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In the incredibly rare circumstance that you might have had a Kinder Egg as a kid, was the toy ever your favourite part? It sure wasn’t for me. I was all about the chocolate. Sure, I’d crack open the yellow canister inside, let out some variation of, “Oh, an elephant!”, and promptly toss it in the bin and walk away, its destiny consigned to landfill. In the landfill of my brain, I’m currently carving out new space forStreet Fighter 6’s World Tour mode. It’s available to try now indemo form on PC and consoles, but I’ve been able to play a larger build of it that covered the first two chapters. Sadly, I can’t say it left much of impression.
Street Fighter 6 - World Tour Gameplay & Avatar Battle TrailerWatch on YouTube
Street Fighter 6 - World Tour Gameplay & Avatar Battle Trailer
In its defence, a good character creator is always hard to resist. World Tour lets you go buck wild with your fighting avatar. You can give them a massive dump truck. You can make their head big and the rest of their body tiny, so that the proportions look all wrong. If you’re after something more subtle, you can just give a normal dude unusually large hands, and giggle as they fail to act cool in the cutscenes to come. I had fun with this part, the people on the Street Fighter Redditarehavingfunwith this part too, it seems. It’s a good, silly time. The ability to share the exact settings for your design means you could also make something memey, such as perennial classic Shrek, and then share it online so that your pals can also make Shrek.
When you’ve finished making your monstrosity, you head into a quick tutorial dojo section before being thrown out onto the streets of Metro City. Here, your goal becomes clear. You need to getmighty, to becomestrong, and so on. Your journey to become a beefcake sends you around the world looking for renowned fighters. The public demo lets you meet Luke, but the next hour or so of our preview also introduced us to Chun-Li in Chapter 2. As you meet new characters, you get access to their moves and fighting styles, which you can then mix and match to create a unique blend of yer own Hadoukens and Spinning Bird Kicks and the like.
You can mix up your moveset at any time to experiment with new styles you learn throughout World Tour.
World Tour lets you shape your fighters style and that freedom is nice, but in practice most of the movesets I came up with felt sluggish and lethargic. I’m not a Street Fighter designer, and any moves I chucked together always seemed to feel clunky as a pair. For me, the fun of Street Fighter is all about learning intricate combos for specific characters. World Tour feels like the antithesis of that. I’d much rather just learn how to use Ryu and hop into Versus or go online for some fights, with the fluff removed.
And when I did get time to try those classic modes, such as Versus and Arcade, I had a great time. Street Fighter 6 feels flashy in the best way, filling stages with colour as you perform powerful combos that feel ripped straight out of your favourite anime. AsEdandKatharinetouched on before in previous previews, the new Modern control scheme gives those who find learning combos too difficult a way to access the game in a more simplified way that’s more akin to Smash Bros, making it far more approachable.
Give me Ryu, or give me death.
Metro City, though, is packed with filler. Sure, there are fights to be had. Lots of them! Almost everyone wants to fight. Hilda is making her way to the office in the morning? She’ll smash your face in first, mate. Challenge Bob and he might start chucking knives your way. Knives! Metro City has a serious crime issue, because there’s a big leap from a friendly morning spar to chucking sharp objects at your opponent. But even when Bob’s pelting blades your way, it doesn’t really feel special. I’d much rather have an epic fight with Ryu or Blanka than brawl outside a coffee shop with Karen.
You can use special moves while exploring to e.g. pop a balloon with an uppercut.
There are also gang members everywhere, all of whom wear cubic objects on their head such as a cardboard box or a CRT TV. While most people offer 1v1 duels, the gang members often come at you in groups of two or three,Yakuza-style. However, there’s none of the drama or style ofYakuzain these group fights. They lose the tense challenge of a traditional Street Fighter battle, and they quickly got quite tedious and frustrating.
You even have a Pokemon-esque rival called Bosch, who is often quite angry.
