Street Fighter V Arcade Edition review

You learn by making mistakes.

Street Fighter V was released on PS4 and PC in 2016. The branded fighting game Capcom it kept the typical characteristics of the saga unaltered. A roster of 32 characters, the classic side-scrolling game mechanics and a graphics sector that is really not bad. The problem? A disarming poverty of contents. Capcom's initial idea was to catapult Street Fighter into eSports and the most important events of the genre. The goal was achieved but at a high price.

The worldwide fan community has harshly criticized the lack of a proper single story mode and content in general. We were limited only to selecting a character, perhaps trying the set of moves in Training and Tutorial mode and then facing the Character Story, in which each character runs through a narrative arc illustrated by scenes and fights. There was also an Online mode but matchmaking issues and server instability made fans turn up their noses further.

What to do? Yoshinori ono and its team of developers, aware of the mistakes made, have been busy. Gradually new content was published, the story mode in the first place, improved the technical sector and through a series of DLCs, expanded the roster of wrestlers, arenas and much more. The result? A worthy chapter in the series that culminated in the publication of Street Fighter V Arcade Edition.

A stand alone edition that can be purchased by those who have never played the fifth chapter and instead can be downloaded for free by those who initially trusted Capcom and was burned by it. The Arcade Edition Includes all content released since the release of Street Fighter V, Season Pass 1 and 2 content, 12 playable characters and 12 premium costumes. With the arrival of the third season we finally have the Sakura fighter.

A fighting game that does not fear competition

Among the most relevant news of Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition is the Arcade mode which gives the user the opportunity to face a series of encounters up to the final boss. Capcom has managed to do even more. It has not limited itself to giving the sop to disappointed fans but wanted to celebrate the history of Street Fighter starting from the past and coming up to today. It is in fact possible to face six different historical paths. It starts in 1987 with the first and beloved chapter of the series, Street Fighter, Then moved to Street Fighter 2, Street Fighter 3, Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter 4, up to Street Fighter V. Among the most iconic villains of the series, there is certainly M.Bison, which in addition to giving you a hard time, if you are a longtime fan, will make you relive many memories related to the Capcom fighting game. There are also arrangements of the historical themes of the series, the possibility of selecting the costume for each character and bonus challenges.

Also by completing the Arcade Mode with each individual character it will be possible to unlock illustrations. There are over 200 and were made by the original artists of the series.

Among other content of weight, we have the Team Battle. Two teams made up of 5 wrestlers they challenge each other to get the better of them. It is possible to customize the competition, choosing the participants, the type of match and much more. The Extra Battles which, in addition to being updated periodically, allow you to obtain a whole series of special bonuses such as costumes, tags, PE. These challenges require the use of an in-game currency, i Fight Money, a kind of access quota.

Fight Money is a bit too expensive. In fact, in addition to giving you access to Extra Battles, they allow you to unlock fighters for the modest sum of 100.000 FM, and arenas for the price of 70.000 FM. In our opinion, an outlay is far too excessive.

THETraining has been revised and refined. Now it is possible to view a whole series of statistics such as: frame bar and attack data. The first feature is very interesting as it will give you the opportunity to check the time needed to reload a move and above all to understand when a particular combo attack can be used effectively.

Finally, to close the discussion on the present news, we think about the introduction of a second V-Trigger for each character. This V-Trigger is customizable before each game. The new V-Trigger is probably the real novelty of the brand as it allows to enhance certain characteristics of each character, offensive and defensive, leading the player to try each character and new fighting styles.

Even on the balancing and optimization front, the improvements are evident. The AI ​​is well balanced, gradually adapting to the player's abilities. The Online sector is finally free of uncertainties whatsoever and the loading times have been made practically lightning-fast. The menus have also been revised, screenshots improved and pre and post match effects introduced.