Review: Street Fighter 6

destructoid.com:

Every fighting game franchise owes an unpayable debt to Street Fighter.

Oh, sure, Street Fighter wasn’t the first slugger on the block, and we can tip our hats to forerunners such as Technos’ Karate Champ and Irem’s Yie Are Kung Fu for pioneering the genre itself. But, inarguably, it was the 1991 arrival of Capcom’s Street Fighter II that truly popularised the one-on-one fighter on a global basis, reinventing competitive gaming, garnering millions of sales in the arcade and home market, and galvanizing itself as one of the premier franchises in history.

Street Fighter II wrote the blueprint that would be followed by every franchise eager to raise fists and feet in its wake. And while a handful of these excellent fighters would go on to achieve amazing success in their own right — building communities, breaking pop culture, and raking in beaucoup bucks — ultimately, they all pay homage to the king. When Street Fighter has the throne, you can’t usurp it.

In 2016, however, something went very wrong. That year, Capcom released Street Fighter V, bringing about one of the worst launches in the company’s history. As a fighter, SFV was solid, but the launch was a disaster. Capcom delivered an uninspiring, threadbare title, lacking rudimentary features, missing trademark facets, and sporting a miserable U.I. and abominable netcode. Worse still, the title was devoid of charm and personality. It wasn’t that Street Fighter V was terrible, it was… empty. Bland. An avatar bearing a familiar name but infused with an apathy that left its world cold and its characters hollow.

In the aftermath of this maligned release, Capcom reevaluated itself. Beginning with 2017’s Monster Hunter World, the studio proceeded to knock out a string of