Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Street Fighter X Tekken Review




Street Fighter X Tekken

Let the bodies hit the floor! Let the bodies hit the floor! Let the ... oh, sorry my fine chaps. Just remembering playing the game with my own soundtrack in my head. Getting in more depth with Street Fighter X Tekken for the 360,  since my first few plays at a few Capcom events with a none joystick controller made it easier to understand the game.

This is a tag tournament fighter with some insane cross character meet-ups from both franchises. You can pick any two characters to team-up, but everyone has a special partner they were  designed for. There right next to each other on the select screen so it' not hard to figure out who should team up. Why certain people were chosen to team-up I don't know. Some fit together to me some don't, but in the end you can choose whoever you want.

This isn't a all directional fighter, your on a 2D field and it plays like Street Fighter, hence Street Fighter being first. If you like Tekken style game-play like I do you'll have to wait for the reverse of the series being put out by Namco, Tekken X Street Fighter.

For some reason when you start up the game the announcer goes Street Fighter Cross Tekken, but when I've heard it the games name spoken out loud at events no one's referred to it that way once.

Once or very few times is all you need to learn the basic controls of the series. Each of the four colored buttons corresponds to light and strong punches and light and strong kicks. Then you have your trigger and shoulder buttons that just pull off the same things. Tapping down on your joysticks allows you to unleash one of your super moves or combos. I feel like a button that does a combo for you is kind of like cheating.

You"ll also be able to do powered up attacks, which might be hard to pull off , because you have to power up and not get hit and team-up attacks which including having your partner controlled by CGI onscreen as the same time as you for a limited time, it's called a Cross Assault. Then you could do Cross arts which is like a tag team combo where one fighter beats a player into the other with super moves

Assist Gem are new feature in the game, their like the cards that just came with Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom. They have multiple ways to power you up, like raising defense or attack or having instant block. For younger fighters or casual players the gems can also make pulling of moves easier, which is kind of odd to me since Street Fighter and Tekken and almost every fighter is pulling of moves by learning how to do them. Now you can learn the easy and super easy way? Possibly for more advanced fighter the Gem System might be fun, but I don't care for it.

Punch, kick, jump it's all there and I can say I do enjoy it. The last game I saw 4 player tag team battle was Mortal Kombat and I am looking forward to battling three other friends over a weekend. This means four controllers for four real people. Sadly, you can't seam to bring a friend with you online from what I've read, maybe they'll patch that. The game plays like Street Fighter so if you know the series your fine in enjoying. I found myself trying all the different characters and trying to knock out as many different other fighters as possible.

Graphics look fine, as does Cammy and all the other female fighters. As I've written previously, the backgrounds inspired by different Namco and Capcom games have been praised at every event. Capcom/ Namco might want to consider just making some themes for the PS3 and Xbox. If it isn't a dinosaur level it's Space Bridge. The characters pull off some hilarious beatings, by sticking out their tongues. You feel their pain and laugh at them. I still want a gallery of tongues sticking out from this game. Visuals from super moves always look good, I don't know what to call the energy that comes off of them when special hits happen, but it looks marvelous. I hope one day Capcom considers doing a more ink splatter effect they were showing off in commercials for the last Street Fighter game, that would look amazing. For some reason, all the fighters hand or upper arms look huge. They all have giant hands, even the ladies. Everyone seems bulky, there isn't really a light weight person in the game, even Dhalism, looks like he should hit the gym more,

Games story doesn't matter like any fighting game. If you've ever seen Tekken's fighters endings or any Capcom ending from a fighter you know they're just for fun. One strange aspect is the cut scenes don't use the same character models, but smooth models that remind me of what's in  Udon's books and special art books for the Street Fighter series.

The game could take some time to master and for the hardcore fighter players you'll enjoy it and for the rookies you'll enjoy playing it with your friends. Street Fighter and Tekken's sense of humor shines through with some oddball cut scenes and just some bizarre sens of humor during game play.

As for the DLC, I'm still not happy about it already being on the disc and the exclusivity of Mega Man and other characters. Capcom has stated there will not be another version of the game that incorporates them, so you'll have to buy them online. I'd rather you'd unlock them and the other costumes like the way it was, but it seems many game companies aren't doing that anymore.

So smash, bash and kick people in the nuts with the fighters you got with this Frankenstein of multiple characters vying for some unknown power source called Pandora for no reason. Really it should have just been a challenge where Street Fighters called Tekken fighters wussies. I do know you shouldn't see either live action movie based on each series. Don't get me started of King of Fighters live action.

Last thought, I want to play as Mecha-Zangief!

The  video game was provided by the publisher for review.