If you saw me at a fighting game event, it wouldn’t be in the main hall watching Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, or Mortal Kombat 1 finals. Instead, I’d be getting in games of Street Fighter: the Movie or Survival Arts in the BYOC area. That being said, I do play all of the popular games from time to time. Every few years, I consider picking up one of the “big three” to see what is happening on the other side of the tracks, but more often than not, I’m playing these games years after their heyday has come and gone. This last release cycle was one where I felt compelled to jump on board with all the normies on day 1.
Given my preference for Tekken 7 over Mortal Kombat 11 and Street Fighter V, I was surprised to find myself excited when the Mortal Kombat 1 trailer initially dropped. It seemed like a return to the pre-MKX area of silliness and fun combos with a welcome influx of brightness and color that had been lacking in previous titles of the NRS era. Kameo fighters were especially intriguing to me, given that similar tag-style modes had been available in other games, but had never been given their time to shine.
Tekken 8 lost my interest from the get-go with Paul Phoenix’s redesign, the introduction of the Heat system, and the addition of exploding walls, something I thought was stupid in Dead or Alive decades ago. I couldn’t take the Heat Dash animation seriously, which served a death blow to my intentions of buying into the newest version of Tekken before it was released.
Capcom metaphorically said “wait, hold my beer” by releasing Luke as part of the last DLC package for Street Fighter V in an attempt to build interest (or acceptance) to his involvement in the sequel. They lost my money before work had even finished on the latest Street Fighter, largely due to the design of their latest “white guy doing martial arts” that they slapped on the cover to attract folks who watch UFC and listen to Joe Rogan.
Initially, I was pretty happy playing Mortal Kombat and ignoring the more vocal parts of the community whinging about the lack of singleplayer features, kameo fighters, and changes to the storyline. Then Khaos Reigns dropped.
Oof.
In total, I spent $70 for the base game and then $40 for the first Kombat Pack then $40 for Khaos Reigns… twice. Once for my PS5 and again for my PC once I had a good enough gaming laptop to play it. Little did I know that Khaos Reigns would introduce several hiccups into its performance on my laptop (and some of my friends’) such that gameplay was unplayable. I waited months before giving up and removing the bloated 155 GB slab of crap from my harddrive.
I still play Mortal Kombat 1 from time to time on my PS5, but I feel like I’ve gotten my fair share out of that version. It’s a great game, but it’s not a great product and never was, making it hard to recommend to others.
Now, I’m watching what’s happening over in the Tekken 8 community and can’t help but compare it to the many mistakes made by Netherrealm Studios over the last few years. Both games aimed to change their own formulas significantly and caught flak for it, never seeming to get away from a cloud of negativity that haunts them.
Then there’s Street Fighter VI. Capcom’s worst crime this time around is asking players to embrace a Jake Paul-lookalike as the new face of Street Fighter. This is a far cry from shipping Root Kits with updates to Street Fighter V.
I don’t particularly like the concept of Drive Rush or Burnout, but I do wish I had skipped Mortal Kombat 1 last year, saved $200 and bought Street Fighter 6 for PS5 instead. I could have been going to my local, Button Club, each week and competing in a game that everyone else wants to play. I could have bought two other copies of the game for friends with the money I saved.
Damn.
What do you think about the big three? What does the future of the fighting game community hold? Let me know in the comments section below.
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