekken people are at a disadvantage, but the way they are mixed in with their dodging helps in going across a map if dealing with spammers. Also, many of their combos, like Kazuya for example, switches back and forth between low, medium, and overhead hits, making the combos hard to block when in close.

I like that they did a 2D style since there will be a Tekken version in the 3D. Now I do enjoy 3D fighters like Soul Caliber, but the last time I played street fighter in a 3D setting, it didn't go so well, so Namco has quite a challenge of how to make Ryu a threat when sidestepping hadokens is an easy option. Otherwise, for this game, Capcom did great by melding things together as the GI review states. Though fair warning for those thinking they can just bring in the habits and skills from Street Fighter 4 into this game without issue, you will get rocked because there are many differences.

Now my biggest complaint is merely the audio when online. Capcom is working to fix it, so I'm hoping it gets resolved soon, but other than that, it is solid online. I love teaming up with my friend and taking on people in ranked matches.

When it comes to crossovers, Capcom just knows how to make sure it works.

Tekken X Street Fighter = Capcom Win?

2012-03-10T00:54:00Z

I first heard of Tekken X Street Fighter in an earlier issue of GameInformer and I had to say I was skeptical. Mixing two figthing game juggernauts into one game seems like a perfect combo right? I wasn't sure about this game because of the fact that the 2 games are completely different in terms of characters, story, and universes. Well, this game turned out pretty good in fact. I have to applaud Capcom to taking a bold turn by mixing these 2 together into a monster of a milkshake of awesome.

Gameplay wise, this is pretty darn fun. I found my self accustomed to the mechanics of the moves and found it easy to gain my learning curve. For those new to video games should have an easy time learning. Otherwise, it's great fun for veterans of both games.

Graphically, it's not Battlefield 3 quality but it gets the job done for a fighting game. Characters and backgrounds look good and the special effects look great even up close. It's a eye-appealing game but sometimes I found my self dizzy after a round ( my only complaint for presentation).

The audio is pretty good at times and I even found myself putting on my Turtle Beaches to hear the face pounding punch. Or that groin kick...

I have to say I wasn't too enthusiastic when I saw Capcom was mixing these 2 together. But after spending time with the game, I completely converted my mind into liking this game. I can see myself playing this game in the future often with my friends.

Meh

2012-03-09T22:14:00Z

Am I a fan of fighting games? Who isn't? So when a game features the collision of two of the best in the genre, only good things can happen.

Well...

I don't understand why it was done in 2D. Sure, it is Capcom's bread and butter. Seeing Tekken fighters on a 2D plain is just odd. It plays odd as well. I found myself leaning towards the SF roster when deciding my weapon of choice.

Look at it this way; Tekken is 3D all the way. Street Fighter has done 3D titles to great effect. To me it only makes sense that this would have been on a 3D field. It's hard for me to get over the mismatch of 2D battlefields with 3D fighters. It just feels weird.

Visuals aside, I cannot doubt that I found myself playing for hours without realizing. That's usually a sign of a good game. Not even Mortal Kombat could accomplish that. It felt like Street Fighter 2 in the arcades when I was a young whipper snapper. Good times.

Overall it's a good, solid game once you get over the initial awkwardness of the 2D/3D mixing. Hopefully more characters will be included in future DLCs.

Fun? Yes. Smooth? Yes. Awesome? Yes.

2012-03-09T06:16:00Z

I've never been a big fan of fighting games. I liked them sure, but i never found myself playing them a lot. This one however i found surprising. Call me stupid but when i first saw this game announced i thought it was going to be garbage. Boy was i wrong. The fighting mechanics are so smooth it's crazy. Their quick yet smooth at the same time. Although they both work very well, i was a fan more of the street fighter characters. Playing with friends is one fun time your going to have. There's nothing more fun than beating your friend's and laughing in their faces. I just wish there were more characters and a better selection of tunes. However those are things that bother me, most likely not you. So if your a fan of fighting games, heck, if your a fan of games go get this game.