It also needs to have great online - and it does. Every character has a niche, and there’s somebody for everyone. Street Fighter V needs to be balanced in order to support those ambitions, and it is – its sixteen-strong cast is one of the most carefully balanced and diverse I’ve ever seen in fighting games. SF5 feels like a meticulously built machine, with each of its core mechanics interlocking to create an incredibly cohesive and satisfying whole.īehind all this is the backdrop of Capcom’s eSports ambitions, personified in the $500,000 Capcom Cup.

Most fighting games have tier lists, but the game feels balanced to the extreme, and Capcom’s promise of ongoing balance changes means that if something broken does emerge, it’ll be taken care of. Even as somebody has been a fighting game devotee for years, I think simplifying the game in this way actually appeals to its strengths and improves it. This is a welcome addition, and for any PC gamers who’ve felt daunted by a genre they’ve never really experienced before, this all makes sense. Street Fighter is like chess, and is about strategy, they say, and so they want to remove artificial barriers to success such as obscure inputs. Special move inputs have been made simpler and combos have been made easier to execute, Capcom’s thinking being that having the fastest fingers or the best muscle memory shouldn’t necessarily make you the best player. Behind this is also a game that has in a sense taken on the philosophy of less being more.

Street fighter 5 pc keyboard controls