Is Street Fighter 6 Actually Good? (Extensive Review)

[@n2oshotandironman]

Finally. The first Street Fighter 6 review.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

It's been in the oven a long time ha. Yeah it's so hard to know what to think about a game (at least for me) until I get my hands on int, because it's hard to actually know the motives of everyone who declare it a masterpiece on release day, like every AAA game now ha.

[@n2oshotandironman]

@@TheElectricUnderground the corpos and the "FGC" are an entangled abomination of agendas and incentives.

[@Omerta2times]

​@@TheElectricUndergroundNo its pretty easy greed or fear

[@pacificdash]

Unreal. Most thorough, most technical, most informative, and most useful game review I’ve seen in a loooooooong time, all genres included.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

That's awesome to hear pacific!!! I feel like this review was a massive undertaking because the concept was, ok what would happen if a fighting game review actually talked about the mechanics and meta of the game ha. What happens is that review becomes massive, but it was a lot of fun and hopefully a breathe of fresh air. Why should only RPGs get big detailed reviews after all.

[@perlichtman1562]

You’re absolutely right about people still playing older fighting games. Over the last five years I’ve spent more time in fighting games from the 90s than more recent ones.

[@jaymorrison8419]

Find a new game that plays as FUN as Alpha 3

[@perlichtman1562]

@@jaymorrison8419 Yeah, I haven’t played a new fighting game that was as fun. Back in the 90s, there were some SNK games that I had equal fun with, though.

[@BoozeAholic]

@@jaymorrison8419 Preach! Alpha 3 is still my fave SF. I wish Juri could some how be added into the 2d games because her unique zoning (At least in SF4) is the only reason that I even bother with modern SF.

[@BoozeAholic]

@@perlichtman1562 Real Bout Special & Real Bout 2 are some of my SNK faves. It's so damn fast.

[@artdjesus6267]

​@@jaymorrison8419 Any new fighting game is more fun than Alpha 3. You know why? Because you have other players to play with. Find a player other than who still plays Alpha3. You won't. Maybe Justin Wong happens to be online and that just happens to be his choice game to play that day. Half the fun of fighting games is having someone else to play against. Otherwise you'll just be playing it single player against AI. Screw that. You may as well just watch prn and stroke it at home.

[@nimazsheik5152]

Overcorrection. That seems to be a problem in the gaming industry, that seems to be what happened to World Tour in SF6. Also I hate that everyone seems to think big open-world game design is so important to games now. It's what makes these games bland and makes it lose focus.....

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

You can thank Elden Ring getting GotY for that one.

[@nimazsheik5152]

​@@HighLanderPonyYT But the open-world crap was happening way before Elden Ring, really unfair to blame Elden Ring as its the natural evolution of that RPG adventure Souls gameplay. My concern is the open-world is being shoved into games that don't need it - fighting games, horror games, bloated JRPGs, hack-and-slash. It's just sad that we won't go back to Bloodborne/Dark Souls level design again.

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

@@nimazsheik5152 It was happening before but no game was praised as highly for it as ER, so I'll blame ER. Or rather, blame the hype around ER making the suits think it's a good idea to shove it into everything, like you said.

[@ThePallidor]

The bottom line is game makers have only the foggiest idea of what makes their hit games fun, so they can't iterate properly. Dragonquest might be the only exception.

[@ignited-662]

FGC figurehead reviews are biased because their livelihood depends on them. Sajam spoke against the SF5 netcode and was banned by Capcom from commentating in tournaments. If they criticize something harshly, they get excluded from things like promotional deals or early access to upcoming games. This directly affects their income.

[@RoyArkon]

Yeah, so much for having a career in the fighting game circle.

[@ignited-662]

@@RoyArkon The FGC circle jerk.

[@RTU130]

Yea

[@Dewprism427]

Which basically means they're employees signing an agreement and not private contractors.

[@yakyback]

I am a fighting game baby. I only just got into the genre a couple years ago. I got SF6 after not having any interest in the previous entries. I haven’t touched modern controls. The reason is that I enjoy motion inputs and I realize that I would have to re-learn how to perform a lot of things if I wanted to switch to classic from Modern.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

oh yeah retraining your hands is absolutely a possible reason why modern control users won't bother to learn classic controls moving forward For me though my hands are actually already trained in modern controls because I play doa, so ironically enough i am already pretty comfortable with them. It's an odd situation, though i think it would sound less cringe if they changed the name from "modern controls" to "chain controls." That would take the cringe meter down a lot.

[@RaposaMah]

One thing that I find very nice in world tour is that although they almost force you to play modern on it, many of the minigames revolve around the command inputs. There’s is the pizza one that teach you hadoken and super motions, even a 360; there is the one with the bottles where you learn charge commands. When I pointed that out to my brother, it all clicked to him very fast. I think the world tour actually does a pretty good job at teaching the game, and even if I have little interest in it as a veteran, I find surprising that I keep hearing stories of people spending 30 hours plus in it and enjoying.

[@perlichtman1562]

1:32:45 For anyone that just wants a 7-8 minute review, start here. The conclusion summarizes a lot of the main points. I suggest watching the whole thing for additional detail, though.

[@lahuk1194]

I was curious about SF6 hearing all the hubbub around it, but the fact you need to make an account just to have access to the full game means I won't buy this. I refuse to fund awful decisions. Beyond that, good review!

[@GFClocked]

This channel has been my biggest discovery of 2024. I've been going through your FGC videos and I'm loving them. For example this video is so good and hits just perfectly on the single player mode (which I've also done for cammy p2😂), those 10 hours are the worst 10h in my life, it essentially made me hate the game. After I've grinded out the costume i the essentially gave up on the game, got my diamond cammy and just was like "alright, this was a miserable experience, i just associate hate and misery with this game, let's not play it again". I think it was also something to do with how there is no character that clicked with me like what Sf4 Ibuki did, or heck - even reina. So i have this game on the burner, but let me tell you - the support after release is so awful. Good thing tekken is here, i like playing reina, she's the coolest. I just wish the team behind tekken was more competent than a bunch of newborns, but that's a whole other topic. Anyway, amazing video, thank you for making these. One last thing, you mentioned you would do an aesthetics video, but i can't find it :/ did it never get made or am i missing it?

[@ps3inquisition441]

You’re pretty dead-on with World Tour. I was playing it for a couple hours, and starting wondering if it was going to get good. Then I wondered why I was even playing it, bought all the costumes, and started playing online. Then I was actually having fun.

[@ricardomilos5893]

i appreciate that you're producing arcade-centric content (fgc stuff) rather than strictly just shmups. i'm mainly a fighting game player and shmups (and rhythm games) are kinda side games for me. for someone like you to provide such content is pretty great to me, you're not confining yourself to shmups and only shmups. yeah ive seen a few of your tekken streams but it's nice to see that you're in the loop with other arcade-centric game subcultures like the fgc.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I'm glad you appreciate the direction of the channel! Yeah I think in a way (this is a pretty complicated topic, so I'll try to keep my thoughts brief) being a shmup EXCLUSIVE channel, which TEU has never actually been, I just primarily cover shmups, ends up hurting communication about the genre because it keeps shmups in this little box separate and alone from the rest of gaming (which they have been as of late). However, by covering shmups as well as mechanical skill based design more generally, then I think I can help contextualize them more for new players as a legit genre, rather than being this secret niche interest ha.

[@dukeofhmph6348]

Wow, that character creator looks rough. Almost hard to believe it's from the same company as Monster Hunter and Dragon's Dogma, which both have really good character creators.

[@benearthside]

You make a great point about World Tour-I felt the same way about Soulcalibur 6's Libra of Souls "RPG mode." It doesn't matter how much of it there is, if it just throws you into weird, unrealistic situations that you have to spam to overcome, it's doing nothing to make you better at the game and is just a colossal waste of time.

[@SilentSilvia]

Capcom ID is the bane of my existence. I can't log in, half of the game is locked for me, it literally refuses to link with my account. At the peek of its popularity I can't play with people. So this review actually showed me a lot of the game that I just can't get to.

