Street Fighter X Tekken - First impressions

After an exhausting weekend which encompassed the preparation and attendance of Game's successful first convention GAMEfest and the birthday of yours truly, I have for you here the first of our event content. Over the course of the next two weeks we'll be rolling out some exciting impressions, previews and photos of our time at GAMEfest, including a roundup of our experience there.


This much anticipated title was first announced at Comic-Con 2010 where Yoshinori Ono (hilariously dressed as Ryu from Street Fighter) and Katsuhiro Harada (dressed as Heihachi from Tekken), unleashed some early gaming footage and the first teaser trailer. The game was shown to be essentially a Street Fighter game with the Tekken characters thrown into the mix. Also revealed at Comic-Con was that Namco would develop a sister game under the title of Tekken X Street Fighter, which adversely would feature the fighting system of Tekken and presence of Street Fighter characters. This undoubtably caused a media whirlwind of speculation and much fan debate.

So what has Capcom been upto in the course of a year? And will their effort appease the fans and be worth the wait? From my time with the title the short answer is – Yes. The long answer is the game has a way to go yet. The character selection was generous at GAMEfest with the following characters available for play: Ryu, Ken, Kazuya, Nina, Chun Li, Cammy, King, Marduk, Guile, Abel, Bob, Julia, Sagat, Dhalsim, Hwoarang, Steve, Poison, Hugo, Yoshimitsu, Raven, Ibuki and Kuma. These characters and the two slots obviously left for unlockable/secret characters brings the roster to an impressive 22 characters playable on the day.

Hugo executes one of his trademark wrestling moves - Ouch Thats gotta hurt!

For our short time playing game Krem and I mostly focused on picking characters from both stables, to seeing how their movesets complemented each other and whether the translation from Tekken to Street Fighter mechanics worked as well as we hoped. We also tried playing round with the tag system to make the most of possible comboing opportunities.

I personally found the game to be fluid and accessible but unfortunately the limitations of Street Fighters movelist affected some Tekken characters more than others. For example Yoshimitsu enjoyed a great conversion from Tekken with his overall style of play and moveset largely remaining intact, but the same cannot be said for Hwoarang who loses many of his distinctive Tae Kwon Do combo’s and stance changes. It also must be said that the throws of many of the characters didn’t make the jump so don’t expect to get more than 2 throws per character. The tag combo system was overly complex (requiring the player to click both thumb sticks or Triangle and Circle on the PS3 version) and was open to abuse due to a lack of a tag counter system (as far as we can see), despite this juggling combo’s were short because of Street Fighters short airtime.

The generous character selection at GAMEfest was a welcome surprise, with favourites such as Sagat, Hwoarang, Yoshimitsu and Ibuki being playable.

It isn’t all bad though, the way tag battles are handled is interesting as bouts are decided on the first character to get KO’d rather than the Dead Or Alive approach of having to beat both characters. This gives the game a unique tactical approach in that you have to tag out to avoid that dreaded “You Lose” screen. Another interesting feature is that the levels are varied and interesting, with multiple levels that your character will drop down to between fights.

Technically the game performs well, giving a stable 60FPS with no stuttering or slowdown. The backgrounds are vivid and detailed, featuring many characters from other Capcom games and providing an exciting fighting atmosphere. The aesthetic of Super Street Fighter 4 returns but remains fresh and distinctive with some subtle tweaks. The effects are flashy and cool which colourful flourishes and lightning coming from all angles, the only downside is occasionally they can seem flat.

Quick someone call the RSPCA!

Altogether the game is coming along well, but in order for the game to be ready for mass consumption, I think some tweaks need to be applied. The balance of the game at the moment needs work with the tag combo system providing too much of an easy way out. Not only that but the movelists need an update to bring across the complexity of the Tekken characters.

I’ll be looking forward to the projected release date of Street Fighter X Tekken on March 2^nd 2012 as it will undoubtedly be one of the most talked about fighting titles of 2012. Be sure to look on our Facebook for more images of Street Fighter X Tekken, plus check back here for all the latest content and impressions from GAMEfest coming your way over the next 2 weeks.

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