Street Fighter V: The June(ish) Update

The last time I did a check in with Street Fighter V was back in the middle of April and I’m pretty sure I haven’t played the game since. It’s been a bit of a rocky road for Capcom’s flagship fighter, bare bones at launch it’s finally starting to come together and look like a full price game. And it only took them four months!

On July 1^st the long awaited June update finally went live (yes, they’re a day late but whatever) and with it came the Story Mode. At launch what passed for a “story” was laughable. These were just a couple of easy fights that a toddler could pass, cut together with awful comic book artwork. By those standards the new, proper story mode is light years ahead. Actual in-engine cut scenes tie together the various plot strands that while hardly on the level of a Mortal Kombat X or Injustice, are far better than I was expecting.

It’s not without its shortcomings however. Each fight is only one round long and while a few fights are more difficult, a lot of it is incredibly easy with some fights lasting about ten seconds before you’re again thrust into a five minute story sequence. Upon completion you are able to play through it again with a harder difficulty now unlocked, but I didn’t like the story that much to play it a second time.

That’s not say the story itself isn’t bizarrely intriguing. Yes, it’s silly badly acted nonsense, but then that’s Street Fighter. It also gives players a far too brief look at upcoming DLC characters Juri and Urien. The latter of which now holds the best looking character award as he does battle in a swanky suit. Also, characters that have to be bought with fight money (or real money) can also be tested including the newer additions Balrog and Ibuki. Again, a three round structure would be better to actually get a good feel for these characters before you spend your hard earned cash on them.

So that’s the story mode, what else is new here relates to the store. Since the last check in there’s been a number of new additions including stages, costumes (some of which annoyingly can only be bought with real money) and fancy bits for your player card. Capcom also fairly recently said they would be abandoning their plans for the Zenny store. What would be the third (!) way of buying DLC has been canned, probably for the best as why you would need another currency option is beyond me. So instead it’s just Fight Money (earned in-game) and real money (earned by having a job).

As for the future of Street Fighter V, who knows, a couple of other characters who have yet to be announced as playable feature in the story mode, so it’s a good shout that they would become available down the line. Whether I still stick with it is unknown at this point. I feel that Capcom still aren’t doing enough to punish rage quitters and while the fighting gameplay is the best it’s ever been, SFV is just going to be surrounded by the stigma of a terrible launch for its entire lifespan.

Maybe the one thing that would pull me back is an actual arcade mode, which is the one piece of single player content the game still lacks. And Fei Long obviously.