[@perlichtman1562]

Man, that sucks. :(

[@tournaline3448]

The Kubrick of video game reviewers! Covered everything I hoped for and more. I’m glad Capcom have pushed the series into more aggressive gameplay, it definitely suits me more. Skipped SF5 but I’ll be picking this up.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Any comparison to kubrick is a win in my book! I love kubrick, my fav filmmaker no competition. Yes gameplay wise sf6 is I think a solid follow up to 4, at least so far ha.

[@perlichtman1562]

I loved playing SF3 Third Strike (especially Online Edition), offline or online, even though I could hardly parry at all. It’s really fun to see how you could beat even some decent online opponents entirely without it - and of course all the 1CCs in arcade mode without it.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

oh yeah 3rd strike still remains my fav street fighter as well. Capcom were in their prime of arcade game design back then. The online edition release of 3s is pretty sweet too!

[@Aceskies]

Mate I think you are "right" but at the same time, you completely missed the point of the world tour. It is meant for people that never played fg or are not good with them, I can tell you so many of the shortcomings become advantages for them. The mode is meant to boost confidence of people that have been destroyed by the skill barrier of the genre. This is one of the few games that has achieved that and must be recognized.

[@Xenozillex]

it didnt do a good job of that

[@1shoryuken]

World Tour doesn't teach you about anything from the main game, it doesn't teach you about the fundamentals and knowledge you will need to climb the ladder. People that are exclusively playing WT are going to get bodied when they try the real game because all they learned to do is mash buttons at 30fps.

[@MadaoAU]

My wife never liked fighting games, but she is really big yakuza fan. She got attracted to world tour and Started learning modern controls. I love labbing but these days ppl wanna enjoy a game without having to put some effort at the start. I think this change got a lot of people to buy the game and get into it. But again it’s just a mode, personally I didn’t even touch it, just played a lot of the classic games on the battle hub instead.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

The issue with world tour mode though is that I don't think it was an effective tutorial at all. Even for someone really brand new to the genre, it is teaching new players all the wrong things and also torturing them in the process ha. Also think if the precedent it sets that something as bad as world tour mode is being praised as great by reviewers, it's going to give the impression to new players that all fighting game single player content is terrible. I think a much better mode in this regard is tekken force. Tekken force is a beat em up, but beat em ups and fighting games do actually share a ton of mechanical and design connection (classic beat em ups came out of street fighter after all), so I think it could still serve a very strong learning tool, also the boss fights and stuff could still be fighting game matches. After all if we are looking for a tutorial to the actual gameplay, then might as well remove the rpg elements and therefore just rip out world tour mode completely ha. Also you and i both paid for world tour mode, if it were option dlc and the game price was $40, then that would be another story for sure. Don't let game journos trick you into thinking that only casual players paid for world tour ha, you did too.

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

@@MadaoAU WT is like Yakuza without the fun parts.

[@SwordStormer]

Great review. You actually go in depth into mechanics and systems and how they affect different demographics. You are honestly one of the only reviewers that does this, focusing on the game play aspect instead of the story aspect of games which are honestly garbage these days since they only focus on sentimentality and boring surface level ethical problems if that. Keep it up.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you very much KingDRC!! Yeah this review felt like an interesting experiment because fighting game reviews never go into this scope of mechanical discussion that I'm aware of. It's mostly just a quick yeah here's the new system have fun kids.

[@NIMPAK1]

I've been waiting to hear your thoughts on World Tour mode and you did not disappoint. To me the mode honestly looked like a free-to-play MMO without the multiplayer and it seemed bizarre how many people even outside mainstream journalists and FGC people gave it praise. My only assumption is that they liked the *idea* of the mode and got enough dopamine out of it to not completely hate it. I'm not an FG person so I wouldn't know what I'd do for a single-player mode instead. Maybe something closer to a River City Ransom type 2D beat-em-up, but get rid of the stats and unlocking new abilities and just use money to unlock whatever skins, music or whatever bonus stuff you want. Also have actual cool boss fights instead of random NPCs.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

you are exactly right nim! That is what happened. Basically SF5 was such a failure that now any, ANY, attempt by capcom at single player content is going to be treated warmly lol. It's like when the slacker kid in school finally turns in a paper, and the teacher gives him a B out of pity ha.

[@Serek2000]

It doesn't seem great, but at least it's not just cutscene-fight-cutscene-fight, like most other games in the genre.

[@Some-Ryan]

​remember Tekken force mode from T3? That was quite fun to play, SF would lend itself to that type of beat em up play way more than Tekken. A shi77y open world with no real application other than maybe to entertain very young, inexperienced players and teach the most basic of basics is not eating into my gaming diary that's for sure

[@Latin00032]

I haven't open world tour yet becuase I don't want to create my own character. People don't realize that custom characters for certain games are weird and sometimes they don't look that different from the person's customized character. If world tour was a stand alone game. It would get a zero or one in most of the reviews. If world tour didn't exist, most of the reviewers would give the game eights instead of nines.

[@Latin00032]

I haven't open world tour yet becuase I don't want to create my own character. People don't realize that custom characters for certain games are weird and sometimes they don't look that different from the person's customized character. If world tour was a stand alone game. It would get a zero or one in most of the reviews. If world tour didn't exist, most of the reviewers would give the game eights instead of nines.

[@Wrekkshoppe]

This is an utterly EXCELLENT Street Fighter 6 review. It is objectively the BEST review for this game. As much as I LOVE this game, there are some glaring issues with it as a product. For instance, I utterly HATE World Tour mode. It's a boring, grindy, unfun mess that I'm only playing for points, costumes and PSN trophies.

[@conciise136]

At least we are given the option to unlock cosmetics. I really appreciate that in 2023

[@ZombieRommel]

Good review. I was in Discord with a few fighting game friends and one of them said World Tour was a beat em up mode, which I quickly corrected him on. I told him it's not really a beat em up with the perspective shift and that Capcom should have just made the mode in the vein of Godhand and it would have been a true beat em up and 1000x better. The CONSTANT perspective shifts are really jarring and made me just purposely avoid encounters in my short time with the mode. I ended up giving up about 2 hours in and just buying the Dee Jay alt costume, which I think was probably Capcom's plan all along. But no way in hell was I going to play that mode for 10+ hours for a costume or two.

[@Seama327]

I haven’t finished the whole review. But, THANK YOU!! Glad to see someone calling out world tour mode. Legit one of the most boring video game experiences I’ve ever forced myself through. And everyone online seems to be praising it. I honestly don’t understand 🤦‍♂️

[@TheElectricUnderground]

yeah I think there is some collective kool aid being passed out lol. Basically what happened is that the expectation for single player content after sf5 is so low, that any content at all is being treated with gentle hands. It's like when the slacker kid, who flunks every class, finally hands in a paper. The teacher is giving him a B just because he tried ha, nevermind the paper is written on the wrong topic in one giant sentence.

[@n2oshotandironman]

No one wants to point out that the emperor has no clothes.

[@KittenChaos90]

Man, I HATE World Tour mode. It's so boring and nothing is actually happening in the story that's interesting. I like the actual fighting aspect of the game though. I like the new characters though I feel like Drive Parry and Drive Rush are...weird. I like Drive Rush but it sometimes feels like a panic button at times. Drive Parry feels meh to me.

[@Cursed_Fruit]

The scope of this is fxxking impressive man I'm stunned - I hope you keep your finger on the pulse of the scene and keep tabs on Modern controls because I'm betting on the prediction that it will be a massive change

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you cursed! Yeah fun fact before I covered shmups, the electric underground was originally going to be a fighting game podcast (electric and in EWGF), so this is like what 10 years of bottled up street fighter talk lol.

[@Sedifet]

Epic amount of time, work and knowledge went into this. Fantastic contribution

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you sedifet! This undertaking was truly epic, easily the most complex and taxing review i've done. I felt chained to my computer for the past week between all the recording and editing ha, madness. But then again we only get new big tier fighting games like once every 6 years. So this was a big event in my mind.

[@Sedifet]

@@TheElectricUnderground I should be thanking you. These days I wait for your review before buying any shmup.

