Capcom has grabbed their fighting gloves and bought Street Fighter V back to the ring on PS4 and PC, not only with a brand new skin, but with a whole lot more hidden underneath. Take a look at our thoughts on the brand new Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition.
SF V was technically and visually one of the best fighters to have graced our fight sticks, however it came to a stop with its flaws, mainly being content. Focused on online game play, which admittedly is great for some, it put off the casual players or even those who enjoy the series but just aren't perfect at combos. This latest release of 'Arcade Edition' solves this issue, by bringing in a plethora of game modes, mainly the title aspect, Arcade mode.
Arcade mode is a glorious homage to the older generations of Street Fighter, giving players a choice of each previous iterations to play 'versions' of in the initial menu. After selecting your character, you battle through differing paths, taking on enemy after enemy, specifically fighters that appeared in that generation of SF. This helps bring a feeling of uniqueness to each play through and as a result there are countless ways to play through. To match this there are also countless character endings to unlock from doing so. It's a great step away from the repetitive feeling of previous titles single player modes, but the true highlight is the bonus stages. Harking back to barrel breaking and car smashing paired alongside perfect remixes of the stage tracks is a dream come true.
The story mode is there for those who haven't really played a Street Fighter before. You do have to download it from the store/Steam (it's a hefty update), but it's worth it learn the lore, get used to the controls and frankly, to rake in some fight money. Fight Money continues to stack up in Arcade edition, but the insane amount of costumes and ways to spend it keeps reeling me back in to play more and earn more.
The additional characters have also made their way into the game now. A little slowly mind, with only Sakura currently out, but each character feels fresher in Arcade edition, so it feels like a brand new roster, not just a single new character. There has been balance within the fighters, which is always great and show Capcom have their finger on the button, but with balance comes unbalance, with a few broken characters already coming to the fore-front. I'm sure it's just creases to iron out, but hopefully that happens sooner rather than later.
That isn't to say multiplayer isn't fun however. I can't comment on if Capcom have updated their Servers and re-worked the matchmaking, but the game lags far less now than SF V and skill levels are seemingly realistic at this point. It's just standard for a fighting game that has an online community to be shifting constantly with game mechanics, but Arcade Edition seems to be doing it well and again, balance seems to be the main aim for the developers.
Street Fighter is one of two of the main names of fighting games. When Capcom released SF V, initially it showed weak points and a potential end to its reign. However Arcade Edition is the comeback king here, a fighter that has spent 2 years training and re-focusing to come back and snatch the title away from anyone, even those previously seen on a similar level. For those out there who enjoy fighting games, this is a must buy. For those that don't, I'd still say give it a try.