Street Fighter X Tekken

If you followed this game it was near impossible to not be disappointed. It did suck at launch with a pre-release cycle that seemed to try its best to make it look lame, the whole gem system with “pay to win” gems, the Sony guest characters - and the still baffling choice to keep Pac-Man and Mega Man as PS3 / Vita exclusives – leaving the XBox with less overall content, and DLC characters 99% complete on disc that could be accessed by removing two lines of code. It was a total clusterfuck of a rushed game. Also their decision to focus on Games For Windows Live has made the STEAM version virtually unplayable without modding after GFWL shut down which is extra salt in the wound a decade later.

My shameful secret is I always loved this game, and still do.

Keep in mind this is for the Ver. 2013 update, which made much needed global changes such as the timer, throws being faster, overall speed, nerfing rolls and removing the option for some characters to hit confirm into a combo after a Cross Cancel / Alpha Counter (trust me, if you weren't there at launch this shit was nuts lmao). These small changes make the entire game feel so much tighter, which is a blessing for a system as good as this. No, I am not joking. I love how this game plays. This is what Street Fighter V tried to do with Crush Counters, but the way the game gives you freedom to chain attacks and Launch to get your next character in, getting a juggle that you can tag in your other character and get them in a move that locks them in place allowing you to get your first character back in, etc., is so much more creative than SF V's “now do the combo we designed your character to do in this specific scenario or else anything else it worthless” that drove the setplay for that game. This is a much better way to promote footsies and when you get it from your counter poke, it also promotes different ways to capitalize on the moment. You could just hit confirm into your super for the damage, but more often than not, that's the least helpful thing you can do. You can drive your opponent into the corner, get out of the corner yourself, provide a set up for a safe jump, chain into your launcher to get your counterpick in, there's so much to do and it's rarely the same answer twice of your opponent also knows how to play. Not only is it fun to really experiment with different characters for synergy in these situations, it fundamentally helps you understand the game better.

Personally it's the juggle state that really sells it for me. There are few things as fun as clipping your opponent's hurtbox with an anti air on the counter hit and getting a full combo punish. This is another way the game promotes footies in a genius way, jumps are not safe. It's very Street Fighter Alpha / Zero 2 that way. While both SF IV and V promote jumping in, this game promotes the opposite, and being that SF IV was the first time “taking a fighting game seriously” I suppose I can see why so many people were turned off as this game really hates you for trying to play it like SF IV.

Pandora and Gems are non-issues imo. No one uses Pandora because, well, it fucking sucks. Gems ended up not being the game breaking get out of jail free card that people feared, but they're still stupid. I don't think there's a SFxT player who would disagree with either of these. The music is also way more inconsistent than SF IV, which is quite the accomplishment because there is basically no cohesion with trying to make any of the character themes sound like they're in the same game, but the highs of this OST outweight the highs of SF IV as a whole for me. The Pitstop 109 stage themes' weird talk box and Happy Hardcore inspired 8bit arps in particular have stuck in my head for a decade. Models are also stand out when they are bad. Most of the Tekken cast look fine, but Heihachi and Kuma look way too cartoonish and of course Ogre is just green Seth and looks nothing like Ogre. I also wish they went with Tekken 4 or 6 Yoshimitsu, but that was never going to happen.
Aside from a few personal picks that would only please me this is one of the best “greatest hits” rosters in crossover game history. It's a great mix of Tekken staples with some new blood and the reintroduction of Hugo along with the playable introduction of Poison in Street Fighter proper was much appreciated. I wish there were more callbacks, but SF IV already had pretty much all the most popular characters people wanted so you can't complain that much. I do think Karin should have been Sakura's partner over Blanka to mirror Asuka and Lili's dynamic as Karin would have fit in perfectly with this game over SF V. The battle director also really wanted Jun Kazama from Tekken, that would have been a much appreciated deep cut, but I respect their decision to respect Tekken lore too. It sucks that so many of the Tekken character's movesets are so distinctly tied to them because I would have loved if we could have gotten some expy's or spiritual successors in the form of new characters in core Street Fighter games. You may be able to get away with it for someone like Hwoarang or Raven who had a lot made up for the game anyway, but for my guy Kazuya? Forget about it, there's no way you could even try to make EWGF on a character and not have people go “that's just an EWGF,” which is a shame because I genuinely think Kazuya in this game is one of the most fun movesets in a Street Fighter game.

