Hands on with Street Fighter 6 - Preview
Going into the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, I figured that Capcom were going to turn up with something and I was betting that either Monster Hunter or Resident Evil were the games to be shown. Thankfully I did not put any money down on that as they revealed Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess and Street Fighter 6 were coming to the console and at the recent Nintendo Switch 2 experience, the latter was playable.
Now Nintendo fans have not had a new Street Fighter since Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition on the Nintendo 3DS and that was back in 2011, so it has been a while. Outside of the Nintendo made games, Street Fighter 6 was one of the most represented games from the 3rd parties, as there were three stations set up, with Cyberpunk 2077 equaling that count. But unlike Cyberpunk 2077 where the game was the same on all three, for Street Fighter there was some variety in the offerings. One station was set up for the motion control mode and the others were the more traditional style. So, I had to jump on and play the normal mode, only because I remember the 3DS game.
I honestly wasn’t sure why I was expecting anything else going into the game, but it was Street Fighter 6, it played the same, looked the same and just generally was fun. As the release is the Years 1-2 Fighters Edition, it had the full roster of available characters and while I could have played as Elena, who is yet to release, I opted to play as Luke, because of the obvious reason. The Nintendo representative who was manning that station asked if I wanted to play solo, ie against the CPU or against them, and they looked eager, so we played together. Mostly the match played out slowly, as we just traded blows and eventually, I came out the winner. I would like to say its skill, but they could have thrown the match, I will never know.
I said before that the game looked the same as the other versions, I am sure people with more time on their hands would count the pixels on the screen to see if it matches, but honestly, it just looked good to me. I would have loved to have been able to explore some of the world tour mode, but sadly it was not setup for the event.
Street Fighter 6 on Nintendo Switch 2 is just Street Fighter 6, neither good thing nor a bad thing. If you have played the game on other platforms, then you will know what you are going to get here, but if you are coming in fresh there is a lot to enjoy. The new motion control mode could be fun for those players who are not confident with all the button entry requirements, but beyond that I don’t think it will be the way to play. It is great to see Street Fighter back on a Nintendo console, and if the developers have more years of content to come, it would be one that does very well.
Street Fighter 6 will be available on June 5, with retailer offering the Years 1-2 Fighters Edition, but for those who just want the base game, it can be bought on its own, just don’t though.
