Street Fighter 6 - Closed Beta Impressions

ign.com:

I’ll cut to the chase: Street Fighter 6’s closed beta was the best fighting game beta I’ve ever played. And I’m not even talking about the quality of the game – even though that too is really good. I’m talking about everything from the presentation, to the stellar netcode, to the gorgeous battle hub, to the ease of finding matches, to the sheer number of options and modes accessible, most important among those being a training mode, which really should be standard at this point in fighting game betas. Street Fighter 6’s closed beta checked all of the boxes, then added new boxes, and checked those too.

Let’s talk about the actual game first. I’ve gotten to play Street Fighter 6 at a number of gaming events over the last few months, and the strong first impression it left has more than held up now that I’ve played many hours of the beta. Street Fighter 6 feels fantastic. It’s hard hitting, fast paced, and it’s powered by the excellent Drive system that opens up a whole world of new tools and options for every character.

One of my big takeaways from my time with the beta was how much I loved the Drive Rush mechanic. Basically, at the cost of one bar of the Drive meter, you’re able to execute a quick green glowing dash and perform any move out of it. This was a vital technique when it came to facing off against Guile players especially, who were keen to spend the whole match a full screen away, pelting me with Sonic Booms all day. Drive Rush offered me a surprisingly quick way to close the distance, land either a throw or a sneaky low attack to catch them off guard, and put myself in a more advantageous position.

And that’s just one use of the technique. For three bars of your Drive meter, you can use a Drive Rush to cancel