Street Fighter X Tekken
Preview
Revolutionizing the fighting genre
by Liam Edwards
previewed on X360
A history of fighting
Since the release of Street Fighter IV back in February 2009, the fighting genre is something I have been heavily involved in. I caught the brawling bug on the release of SFIV and with it, many hours spent playing with friends, learning combos and scouring websites for tips and information became a staple part of my first two years of University. It was addictive and hours spent in training mode completing combos over and over again became a daily ritual, practise alone would take much of a day from you. I loved it, and I feel deeply in love with the competitive nature of the fighting game scene and also the inventiveness of other players. There was always something new to learn and good players were always finding out new exploits and new ways to play, there was always something fresh with these types of games.
Since the 2009 release, we have seen three new iterations of Street Fighter IV and many other fighting game titles spawn from the top fighting game developers CAPCOM, Namco, and Arc Systems. The fighting game community has been revived and fighting game streams, tournaments and websites have millions of visitors daily thanks to this recent surge in interest. It would be stupid to pin-point SFIV as the catalyst for this massive reboot of the genre, but it certainly helped and with it, the community grew. With new technologies, streams of tournaments and high-level play, the competitive nature of fighting games became very popular and helped the genre reach more players. This helped with the surge of fighting game titles on the market today with many old franchises such as Mortal Kombat and Marvel vs. Capcom having new editions because of the large player base now.
Crossover Heaven
Crossover titles aren’t new to the genre but every announcement is welcomed with surprise. Marvel vs Capcom 3 was last year's big fighting game release and was a welcome entry into the crossover genre. But even with 2011 featuring Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, all people really wanted to know was information about Street Fighter X Tekken; a crossover made in fighting heaven. Announced back at GamesCom 2010, Street Fighter X Tekken and Tekken X Street Fighter was a crossover series nobody expected. Surprised fighting game fans were either in awe and excitement at the announcement of the two companies Capcom and Namco’s willingness to work together, or angry as fanboys of both series hit the Internet to spill out their dismay that their favourite fighter was to be paired with its arch nemesis series.
Through the past year we have been treated to character reveals and some fantastic CGI trailers promoting the game and with its impending release in March, is Street Fighter X Tekken going to be the next big important title in the genre? Capcom would like to think so. With the projected sales report being claimed as 2 million copies sold by the 31st March, Capcom are hoping that this is another title the fighting community embraces and with it, use their overwhelming power of persuasion on the rest of the player base to state that this is the next big thing. Many of the professional e-sport players who play fighting games at the highest level have already commented on how Street Fighter X Tekken is going to be one of the biggest fighting game titles ever. With such a large coming together of the two biggest fighting game communities, Street Fighter X Tekken is certainly a title with an already large demographic of gamers waiting to get their hands on it. With the combination of loved characters from both series, it is a fighting game fans dream line-up. But is it a title that even casual fighting game players are going to like?
