Was Street Fighter V released half-finished for EVO?

Street Fighter series of fighting games needs no introduction. Even those who don’t consider themselves to be the fans of the genre have probably heard about Street Fighter - the king of all fighting games. This time Capcom produced its fifth installment for PC and PS4, which was released just in time for another series of events on the competitive scene of esports.

The new game has been widely tested since last year's beta version, which already made a lot of noise in the media. But can we say that the official release of the game is complete? Not at all.

Street Fighter V, the way it looks right now, is barely a finished product – early access would fit the description much better. There are many reasons for this and it doesn’t concern the fighting area of the game, which is excellent as it is, but the rest of the content, which needs to be addressed by Capcom as soon as possible.

Let’s look at some of the biggest problems of the current Street Fighter V release.

The lack of real story mode and other content

First of all, don’t expect Street Fighter V to be a game full of content, unless you want to be disappointed. The game has almost nothing else to offer except the fighting matches. So, if you like to discover new things and enjoy side-quests, then it would be a better idea to wait for some time before Capcom manages to deliver additional content.

Right now there are 16 characters in the game including both old and completely new ones. But again, if you wish to learn more about their stories, then the game has very little to show, as instead of a real story mode you get to see only a few short cutscenes in between a few fights. Of course, this is not enough for a finished product – you can’t even get the feeling of the characters and their basic moves in such a short time.

Another thing worthy of attention is the complete lack of difficulty levels. The current story mode is so easy that even new players will find it to be completely non-challenging… so, why would seasoned players be interested in it at all? Aren’t fighting games all about the challenge?

Capcom did promise to deliver the extended story mode for free sometime this summer, but it also indicates that it will probably happen somewhere around EVO 2016 – the great summer fighting event.

Speaking of EVO, this is probably the main reason why Street Fighter V was rushed out onto the market. The game is clearly unfinished, but it seems that the competitive scene is way more valuable for Capcom than the community of casual gamers.

Training and survival modes are good, but not enough

The upgraded training mode is really good and includes tons of new settings that allow you to set up a training match in great detail. However, this training mode doesn’t help you learn any combos or even basic moves unlike the one in Mortal Kombat X that gives you every necessary bit of information up to frame data. In order to learn new moves for Street Fighter V, you will have to look for everything by yourself online, which is not very convenient.

The survival mode, being a great challenge for those players who like to farm, offers an in-game currency, which is not completely usable. The problem is that there is no actual shop in the game, although you can spend your money on health points, new attacks and other upgradable stuff in the game menu. But you still can’t buy new skins for your characters, so this is a huge drawback.

And how about arcade mode? Training and survival are great, but the fact that players are not able to fight against CPU in a real challenge is a massive miscalculation from the side of the game’s producers. What’s the point of having training and survival modes, and not having a variety of match set-ups? This just seems bizarre.

Server issues and the future of esports

The game has been suffering from some technical issues on the day of release, but it seems Capcom has managed to fix almost all of them by now. The problem was in the great demand for Network Battle mode, which couldn’t handle the flood of gamers and the servers crashed. For this reason, PS4 users have been advised to play offline - not the best way to launch a new game.

Despite the problems, Capcom has announced a huge upcoming tournament – Capcom Cup 2016, which will take place on all four continents this March. The best fighters of the world will come together for a reward of $500,000. If everything goes well, it may propel the status of Street Fighter and turn it into the staple of all competitive fighting games.

This tournament and many smaller regional competitions will show if the game in its current state is capable of managing its high status. Let’s hope that the planned events will not disappoint the fans and we will see a massive rise in the popularity of the genre as another serious contender in the world of esports.

Conclusion

All other aspects of Street Fighter V, such as graphics and sound are simply gorgeous. The design of the characters, arenas and many other details leave no questions. From now on, Capcom should regularly deliver good free content for the game – this is the only way they can redeem themselves in the eyes of the disappointed gamers wanting a more fleshed out package.

Do you like Street Fighter V in its current state? What would you like to change or add to the game? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.