[@Jadedx_]

Thank you for pointing out the second type of review, the deflection that the popular FGC streamers/content creators always go to is "You think these big developers are paying me to give a good review of their game? LOL". Of course, they aren't getting paid, but what they do get is early review codes and their channel success depends on these codes bc it guarantees viewers will come to their channel for the exclusivity of early content. Giving out a heavily critical or negative review is a good way to make sure you won't be getting your early review copy emailed to you. If you want to know what they really feel about the game, wait a few months after release and you'll see if they're still streaming it &/or talking about it.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

yep and it's the most uncomfortable thing to point out because it feels more like when you have to tell your friend that shoplifting is wrong or something. You know what they are up to isn't exactly honest, but you also know that they're in this weird position themselves and if you say something no one will like you ha.

[@sigmachud9092]

i have the same hit confirm problem with KOF. by the time i recognize it, its already over. i am practicing though. Street Fighter i could never get into. looks nice to be fair. great review. (also i am hyped as FUUUCK for Tekken 8)

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh man hit confirming in KOF is SO HARD ha. At least the old school ones like kof 98. They have such strict inputs its crazy. Also yes i am Cautiously looking forward to T8 as well!

[@micksmith1812]

First off great review, this channel is so underrated. I think you're right about Ghost Battle modes. I always liked the idea of being able to train an AI up via fighting it then unleashing it against other real players or even their own trained up AI's would be cool. Almost a pokemon-like and the idea of training up via fights just fits fighting games in general ALL of the menus in SF6 are a hot mess. Took me 5 mins just to find the menu where you change your online title, which you'd think would be in fighter profile but its actually in online character select, which I thought was strange. WT could have been a great mode to help you brush up on combos/execution for your main, but the moveset limits and time it takes to grind new moves means you're probably going to be halfway through the mode before you have a "complete" moveset anyway. Even then if you're a ken player you cant have hadouken + Jinrai kicks at the same time, because you cant have two QCF+Button moves. Saying all that, the opponent AI is so bad in WT you're wasting your time with fancy combos anyway and might as well just spam Fireballs or Heavy punches.

[@Xenozillex]

killer instinct did this as well.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

thank you very much mick!! As much as I smack talk the review industry, this channel will probably continue to remain underrated for a long time ha, but it's all good :-) Yeah the menus in sf6 are so all over the place. I get the feeling capcom were trying to make the menu system look slick and modern by having it be just a few options, but they did this by making everything be a pile of submenus, so you have to go through menu after menu to find anything. Also yes, it's funny how in the VS game, capcom were smart enough to realize starting the round with meter was a good idea, but in the single player game they took the complete opposite approach and took away most of your moveset to then slowly drip feed it back to you in painfully slow fashion.

[@sergeanthenry9484]

You would have also loved the Quest Mode from Virtua Fighter 4. We need a mode like that coming back in say SF6 Ultimate Edition.

[@SoShiBias]

This review reaches some good spots. Nice to know from someone who're interested. I've noticed that the singleplayer minigames stuffs are heavily promoted in some Japanese ads. The coverage here, given the time since release, is appreciated.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you very much soshi!! What an awesome comment :-)

[@dr.phil.pepper3325]

I guess it's necessary for players to create an external ID outside of PSN and steam because otherwise it wouldn't be possibly to connect via cross play. Even though I found the registration process very annoying as well, I'm still willing to go though it for the greater purpose. But we're on the same page when it comes to the rest of this gorgeous review. Another great aspect about the game is in my opinion that Drive Rush Cancels don't only extend combos but also give the next button -4 (I guess) recovery frames and this opens the gate for very nasty frame traps and set ups. This mechanic is implemented into a roster where you hardly find any +OB moves by default. On the other hand the player is always threatened by running out of meter and falling into burnout state, so you have to spend it very wisely. All those mechanics combined add up to a very deep risk and reward layer that makes tactical thinking and resource management an even more important aspect than in any SF before.

[@michaelnau3815]

2 months later, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts again. You raised some interesting points and some answers are taking shape I think.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

For sure! In a few months I am going to do an update vid :-)

[@aultra-magawhostandsagains7974]

@@TheElectricUndergroundWell to be honest SF6 looks way better than SFV,and actually looks fun. I’m sorry I have to disagree with you on this one. You convinced me with RE4REMAKE,I’m getting SF6 instead.

[@MerlinTheCommenter]

7 months later and people are calling it dead 😂. You predicted a lot of issues becoming a big deal so early. You are the epitome of HOW TO REVIEW. Every gaming reviewer should watch your channel to better improve their arguments and avoid fallacies. So many channels rely on fallacies to back up their toxic positivity. It took me years to avoid the casual fallacies, meanwhile your measured review makes it seem so natural. Keep it up. Great work. Subscribed.

[@Owlr4ider]

I'm sorry but no, you're not the target audience for world tour mode. World tour mode is basically a tutorial mode for people new to fighting games and street fighter specifically, not for seasoned players, least of all competitive ones. I fully understand why you hated this mod, you don't need a very long very thorough tutorial to learn all the mechanics of this game. This mode is aimed at first time players or at least players who haven't played a fighting game for a very long time. The mode's purpose is to bridge the knowledge and skill gaps between brand new players and at least season fgc, if not outright street fighter, players, and it achieves this goal remarkably well. With this idea in mind, these 'braindead AIs' that you mentioned were actually fulfilling their purpose. They were actually designed to force you to repeat certain actions, like footsies, throws, etc. It's an amazing way to learn when you're supposed to use these options and since you're doing it so often you also build up muscle memory to pull these actions off regularly when you need to. Precisely what a good tutorial should do. Same with other things in the mode like the pizza minigame, which is there to teach you how to do special moves. I do agree that the customization options, while plentiful, are for the most part in the uncanny valley territory, which is a negative for sure but part of the 'not so important things other reviewers focus on way too much' category. You can also include Capcom's heavy focus on hip hop culture in the game in the graphics/aesthetics portion, which is either a good or bad thing depending on if you like or hate said hip hop culture, and again it's part of the not so important things as it's not game play related at all.

[@AlbertoMonroy-lq2vw]

This is the kind of channel I would aspire to create for myself. Philosophical, no-nonsense, real, offensive in the right way and most important "Meaningful!". Thank you for the content and showing how gaming has become shallow. I hate wokeness and nonsense in games and this channel shows me which games I should avoid or play. Please make a list of meaningful games that fall in line with what you like in gaming. Some older and some modern games to play would be great.

[@mishikomishiko9088]

Mark, thank you for your reviews! You're the best! 👍♥️💪

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you very much mishikom!!

[@owenmelton6023]

This is my first street fighter and I didnt play till akuma came out. I can say I think you nailed a lot of things in this game. Talking about your take on modern controls, it seems everyone has tried modern, and Im honestly happy there's a lot people playing ranked. I do think most people see it as a very smart move, making learning the game faster. It also seems very balanced with tachikawa being the only pro I know of using the control scheme, and i play i would probably guess 40/60 for fighting modern players online. Great review dude.

[@grveyardshft]

I love Street Fighter. But I'm definitely more of a casual player. I was going to pick this game up but hearing that I have to make an account has changed my mind. I'll pass on this one! I've been playing a lot more retro games lately for reasons like this. I can pick up and play an old game and enjoy it the way it was intended, 20 years after its release. That just wont be the case for most games releasing today.

[@joshuaknox2724]

dude remember how sf4 had 10 unique taunts with unique animation for each character me and my friends had so much fun with that did sf6 bring that back?

[@PM-xc8oo]

Pretty much immediately refunded due to the sheer amount of BS just to get into the game itself. Figured it was a bad sign that the game didn't even seem to want me to play it. I will also add that the entire aesthetic of this game just looked so unsettlingly weird that it was really putting me off the game in general so it didn't take much to get me to bail.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

yep I knew all that capcom id stuff would be a deal breaker for people. Also yeah right now the aestethic is so chaotic and all over the place. like what is even the theme ha? hip hop meets jet set radio ... meets traditional japan? idk the design clearly lacks direction. I just look at p2 cammy and try not to look at the rest of it ha. Though I do like that one stage with the red and blue cloth in the background.

