Admittedly, I’m not the fighting game savant at this site, or even in my own circle of friends. Crucially, I think everyone plays more of this genre than myself, though I was a bit of a fighting game fiend growing up. That lack of experience didn’t impede me when it came to last year’s Street Fighter 6, however, which brought the long-running fighting series to the newest generation of console with stunning results. Street Fighter 6 broadly smoothed out a lot of the issues players had with its predecessor and packed in so much love and veneration for the franchise’s history that people couldn’t help but adore it. Now, it’s continuing its little comeback tour with a legendary roster addition, along with features built to help its fanbase continue their own personal journeys with the game.
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First and foremost, Street Fighter 6 is adding Terry Bogard from SNK’s Fatal Fury franchise as the series’ first guest fighter. The first of two SNK characters coming during SF6’s second season (the other being Mai Shiranui), Terry appears to be landing with some force. SF6 adapts essentially the entirety of his iconic moveset, including his earth-shattering Power Wave punch, his gravity-defying Rising Tackle—where he spins like a top while he shoots up through the air feet first— and his searing Burning Knuckle. While I’ve only got a passing familiarity with Terry and the Fatal Fury series, I know him well enough to know that SF6 has done a wonderful job bringing these moves forward.
The reverence doesn’t stop there. Terry sports some of his signature looks, including the red jacket he’s most known for wearing, as well as a brown jacket from Garou: Mark of the Wolves. Depending on the fit he’s got on, he’ll even do different intro and winning animations, including a callback to Terry’s cap-throwing victory pose from the SNK games. In a game already bursting at the seams with love for its own legendary roster, it’s pretty great that SF6 rolls out the red carpet for Terry.
With the obvious caveat that I don’t really play fighting games all that regularly, Terry felt great in SF6 during my recent hands-on with the character. His Power Wave allows him to make some space for himself, while moves like Burning Knuckle and his Crack Shoot kick, where Terry flips forward and brings his leg down on his enemy, allow him to bridge sizable gaps and deal a ton of damage. Some characters are grapplers, others are great at mixups and such, and Terry strikes me as a great all-around character. He may not have a box you can fit him neatly into, but in the right hands, I’m sure he’ll be a menace and his inclusion in this game is exciting as hell.
On another note, I kind of suck at fighting games, and love ones that provide more tools for me to get better. I want to learn to be able to better appreciate the nuances between Terry and the rest of the SF6 roster. Training modes are a given for this, but SF6 is going the extra mile with two really neat new features that should help players (like me!) get better and feel more comfortable competing in Ranked lobbies. The first is a feature the team is calling Replay Review. More than just some glorified replay function, this new tool allows you to playback a match and then take control of one of the combatants in the recording. If you thought you got completely owned by a player who was using Manon in a way you’ve never seen before, you can review the match, study their movements, and then jump back into control of yourself to try your own strategies against them.
It’s a wild new tool that I’ve never heard of before—though it does seem to have been featured in Tekken 8—and it was utterly seamless in action. After whooping my opponent (sorry, bud) he took the opportunity to use the new function to see what I’d done to win. Upon taking control of his own character again, he implemented techniques he’d learned over the course of the fight to see if he could’ve squeezed me for more damage or cornered me in a different way. My own fighter was echoing the moves that I’d made in the fight, which even gave me time to critique my own playstyle. I’ve since learned that I jump in too much, and that’s probably what leaves me so vulnerable to punishes and anti-air techniques. We all took something valuable away from this cool new feature.
I expect a lot of pro players are going to be using this on the circuit to more closely review both their wins and losses, and to formalize their strategies. It’s great that it has use cases for players on either end of the spectrum though, since casual players can use the same tool to begin forming strategies and catalyzing winning playstyles. This great new feature will be rolling out with Terry’s addition on September 24.
Another feature that was mentioned was the introduction of a mode called V-Rivals. In it, players can pick a rank for an AI opponent based on the hierarchy found in SF6’s online Ranked competitions. The opponent will aggregate the playstyles of people found in that rank and then face off against the player in a form of training. Players are intended to play more or less around their rank or just above it in order to learn to climb the ladder, and the feature is primarily built for newcomers who are hesitant to jump into Ranked play. This way, players can grow more comfortable competing without sacrificing their status in online matches.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to play this new mode as our preview site lacked the ability to connect to the network, but in theory, V-Rivals (which will launch alongside everything else in September) sounds like a great tool for someone like me. Playing in SF6’s preview window was humbling and I got my ass handed to me by countless friends of mine. Though it’s just the nature of competition, fighting games, with their 1v1 matchups, are among the most intimate online settings, making loss a deeply embarrassing experience. Being able to get comfortable with people around my level without actually having to step foot online might just be the thing I need to make SF6 into my go-to fighting game.
All in all, Street Fighter 6 seems like it’s in fantastic shape. People seem excited about the growing roster, and these new quality-of-life features seem like they’ll reaffirm what a great game it is all over again. In short, SF6 has clearly still got plenty of steam and shows no signs of slowing down or stopping anytime soon.
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