Street Fighter X Tekken

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List Price: $19.99
Sale Price: $16.33
Today's Bonus: 18% Off

I have this game for both systems. The 360 version was bought here on Amazon.(See 360 review for verified stamp) And the PS3 version was bought 5 days before launch at a local mom and pop shop.

Online

Street Fighter X Tekken is a ton of fun. It really is. But it's cons are very difficult to overlook. First there is the situation with the online. In this day and age netcode is too important. The ability to play online against friends or even strangers from around the world is one of the reasons the genre has made a complete comeback. SFXT's netcode sacrifices sound in order to run smoothly. The kicker is that it still struggles to run smooth even when sacrificing this precious audio. If you rely on sound for hit and block confirms, just stay away.

***Online update*** As of 4/10/12, the sound issue has been addressed, but many have complained about increased input lag since the patch.

Local to online co-op a.k.a. couch co-op

Got a friend over and the 2 of you want to jump online and do some ranked matches together? If you bought this game on Xbox 360, it's not possible. I'm not sure about later, but right now as I write this review, the 360 version does not have couch co-op even though it's advertised to and is even in the manual. At first Capcom blamed Microsoft. Claiming that the 360 was not able to do it because of it's architecture. That was a blatant lie that they got called out on because MK9 among other games can do this very thing. Then they claimed the 360 version was never supposed to have the feature and that it being in the manual was a mistake. And now, at the time of me writing this, the latest "explanation" is that they were on a tight schedule and they made the "tough decision" to leave it out. Which means the whole time they intentionally kept quiet about it long enough to get our money and let us discover the mode was missing on our own.

Controls

Now I already had a SF4 Round 2 TE, but I was hyped about this game. So I picked up a SFXT Fightstick V.S.(which I'll also be doing a review for) and it works wonderfully. If you're an arcade stick user you've got nothing to worry about. But pad warriors beware. The game has a problem reading diagonal inputs from a pad. Quite often when attempting to jump towards or away from your opponent, you'll get a neutral jump instead. And you'll also get swept when you're trying to crouch block because it'll register as down instead of down/back. This is a serious problem and wouldn't have possibly made into the final retail build if the game had received any sort of Quality & Assurance testing. Taking builds to tournaments and having top players fiddle around with it on the flashy new arcade sticks you're trying to market does not substitute for Q&A.

Color Edit Mode

KoFXIII offers up an amazing color edit mode. SFXT does not. As of right now only 2 colors are available. The additional packs will supposedly be free. But even though they're on the disc, Capcom sees it fit to ration them out over the course of 2012 rather then just let us have our fun with the color options now. The majority will have likely moved on already by the time all colors are finally available.

Gems

I was in favor of the gems initially while everyone else was skeptical from the beginning. I saw them as a potentially fun mechanic if done right. Well, everyone else was right to be skeptic. When you've faced as many people as I have online using the auto block gem as a crutch to defend against what would have otherwise been solid mix-ups, it suddenly becomes clear to you why the community thought they were a bad idea, and why tournaments don't allow them at all. The gems take an already unbalanced game and makes it even more so.

Disc-Locked Content: The new meaning for DLC

If you thought what I said before was bad, it gets even worse here. Locked away on the disc that you've already spent your hard earned money on is a ton of content that Capcom intends to squeeze you for. There are 12 additional characters, costumes, more powerful gems, additional quick combos, and more colors for the edit mode. Here's an idea of just how bad Capcom intends to make you literally pay for your decision to get SFXT. In Europe the costumes have already went on sale. They are £0.79 each. Which is about $1 US. There are 38 characters readily available and 12 locked characters. That's 50 characters total. Each character has 2 alternate costumes. So if you want them all, that's $100 just for COSTUMES. That's not even counting how much it's going to cost you to unlock the additional characters. You're already paying more for locked content than you did for the purchase of the game initially.

Engine

The good: The Tekken characters utilize ground bounces. And the Street Fighter characters utilize wall bounces. If you pick one of each, you get the best of both worlds. The Tekken characters surprisingly fit right in. Some of them fight a lot like their Tekken versions(Kazuya), and some fight nothing like their Tekken versions(Heihachi). But Capcom did a wonderful job of capturing the essence and character of the Tekken cast.

The bad: Damage scaling on combos is so severe, it's as if you're penalized for getting good at the game. It's too easy for non stick users to accidentally trigger quick combos, and there is no way to turn this off. "Grey Health" regenerates too fast. That combined with the heavy damage scaling results in most ranked matches ending in a Time Over. And Pandora is an unusable mechanic. It's so weak, no one dares to even bother with it. If you trigger Pandora during a match, there's a 95%+ chance that you're going to lose because of it. Scarily, there are even more problems than what I've named. I just listed a handful.