[@Senumunu]

when they first revealed world tour i was so impressed never would i have expected that it is so lackluster it seems the core SF player smelled it from a mile away

[@cdriper]

One year later: SF6 ~45K online, Tekken 8 is like ~10K on Steam

[@muddykocyak9113]

World Tour is weird. I do feel that it's pretty bad like you, but at the same time I think it's really fantastic. Being someone that never seriously played a fighting game, starting out can be overwhelming. You need to learn a lot of mechanics: special attacks, super attacks, combo, cancel into special, cancel into super, anti air attack, overhead attacks, overdrive attacks, whiff punish, drive impact, parry, perfect parry, drive rush, drive reversal. It really is a lot, and the way it is slowly introduced in WT felt really good to me. Though maybe it would have been better to have these tutorials be a bit clearer on where they are, and not be just a side quest according to the game. The random battles are boring yes, but there is a reason the game gives you objective during the fight if you want to get items from the enemies: you have to give every battle a self imposed objective to make it fun/useful. Only whiff punish during a fight, only anti air that enemy tat clearly has been programme to be an anti air practice, practice you combo in a setting that's more challenging than the standing enemy in training mode. I guess it is partially a failure from the devs that it isn't clear, but the intent is there. And about modern controls, they absolutely will not be the death of motion inputs since modern auto attack will give you only the one version of the special and the OD version. That guile in the replay you were showing is using the heavy sonic blade that a needs motion input whether you're using modern or classic.

[@ravenplate4733]

Excellent work & review! As a fan of DOA and KOF, the aesthetics of SF will never convince me.. BUT it's true that at least SF6 looks acceptable in my eyes (alternative classic costumes are great and it was the first thing I wanted to unlock too). It's weird you didn't mention monetization and battle passes, but it's forgiven for such a long and comprehensive review. With MK1 and Tekken 8 coming the next few months/next year (plus Garou 2, Granblue Vs Rising and let's see what Sega does with VF..) it could be a new golden era for fighting games... It would be perfect if we could have DOA 6 Ultimate Edition or DOA7! 😂

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yes, so coming into this review I was not pleased with the visuals of SF6 at all. I was smack talking it massively in fact. That p2 costume for cammy was a saving grace for me, as at least the game has one attractive character (and not just sexually but aesthetically) to look at and kind of gave me hope that maybe, maybe, capcom can pull themselves together and improve the rest of the game's visuals moving forwards. They sort of did that with sf4, sort of. On the topic of battle passes ... dude I wanted to talk about that too but the scope of the review just crushed me ha. Damn you capcom lol. So at some point I am going to have to make a vid lasering on battles passes because yeah that crap is lame and games are over priced these days, they truly are.

[@julzkrautkieper3334]

​@@TheElectricUnderground I thought I'm the only one who doesn't like the visuals. The new outfits for the most characters are dumb and the over all style isn't as great either, at least in my opinion. I think SFV nailed the balance between realism and anime, it was way better than SFIV. Now everything is to much on the realistic side and to close to the style of Tekken. And maybe it's just me but Cammy looks in SF6 like she needs something to eat.

[@yutro213]

@@TheElectricUnderground I actually like a lot of the visuals of Street Fiughter 6, but they are very inconsistent, in the sense that World Tour and Battle Hub modes the visuals look like crap especially the NPCs, straight from a unpolished PS3 game, with a terrible performance. But Fighting Ground, with all the stages and main characters where graphics and art style are on the best, I love them. It's funny that using Benchmark tool on PC for Street Fighter 6, Fighting Ground had a 100/100 having the most detailed graphics extremely well optimized, while World Tour and Battle HUB tests had awful graphics and both scored only 80/100. And my PC hardware is from 2019, putting max settings.

[@julzkrautkieper3334]

Finally someone a bit critcal. As a long time street fighter player I'm a little disapointed about the game and was very confused about all the praise it got.

[@DIOBrando-ij2bp]

Something funny about World Tour Mode, a lot of what they’re doing in it reminds me of that game Beat Down Capcom released back in 2005 a few months before Yakuza came out. The way the zones are set up, and how you can just walk up to people and choose to enter fights with them. That’s Beat Down stuff. It’s like a big modern Beat Down but with 2D fighting game fights...which even then Beat Down gave the appearance of during boss fights.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

OMG you made the connection!!! yes the final fight open world beat em up. Yes absolutely. I was going to talk about that in the review but was like, ok i've ranted about WT enough ha. But yes it's actually really funny how much the open world final fight compares to world tour, and how much that final fight open world game got shredded by critics ha.

[@GELTONZ]

@@TheElectricUnderground No, Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance is a different game (technically made by Cavia but they claimed it had "Capcom style fighting" even though it was only published by Capcom). But it came out at almost the exact same time as Final Fight: Streetwise and more than a few people have joked about World Tour being "Streetwise 2". Not to be confused with Namco's fantastic Urban Reign which ALSO came out at almost the exact same time and is the best of the three (It was basically Namco does Def Jam). ...and I just realized that me and all the friends I know who LIKE World Tour mode are fans of Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance...huh. Well that explains that.

[@DIOBrando-ij2bp]

World Tour mode feels like they weren’t even kind of taking it seriously at all. Which is a shame, because the idea is a good one, but the whole execution of it on just about every level (even things like the tone of it) is pretty bad. The most interesting thing about it is when you do get into a fight, when it transitions into the fight, no made where you are it doesn’t make for a bad looking fighting game stage. And yeah, World Tour mode is way too easy, it’s so easy, and so dumbed down in that mode that it renders fights unfun. I’m kind of surprised they didn’t just do World Tour Mode kind of like Persona, (or Punch Club, Evander Holyfield's Real Deal Boxing, Monster Rancher, and even a lesser degree Art of Fighting) where you’ve got a time management mode where you build your character’s stats thought sending your character to do different training things, you can do jobs for extra money, and can enter into official and unofficial fights all while building to the World Warriors Tournament. They probably should’ve pulled animations all their other 3D fighting games like Street Fighter 4 and 5, and some stuff from the VS games if it makes sense to flesh out the stuff you and NPCs came do. What they’re going for, they kind of need AKI level of moves to pull from. Or, at the least, given you a broader level of move list customization. Should’ve probably also let you pick a default stance. This game is definitely using the character creation tools from Dragon’s Dogma, and Dragon’s Dogma let you customize a stance.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Agreed i don't think they were taking it seriously either. I think it was a quota on a spreadsheet and the design shows it was developed that way ha. So many obvious issues I wonder how much testing it even had. Like why would you have fast travel only go in one direction?!

[@michaelohara4833]

It’s for kids.

[@ryu855]

That's the point it's not supposed to be serious

[@Xenozillex]

the only genuine chuckle I got was when the hooker told you to get the gang's purse back, so you go on this entire quest line talking to a fabricator, getting the leather etc just to make a brand new purse. Once you bring the purse the hooker calls you a dumbazz cause she wanted what was in it, not the purse itself.

[@RoyArkon]

@@ryu855 Except that it's too non-serious.

[@quandary23]

Oh man, I was definitely World Tour's target demographic (completely new to fighting games) but with the opposite effect - I was all in on World Tour and was one of the folks spending 30+ hours to play through the base story line before going to Fighting Ground. I don't think people are wrong to say it has an audience; I ended World Tour with a mix of both good and bad to say about it, was even thinking I'll make an analysis video myself some day haha It's actually really interesting to see so many people strongly dislike RPG for singleplayer in fighting games. Like someone mentions disliking Soulcaliber 6's RPG for similar reasons when up until now I'd only heard good things about it. It's cool to consider what areas of game design these different perspectives stem from.

[@SRN_RL]

So I'm only through the World Tour portion of the review. It's interesting, as someone who loves this game, to see a contrarian review. I agree with most of the points about World Tour so far, though I enjoyed it for the development/fleshing out of the characters I've known for so long (Ryu actually has a personality now, for instance). I found it worth my time, but I can't say that it's super compelling to play through. I think a large part of why people fanboy over this game so much is because they want to. Sure, the FGC is going to be inherently biased, but when you love fighting games that's passion is going to cause you to view flawed products more generously. I dunno. I agree with almost everything you said, and I would be hard pressed to recommend World Tour to anyone, but I will echo the sentiment that I'm glad it exists and my 20-odd hours of play to complete it were well spent. Quick edit: I don't think Tekken will ever really be a threat to SF. They simply go for totally different demographics. SF5, esp with the new devs, stayed pretty strong playerbase wise (for a fighting game) until the very end, when SF6 dropped. For my part, since I simply dont really enjoy 3D games, I'll be sticking with SF6. I'll probably get Tekken 8 since I love fighting games generally and have friends that will want to play it, but it won't be something I play very often most likely.

