Home

 › 

Articles

 › 

Details Revealed for Street Fighter V

Details Revealed for Street Fighter V

Last week, we posted a speculation piece based on the Street Fighter V gameplay trailer. However, this weekend, Capcom decided to have a stage demo of the game at the Capcom Cup, and it shed some more light on how the game actually works. Of course, bear in mind that this is still a game that is in pre-pre-pre-pre  alpha, with only two characters that still have unfinished move sets and a system that hasn’t been hammered out yet. So all of this can change before the official release, but at least it gives you an idea for what Capcom is thinking.

The first thing that you’ll notice is that the game is a LOT faster than Street Fighter IV. Aerial options are greatly increased and it looks like air combos, link combos, chain combos, and many other combo paths will be available. As we said in our trailer rundown, it appears as if the game has special hit-states, like spin-outs, and ground bounces, very much like Street Fighter X Tekken. Another special hit state was shown in the stage demo, ground-spin, which causes someone to get hit so hard they spin in place on their feet. It’s basically a very prolonged hit-stun state that allows you to follow up with whatever move you like, opening up combo possibilities. It appears to be caused by counter-hits when slow moves are involved, like a counter hit standing fierce.

Once again, it appears as if there are two meters in the game, the super meter and the revenge bar, which oddly enough was what the Ultra bar in Street Fighter IV’s early demos was called. What’s interesting to note, is that super meters can be of varying lengths, like in Street Fighter III: Third Strike. In the stage demo we saw that Ryu only had two stocks of super meter before it filled, and Chun-Li had three. We would have thought that some sort of super move would be tied to bar length, but throughout the entire stage demo we did not see any character use a super.

Instead, when the bar was full, we saw a brand new use for meter, activating each character’s powered-up mode. We saw this mode in the trailer. When you activate it, time stops for a second, and a new effect is added to character’s attacks; electricity for Ryu and water for Chun-Li. Chun-Li’s longer bar activated a mode where each move she used came out as an EX move for a limited amount of time. Ryu’s shorter bar, however, activated a mode where only his next attack had electric properties. If he got hit before he threw an attack, the mode would be canceled. Still, this was very powerful as it appears as if Ryu’s electric moves break through guards! With his shorter bar, he gets to use this power more often, but he also has to make each activation count. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a bar that shows how long these activations will last…yet. I’d wager that U.I. element will be added in later revisions.

Aside from these new powered-up modes, characters could spend one level of bar on an EX move as per normal. In addition, characters still appear to have focus attacks, but just how they operate is uncertain. We only see Chun-Li do one, and she does it in the middle of a combo when her elemental power-up is activated. It appears as if she can use it for free, canceling out of a move and causing a crumple state, but I’m sure the mechanics are much more complex than that.

Details Revealed for Street Fighter V

The revenge bar seemed to operate exactly like ultras do in Ultra Street Fighter IV, with a couple exceptions. First of all, these new revenge based supers can be canceled out of normal moves, something that Ultras could not do in USIV. Secondly, these revenge moves can be powered up just like a character’s supers can. This is what causes Ryu’s Shinkuu Hadoken to become the unblockable Denjin Hadoken. For Chun-Li, it appears as if it causes a launcher to be added on to the end of her revenge move, letting her follow up with an air-combo.

In the trailer, we saw stage transitions as well. This occurs when a powerful knockback happens at the edge of certain stages. These knockbacks cannot just be from a simple move. They usually have to be triggered by a super or an ex move of some sort. When the transition happens, the old portion of the stage is still accessible, basically creating an extra wide stage and making corner pressure harder to keep up.

At certain edges of the stage, players can trigger cinematic finisher scenes as well. For example, Ryu used his Shinku Hadoken to blast Chun-Li into a kitchen, making noodles fall on her head. These noodles stayed there for the rest of the match. There doesn’t appear to be a mechanical effect to this, just a bit of embarrassment for your opponent.

A lot of old mechanics will be returning as well. Stun, for example, is making a return. It appears as if the same normal from Ultra Street Fighter IV can be special canceled. Throws are coming back, of course, but we aren’t sure if they will be executed with either forward and heavy or pressing both light attacks. Also, as I said before, we can assume that supers will be returning, but we haven’t seen them executed yet.

What do you think? Were there any other mechanics you noticed from the Capcom Cup stage demo? Let us know in the comments.

To top