Well not quite yet but over 3000 people have currently entered EVO to participate in Street Fighter V and we are not even close to the deadline for the end date of signing up for EVO. Ultra Street Fighter 4 managed to achieve 2,227 individual competitors last EVO which was an epic send off for the games 8th and final year at EVO. If this isn’t a sign of how massive this game is going to be then I don’t know what is.

Released on the 16th February Street Fighter V, like most games nowadays, had its fair share of problems. 7 minutes after midnight is all it took to completely break the servers and render them useless. Log in issues and random disconnects from the server during matches online enraged players as they could not rank up and get that high spot on the leaderboards early on. What really made the FGC salty were the good old fashioned rage quitters. Quitting before you get the victory is a cowards way out of protecting your rank and just ruins it for both players. I bumped into a rage quitter a couple days after release when the servers were relatively stable and the results can be seen below…

Features

In terms of features, Street Fighter V is pretty much bare boned when compared to its predecessor Street Fighter 4.  Story mode, which consists of around 2 to 4 fights for each of the 16 characters, Survival mode, Training and Ranked/Casual Battle. Challenge mode and the Shop are locked until the free update in March arrives. Not much considering Street Fighter 4 had all of these features minus Survival mode, and more. Why is this you may ask? In my opinion it’s a giant middle finger to the casual community and welcome mat for the hardcore players. Although Capcom did warn us about the lack features prior to the games release and did tell us that it won’t feature everything until a further date in the game.

Online is stable when it works and Capcom has answered our prayers by releasing hot fixes and Server Maintenance periods so they can keep a close eye on what’s going on. Battle Lounge’s can be made with a maximum of 2 players, which is how you can play against your friends or anyone you see fit. There is also a feature called the Capcom Fighters Network or CFN as its known in game, which allows you to look up your favourite players stats and replays, and add them to your in game friends list as a ‘favourite’ so you can battle later in a Battle Lounge. The game also uses a unique system, which gives the player the option to choose a unique name whilst playing online, rather than your usual PSN. “Fighter’s ID”, which is a first come first serve basis, allows you pick any name as long as it isn’t profound (Yes, I’ve tried). But you could always have names like in the picture below…

But probably the worst thing about the online for this game is the rage quitters. So much so, that Capcom have openly told the FGC to name and shame them with evidence as you can record your gameplay on the PS4 and PC. Severe punishment awaits those who rage quit and there is an enormous list over at SRK with all the people who have rage quit since the beginning of that thread. Rumour has it that League Points will be taken away from the players that rage quit- An excellent way of handling these cowardly players who can’t take a loss.

Story mode is pretty much an insult as it took me less than five minutes to complete some characters story mode. Thankfully, Capcom are releasing an update in June, which a Story mode DLC for free that expands on the story for each of the characters.

Survival mode is like any other survival game mode, however, you acquire points at the end of each round depending on how quick and aggressively you beat the A.I. You can then spend these points on items such as a increased damage, better defence, a small/medium/large/complete health refill etc. There are 4 difficulty modes that range from Easy to Hell. Beating each mode will unlock a set of colours for whichever character you decide to beat the mode with. However, the A.I’s difficulty suddenly jumps up once you pass a certain on normal difficulty and upwards. They will suddenly read all your moves and will use cross ups on you instead! But if you know how to play, you shouldn’t find it too difficult beating these modes.

Training mode is probably the best mode as it allows you to practice all your combos, punishers, whiff punishers, and crush counter combos. It also features one of the best in game recording features to date in any fighting game. You can use the in game record function to recreate pretty much any situation with any characters and learn how to defend against it or punish against it.

DLC

Street Fighter is no stranger when it comes to Add-On content. Street Fighter 4 had 3 versions of the game that was rather frustrating to the majority of the player base as they didn’t want to pay upwards of £20 for a few characters. Mercifully, Capcom announced last EVO that ALL future DLC can be earned in game using the in game currency.

March is when we’ll getting the first proper update for SFV along with our first DLC Character who has been reveal to us as Alex. A fan favourite who has been begged for by the community to return to the series, due to his massive fan base since his first appearance in Street Fighter 3. Urien, Ibuki, Juri and Balrog (M. Bison for you hardcore Japanese weebo’s) are the next planned DLC which have not had a release date mentioned for them as of now.

The only teaser we have so far for Alex is this glorious boot. Apart from that a piece of concept art was revealed which can be seen below. Compared to his SF3 look, he looks pretty similar except the suspenders and what seems to be his shirt wrapped around his waist.

Verdict

All in all, this is a brilliant game and works like a charm. Gameplay is on point and the entry level for this game is quite low so anyone can pick up this game and have a good time. However the lack of content really lets this game down and for the casual players there is no point in buying this game as of yet until the next big update arrives in March.