Publisher: Capcom
Cert: 12+
Platform: PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows
Genre: Fighting
One of the most anticipated fighting game of the year, combing characters from two very different fighting games and letting them have at it. First in this version where the Tekken characters are brought into the Streetfighter setting and next year the Streetfighter characters will visit the Tekken universe in Tekken X Streetfighter. (See what they did there?)
Setting wise, both games are mashed up with little regard for any continuity. Tekken centres around a tournament called King of Iron Fist, the winner of which becomes the head of the Mishima Zaibutsu corporation. (Hey there are worse ways of choosing a CEO) Apparently none of the streetfighter characters ever heard of it, let alone bothered to enter it.
The story, which I had to piece together myself because the intro movie focuses on artistic visions of the fighters, rather than explaining what’s going on, goes as follows; A mysterious alien box crashes in the Antarctic, it has a power of some sort, everyone wants it. They beat up anyone who gets between it and them. They all happily admit they don't know what it does, but everyone wants it just in case it does something cool.
The game itself uses the Tag format made popular by Tekken in their first PS2 release (2000). Pairs of fighters do battle instead of the conventional one on one. On-screen, one fighter does battle and can change out at any moment with his partner. The resting partner regains health while off screen so tactical use of this ability can make a big difference in a match. One of the few neat things about this game is a separate player can control each character so four people can play a versus match. Admittedly that will mainly consist of two people constantly whining to be tagged in while their friends play but it is something. They do try and set up combination moves based on switching characters in and out but it doesn't work very well at all.
There are the ever present power gauges, these build up during each round and can be used to power massive combinations or special moves that could win the match in one go for you, If the first part lands If it misses your opponent has all the time they need to assemble a combination of their own. There are the EX and Super Art moves, you simply enter the command for a move and instead of tapping the appropriate button, you hold it down and wait a few seconds for it to charge up. Of course while your waiting you are stuck and a fast opponent can make mince meat of you if your not careful.
Then there are the Gems, Capcom adapted Namco Bandai accessories idea and now each character can wear a set of Gems into battle. These Gems will provide small boosts to various statistics if certain criteria are met in a round. In affect they mainly give your character an aura of different colours during a fight as they have no discernible affect on the fight besides that.
Frankly it is all a bit to much tomfoolery for my liking, with all these abilities comes a superb controller modification option, which lets you set up combos to occur with a single button. So instead of getting into a nice tactical battle when I go online, its fastest finger first, massive combos everywhere and when the dust settles someone will have won at random.
Worse still is this rolling Echo technology they use for the online battles, ostensibly to balance out the disparity between players with different connection speeds The end result however, is that you can execute a perfectly good combo, with the opponent in the correct range etc. You are then treated to the massively frustrating spectacle of your character sailing through your opponent with no affect as she kicks out at the empty air where you used to be.
The biggest problem however is the imbalance between the Street fighter and Tekken characters, with the latter noticeably weaker . A prime example of this bias can be found in the Arcade mode. Streetfighter characters final boss is Ogre, a sub boss from Tekken, who relies on fast powerful kicks and punches, Tekken characters get Akuma, who tends to nip up to the top of the screen, hail fireballs down upon the player, drop down, deliver a flame imbued uppercut, followed by a barrage of mid air spinning kicks. and at least four fireballs. Bit of a difference there.
There are also no real rewards, and no unlockable hidden characters, with Capcom apparently failed to learn from the success of Streetfighter Four, Marvel vs Capcom or last years Mortal Kombat. The closest thing is titles for your online battle profile, which are frankly the poorest player reward possible.
The story is terrible, the characters unbalanced, the online play is pointless. It will be a bit of fun if you have four people who want to play in your house but otherwise it's not worth the money. If you want a decent story with balanced characters and a working tag combat system, try Mortal Kombat instead.
Rent or Buy: Rent
Replay: 1
Gameplay: 2
Graphics: 3
Overall: 2/5
Reviewed by: Gerry McEvoy
