Last month I was lucky enough to go to London and check out Capcom’s latest crossover, Street Fighter X Tekken. The odd match-up has seen both Capcom and Mamco-Bandai making their own separate crossover games in their own unique style. While Namco-Bandai’s take on the crossover is yet to be seen, Capcom’s version has had a flurry of media released since it was announced. The trailers made the game seem like more of an update than anything else,  tag team matches and an extended roster of fighters were there, but is Street Fighter X Tekken just Street Fighter 4 with Tekken characters?

After queuing for two hours outside a boxing gym in West London I finally got into the claustrophobic, crammed room that looked as if it were ripped straight out of Rocky (the original when he’s training in the ghetto).  The event was nicely put together (other than the waiting time to get in) with free pizza and drinks, little waiting time (to play games), street dancers and a whole host of machines playing everything Street Fighter related.

The first thing I noticed while queuing to play Street Fighter X Tekken was how different the characters are. Capcom has decided to keep each set of characters unique with their own moves. While watching others play I could quickly see moves from Tekken, like King’s giant swing, or Panda’s ‘chomping’ throw. The decision is a bold one, as Capcom could have easily just thrown a fireball move into Tekken characters move-list to balance things out, but instead they have kept true to each franchises’ roots.

When playing the game the sense of each series styles is even more blatant. Using a team of Hwoarang and Ryu meant that I had to switch up my style when changing each character. With Ryu I could keep my distance now and then if things got too frantic, where as with Hwoarang I was on the attack straight away, constantly in my opponents face. Oddly both characters felt familiar. After barely a few seconds of play I was dishing out combos with Hwoarang, just as I would have in Tekken. I even felt at home with other Tekken characters such as Yoshimitsu and Kuma, while the game is completely different to Tekken, Capcom have done a great job on integrating the games’ moves into the world of Street Fighter. It was scarily easy to fall into and shows Capcom’s skills at crafting and blending these two games. Even the buttons were the same!

Ono always stated that he wanted fans of both fighting games to feel at home with Street Fighter X Tekken and it seems like they have really made it work. While Tekken characters do have a lot of their old moves, their longer combos have been toned down. For Street Fighter characters it seems their special moves do less damage, but they now can chain together better combos. This is emphasised by the use of tag combos and wall bounces to juggle your opponent. Tagging in an ally is as easy as one tap on the shoulder button. This will pull of one signature hit with your player and tag in your team-mate and allows you to be creative with your combos. While you can also link up Ultra Combos, I couldn’t quite figure out how to do this at the time, although a fellow gamer later assured me that it was similar to Street Fighter IV’s finishers.

These changes may sound large, but fans of Street Fighter IV will have a sense of familiarity playing this game. The one noticeable difference was the speed of the game. The game felt slightly slower, especially when pulling of combos.  The game is still at a meaty speed, it is more the delay when chaining combos together. This is most likely to help to compensate for the different fighting styles of the two games. Having such a quick pace on linking moves would give Tekken characters a distinct advantage.

While there was a good roster of characters there (over 15) I only got to play with a couple of new ones. Poison was probably the best of them. She appeared in Final Fight originally as a baddie and the best way to describe her is a mix between Juri and Cammy, in sluttiness and her move list.  Sporting hot-pants, a short top and whip she epitomises your average female in a Japanese game.  Poison has a decent anti-air attack that throws out a spiralling upward kick, projectiles similar to Deejay and  good combo strings aided by her whip weapon (I think it is a whip).

The other character I got to try was Poison’s friend, Hugo, who was a playable character in Street Fighter 3rd Strike. The beast-of-a-man is a German wrestler, with moves similar to Zangeif’s, so think 360 degree rotations  to pull of specials and finding ways to force your opponent into a grab situation. While his character seemed to fit in the game, I never was a fan of the slower characters like him, but I guess it creates some variation in the game. Since going to Capcom’s Fight Club other characters like Bruce, Ibuki and Raven have been announced, so it looks like there should be an impressive roster to fight with. Unfortunately there was no option to play with my favourite new addition Rolento.

Capcom are taking the stance, ‘If it aint broke, don’t fix it’, when it comes to Street Fighter X Tekken. Yoshinori Ono, the mastermind behind Street Fighter IV, is sticking to what he knows works and well you can’t really blame him. Street Fighter IV was universally praised and the sales figures reflected that. Since it has been released Capcom has managed to milk the game with three different versions released since its debut in 2009!

While it is slightly dissapointing that a new route has not been taken on the game, I really liked what I played. Tekken characters seemed to be balanced in the game despite lacking the projectiles of Street Fighter characters and the new tag team systems worked well. What I did worry about was the lack of new content that was available to play, but since going to London Capcom has released even more new media on new modes. Check out the video below for more.

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