Do You Think Street Fighter X Tekken is Worth Buying?

This article will serve as my own review of the game as well as my opinion if the game is worth buying despite the issues and questionable rumors circling around the game for quite some time now. Take note that by reading this, I assume that you have read a little about the game's mechanics from other sources as I don't want to make this article too hurtful in the eyes.

If you recall my last post about this game, I kind of despised it due to how Capcom is trying to milk the game with questionable DLC propaganda, which I'll discuss a little later. With that said, Street Fighter X Tekken is still a solid competitive fighting game. And with all the hype surrounding the game, the reality show Cross Assault, as well as nostalgia, I gave in to temptation and bought the game at last.

If you don't know what Cross Assault is, it's a first ever reality show produced by Capcom based on a fighting game. Basically, there are two teams, Team Tekken and Team Street Fighter with 5 members each who all came from a competitive background on the games that they represented respectively. The two teams would break down the game Street Fighter X Tekken, which at that time was not released yet, and compete for a grand prize of $25,000.

Apparently, Capcom wants to build the hype amidst the controversies that they're going through. And guess what? I couldn't resist the hype myself.

Just for a second, let's look past the bad business decisions that Capcom went through way back and see what this game has to offer. I'm going to enumerate the things that I like and I don't like in the game, things that you might consider in buying it.

1. Region locked? I never expected that Capcom would go this route with this game because both Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Super Street Fighter IV are not region locked as far as I know. Not a big deal though but I normally use my US PSN account to buy DLCs, now I have to load up my Asian PSN account just to buy any future DLCs because I bought the R3 version.

2. Representation of the Tekken characters. The Tekken characters are a little bit off when compared to their real counterparts. I mean, come on, Steve and Jin having projectile moves? Some people have noticed it quickly and are pretty pissed off about it especially Raven and Julia fans. Not really a big deal if you ask me, I already expected this to happen. It's a crossover game running on the Street Fighter engine so Capcom would have their own renditions of these characters. This is to be expected as well for the Street Fighter characters when Tekken X Street Fighter comes into fruition.

3. Controls. So far I haven't found a way to turn off the analog stick. Like in Tekken 6, it just gets in the way if you leave it on while using the D-pad and thankfully you have the option to turn it off in that game. Though I'm more comfortable with the D-pad, using the analog stick to perform special moves actually works, you just have to turn off L3 and R3 as Quick Combos are assigned to these buttons by default. You don't want to

Some hardcore SF players think the controls were dumbed down, all QCFx2 or similar commands are thrown out of the window. To do a Super Art, you just have to input a certain Special Move motion like Hadouken (QCF or quarter circle forward) then hit three punch or kick buttons depending on the character. For example, QCF+PPP gives Ryu his Super Fireball. Boost Combo + Cross Rush (otherwise called the ABC combo) provides a very easy tag combo for newbies. In addition to this, the player can use assist gems to further make execution easier, making special moves 2-button presses. This comes with a drawback of course, as wearing the said gem will decrease the damage of all your attacks by 10% as well as lose access to some important unique attacks. For example, you can execute Ryu's Hadouken by hitting -> plus any punch button but you'll lose his overhead attack (f+MP) and Solar Plexus Strike (f+HP). This might help alleviate a newbie's frustration due to the rather strict timing of cancels but in my opinion, it only takes away players from the game's real core. The tutorial, challenges, and trial modes are always great ways to teach a newbie player the basics because the game, being a tag fighting game, already boasts a lot of new game systems that will keep anyone's hands for a while. Which leads me to my next point...

4. Gameplay and Difficulty. Though the game is running on Street Fighter engine, Capcom devs was able to incorporate some of Tekken's gameplay mechanics, namely the launcher (not the ABC launcher but the character specific launcher moves) and juggle system, forward roll and backroll on wake up, etc. The tag system is somewhat similar to that of Tekken Tag Tournament as well, wherein if one of the characters lifebar reaches 0, his team loses. These mechanics, combined with Street Fighter's combo system make up for a complex and deep yet very fun and creative gameplay.

If you've been playing the Street Fighter series especially since Street Fighter IV, you'd definitely feel at home here. You'd need a little bit of work if you're from the Tekken scene though. But overall, the basics of this game is not really that hard to learn when you compare this to something like Tekken or even Virtua Fighter. And in some ways, it seems as if Capcom is holding up the new players' hands by giving them tools like assist gems, preset combos, and whatnot that can at least help them hold their own against experienced players while they are trying to learn the game further. High level tactics are a different story of course but you don't have to worry about it for now.

Though Capcom may seem to be catering to new players by giving them these tools, the game still requires practice of timing and execution, patience as well as experience.

5. Online and Offline Multiplayer Matches. The Paired Battle Mode is probably my favorite feature in the game. It reminds me of Street Fighter EX3 in PS2. I know some fighting games have this functionality as well but I can say that this game has done it correctly and made this extremely fun. As a result some tournament organizers are adapting this 2v2 matchups in their SFxT tournaments.

