For as long as both franchises have been out fighting fans all over have been waiting for this mash-up of colossal proportions, now, the wait is finally over.
Street Fighter X Tekken is a 2D fighter, similar in aesthetics to Street Fighter 4, in which members of both the Street Fighter and Tekken universes do battle. In this game, however, fights are always consisted of two member teams where either member of the team can be tagged in or out by doing a specific combo on the opponent or pressing a two button combination.
Through this mechanic fights are either won or loss by not only how good of a fighter you are but how much of a team player you are. Many high rank players are already figuring out intricate combos that can be executed through the switching in or out of a teammate. Of course, there is much more at work in this game than simply fighting, making it one of the most complex and satisfying fighters to be released in quite some time.
First, Capcom made sure to share a bit of information on the storyline prior to release of the game. Long story short a box falls from outer space and fighters from both franchises team up in pairs to obtain the box and benefit from it in some way. Some seek to become rich and some seek it purely for power, the arcade mode of the game shows you the outcome for each fighter as they reach the goal. Endings vary from comical mishaps to unfortunate discoveries and while the stories aren’t as imaginative as something found in Zelda or Final Fantasy they are nevertheless satisfying and give a legitimate reason for players not interested in playing online matches to play the arcade mode.
Beyond the arcade mode there is a challenge mode where players can choose from either tutorial, where beginners can learn the mechanics of the game, mission, a set of 20 challenges in which certain conditions must be met within a fight to succeed, and Trials, which allows a player to choose a character and perform 20 pre-assigned combos with the chosen fighter, similar to that of Super Street Fighter 4. The contents of this mode are, as the name states, quite difficult and require patience and timing that a veteran or training fighter might be interested in accomplishing to better learn a character and test their skills.
As in any fighting game there is also a training mode that gives invested fighters the chance to work on their technique or invent new combos that they can use in the arcade or a versus match. Versus consists of a few different modes of play that can range from one person battling two CPU’s to teams of two people against each other in a tag team battle. There is a scramble mode that can only be described as a mixture of Super Smash Bros. and Street Fighter as all fighters are on the screen at once duking it out and the two teams have a shared health bar. This mode is quite crazy at times as you never know what move may or may not hit you or when you have to attack or defend.
The online aspect of the game is very similar to Street Fighter 4 in that a fighter can participate in a ranked match that will either result in a loss or gain of battle points depending on if the fight is won or lost. There is also Endless battle where a player can enter a lobby and fight without the fear of losing their battle points. This game differs in that both modes allow players to invite their friends and use one character each to form a team that can be used to fight other team or just one person. This allows for four different accounts to be fighting at once, each account being able to gain or lose battle points, which is an option many fighting fans were hoping for with the release of this game.
Lastly, there is a customize mode. This mode adds a huge personalization element to the game because players can customize the colors on their fighters as well as the sets of battle gems they have to choose from before a fight. These gems can range from either an attack or defense buff to being able to perform moves with easier button commands. The gems a usable in every facet of the game ranging from online play to the arcade mode and offer beginner players as well as advanced players a chance to give themselves a leg up where they think they made need it. However, the gems aren’t just a passive item, meaning they aren’t always in effect. To trigger their effects one would need to satisfy certain conditions within a fight, For example for one of the attack boost gems to trigger a fighter would need to have four of their attacks blocked, the gem would then activate for the next 20 seconds of the match. One last thing the customize feature allows players to do is choose battle titles that are displayed in online matches. These titles are acquired by achieving certain things in the game such as completing a trials for a certain character or winning their first online match. This can be compared to the titles in Call of Duty for those of you who aren’t too familiar with Street Fighter 4.
There is also an options menu that allows fighters to make adjustments to the game like sound quality or picture output, but the only feature in this worth mentioning is the new ability for players to now customize the language voice overs for each character specifically. This is great news considering many players were very much for or against some of the US voice acting for some of the characters in Street Fighter 4. So now if you want Ken to talk in English and Ryu to speak in Japanese it can easily be done by just visiting the options.
The music is very upbeat and energetic creating a nice combat vibe accustom to many of the other Street Fighter games. The levels, while there aren’t many of them are filled with a huge amount of background visuals that give way to not only the fray of the fight but display characters from both series’ as a shout out to hard core fans who care about Easter eggs such as this. A great amount of detail went into these levels and while there may not be an overabundance, Capcom was definitely living by the thought of quality over quantity.
As in any fighter the characters have to seem full and created with a sense of purpose. All of the characters do just that and while many of the Tekken characters don’t have projectiles they have moves that make projectiles almost dangerous to use, giving them their own strengths. The three exclusive characters, Toro, Kuro, and Cole are all satisfying fighters with Cole having an electricity based moveset and Toro and Kuro the cats having movesets that mirror Street Fighter and Tekken mascots Ryu and Kazuya. The downloads of Mega Man and Pac- Man while bare bones in moves are fun to play with some signatures moves and a sense of comic relief that both franchise tend to show in their games. There is also guaranteed to be 12 more fighters released for purchase at a later date, an option Capcom has given to consumers many times in the past.
On the whole this game is a great addition to its genre filled to the brim with quality design and a fullness franchises with long histories can only give. The mash up is a successful one and offers some new mechanics as well as old ones that both Capcom fans and Namco fans have both become acquainted with. If you’re a fan of fighting games and you want something new to play with you’re friends this is the game for you. This game gets 9.5 hadokens out of 10.
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