Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition (PlayStation 4) Review

Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition is quite an odd release. It promotes itself as the most up to date version of SFV so far, but everything that is on the disc (or in the digital download) is available to all original SFV owners anyway, since all future patches and game modes are continually added to the game as free updates. Aside from including all season 1 and 2 characters (which still need to be bought for regular SFV owners), this is certainly not some sort of ultimate version of everything the title has to offer in terms of DLC up to this point in time, so potential buyers may want to consider their approach.

To cover what has been added alongside the Arcade Edition, as the name suggests, a proper arcade mode is now available - something that should have been there from day one, and is remarkable that has taken two years to arrive - but with the ability to work through six different paths based on each mainline entry in the series, from Street Fighter I, right through to Street Fighter V, and including Street Fighter Alpha. Only certain characters can be chosen to play through each arcade, depending on the titles they have appeared in, so whilst Ryu and Ken are selectable in all paths, Sakura can only be picked in Alpha, SFIV and SFV. With varying numbers of battles per path, multiple unlockable artworks for every character through completion and other means (e.g. winning on certain difficulties, defeating the extra challengers), and the return of the barrel breaking bonus stage, the arcade mode in itself is loaded with replayability. The feature SFV needed the most has definitely received due respect.

As far as other modes, Team Battle is a great little tournament-like mode that can work in various ways. Picking up to five characters for both teams, you can face off in an elimination or best of series, with the winning fighter remaining on the floor to take on the next challenger on the team in the case of the former, or stepping back so that the next character takes on the other team’s opposite number. In essence, it can allow for more than two players to take part, with each taking the control of different combatants for a fun mini tournament. A big-headed veteran might fancy the elimination format and prospect of taking down multiple rivals for a bit of schooling.

Perhaps the main complaint of Team Battle is that it isn’t quite so snappy between each bout. Although it does give the chance for players to move around and swap the controller over, the momentum is lost with the wait times after rounds, contrasting the same mode featured in Dead or Alive 5 Last Round, where the next combatant literally jumps into the arena as soon as their team member is KO’d.

Sadly, the long load times are a constant of SFV, so nothing has changed from its original edition, and are felt heavily in arcade mode and when loading up online matches. For all the things Capcom may be doing with this game, reducing load times doesn’t seem to be one of them.

The one other main new mode is Extra Battle. This is an attempt to drive players to gamble their fight money away into winning either more fight money or special costumes. It’s a sneaky ploy from Capcom, since the developer has changed the way in which FM is earned - and the reason for that should be pretty obvious: to get you to spend real money. FM is Capcom’s way of allowing players to purchase DLC using the in-game currency, which used to be earned from doing anything from completing character stories and survival modes, to viewing move demonstrations. Now, though, FM is only earned from levelling up a character with experience points, which are gained easily enough at first through the aforementioned modes, but will soon come down to playing and winning online - which isn’t great for anyone not too skilled at defeating others in ranked.

That’s where Extra Battle is supposed to now come in. Every few weeks, special AI opponents can be challenged at the cost of FM, with the potential to earn double your money or better. Whilst they come in varying difficulties, given that this is an AI that can and does read your inputs, it can be tough to defeat some of these challengers. Granted, the first few Extra Battle fights have been doable for the most part, but if you aren’t up to snuff in your SFV skills and get some bad luck with the all-seeing AI, you might end up losing more FM than you’ll be making it.

Extra Battles also come in the form of winnable crossover costumes each month, staging four different bouts that all need to be won during the brief periods they are online for. If successful in each fight first time, it can cost about 10,000FM for these special outfits, with the first one that has passed being a Viewtiful Joe getup for Rashid.

Good value in the end, but the gamble mechanic all around is not something to be celebrated, and it is easy to see just why this has been done. Once all options are exhausted at quickly levelling characters up, it falls to winning online matches and gambling away in Extra Battles. Capcom clearly wants people spending real money instead of FM, otherwise there would be no reason to drastically change how FM is earned. The weekly challenges can’t always be highlighted positively, either, when some require winning multiple online ranked matches to achieve the highest prize money. Great for the skilled player, but not so much for the less so.

To continue with what else is new with this latest update, every character now has a second V-Trigger that can be chosen before a match, altering gameplay to the extent that characters can be played quite differently to before, throwing in entirely fresh combo options and approaches to fights. Training mode now also features save states and colour coding to help with visualising frame advantage. Whilst the tutorials and demonstrations could still use work in terms of helping out less familiar fighting game players, benefits to the training side of things are always appreciated.

This leads into what is actually included as part of this new release. All of the aforementioned content comes free for all owners of the vanilla SFV game. One would expect that Arcade Edition has something of its own to offer, no? Well, the answer may not be the most satisfying.

Make sure you are fully aware: Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition is not a packaged version of all extra content released so far. Expect to see all DLC costumes and stages released up until this point still locked down and awaiting purchase - some of which cannot be bought at all with FM and require real money. However, as far as characters go, the season 1 and 2 fighters are included, although the retail disc copy of Arcade Edition comes with a DLC code that unlocks them. Yes, a download code. The DLC characters aren’t even on the disc, so buyers of pre-owned games beware: it is entirely possible that you won’t get those characters unless the code is still unused. Otherwise, it is down to buying the season passes or characters individually, or grinding for FM to pin them down.

Given that the season 3 characters are a separate purchase and don’t come included unless buying a bundled download version of the game, there is nothing here for current SFV owners who already own the previous character packs. Those that don’t have season packs 1 and 2 will find a purchase of Arcade Edition is only worthwhile if they can get it cheaper than buying the two passes separately.

What can definitely be praised is the variety of characters Capcom has been steadily introducing to the title over time. The team hasn’t been afraid to experiment with both old and new characters, as seen from the humongous Abigail and mesmerising Menat. The return of Blanka in season 3, who can be played very much like old-timers will remember him, and Sakura, who has undergone some changes both in story and gameplay to keep things fresh, has satiated that lust for old favourites, with more on the way in the coming months. With a roster that will soon expand to 34, it is exciting seeing where Capcom is taking each character.