[@sergeanthenry9484]

Casuals have so much more incentive to play SF6 casually compared to SF5. A World Tour that may not appeal to veterans but for casuals who want a fun romp through the world, characters getting fleshed out for once, a nice progression system in terms of drops, colors and costumes. Reasons to come back to the game if they never even touch Online because some people just play fighting games for Single player content. The last time SF felt like a true Single Player Fighting Game was Alpha 3 Max. So the fact that SF6 is doing this with its World Tour, progression systems, reward system, Arcade Modes, Trials, now is starting to be a full package is a welcome change of pace.

[@daserfomalhaut9809]

I don't know what it is about your cadence, but when specifically you slam a game like how you did World Tour mode, that shit is REALLY fucking funny.

[@notnoaintno5134]

bring back the random uncomfortable camera zooms

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh they shall return, and when you LEAST EXPECT IT!

[@LeoPirate]

I died laughing when you were summing up the reviewers talking about World Tour mode. "It sucks, but it's good, 9/10" LOL

[@MegaMar14]

You're pretty much the only channel I trust on game opinions now.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I'm really happy to hear megamar that you trust my reviews! I try my best to not make my mind up about a game until I actually get my hands on it. Like for this review, I was fully prepped and ready to blast it to hell for the modern controls, but once I got my hands on it I realized that the controls aren't "modern" in our sense of understanding exactly ha. They're just adopting a chaining doa style system, which is absolutely different but also interesting.

[@CC42_]

Another honest KZbinr is ACG. He is more of a general reviewer. Ten minute reviews on a wide variety of genres. He actually buys the games he reviews even if the company sent him a review copy.

[@KrieGor27]

It's such a good review! You summed up my feelings very well, especially regarding world tour. You gain your moves so slowly and the fights are so stupid and I'm so tired of making round trips... Making it a good 3D beat'em up would probably have required too much effort but at least I wish they made every fight interesting, like in the arcade mode. Or just propose something more suited to a fighting game such as a variant of Chronicle of the Sword from SC3. I cannot deny I was pleased with the amount of fan service for Final Fight though. It might be part of their plan to announce a new Final Fight in the near future. More importantly, I'm in love with the mechanics. The drive gauge especially. You said Modern type reminds you of DOA but even the drive gauge I'd say make it the closest a Street Fighter has ever been to a DOA. And I love DOA. The roster is also very good, with every legacy character being the best version of themselves (in terms of tools) and the new characters each bringing something new to the table.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh what an awesome comment!! Thank you very much for tuning in! As far as legacy characters go, I like this version of cammy a lot, but sf6 ken I don't like as much as 3s ken ha, but ken was top tier in that game for sure. I hope they have more of a sf4 style akuma, because he was my fav character in 4

[@sselcho]

playing kimberly is like a hard drug. you can’t stop

[@KrieGor27]

@@sselcho I main her as well. She is so much fun!

[@PalaceMidasMusic]

I know it's talked a little on this channel about how Guilty Gear Strive is a kind of fickle game, but honestly I'll play that all day before I play this. Strive has great music and characters have personality

[@_Jay_Maker_]

As someone who's been playing fighting games since the 90's, and specifically goes out of his way to fight the AI on the hardest settings basically all the time (it's how I learned to play +R against actual people at first, in the old days of no or bad netcode,) the AI in SF6 is hilariously good. Like, scarily accurate to real life. At level 8 it has the same, old penchant for input reading as most classic fighting game AI does, but it's not a lobotomized construct. This AI _shimmies you._ I've never experienced that when fighting a CPU in all of these years. I believe you can legitimately learn more from SF6's AI than you can from literally any other fighting game, concepts and approaches that easily carry over into actual vs. human matches.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

yeah jay i agree the AI seems top notch. I think it's a good blend of classic ai reliability (hitting punishes always) without going full on controller reader mode when it comes to the neutral game. What's funny is that really good ai was once a strong selling feature of a game, but now with online matches no one seems to care about it, even though the AI is what makes a game last into the future. The reason why i still can play old doa and vf is because of how well done the ai of those games is.

[@badthumbs9412]

I turn on SF6 to see if Side Arms is playable and then play some ranked matches with Honda. I’m a casual, and this is what I’ve been doing in the game to have fun

[@cohenkarnell7799]

In SF4 you could FADC cancelable normals as well - the fact that you could FADC specials was added flexibility you no longer have in SF6

[@cohenkarnell7799]

Not to be "that guy" making annoying corrections, it just doesn't quite work as a point in favor of SF6 the way you were framing it. Over all super good review

[@chasepalumbo2929]

Now this is a review. I love how you break it down from as many aspects as you can muster. Classic Mark W

[@stolensentience]

Man every time I watch sf6 footage I have to cleanse my palette right afterward with some pre sf5 sf. You really overhyped the impact of modern controls imo. It’s right in line with the dumbing down of every single sf system that this game manifested (removing dp i-frames, making pokes stubby, bypassing neutral with drive meter, the hitbox on dps being terrible, the removal of sub like 5f links lmao, the super scrubby new characters, etc). But since you can’t even hit confirm it seems you *are* the target audience for new sf principles, which I did not realize until halfway through the video, so ig that’s on me.

[@daysaverproductions]

One of the only proper reviews on KZbin for this game. Amazing work as always

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I'm very happy to hear that daysaver :-) I do try my best to talk about the games outside of the usual hype content cycle where every new game is the greatest of all time ha.

[@perlichtman1562]

If it’s anything like what happened with Gran Turismo 7 (where I spent hours on the phone with Sony over their false advertising) then Capcom may not have given any of the reviewers with advance copies access to what the final online experience would be. For instance for GT7, the microtransactions were added only after the reviews were out. Capcom already did something similar with the RE4 Remake, adding microtransactions after most people had already bought the game. If we’re going to criticize the result, we should go after the system that puts reviews out on incomplete products, regulations that permit companies to change the absence (or presence) of microtransactions after they’ve already gotten an ESRB rating based on a different setup, MetaCritic for not letting outlets update their scores based on such changes, and finally the current embargo “first is better than comprehensive” culture. The individual reviewers at the mainstream outlets are not the ones to attack. That said, I’m glad that you waited to put yours out.

[@D34d1y1]

As a person who hasn't played much of traditional fighters (a lot of ssbm and a little doa 4 when it was new) this is very helpful that it is so honest and in depth. I heard another review say world tour was perfect for teaching noobs how to play street fighter even. I will probably wait until Tekken drops and some more interesting characters are added before buying this. Thank you!

[@RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS77]

Cool review. You focused pretty much entirely on things I haven't tried but I feel I need to give modern controls a shot. I wouldn't be surprised if modern controls taking over weren't the design goal but they didn't quite have the balls to take classic away completely on the first go tbh.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh that is a super interesting theory! I think that does make some sense too because modern controls are on be default right! So you have to go out of your way to revert back to "classic" controls. And for a lot of new players, they won't think to do this and so will play with modern controls until informed otherwise. That is interesting.

[@RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS77]

@@TheElectricUnderground Yeah, exactly. I feel like this is probably the direction they want to evolve the series because over time we’ve seen “adding a baby-mode that’s too crippled to really compete” is just not an effective model at getting people to stick with the game. Actually you reminded me of one useful input-related tip: if you log in as a different player as player 2 with a Dual Shock the game lets you control your character in the overworld with it but then use the arcade stick when you get into battles. I only tried in the Battle Hub but it should work in World Tour too.

[@franjaff6919]

I'm a SUPER casual fighting game newbie (just picked up SF6 a month after release) and even I found this review interesting. Nice job! While I'm not big into the scene it's an utterly fascinating genre to me and I love this kind of deeper dive

[@TheElectricUnderground]

what an awesome comment! Thank you very much my dude! I'm glad me going so deep into the game was also engaging for newer players :-)

[@JayTheBarber603]

Hey, sort of new to your channel, I’m really enjoying this review, but I can’t help but think it’s really going to fall on deaf ears unless you make a short concise 5 to 10 minute version of this for the lay person. But “I’m delighted it exists”😂.

