Fightin' Words by Infil

Miscellaneous Points

Here's where I throw together the rest of my point form notes that didn't seem to go anywhere else. These points could be good, bad or just neutral observations.

• This is maybe the first time in a decade when a franchise's next iteration is more complex than the previous version. I think Capcom will be rewarded for this decision and they'll find out that making a good videogame is more important for popularity and sales than oversimplification of the mechanics.
• Allow us to skip the victory screen with the accept button (and not only just the start button). I'm tired of reaching up to the back of my stick every match instead of where my hand is already rested. (But I like that the victory screen is skippable, even if we have to use start)
• Allow us to search for replays based on skill/rank and not only character and username. Sometimes I just want to watch high-ranked (or low-ranked!) play, without really caring about anything else.
• Critical Art is not really a comeback mechanic (400-ish damage for raw level 3, 450-ish for raw CA), and it's no big deal that there is or isn't one in the game. There are good fighting games that have a comeback mechanic and good ones that don't, and I don't think inclusion or exclusion of a comeback mechanic has much to do with the quality of the gameplay. People need to stop being weird about this.
• I'm not a big fan of 1-hit late cancel confirms off medium buttons, and I'm glad that seems to be really difficult in SF6 (hopefully it will be virtually impossible). I hope Capcom keeps the cancel window very short on medium buttons. I'm okay with 1-hit confirms off heavies because these seem much more doable for the average player, they won't be lows, and they tend to be riskier buttons in neutral to press. In this game, confirming low forward into drive rush on hit every time would not be a fun way to play and would eliminate a lot of the interesting decision making around needing to spend drive for plus frames, etc.
• I like the fact that rise-in-place and back roll, your only two options off knockdowns, are the same timing. I'm tired of variable wakeup timings stifling offense (it was incredibly annoying in USF4 in particular, which also had character-specific wakeup timings to deal with). It does seem a little weird that back roll is not the default option, since it appears like you'll want to do that almost every time, but it's not a huge deal.
• Don't pay attention to older players who think this game is the One Game that will finally deliver those with pure skill to the promised land. It's never been true in any fighting game to date (including the ones they were good at), and it won't be true in this game. Plus, a smothering neutral game is just as susceptible to broken characters and strategies as any other aspect of FG design.
• Interesting that whiffed specials do not build meter in this game.
• The lack of chip damage will lead to a lot more Perfects in this game. You can block fireballs, reversal DPs, and safe on block specials over the course of 50 seconds and still be able to get a Perfect.
• Punish counter is a pretty neat system. Any time you hit anyone in recovery, you get punish counter and +4 frames of hit stun, and maybe some additional properties (like crumple) depending on the move. This means if you block a -4 move and punish with a jab, you actually get more than just a jab combo, since you can actually link into bigger moves you normally wouldn't be able to! But it doesn't force jabs to be ridiculous during block pressure. It's a clever solution.
• SF6 will be a high damage game and you should get used to that now. Ryu's DP punish combo in the beta can start with 4 heavy attacks if he's willing to spend 3 bars on drive rush, and then he can cancel into super or special moves to extend the combo. Punish counter and drive rush will always mean mis-spaced attacks or whiff punishes can lead to big damage. I like high damage games so I think this is fun, but you should make your peace with it now.
• To nobody's surprise, all the fuss around Guile's "perfect" sonic booms being an execution check that would push out new players turned out to be nonsense. In fact, in neutral, it's more difficult to not throw the perfect version, it seems. I'm still not really in love with the "perfect!" voice line Guile does, though. Something feels a little lost when he's saying it more than "sonic boom".
• All characters (in the beta, at least) had the same health and there is no guts scaling in the game. This is probably the first modern fighting game without guts in some time? I think it's probably for the best, but I'm curious how they will balance grapplers and zoners with everybody having the same health.
• The music is a bit hit or miss for me, but there are some strong themes. I appreciate that they are trying a "3rd Strike" approach where all the themes are unified around one style and they don't reuse any of the classic themes, even if not every theme lands for me. That said, I fully expect there will be SF5 and other retro themes available in this game, so all the classic music will be around in some form. If there are, let us control which ones show up with a Smash Bros-style frequency slider.
• Similarly, I like that the themes have round variations (again, like 3rd Strike), so different parts of the song play when it's round 1, 2 or 3, including tenser, more energetic music in the final round. It's okay if we lose this feature for the retro themes, since they weren't composed with this in mind, but for the SF6-specific themes, it's a nice touch.
• The stages are nice, and so far I like that they are focusing on readability of the characters over "realistic" lighting that makes everything hard to see. The Metro City Downtown stage is maybe cutting it a little close for readability, but it's still on the playable end and all the other stages are very clear so far. Please continue to focus on readability of the foreground characters over trying to blend characters into the background with realistic lighting.
• Changing clothes on your avatar needs to be easier. It took me until the final day of the beta, scouring all the menus, before I found the place where you could do it. Meanwhile, I could not change what my character was wearing in the avatar shop, or on the profile page where they show the list of what I'm currently wearing (nothing was selectable here). Give us an easy way to go to the customization screen from these points.
• I hope there are a lot of colors in this game. Give us 10 default colors, and then let us unlock 10 more doing character-specific challenges, like playing the single player mode or completing combo trials. Give us lots of choices here.
• Hopefully the input lag is low in this game. There seem to be early reports that it might be a bit higher than the industry norm now, but I haven't been following the developments. I'm hoping they have enough feedback and information to adjust it if it's too high. If the input delay is lowered, I'd like them to be careful about how that might affect 1-hit confirms, and they might need to adjust some cancel windows on medium buttons to keep them unconfirmable.
• I hope there's a higher execution character in the game for players like sako.

