Soo I've sunk alot of hours into this game since launch last year, so I'll have alot to say but for those who want the short version.

TL;DR

Easily the gold standard for current generation of fighting games. Well worth it if you're starting out or a hardcore fighting game fan. A fantastic offering of singplayer options such as World Tour, a vast improvement in the online functionality and options à la the Battle Hub & Fighting Grounds. The core gameplay can be hectic, fast, fun, infuriating and oh so satisfying. This is thanks to the new Drive system which I love and hate. It's a solid addition but could use some fine tuning. The base roster is a bit disappointing but characters designs are fantastic and movesets have been given a decent refresh which make them feel new but also familiar. Season 1 of DLC characters were great, each of them were unique in their own right. Season 2 is featuring guest characters for the first time ever in a mainline Street Fighter game and they picked Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui from Fatal Fury fame. Definitly one of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ moments for this game and makes me excited for the future of it.

First and foremost this is a full-fledged video game filled to the brim with content for everyone to enjoy and not as barebones & non-functional as launch SF5.

First off, The World Tour mode serves as the singleplayer portion of the game and while the story is mediocre at best, it's actually a great way for beginners to learn the game as the whole campaign is a tutorial of sorts which is genius. You can create your own avatar, equip moves from iconic characters and customize your own moveset,basically walk around Metro City and fight and interact with anyone in the city which includes but not limited to SPD'ing a random grandma walking the streets but the best part having our own avatar interact with iconic characters like Ryu, Zangief, etc with hilariious and interesting dialogue and very fun cutscenes, I just wish there were more of these.

The Battlehub serves as the social hub where you take your created avatar and can meet up with other players have play some sets, play classic games, some fun minigames like extreme battle, avatar battles and as of season 2 boss raid battles.

And the Fighting Ground is where the hardcore peeps go for their infuriating and sweat inducing ranked mode. Aside from that there's a robust training mode, decent character guides, combo trials and more. They didn't forget Arcade mode this time thank god while it isn't anything revolutionary it has some short but neat story bits for the base roster. The netcode is fantastic this time around with only very minor hiccups here and there. But most of my matches were smooth with little to no rollbacks whatsover. Happy to say they nailed it this time.

The RE Engine just continues to do its magic and blow my mind. I was always doubtful about Capcom being able to pull off a realistic looking Street Fighter but here we are. It's not as realistic of course, still has a lot of the stylistic elements which differentiate it and somehow this blend works amazingly. The visual style is great, the characters look awesome, stages are beautiful. I'm really digging the urban aesthetics and how colourful it is from the splash of colour from drive impacts, reversals, drive rushes. The special move effects look great, animations are stellar and the sound design is awesome. The OSTs are hit or miss, mostly a miss but as of Season 2 they did add soundtracks from previous games so there's that.

While I'm dissappointed with how safe Capcom played it with the roster, I can't deny most of the characters are the best they've ever been. The designs are amazing. I guess that's thanks to Capcom finally embracing the post SF3 timeline so they can age up the characters and change them up a bit with their movesets. Every character is brimming with personality be it from their design or thier movesets. Deejay is the best he's ever been, Cammy finally has a great design and is wearing pants, Zangief is embracing the pro-wrestling side with more wrestling moves and the tights, Ryu is more aged and seems to have reached mastery, Ken is going through some ♥♥♥♥ lol. The newcomers are also great additions with Jamie, Marisa and JP being my personal favorites. Each and every character looks and plays so different and each add their own unique flavor it's pretty good... well except for Lily. ♥♥♥♥ that character.
Well as of Season 2 they did introduce guest characters and a SF3 rep. I do hope they bring back more characters that haven't gotten a chance to shine.

The core gameplay is the best it's ever been despite it feeling a bit weighty initially. Once you get used to it it becomes fast, frenetic and sometimes outright ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. It can also be slow, methodical and very "footsies" based too. The core gameplay system this time around is the Drive System which introduces things like Drive Rush, Drive Impact and brings back Reversals, EX moves and Parries. This system is a breath of fresh air and just adds on top of the existing kits of the characters which are pretty good to begin with. There's also the matter of managing your meter as if not you'll enter burnout state which is basically you lose access to drive meter and thus the drive moves leaving you pretty vulnerable to being stunned in the corner, thus making meter management a crucial aspect of the game on top of all the existing mechanics.

Well, I've been singing praises but there are some rather glaring issues in this game which have yet to be addressed by Capcom. For starters, this one is a minor one but I feel like the base roster was a bit dissappointing and could've used more variety instead of playing it safe. Secondly, the matchmaking in this game is a bit iffy, while they have released patches to address this and I will admit it has improved alot since launch, it could still use some more improvements as it still takes me sometime to get into matches and sometimes its the same guy over and over again. Moreover, matchmaking while training mode comepletely ♥♥♥♥♥ over the training mode where it freezes, doesn't reset and more. And finally the worst part about this game is the butt ugly monetization scheme. Instead of allowing us to directly purchase characters, costumes and such we have to buy in-game currency and then purchase the character from the in-game store. Normally this wouldn't be a big issue but the monetization scheme is set in such a way that I have to buy more of the in-game currency than I actually need for characters which is complete BS! On that note I'd also like to add that the content updates are pretty barebones like in Season 1 we got 4 DLC characters and 1 costume pack while the rest were mostly avatar costumes and such. The prioritization of avatar related content over say the traditional stuff is a bit dissappointing.

Easily one of the best fighting games of this generation and it can only keep getting better from here on out. Hopefully they address the issues mentioned but other than that Capcom has been on a roll recently and I entrust the future of Street Fighter to Nakayama-san, Matsumoto-san and the rest of the Street Fighter team. Looking forward to what they have cooking for Season 2.

The DLC consisting of an extra 8 characters costs MORE than the entire game at full price! Absolutely ridiculous monetisation.

feet lady