[@BSG1991]

I didn't think the review would be this long gonna have to watch this when you do my second job this week lol

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I didn't think the review would be this long either!! When i was recording it I sat down expecting to do a 30 min review ... and then just had more and more stuff I needed to say ha. World tour mode was a huge undertaking, that's for sure. See this is why I don't review fighting games very often, because they are so mechanically dense it's insane ha. Goes to show you how much more meaty they are than other genres though.

[@residentidiot5998]

45:01 Looks like Harada watched this.

[@Sam-xq3xh]

You snapped with the “Kate plus 8” comment because I feel you

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I'm really glad you caught that ha. I was saving that comment all review ha.

[@expandingman]

Great in-depth review, and great honesty about analyzing certain features and admitting it's too early to make a call on them. I really enjoyed this discussion, even months after release. I wanted to add another feature that Capcom should be commended on, but I haven't seen mentioned much or at all - how running in full screen on PC isn't full screen as we usually know it, but more like "borderless windowed," which makes for seamless alt-tabbing in and out of the SF6 exe. True full screen where it takes over your resolution etc settings makes alt-tabbing cumbersome, and even impractical. I'm not sure how intentional it was, but it's a great feature.

[@xmcxii]

47:49 skull girls had this years ago fyi

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I knew it ha. i knew there would be some like community hero fighting game that would have this feature first. Hats off to skull girls then, never played the series but it sounds like it came up with a cool idea :-)

[@perlichtman1562]

@@TheElectricUndergroundI think there will be a lot that you like about if you ever check it out. Not one of my favorites but I respect it and can absolutely see why it is for a lot of people.

[@xmcxii]

@@TheElectricUnderground yeahh mike z was super nerdy about it we need more of these types around sg was one of the first to have save state recording and slow motion in training mode as well

[@chancepaladin]

you can look at all the toxic positive reviews and see the same formula. they'll say a bunch of negative shit, then they don't lower the score. It was that way for metroid dread. that game looked fking miserable, and even the reviews talked about how miserable the experience was, then gave it perfect scores, what a joke! then you have a game with a few flaws, but because the negative train's gone viral, the game'll get a 2/10 and it'll be DOA.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

could not agree more chance. Yep that's absolutely clear when it comes to world tour mode. The same reviewer who slammed wanted dead (a team ninja spin off studio btw) without mercy at ign as just this jank broken mess (wanted dead is a bit jank, but not crazy jank) then turns around and speaks warmly of world tour mode? WTF ha. Yeah the bias is so obvious. Capcom sends them their briefcase and team ninja does not.

[@perlichtman1562]

@@TheElectricUndergroundBut in regards to the scores specifically, isn’t that more about the editor than a biased reviewer, at least based on your own Nintendo Life experiences being unable to award scores as high as you wanted for shmups?

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

Dread was great. lol

[@reeyees50]

Skip to the last 30 mins for modern controls

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I believe I have timestamps :-)

[@000wolf]

Just think, if they decided to scrap World Tour Mode, we could possibly have been playing with the first season DLC characters at launch.

[@gacktsan1]

What a fantastic review, thank you! 🙂

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you very much Gackstan!! It was an epic undertaking, but this game ended up being a surprisingly complicated release to cover.

[@dj_koen1265]

Pretty solid review, and with that i mean the best one

[@perlichtman1562]

I agree that it’s completely unacceptable to require use of a computer or a phone to create an account for a game on a console. It is absurd.

[@despeinado340]

Has anyone ever asked you why you hold the mic instead of setting it in a still position? Just wondering.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I'm pretty sure I'm asked that in every vid. If you want a clear rational explanation ... umm ... honestly it's like a style thing more than anything. I used to do that, have the mic on a stand, but I want to appear more lively and dynamic on camera so now I hold the mic and talk with my hands like a proper madman.

[@perlichtman1562]

@@TheElectricUndergroundHonestly, having recorded a Grammy winning artist myself (one of Zimmer’s featured soloists) I would say that the being able to perform comfortably is more important than absolute sound quality (as long as it doesn’t get distracting). I’m not usually distracted by the mic holding in your vids so go ahead doing your own thing. If it ever starts becoming an issue, you’ll likely be able to see the dips and spikes in your waveform display on the timeline. :)

[@perlichtman1562]

In regards to the single player content, for me fighting games have lived and died by their arcade mode for years. I think SNK really nailed it for me with their early (pre-Real Bout) Fatal Fury games, Art of Fighting series (especially 2), KoF 94-97, etc. With each of those, I felt like I got my money’s worth in terms of the (thankfully succinct) cutscenes and dialogue, playing through arcade over and over again with either different single fighters or teams (depending on the game). That changed for me for a while some of the KoF games, especially one in the 2000s that only had three endings, and was part of the reason why I thought World Heroes 2 Jet was overrated in some ways compared to World Heroes 2. Basically, arcade mode should feature enough succinct story content for each character or team that spending the time to learn all the special moves for each character (or team) and see their cutscenes in arcade adds up to many hours of a good time. I mean, Fatal Fury 3 was uneven in the story department, but I felt more drama out of round 2 fighting against Geese Howard in that than I ever did in Tekken 7. Music changes, from the new theme in round 1 to a very menacing take on the Geese theme we’d know since Fatal Fury 1, flaming debris starts falling and (just as importantly) there’s no QTEs, slow-motion, waiting or anything else to distract from the pure unbridled drive to beat an opponent as quickly as possible in increasingly dire circumstances. Many modern fighting games could learn a lot from that. Heck, recent Guilty Gear games could learn a ton from the original Guilty Gear - which had one of the best arcade modes outside the SNK games I mentioned.

[@Galkatokk]

World Tour is fun if you go for the drop locks. It actually gets very challenging to get the extra rewards from each fight towards the second half of the game.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

This is a symptom of the problem I talked about with stretched out content (this is a theme I see across this channel a lot). So let's say by the final end of WT mode, there is finally some interesting gameplay to be had, that still cannot justify the other 70% of the time the mode just plods along offering the player nothing of interest or value. It would be like if you ordered a 64oz soda, and then I took 8oz of soda and poured it into a giant glass of water and sold it to you as 64oz. This is what capcom are doing in world tour mode. There are going to be a few moments of interest in the mode, but its only a tiny bit of actual content. The rest is just spread super thin so that capcom can say that they made this full on campaign when really they didn't. It's a really ugly tactic and I'm surprised no other game reviewers are willing to comment on it.

[@Galkatokk]

@@TheElectricUnderground I understand your point but I don't think it applies in the scenario I'm speaking to, getting the drop locks is interesting and engaging from the beginning even if it's not difficult from the offset. The win condition shifts from simply "getting the AI's health to zero" to "meeting the reward conditions BEFORE the AI's health reaches zero". If I won a fight without getting the drop locks it felt like a loss and I'd want to try again.

[@lotus2001]

@@Galkatokk this guy isn't actually interested in a conversation he just wants to whine, I would ignore him

[@big_met_fan8792]

i found a very great reviewer. thanks for the review!

[@epitome99]

was goig to hold off on comments until the end, but made it 8 minutes in and you already hit a nail on the head! aesthetics man freaking matter so much, other than action platforming, and fighting games, shmups come in 3rd, but i have played games since 1988, when street fighter 4 kicked off, i was so turned off by the look, i never bothered to play it or 5, and here we are at 6 and it looks just as trash! in a day in age of remasters of old games the fighting game industry is lacking, take the opernuity to patch , re balance, and refresh some of the old games in your beloved series! and for those asking undernight / arksys have figured out aesthetics

[@TheElectricUnderground]

absolutely epitome! There's a reason why fighting games used to be used to show off new consoles like the xbox and xbox 360, because graphics are so fundamental to a fighting game that they used to be the genre with the most cutting edge graphics. I remember when tekken 4 came out in arcades, my arcade actually had a coming soon poster for it like a movie (good times).

