I love Street Fighter. Ever since I did by first hadoken, back in the day on my Mega Drive, I have been hooked. Since then I have owned so many different Street Fighter titles, re-releases and spin-offs that I couldn’t even count the number on my fingers and toes put together! So when I heard that Street Fighter and Tekken (which I also enjoy) were having two games using each series’ characters, I went mad like a 3 year-old after a two litre bottle of Lucozade. The idea of these two world’s colliding on my console got me so excited. The more footage I saw, the more I wanted the game. This weekend I was lucky enough to get my hands on Street Fighter X Tekken (SF X T), but that same energy and excitement has now replaced with disappointment.

Before I get to what upset me with SF X T let’s talk about what I loved about the game. The first thing that struck me when loading up the game was how many characters are there from each franchise. There are 38 characters ready for you to mess about with as soon as you boot up the game. There’s a good mix on the game too, with well-known characters such as Jin and Ryu sitting next to less known favourites such as Steve or Ibuki. Each character plays pretty differently too. Capcom has been accused of making too many “clone” (e.g Ryu, Ken, Akuma) characters in the Street Fighter series, but here you wouldn’t guess it, especially in set of Tekken fighters.

Of course adding in a bunch of new characters has had a big effect on the fighting mechanics of the game. Things have been slowed down from Street Fighter IV. Characters such as Ibuki no longer have lightning quick moves do deal out damage. Instead the emphasis is now on combos and chaining together moves. It isn’t as combo heavy as Tekken and doesn’t rely on the rapid speed that Street Fighter usually demands. Instead it meets in the middle asking players to remember the timing of their moves, with a few speedy inputs for the flashier combos out there. The game really does feel like a blend of Tekken’s button heavy combos and Street Fighter’s special moves/super combos.

The new speed lends itself well to the tag system in place within the game. There’s an extra emphasis on juggling opponents now by using tagging in an opponent and continuing do deal damage. Simply hit both heavy punch and kick and you will launch your opponent in the air and your partner will storm in.  There are counters, special combos and a non-offensive way to throw your partner into the ring, but by far the best one is the new dual super combo. By using all of your special bar you will do a flashy special move which will use both of your characters, tagging in your team-mate.  You can even put both characters on-screen at once for a short amount of time if you wish, although this will drain your special bar too.

Pandora is the only other major addition that affects the gameplay. Players can sacrifice their partner once their health bar is below 25%, giving their remaining character a damage boost. It is a nice addition and makes sure that if one character is getting smashed to pieces, the other still has a chance.

Capcom’s new beat-em up has several new modes as well. Alongside the obvious Arcade, Versus and online modes is the new Scramble battle. This allows you to play two on two battles, with four characters on-screen at once. While it is a little clumsy at times, with the right people it is a blast and can lead to some stupidly fun combos. Mission mode is the other new addition which gives you specific tasks to fulfil.

The various versus modes are where any beat-em up comes alive and SF X T’s new systems work well for these. You can play matches on your own, or with a partner controlling the other character. Scramble mode has even been included in there and generally when you are in a game the issue of lag isn’t game destroying. The problem I do get is that the sound regularly drops out when playing online. This isn’t a small problem. I find it significantly harder to play games without sound as it makes timing hits a little easier. Plus everyone wants to be able to hear Ryu cry “Shinku Hadoken!” before they win a fight.

SF X T is not a bad game at all. By now you are probably wondering why I was babbling on about being disappointed in the first paragraph. Well it is simple: DLC. Now the fact that the game has 12 characters that are on the disc, and are unlocked by throwing money in Capcom’s face is not my problem. The new Gems System is where my biggest gripe lies. Here you can add two gems that alter how your character plays. For example you can have a gem that is triggered by hitting a opponent twice with a special move and will increase your speed/damage/defence. This is all well and good, but when the best ones (like automatic block) are only available via DLC then something is wrong. The problem here is that SF X T insists you use these for every part of the game. There is no way to set up a game without turning this off, bar players going to their individual gem screen and creating a team with no gems selected. This means that someone else can have a leg-up on you in a fight because they spent the money. The whole idea has put a dampener on what should have been one of the most iconic titles in beat-em up history.

The tutorial mode hasn’t been upgraded. Why have Capcom not understood that people need to be taught the timing of combos? With the amount of work they have done to help new players into the series it baffles us as to why they haven’t sorted out this issue. Especially with the new combat system which is more focussed on combos that its predecessor. This makes it a case of trial and error to get the timing right on more complex combos. There isn’t even an example of others doing it like games such as BlazBlue have had for years.

Despite my reservations over the gem system, when played with other gentlemen (e.g people without ridiculous gems), the game is an absolute blast. The whole game is pretty easy to drop into for newcomers and with some practice and some help from a friend (the tutorial modes wont do much), you can easily start learning longer combos.  SF X T is a fun game to play especially with friends. The amount of new modes, characters and in-fight systems have made sure that the game does not feel like Street Fighter IV with Tekken characters thrown in. It’s just a shame Capcom decided to get a bit too greedy.

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