Graphics

This game looks great! Everything is in the SF4 art style, but the characters have been touched up a bit. And characters that had to be built from the ground up like all of the Tekken characters, and some from the SF side like Poison, Hugo, Rolento, etc. look amazing. The stages all look great too.

Overall

A game backed up with lies and shady business practices from it's publisher isn't something that I can honestly recommend. It's a great fighter at it's very core, but purchasing it will just encourage Capcom to continue treating their consumer/fanbase like they're stupid. SFXT is a ridiculous cash grab masquerading as a fighting game. I can't recommend someone buy half of a game for $60 and then the rest of it, which is locked ON THE DISC for over $100. They didn't have time to make sure the 360 version had couch co-op. They didn't have time to make sure the online was solid for either console. They didn't even have time to make sure pad players could enjoy the game. But they did however have time to make content to lock away on the disc. In short, do not buy this game.

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If you thought to have the next VS series from Capcom, don't go too far into a purchase with this game. Capcom DLC and contents are already in the disc but you won't be able to "BUY" these items until "FALL" 2012 and later on. The contents in the game will cost you more than the current price of this game. Keep playing your old Capcom games if your a fan and wait till December or next year when this game is either complete with all the DLC unlocked as a purchase or when its a $15 steal on a Amazon deal.

Buy Street Fighter X Tekken Now

The following are characters being sold as DLC (Downloadable Content) on XBL and PSN. Buying all 12 of these will cost you about $20.

Sakura

Lars

Blanka

Alisa

Guy

Bryan

Cody

Jack-X

Elena

Christie

Dudley

Lei

Look good? Well guess what, they're all already programmed onto the disc. If you go on the PSN and "purchase" the "downloadable content" you're not really getting anything, it just unlocks what you already own. I'm not sure why Capcon keeps doing this to the fans, but it has to stop. DLC's original purpose was prolong the lifespan of games, but instead Capcon is using it to extort money from the fans.

To make matters worse, the inevitable, "Street Fighter X Tekken Plus Ultra Extended Edition" with more characters and DLC will be out by the end of the year. There's another reason to avoid this game. I warned people about Marvel Vs Capcon 3 and no one listened to me. I encourage you to listen now and not buy this. If Capcon's game's stop selling, so will the shady business practices.

Iumak gives this one a 0/10.

Read Best Reviews of Street Fighter X Tekken Here

Although Street Fighter X Tekken is a good fighting game, this game has on excused for forcing players having to pay DCL for 12 characters that are already on the disc.

Want Street Fighter X Tekken Discount?

I've owned almost every Capcom fighting game there is (three versions of SF II, MvC 1-3, Darkstalkers, Xmen:COTM, Marvel Super Heroes, Street Fighter Alpha 1-3, Power Stone (2), Street Fighter EX, SNK v Capcom 2, Street Fighter 3 Third Strike, Super and Regular Street Fighter IV, Tatsunoko v Capcom, Rival Schools, Project Justice, etc.) and I would have bought this game but paying $60 for a game with only 50% new character models (the rest being from street fighter IV) and still having to pay extra for 12 characters that are already completed is absurd. I've seen them lose tons of long-time customers like me in the last couple of months (starting with Jill Valentine and Shuma Gorath and continuing through Super SF IV: Arcade Edition-the epitome of laziness). If they were going to lock characters for a later date and charge extra for it, then they should release the game at a reduced price. At least you can buy it used. The industry is moving in a direction where they plan to make more money off DLC with every game and the next gen systems might not even allow you to use used games (which would also basically bankrupt gamestop and decrease one of the more competitive pricers in the industry which would allow Best Buy and Amazon to charge higher prices for games). I think giving feedback on as many forums as possible to voice that people are already sick of DLC and probably won't even buy a system that requires you to purchase new games.

Paying $5-10 for a pair of new fighters is ridiculous and so is constantly having to purchase stuff to get a complete game. I wouldn't even mind as much if they had just charged $70-80 for the game and included all the unlockables so that at least I could get the entire game if I bought it used, but they want to make us buy a new copy to increase profits while only making half a new game. What they've actually done is decrease their profits, because tons of people are waiting to buy used copies anyway or avoiding the game altogether specifically because they do these little stunts and now we can't trust Capcom. Why not release a game in its entirety and instead of adding on to it, when its released you could start working on its sequel with things that could really differentiate it from the former title (for instance MVC 2 had tons of new characters and allowed 3v3 which justified its existence)? It could warrant a higher price tag and would would get crowds excited for a release like we were with SF IV instead of giving us fatigue like with Super SF IV: Arcade Edition.