And finally, let's wrap it up with several things I really like in the game:

• lightning fast rematch and skippable victory poses
• clear displays for the delay frames, rollback frames, and ping (in ms) during online play
• able to change your online name at any time, for any reason (this is really important for letting players express themselves with funny jokes, and allowing people to hide and play anonymously for mental health reasons)
• you can pick which stages are eligible to be chosen when you select "random"
• players can play on different stages, so I never have to see training stage if I don't want to. Please focus on making sure every stage runs equally well so we can use all the stages.
• the in-fight UI is nice; I like the purples and blues and the fonts are well chosen
• the commentary feature surprised me with how well it integrates with the game. I won't always have it on but I foresee myself messing with it more than I thought
• music being randomized each match, even on rematch (and us having control over which themes are picked) is fantastic
• the character creator seems incredibly in-depth and it will be fun to make abominations and approximations of real people alike. Please allow us to have multiple avatar presets that we can switch between.
• making faces with the "Face Time" feature on the VS screen is awesome. Street Fighter is at its best when it's being silly, but it should help players tell their own joke rather than force them to laugh at a preexisting joke that has long overstayed its welcome, and Face Time accomplishes this very well.
• there are lots of small touches that seem to go above and beyond, like customizing the "here comes a new challenger" screen. I want them to continue with this design style, because the fans really notice the small things.

Final Thoughts

Despite some small nitpicking, Capcom really deserves a lot of credit for the product they showed in the beta, which isn't even the complete game yet. Whoever is making the decisions for this game needs to continue on the path they're going. The gameplay system promotes creativity with thoughtful choices and does not feel dumbed down, while the software itself has multiple huge quality of life improvements over any fighting game they've made in the past. I've been a disgruntled skeptic about the genre for many years now, but they've managed to convince me that they know what they're doing with this game. I'm hoping for continued good things for Street Fighter 6.

And that's all for this post! Hopefully reading this has given you some food for thought about SF6's gameplay and features, and perhaps made you more interested in trying the game when it launches next year. Thanks for reading, and until next time!