[@RoyArkon]

What you said regarding World Tour is exactly what I was saying to everyone myself. SF6 World Tour is essentially a big, unnecessary tutorial mode under the façade of a single player mode, because the tutorial section of it is the only good thing about it, and even that one gets obsolete by the Fighting Ground tutorial section. Every other element in World Tour is only a downgraded version of what it could and should've been, and some of these elements, due to the sheer quantity of them, start to contradict and cannibalize each other. The voice acting is almost none existing and for the most part it is replaced with voice bits just to fit the Yakuza inspiration for this mode. Also the free-roaming is very limited not only for the reasons that you mentioned, but also because there are only 2 big maps to explore along with a bunch of small hubs that could've been just houses in Metro city. Additionally, the overworld abilities such as Drive Stall (the slowing time ability from the talent tree) are not only non-sensical in the context of your created avatar (being a rookie fighter who roams Metro City to find out what strength truly means) but are only there to "compensate" for the overworld enemies keep chasing you even if you're 50 levels above them, forcing you to fight them and their braindead AI unless you manage to run away. And of course, the story just being terrible, and the ending of WT (and I'm not exaggerating here) is the WORST ending I've ever seen for any video game of any genre (and I've seen quite a lot of them), and is a contender for the WORST video game ending of all time. Even outside of World Tour, the cannibalization and contradiction just keep going. The game has only 18 characters at launch, which is way too small. So you got so much content but so few characters, and going back to World Tour, only 4 out of the 18 actually have any impact on the story. SF6 should've come with AT LEAST 20 chars AND at least 12 out of them having a meaningful role in the story. Ken Masters should've been a perfect fit for World Tour considering his history with JP, but he's just yet another master in WT, and even his Arcade mode story isn't good enough because they took everything that happened in the SF6 prologue comic series and just fast forward it way too much. So you basically started a comic prologue series that now it's connection to the game is barely there. Also, the Arcade games at the Battle Hub don't function properly, as you can only play them in their single player form and local PVP/Co-Op, but no online Co-Op or PVP, and because they are on timed rotation, you can't always play the one game that you want. So they are there just to show that SF6 has a ton of content but then you can't always go to the piece of content that you want AND you got only a portion of the options of play that are supposed to be available for each game. And then there are smaller issues that also need to be addressed like the day-night cycle in WT can only be activated manually instead of being automatic and organic just to make the game easier, as well as the club system in Battle Hub allow you to have only up to 100 players despite the Battle Hub being the social center of SF6 that suppose to bring players together. Again, contradiction and cannibalization. I've been a long time fighting game fan since MK2, and while MK is my favorite fighting game series ever, I've played a ton of games from a lot of IP's, including SF, and I really wanted SF6 to be the game that brings me back not only to SF but to Japanese fighting games in general, as all of them just keep taking 2 steps forward and 5 steps back while NRS/WB games are the only games that keep moving just forward nowadays. But sadly, it's not, SF6 is a mediocre game at best, and WT being a 3rd of the overall game and being this shitty, as well as other issues outside of it, only proves that further. And yes, the reviews for it just over-hyped it because of either being corporate shills for Capcom or bring community shills for the SF community and FGC, due to the politics in it as well as the SF community being a bunch of fanboys that take time to admit the truth about SF games as you mentioned. Also speaking of NRS/WB games, the separation of supers and the Meter being full from the start that regenerates over time are not original ideas by Capcom. MK11 already introduced these back in 2019, Capcom took that idea from NRS/WB. And also, MK1 is gonna be the game that crushes SF6, Tekken 8 can add to that, sure, but the REAL crusher is gonna be MK1. All MK games had amazing single player content with incredible stories, rosters of 24-29 chars at launch since MK9 (and MK1 is also gonna have 24 chars at launch), tons of features for both casuals and competitive play, and amazing presentation. And no contradiction or cannibalization for any elements in any section of them. THAT is how a fighting game should be in today's era.

[@CrocvsGator]

Have you played the Yaluza/Like A Dragon games? Because World Tour sounds kind of like a stripped down version of one of those games.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I have played one of the Yakuza games on PS3, but I want to check out the newer ones soon

[@CrocvsGator]

@The Electric Underground 3 was the first one on PS3, and given I'm playing through all the games rn, I'd understand if that put you on pause. It has pretty stiff combat, and most of the side activities aren't as engaging as other games in the franchise. The upsides are that the main story is well done, and it has a few really well done sidequests. The issue is that most of those can easily just be seen in a video.

[@Mister_Don888]

I don’t think Electric would like the Yakuza games.

[@mon11nom]

Another great review! Looking forward to the fight aesthetic video. I sadly won't be able to make the time to putter around in world tour mode as I'm still stuck trying to figure out how to beat the AI in Art of Fighting 2.

[@perlichtman1562]

Having beat the secret TLB in AoF2 years back, the best advice I can give you is to (in addition to whatever copy you bought) emulate the game and make copious use of save states. Making a save state in the middle of the battle and repeatedly loading from it and trying different things to see how the enemy responds is a WAY quicker approach to understanding how the AI “thinks” about things than normal game progression. As a secondary note, while AoF2 has looser controls than AoF2, it’s still a lot more based around the timing of basic inputs, special move inputs and taunt bar management than it is around combos. Don’t over-emphasize trying to get a lot of hits in a row the way you can in a lot of more modern fighting games - the AI will usually throttle you if you do. Learn to watch for patterns, get 1 to 3 hits and get out of there.

[@mon11nom]

@@perlichtman1562 stick and move! Thanks for the advice - it's super tough and ancient, but there is something compelling about the game.

[@perlichtman1562]

@@mon11nom Yeah, it’s one of the most memorable fighting games of the 90s for me - warts and all (and there sure are a lot of them).

[@ArcadeHell]

I won't be able to play this one (Nintendo Switch only rn), but I loved this review! Well done man!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I really appreciate you tuning in my friend!!

[@MamO-eom]

Well you did it again man. The harsh naked truth. Yeah i kinda felt that world tour was lacking some thing, its shallow. Ppl said its like a yakuza game but this made me laugh because i played most of the yakuza games and would tour is not yakuza by any means. Capcom marketing team is scary, the way they advertised this mode in trailers makes it look like its alot of fun. But yeah its not. And i do agree with one of your comments, SF5 was so bad anything will look good with some effort. SF4 was a great game and i still think its a revolutionary entry in the series. It was the reason i bought a stick and decided to learn and play the game competitively. SF6 is not the best ever yet, maybe with some future patches and DLC it might surpass SF4. Honestly if HAKAN comes back to SF6 then it is the best SF 😂 I did not know that you were a skilled fighting game player tbh, but happy to know you are more than a shmup GOD. Love your effort and hard work man, keep it up and good luck~

[@Joe-zb7kc]

I haven't finished the video, but just from that segment about accounts and offline mode, my excitement has diminished greatly.

[@motomac3285]

Just at the World Tour part so far. Yeah agree so far. Only comment is that WT controls on PS5 you can at least use both a controller and fight stick. I sync Fightstick to my main PS console account and then use Dualsense logged in to another user account and then you can move around and navigate menus with the pad and fight with the stick.

[@perlichtman1562]

Separate meters for super and EX does sound like a good idea. Nice! Sorry for putting this in a ton of shorter comments - longer ones are trickier to edit on my phone while watching the video.

[@censoredterminalautism4073]

Making horrible abominations in character creators is one of my favorite things (that's why Oblivion's is the best). Would be cool if you could actually create a fighting game character (including creating move animations and hitboxes), though, like in Fighter Maker (that game is crazy, worth looking up), but of course they would never go that far.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

ha yeah boghog said the same thing lol. For me I like a character creator that helps me make an attractive looking character, but I feel you ha. I think if maybe they sectioned off the "turn your character insane" options from the more shapely options that would have really helped.

