Street Fighter Vhas had a bizarre run. When it released nearly four years ago, its lack of a traditional arcade mode caused uproar, as didgraphical curiositiesand connection issues. Crush counters seemed too strong, there were too many answers to fireball zoning, and the lack of character choices exacerbated all of the game’s problems. Over the course of three seasons, however, Capcom worked to fix things. They provided balance updates, fixed the game’s input lag, and gave every character a second V-Trigger. They added 18 new characters. Spicy. Things were starting to look up for the embattled fighter. And then there was Season 4.
Season 4’s first new character, Kage, was announced at Capcom Cup in December of 2018. While fun to play, his design was uninspired–he looked like a dumb version of Evil Ryu. For eight months, though, he was all the news we got from Capcom. Had development ceased? Was Capcom already focusing onStreet Fighter6? Kage’s lackluster reception began to sound like a death knell forSFV. There were serious concerns that Dumb Evil Ryu would be the final addition to the game’s roster–thatSFVwas dead.
Late in July of this year, though,Capcom announced that E. Honda, Lucia, and Poison would be joining Kage to representSFV’s Season 4. The game wasalive.
And today, at Brazil Game Show, the game’s producer–Yoshinori Ono–doubled down. He announced a slew of “tournament costumes” that would be available for free in December. More importantly, he told us to expect information on “new content” and “new characters” soon.
You wanna see new characters, right? You want new content too, I’m sure that’s what you’re all thinking. Well, about that, we’re going to have new information to present to you in regards to that at the Capcom Cup North American Finals in November, and at Capcom Cup in December, so if you could please just stay patient until then.
New characters makes sense. The first three seasons ofSFVadded six new characters a piece, and we’ve only seen four in the game’s fourth season. Adding a new character in November and another in December would balance out this discrepancy.
However, I’m more interested in the idea of “new content.” Could this mean that Capcom is planning to readjust the V-Trigger situation? Some characters are able to rob games with easy access to very strong abilities and mix-ups, andthere has been a lot of concern about the game’s defining mechanic. A new"Super" Street Fighter Vmight help balance this issue.
Systemic changes late in the lifespan of aStreet Fighter game are not unprecedented.Street Fighter IVoriginally released in 2008, but it wasn’t untilUltra Street Fighter IVreleased in 2014 that the game introduced the “Ultra Combo Double” mechanic. This change allowed players to use both ultra combos during the course of the match, at the expense of causing less damage with them.
A similarly huge overhaul ofSFVwould certainly help reinvigorate the community, at least for a time. Until we hear more, check out those new costumes Ono mentioned in the gallery below.