Basically, you play the game normally but as 2 teams of 2 players, playing the game in tag team style. The 2 players playing together need to have great coordination skills to make the most out of their combos and setups as well as save each other from KO. This 2v2 setup can also be brought on your online games so you can team up with your online friend, though this functionality did not make it to the Xbox360 version of the game due to resource issues of the hardware.

The game also offers Scramble Mode, in which all 4 characters are onscreen at the same time controlled by players, beating each other's teams. It's more of a fun side mode for me and will most likely not become a tournament standard.

6. Comebacks and Timeouts. In our day and age of fighting games in which comeback mechanics are prevalent, Street Fighter x Tekken doesn't seem to have something like Tekken 6's Rage, Marvel vs. Capcom 3's X-Factor, or even Street Fighter IV's Ultras. I know for a fact that comebacks produce an exciting gameplay, but I honestly don't like comebacks that are artificially produced by rewarding a player with a highly damaging move or additional damage boost for getting hit or decreasing his health bar to a certain level. Street Fighter X Tekken game doesn't have anything similar outside of Pandora Mode or maybe the Gem system (and that still depends on what kind of gems will be offered in the future). The former is an untapped potential that is designed with comebacks in mind but is more of a gamble than a comeback mechanic. I have yet to see people incorporate Pandora effectively to their gameplay but the game is still quite young and I'm pretty sure there will be much more to discover in this game during its life span.

With that said though, comebacks hardly ever happens in this game. Timeouts almost always happen just when you're about to regain momentum and nail that last ditch of effort to turn the tables around. Though 99 seconds seem long enough considering the amount of damage you can dish out in a tag combo, you'll be surprised at how fast that time runs out considering the length of certain attacks, combos, animation of super arts and cross arts that doesn't freeze the timer. It's no big deal if you ask me and of course, timeout is a legitimate way to win, however for new players and people that might want to try the game out, it looks pretty lame and unexciting to watch people jumping and running away from their opponent after chipping their lifebar to 50% once the timer hits 30 second mark or less. I hope Capcom fixes this in a future patch, increasing the time to something like 120 seconds.

7. Balance, Bugs, and Glitches. I can't really say anything much about balance because the game is too young at this point. Of course, there are characters that seem stronger and more popular than the rest of the cast like Ryu, Raven, and Hugo while there are some that seem underused like Paul and Yoshimitsu. However, being a tag game, if you play your cards right you can get away from lopsided matches like Zangief vs. Dhalsim by tagging your partner in. Let's say you want a team that utilizes Zangief as your main, you can choose an anchor character that can cover Zangief's weaknesses. 

At the first week of the game though, a couple of infinite combos were found, one of the most dangerous being Kazuya's due to how easy the execution is. A few character bugs were found as well, namely Megaman's fly glitch and Jin's overhead move glitch. With Street Fighter X Tekken being a straight to console game, it can't be helped. No matter how skilled the testers are in exposing the bugs and glitches, there still some that will get through seeing how complex the game is. Fortunately, Capcom promised that these shall be fixed in a patch soon. I wonder though, for how long will Capcom keep supporting this game? Last time I checked, they released new editions of the game instead of a patch. I would be pissed if they release a Ultimate Super Street Fighter X Tekken Turbo Edition or some crap like that after 6 months.

8. Gems, DLC Character, and Other Additional DLC Content. Probably the most controversial aspect of Street Fighter X Tekken, the Gem System has drawn a predictable ire among the community. Basically, they are claiming that the gems will be an important part of the gameplay and yet Capcom announced that some gems will be offered as paid DLC. It's kinda like you're "paying your way to victory" that's why a lot of fans are not in favor of this mechanic.

Another issue at hand is the 12 DLC characters that they announced being locked on disc. I totally think this is outrageous despite Capcom's justification. Come on, DLC stands for Downloadable Content, not Disc Locked Content!

But then, I read this somewhere in the Shoryuken forums, that it's possible that the DLC characters were unfinished at the time that the game was submitted to the manufacturer, Sony, and Microsoft for approval. Kinda make sense.

And even if the fans, however unthinkable it may be, all united and decided to not buy any game with on-disc content, Capcom will just change their DLC model and force the players to download it later. But then again, why do you have to milk the game like this Capcom?!

It's a shame that the casual fans are sending this game early to its deathbed just because of the way Capcom handles the marketing of this game. I definitely believe that Street Fighter X Tekken is a great competitive fighting game and this is probably what I've been yearning for all these years since Capcom killed the Street Fighter EX series. The gameplay mechanics and some of the tag mechanics are kind of similar to Street Fighter EX3 and this is what I will be discussing in one of my next articles.

So do I think Street Fighter X Tekken is worth buying? If you're into fighting games and playing competitively and you don't mind Capcom's shady business practices then I'd definitely recommend this game. I'm definitely having a lot of fun in this game and if you think you'll have fun as well then buy this game and give it a try.


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Posted in: fighting games,Street Fighter X Tekken,video games