No, Tekken x Street Fighter is not happening. Is it because of this game's failure? Yes, but I don't believe it's solely because of it. We knew that they were focusing on the start of Tekken 7 during this time and that was going to be the main focus until it was finished, but Tekken 7's shelf life was much longer than anyone at Bamco expected. Couple in characters like Eliza and Akuma were experiments for how traditional inputs, fireballs, etc., would work in the 3D space and Tekken fans kind of just decided they hated it as a whole. It's mostly this latter point that killed real interest in Tekken x Street Fighter I think: take an aspect of your game that people hated and make it the full game. Not worth the effort.

I have been playing this nearly a decade and didn't want to rate it until I felt I had enough to say about it here, and with COVID slowing down here and ranbatts coming back, it was the perfect time to put serious time into it again. I cannot blame anyone for never giving this the time of day, but with only the hardcore scene still playing it, there are some amazing things waiting for people who take the time.
Also I'm from the Bay Area, so take that as you will lol.

Street Fighter X (pronounced 'Cross') Tekken is a fighting game using characters from the Street Fighter and Tekken series. Obviously not everyone was included, but it is an impressive roster nether-the-less. Graphically, it looks like Street Fighter 4, but having not played that game, I can't say how close the fighting aspect is. It did remind me more of Marvel Vs Capcom 3, with the cross gauge, and tag team style fighting. The pace of the game is slower but still fast enough to create exciting matches.

The moves are mainly pretty easy to pull off, and if you are used to performing Shoryuken and Hadoukens; you will be in good stead. You can learn the techniques and battle mechanics in the Tutorial mode, and learn the moves in Trial mode. The tutorial introduces you to all the techniques such as tagging out using the Medium Punch and Medium Kick buttons together, and performing launchers either by chaining 3 punches/kicks together (technically a 'Boost Combo', or by pressing Hard Punch and Hard Kick together. Using launchers allows you carry out a combo as you switch characters which is safer than just switching out on its own.

Each character has a special move which can be made more powerful using the Cross Gauge. Using 1 part of the Cross Gauge makes the special move an 'Ex Special' and using 2 parts of the Cross Gauge creates a 'Super Art'. The special move can be charged by holding down the buttons which bypasses the cost of the Cross Gauge but leaves you vulnerable as you charge up so becomes tricky to do.

Many recent fighting games have offered an increased attack for losing teams (like 'Rage' in Mortal Kombat vs DC, or Tekken 6), and in this game, you have Pandora. The good thing about Pandora is that it becomes a big gamble but if the battle looks like there is only one outcome; it's worth using. When your fighter has 25% health or under, pressing down, down, then tag (Medium Punch and Medium Kick) will knock out your character, and your tagged-in character will have stronger attack, regenerating health, and regenerating Cross Gauge. The catch is, there is only 5 seconds to knock out the opponent, or else your character will be knocked out and you lose the round.

To win a round, you only need to knock out one of the characters rather than both fighters in the team. It would have been a nice addition if you could modify this option though. If the timer runs out, the victor is decided based on the total HP left but even the maximum time feels a bit strict so I usually disabled the timer.

You can pick any combination of fighter you want, but only the set partners have a distinct story. Additionally, there are separate stories for Akuma and Ogre who aren't assigned a partner because these two are the games' boss characters. The story is about the mysterious cube called Pandora which is rumoured to be a very powerful artefact that has crashed like a comet into Antarctica. Shadaloo and Mishima Zaibatsu set out to claim it.

