Street Fighter x Tekken (Xbox 360/PS3) Review | Video Games ...

When it comes to fighting games, I prefer them to be pretty accessible as they aren?t my forte. Last year saw both Mortal Kombat and Marvel vs. Capcom 3, two very?accessible?fighting games?that were easy to play and have fun with right off the bat. Comparatively, Street Fighter?x Tekken is a very difficult fighting game that?will take a long time to master. Basically, it is every hardcore fighting gamer?s?dream, but a casual fighting fan?s nightmare.

It isn?t that Street Fighter x Tekken doesn?t try to get you into the experience early; after the heart pounding opening cinematic, the game asks if you want to check out the tutorial?trust me when I say that you absolutely must do it! In that tutorial, you?ll start off easily enough by doing a few punches and kicks, grabbing an enemy,?learning about the Cross Gauge, and?switching your characters.?By the time you wrap up the tutorial though, you will be bombarded by an insane amount of different move types. The various special moves available include: Boost Combo, Cross Rush, Quick Combo, Super Charge, Ex Special Movies, Cross Cancel, Switch Cancel, Super Art, Cross Assault, Cross Art, and Pandora.

For someone like me, this was extremely overwhelming and a lot to memorize. I did manage to finish the?tutorial, despite how hard a Cross Cancel was, and went in the Arcade (story) mode.?Upon entering my first fight,?everything I had learned quickly muddled itself into one gigantic pile of button mashing and I was lost.?To make matters worse, Arcade mode doesn?t ease you into anything and teach you the different players, it expects you to already know exactly how they play.

Instead of including a full story interweaving each of the 38 fighters, you pick two at the outset and stick with them throughout the 30 or so?minute campaign. Although each fighter will have a slightly different story, they all focus on a meteor containing Pandora?s Box falling to earth. All the fighters featured in the game head to Antarctica and the fighting begins, and never stops. The game doesn?t take a break at all between the fights to tell any sort of story, you just enter fight after fight, reach Antarctica, and win the final battle. It was disappointing to see so little work put into the story mode, even for a game that isn?t focused on single player.

Street Fighter x Tekken is all about the multiplayer aspect of fighting and it does a great job of including a tonne of modes. For anyone looking for some offline mayhem, you can grab three friends and have some great times. It was a little daunting at first when I played against a Street Fighter veteran, but after?many hours of solo playtime, I began to see some improvement and was able to beat him once or twice. When it comes to multiplayer though, most modes easily belongs to the online portion.

You have Ranked Matches which pit you against anyone in the world, Endless Battles that have you fighting until you lose, and the insanely fun Scramble Battles that have 4 people fighting at once. Sadly though, every match I entered into (on both the Xbox 360 and PS3) was extremely laggy, with the Scramble Battles doubly so. The game would stutter in the middle of the match, leading to a freeze during one of my combos and having the other guy reverse it quite easily. Not only that, the sound effects would constantly be disappearing and reappearing in the fight. I?d be in the middle of a combo and would hear the first punch, then nothing for the next six hits, and I?d just hear the enemy fall to the ground. In a game as fast paced as this one, knowing when you get hit is essential, but you rarely will know.

A patch will obviously be released sometime in the future to fix these issues, but anyone who picked the game up at launch expecting to be able to jump online and climb the leaderboards?will be very agitated. Hopefully Capcom also adds a rematch button at the end of every fight because if I just finish a tense fight with a player, I want to be able to replay them and have another epic fight. As it is right now, you?ll just have to message them and hope they respond.

One feature that Capcom has implemented perfectly has to be the inclusion of Gems. Essentially, these are boosters that you can place on each individual character and?will activate after certain parameters have been met. So, say that you?ve equipped a gem that increases your damage output by 10%. You can set it so that once you block a few times, it will activate, give you a huge power boost, and hopefully be enough to help you win the fight.

Fans of the genre may feel as though this is ruining the core experience of the game, but I feel it improves it. By having dozens of different gems available to every character, it allows each gamer to play to their strengths. Say you?re more of a defensive person who wants the Cross Gauge to fill up so you can unleash a powerful Cross Assault. Equip gems that help the gauge to build up and sit back while the opponent hits you, only to perform a huge attack that turns the tide and makes you the winner.

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Underneath all of the online issues and lack of story lies the deepest fighting game available on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Hardcore fighting fans will likely find Street Fighter x Tekken?to be one of the most rewarding experiences they?ve had in quite some time and shouldn?t hesitate to pick this one up. Sadly though, casual fight fans?may be a little overwhelmed and unless you want to invest many, many hours before you start to learn the game, I suggest you pick up Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 or Mortal Kombat.

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Street Fighter x Tekken?was reviewed with a copy provided by Capcom.

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Source: http://trendygamers.com/2012/03/15/street-fighter-tekken-review/

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