[@censoredterminalautism4073]

@@TheElectricUnderground I don't make characters look in part because I have a hard time doing it, like you seem to have as well. Though in a lot of character creators (like Oblivion's), you basically can't make anything that isn't an abomination anyway, so you might as well go all out. There may even be an advantage to looking as stupid as possible in the case of competitive games, may throw some people off in some way or another. Equipment can also accomplish that, like with my favorite Dark Souls character. Biggest character possible, with either the Catarina armor or Smough's, results in a character so fat that the arms clip into the chest of the armor. Optionally throwing the Fang Boar Helm/Xanthous Crown on top of that giant head as well, though that will cover up the facial deformity. The weapon, of course, should be the Great Club. Or maybe another enormous weapon on the left hand too, for no practical reason.

[@ib5995]

Great review! I’m tempted to pick up street fighter again, but they don’t bring back Sagat. Hopefully he’ll be a dlc character.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah they needed our boy (Sagat is really cool) the new cast just isn't cutting it ha

[@machinethundersamuraiinfan5343]

tldr; I think world tour is pretty great. As someone that also fits the target demographic, I think World Tour is actually quite great. I think this style of RPG just isn't a lot of people's cup of tea. Your note about the AI being easy was not my experience at past level 30 or so. Later most characters copy fighting styles from actual characters and can get pretty good (Equivalent of like CPU level 6-7 from my understanding). And there are some that DO use unique psycho powers or whatever the hell the game calls it. I get grinding through 300 boring enemies to get to cool ones is still lame, but it scaled pretty naturally for someone completely new to fighting games. Just to reiterate, enemy levels go up to like 85 I believe, so you being bored at level 20 enemies makes sense, that's still really early. And higher level enemies act quicker, know combos, use super arts at the end of combos, etc (Well, rando's on the street still suck pretty bad, but they are more canon fodder to grind than a challenge). In fact I thought it was cheesy because some later enemies will ALWAYS throw cancel no matter what scenario and I have even been perfect parried 2-3 times in a row by one of the ai. Also there are literally hundreds of Street Fighter references and pretty funny easter eggs scattered about. That isn't the type of thing a developer does if they are just trying to get a certain "time to beat". Some of it is really intricate and adds a lot to street fighter lore, and some of it is just like some construction workers doing the fusion dance on some scaffolding a mile away you can only see if you stand in a particular spot. Also there are minigames that teach you incredibly well how to do things like play charge characters and perfect parry in fun ways. I just think it's a little facetious to show the disappointment of 'extremely aggressive AI' and show a level 4 with the beginning area's move set designed to teach new players how to counter and anti-air. The AI is definitely cheese-able at every stage, but at around level 40 they start actually fighting back pretty well, in my experience (again not random people usually). I think really it just needed more customizable difficulty. It's like playing a FF game and one-shotting the first few enemies then quitting because you're bored. That's very understandable but I think that just means the genre isn't for you. World Tour more an RPG with fighting game combat than a fighting game with RPG mechanics. World Tour is definitely worthy of criticism but I think it is less a hot mess and more a step in the right direction. Another iteration or two of World Tour and it could be something actually great. I spent 60 or so hours in it and 100% it, and it was a great introduction to fighting games. It eases new players in like myself very well and I am currently bouncing between high gold and low plat. I think it just needs some tweaks to make it worth veteran's time. Some people are saying "how can you enjoy World Tour?" in the comments here, but I really enjoyed it because it really didn't take itself seriously. My funny guy running around piledriving people on the street and this hilariously edgy main story that felt like a low budget soap opera is worth it. There is a part in the story where some random gang member gets mad at you for someone you know stealing a bag so your first instinct is to fly out to Italy to make a counterfeit. Absolutely kicks ass. It feels a bit like a shitty game I would have played in 2006, and that is absolutely the vibe I want. It feels almost nostalgic to me as someone that used to play a ton of RPGs. And to me the game really doesn't feel like "Yeah this is the next big thing," it knows it is stupid and silly and is just showing you a good time. To me that's the best singleplayer experience you can get.

[@adrianolopes_sp]

enjoyed world tour a lot

[@sergeanthenry9484]

Appreciate your comment big time my guy. It is good to have a perspective of a casual player. I don't think World Tour Mode is absolute dog shit like others in the comments say. But I think it's serviceable enough fun with plenty of room to improve. Has a good sense of progression of unlocks that casual players will appreciate. On top of the world of SF finally getting some fleshing out. Gives people who love the world of SF to explore WT mode for its characters.

[@3rdstrikestan930]

Alpha 3 starts you with full super

[@TheElectricUnderground]

That's really cool. I didn't remember that but it just goes to show how good ideas can get lost in time and then need to be rediscovered. I bet there are a lot more mechanics like that in street fighter where an earlier game had a really good idea, and then that idea was dropped and forgotten.

[@3rdstrikestan930]

@@TheElectricUnderground yeah, I'm hoping some stuff like edition select from sf4 get implemented.I think it's cool revisiting older versions of characters

[@perlichtman1562]

Man, that damage sponge nonsense they put players through in that mission is ridiculous. Takes me back to the first time I played River City Ransom and tried to ignore the stores. Hated the damage sponge aspect. You are right - it’s been years since this stuff was at all common in most RPGs. I mean, if we go all the way back to Dragon Quest II (NES/Famicom), then there’s a lot of grind. But if we go back to Final Fantasy games even 30 years ago, they had already solved that problem.

[@granddaddy_funk]

I just wish they made it 2 out of 3 matches mandatory. Win quitters are the scum of the earth

[@TheElectricUnderground]

AGREED and yes, they are the scum of the earth, especially when it comes down to the wire. Cowards

[@Rationalific]

Entertaining and informative review! I was enthralled the during the entire runtime!

[@aegisreflector1239]

I personally don't like the aesthetic character design and art style. Its not bad, its just not for me. I love and miss the beautiful sprites and and art style of the Alpha and Three series.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Agreed. That's why I ended up cutting the aesthetic talk of the review short at the end, because it would have been another very complicated subject and I didn't want the review to be even longer ha. But agreed I think the series is currently totally lost when it comes to presentation. Some things look good (p2 cammy) some things look lame (p1 cammy), and a lot looks thrown together ... Luke ha.

[@jonathanlisowski5618]

​@@TheElectricUndergroundPersonally, I really like Cammy's new design & I'm glad they didn't just throw a trench coat over her old costume. The concept art for the new characters back when it was leaked blew me away & I really liked Ken's new look but the transition to 3D was not so great.

[@taylor_o]

bro great job... this is what reviewing should be!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I am really happy to hear that eteoklos! Yes I feel like a lot of the actual discussion of design is missing in todays reviews, and that's the whole meat of the conversation ha. Outside of that we just have a bunch of hype saying that this week's game is the greatest game of ALL TIME ... until next week ha.

[@taylor_o]

@@TheElectricUnderground 💯 i have been saying the same thing for years. Im glad there are some people like you out there giving real criticism! I think you could add a section on how the character balance is, but you were very thorough regardless.

[@jepettoNFT]

Thank you very much for this superb review. From the beginning, i'm turned off by the game because it requires players to always be online (with their account creation) or else you can't access a huge chunk of the content; And being, like you, the kind of guy who plays his old games (i still own and play SF2' on Megadrive/Genesis and SF2 Turbo on SNES), on top of being a "collector" (more like, i want to own the physical versions), to me it's a deal breaker. Too bad if the game is good, but if i can't access it 10 years in the future, i don't care. And that's a real shame because this SF seems rather cool.

[@ryanrose3510]

31:00 eitther they patched this out, or you had the same issue as me. Yku actually can fast travel back to the city, but thr icon gets covered by other quests

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I am very confident at the time of the recording the fast travel option back to the main city did not exist, because if you look at the menu, the menu option does not exist, but the other fast travel option in the menu does. It's such an obvious issue that i'm sure it was patched, but devs you can't release buggy crap on release and not expect to be critiqued for it ha.

[@ryanrose3510]

@@TheElectricUnderground thanks for the clarity. This was a great vid, I listened beginning to end. Enjoy your week 🔥

[@SlinkyRock]

Oh my god mark, two hours mark ok I'll see you in two hours

[@TheElectricUnderground]

If you watch the whole thing, you deserve a medal ha! I really loved working on the review though, as there were so many really relevant topics of game design that sf6 is directly crossing over with.

[@SlinkyRock]

@@TheElectricUnderground I had to go to sleep but I'm going to watch now. Out of curiosity, are you planning on doing a review for FF XVI?