Yes, I have decided to start doing game reviews and whatnot on this site.

Street Fighter, a name with lots of pedigree behind it. It’s had it’s ups and downs through the years. The first game, while it bombed, was apparently good enough for them to consider making another, which took the arcades by storm.

Street Fighter 2 was so amazing that it spawned a new genre of copy-cats, called “Street Fighter clones”, just like DOOM had spawned “DOOM clones”.

Street Fighter 2’s defining feature was the use of special moves, and regular attacks to create combos. For instance, if one were playing as the iconic character Ryu, one could jump in with a roundhouse/heavy kick attack, follow it up with a crouching medium punch, and end with a hadoken.

Of course, all the rest of Street Fighter 2 was awesome as well, from the music, the stages, the endings and general playability.

Then after many revisions of the base of Street Fighter 2, with the “final” one being Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, the era of Street Fighter 2 swamping arcades came to a close.

People wanted something new, so Capcom decided to create Street Fighter 3. Street Fighter 3, went all in on the “newness” angle. The first version had hardly any of the original cast returning, save for Ryu and Ken. The other changes it introduced was a greater set of mobility tools, such as super jumping and other such things. Besides having to pick your Super Art, which was what SF3 called Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo’s Super Combos, you could also parry.

Being able to parry an attack was a game-changer! You could essentially turn the game around because after parrying, you can counter-attack right away, while the opponent must continue in their own animation, leaving them wide open.

Regardless of these highly important changes, SF3 somewhat bombed. So Capcom had to scramble, and in their wake, out came Street Fighter 4.

Street Fighter 4 set the fighting game scene on fire again, it was like a true breath of fresh air. You had a restatement of mechanics from the previous iterations, but everything had a fresh coat of paint, and it had lots of returning characters and new ones as well. This continued till Ultra Street Fighter 4 came out.

Then came Street Fighter 5. While initially received well, criticism started to mount on it after a myriad of missteps by Capcom. In the end, it wasn’t as great as it could’ve been. Still, it paved the way for the current iteration, Street Fighter 6.

Street Fighter 6 has been amazing and well received by many people, with the addition of new modes, crossplay and rollback netcode.

What makes Street Fighter 6 currently stand out besides the above? Like Street Fighter 4, SF6 has a fresh new coat of paint, and the art style really brings it to a whole new level. Like SF3, it has really catchy music too. Like SF3, anyone can parry attacks now. There’s also a number of smaller new mechanics not taken from any other games too, like Drive Rush. Overall, SF6 is here to stay for a long while, and Capcom has made strives to improve the whole experience.

Game Ranking: 9/10