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So, I was lucky enough to experience the Street Fighter 6 Beta Test last weekend and all I have to say is wow. Street Fighter 6 is honestly shaping up to rival Street Fighter 2 as the best iteration of this beloved franchise.
Street Fighter 6 Beta Test
So, the Street Fighter 6 Beta Test only provided access to The Hub. While this meant the arcade mode and story mode were locked, I was able to experience the online multiplayer element. The Hub allows you to run around, customise your avatar and take a seat at an arcade machine to fight. The fights can either be standard or with some unique rules and modes. Either way, you’ll be fighting against players from all over the world (that connect to the same server as you).
The fights work precisely as you would expect – you play as your selected character (for me that’s always Chun-Li) and battle for victory. The controls haven’t changed since my experience with the game at EGX 2022 and felt as smooth now as they did then. You can pick classic controls with the expected button combos to perform moves or a simplified modern approach that requires less memory to master!
When you first sit at a machine, you’re provided with a tutorial so you can learn the basics and then the real fun begins. Playing against opponents, or spectating other people’s matches, it’s all visually exciting and colourful to look at. Graphically, Street Fighter 6 is stunning to look at and the character models really do look spectacular.
What I Loved
The music, the visuals, it’s all fantastic. What blew me away early on though was the avatar customisation screen. Every single feature, detail, and aspect can be changed, altered, and configured. Want to alter your eyebrows? You can. How about eyes? Well, there’s 38 different eye styles (yes, I counted!). scars, body type everything. Want to look like a body-building Santa? Well as the picture below shows… that’s doable too. When the game launches, I can see myself spending an incredibly long time making my avatar before I even start a single match.
Another great feature that was showcased in the Street Fighter 6 Beta Test was cross-play. This is cool if you have friends playing on different platforms. Worried that one platform may have an advantage? Well, this didn’t seem the case during my play session, but you can select ‘platform only’.
What Will Hopefully be Improved
I only experienced a couple of things I would nit-pick. Firstly, there were a few server connection errors. While I put this down to the fact that this was a beta test, I hope server stability is improved.
Secondly, I wish there were options to redesign your avatar, while the customisation is vast, it was a little daunting but sadly there didn’t seem to be a way to do that. Finally, it would have been nice to go back into the tutorial for a refresh every so often!
I don’t know if these features will be added to The Hub, but I do hope these are features that get included in the final build.
Conclusion
Street Fighter 6 is gearing up to be an exciting new installment of one of the greatest fighting game franchises. If the Street Fighter 6 Beta Test experience is anything to go on, it’s going to be huge. Online play, cross-play, story mode, more casual gaming, and the greatest avatar customisation I’ve seen in a while.
For more information, check out the official website!
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