Rating: 4 stars
Street Fighter X Tekken, the X being pronounced cross, is a fan service that has been imagined by fighting game fans since the PlayStation One era.
The idea started a debate between the Street Fighter fans and the Tekken fans, which always seemed to be pipe dream, star-crossed fighters destined to never occupy the same ring. Fast forward to 2012 where both franchises, Street Fighter and Tekken, can battle one another to settle the score.
This game is only the first of two in the works on this concept, this one being developed by Street Fighter developers Capcom in a 2D style. The second in the series will be developed by Namco, the Tekken guys, with the name Tekken X Street Fighter which will feature a 3D style.
If there was ever a way to end the debate over who would stomp who, this goes above beyond anything the fans had imagined: a team-based fighter that is fast paced enough to be compared to Tekken's speed with the stability Street Fighter provides.
I got my hands on Street Fighter X Tekken at launch earlier this week. Being a longtime Street Fighter and Tekken fan; it goes without saying that I was excited.
After a few days putting the game through its paces, I've come to the conclusion that this game may be one of the best fighting games to come out in a long while. Let's dive a little deeper into the aspects of Street Fighter X Tekken!
The first thing I noticed when I popped the game in was the great job they did on the artwork. The art style is very reminiscent of Street Fighter 4: Cel-shaded in a way that makes the characters look as if they were painted on the screen with vibrant manga colors and cartoonish proportions.
These characters can be put into many different stages, from a Jurassic Research Lab, complete with T-Rexes and boxing raptors, to a Space Station, complete with astronauts. When put into motion, this art style makes the game come alive! The only places I would really have to say that they could have tried harder were on the character endings and the character edit.
The edit mode doesn't even have the full rainbow's worth of colors, a concern that many have voiced since the game's release and Capcom has said they will fix. As for the endings, for most characters, they are just text which I feel could have been done better.
The music is a varied offering of things from LMFAO heavy dance beats to double-bass filled metal and everything in between. None of it is really bad and a few of the songs are pretty catchy.
If you played Street Fighter 4 then you can know just how misguided Capcom can be when it comes to music; which makes me glad that they kept it tame and focused on their strong suits instead of making a bunch of music for the player to mute.
Now, the meat and potatoes, the gameplay. Anyone who has played a fighting game knows that they can have an extremely high learning curve; this doesn't change with Street Fighter X Tekken, yet they have implemented a handful of ways to make the game more accessible for newcomers all while retaining the depth that fans of the genre demand.
Two ways this effect was achieved are the addition of gems. Gems are a system of boosts that can be added to your character during a match and an addition of a simple low to high combo system that can be easy to learn, yet extremely difficult to master.
The game plays like a normal fighter that has a few interesting additions that make it something that pushes the genre. It has the partner-based fighting system where you pick more than one character per match (in this case 2), that the Vs. system made popular.
The roster has 38 characters that span both universes; including fan favorites such a Ryu, Chun-Li, Jin, Nina and Yoshimitsu. The game doesn't lack in modes, either, including fighting game staples such as arcade and winner stays online. There are some other modes such as scramble battle, where four fighters fight on screen at once and cooperative play.
The gems were a point of heavy debate on the interwebs leading up the games release, with many saying that the boosts gems would add an unfair advantage in some situation, making the game unbalanced.
The opposition to this argument was that the gem system would add a layer of depth to playing a character and increase possibilities within play styles. I'm glad the latter was right, because if my few days with game have shown me anything, it is that the gems don't win you the match, but they do allow the player to reinforce their style with any character.
For example, if you use a lot of special moves, then you could enhance your play by picking gems that make you stronger after you hit with so many special moves; a great addition for both newbie and high-level play.
The combo system is very much like Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, yet not near as fast. It is set up so everyone's base combos are their light attack to medium to heavy and then you can press heavy again to launch them, bringing in your partner. The game has a nice tutorial to teach people how this works and once they have the hang of it, it has a trial mode, a sort of combo challenge mode every character has, that shows them just how much they can add to combos.
Most games fall into the trap of catering too much to one side or the other when they make choices to make the game more accessible. Capcom has succeeded in making a system that both sides can enjoy right away, which is not an easy feat.
If you are on the fence about this game, let me be the guy that pushes you off that fence and into the great time Street Fighter X Tekken has to offer.
My only word of caution would be that if you are new to fighting games then keep in mind this game, while having less of a learning curve than most games in the genre, still has a pretty steep one. Just keep your head up and have fun and you will be beasting noobs in no time! Many fighting games have a handful of short comings out of the box, such as balance issues or lack of player base.
This game has the community to be the game for quite some time and is balanced enough that it won't turn into a Super Ken Fighter 4 clone anytime soon. As for bang for your buck, there are hours and hours of content here. If you explore it all you will have easily sunk in hundreds of hours, making the game cost less than a dollar an hour.
I give it 4 out of 5 stars, not to say it is a perfect game, but I would be hard pressed to find a better fighting game.
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