There are many difficulties to choose from and I found 'Medium-Hard' was a decent challenge, with the boss fight been tough, especially Akuma who uses the usual tricks of spamming Hadouken from range, forcing you to jump towards him so he can then give the good old Shoryuken. He also seemed very agile and used his Cross Gauge perfectly, unleashing a Super Art when you think you are close to winning. Ogre on the other hand, seemed a much fairer player, and so choosing a Street Fighter character as your primary player seemed the easier option so you can always face Ogre. The teams that you face leading up to the boss are the predefined teams so if you face Ryu, he will always be alongside Ken. Again, it would be nice to customise this feature and define custom partners, or have random partners each time.

A complaint for most people is the games Gem system. Gems allow your character to have improved statistics, given that certain criteria are met during the round, and these will automatically activate. There are gems that boost speed, attack, defence, cross gauge or even make moves easier. You can create multiple sets for each character and can even choose no gems, but the trouble is; you cannot disable the computer from using them.

Overall, Street Fighter X Tekken is a great fighting game, but it would have been better if you had more customisation when it comes to gems, partners, and victory conditions.

Guh. Look, I'm not somebody that goes in for any kind of 'it was all better in the old days' bullshit in any medium, and it specially rankles when people pull it with gaming, but this game really made me wish fighting games hadn't progressed the way they have since the mid-'90s.

I've never really been big on fighting games in general anyway, but Tekken 2 [鉄拳2] took an absolute hammering off me in the PS1 days, and I have occasional fond memories of playing the first couple of console Street Fighter games around various other people's houses as a kid. Hell, even though I owned neither and only played them with other people, I was pretty great at Dead or Alive (as was anybody that could counter properly, in fairness) and enjoyed SoulCalibur II and 3 a lot as well. But it feels like since then, fighting games have been pushing down a road that has made them more and more needlessly complicated, and more and more demanding at the expense of simple fun. Because that's what these games were, right? There's no doubt that skill could be involved depending on the people you were with, but you could quite happily switch off and mash some buttons if you wanted to. Street Fighter in particular was a late-night post-pub classic, and there's much to be said for that.

That's what drew me to this game when it became free on PS Plus - fond memories, and the idea that the franchises might have stuck to what made them great in the first place. No such luck.

Street Fighter X Tekken has a tutorial mode, which handily outlines most of the game's flaws from the off. It has, for one thing, 30 steps. These 30 steps go right from insulting (did you know you can kick people? And wow, you can also punch them!) to bewildering, as Super Arts, Gems, EX Attacks, Cancels, Switch Cancels, Cross Gauges, Pandora Mode, and more are all introduced. If you'd asked me at the end of the tutorial what any of that meant, I wouldn't have been able to tell you - I wasn't sure what the hell I'd just played through or why any of it was relevant. I've played 100-hour RPGs that spend less time explaining the game mechanics and been less confusing. Why does a fighting game need this many features? Surely, if all of this had existed in the first two Street Fighter games, the series would never have got off the ground?

Things get worse when you realize that there's no 1v1 mode, and every battle has to involve tag teams. Oh, and the button to tag out sometimes doesn't work because it's also an attack button, because everything on the damn controller is an attack button. Unsurprisingly, this makes learning to properly block, counter, or tag out a faintly depressing process. We're compensated for this by being able to amass in-game collectables and customize the colour of our characters' clothes though, so hooray! Everybody cares about features like that.

I just don't get why you'd fuck so badly with a perfect formula. I also don't really understand why lessons haven't been learned from other franchises that have done this right - the recent Mortal Kombat on the Vita made itself more complicated in a number of ways, all of them either incidental to the gameplay itself (a lengthy, well-developed, well-executed story mode) or effectively sandboxed within the game (the tower mini-games, which could easily be totally ignored but were a very smart way to diversify the gameplay and take advantage of the Vita's features). Even the collectables bit wasn't totally awful, with the graveyard mechanic turning the whole thing into a lottery. It's a great model of how classic '80s and '90s fighting games can drag themselves into the new millennium without losing their personality. Street Fighter X Tekken, on the other hand, ranks as a great example of how not to do it. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who play fighting games all the time and who have been crying out for something as complex as this so they can really test their skills against other great players online, but I am the 99%, and I hate what they've done to a couple of games I used to adore.