Ah, Street Fighter X Tekken. So much hype at the beginning, but unfortunately this didn’t last for too long. The original version of this game is considered broken by many, marred by time outs, really bad balance among the cast, a controversial gem system…there’s more than that too. Still, I believed there was a quality game in there. A look at my Raptr account will show you I sank almost 100 hours into Street Fighter X Tekken before the 2013 patch. This isn’t a review of the whole game, I am just going to go into the differences I see in the new 2013 version. Let’s start this review.I won’t list off the major changes here, you can find those easily if you look them up. Instead. I will use my own experiences with the 2013 patch to see if this is indeed ready for prime time in my view. If you know something is there you will be more inclined to look for it, so I want to take a different approach. Yes, I already knew most of the differences, but the best test for any patch is to take it for a spin and see if the hype is real. So here we go.
The entire cast was rebalanced. I won’t bore you with the details, but you can find them all here. Everyone got changed, so if you want to see every piece of frame data etc, go look at that thread on Capcom Unity. My old team was Guile/Raven, but at the beginning it was Guile/Paul. With this patch, I decided to give my first team another try. Guile got nerfed, Paul got buffed, but that isn’t the point. There will always be complaints about certain characters buffs/nerfs, but take a look at that list, and it looks like the “retarded” items like Hugo’s splash has been nerfed, and overall everyone has been buffed. Playing Paul felt awesome, he has lots more tools to punish and get great damage. It is too early to tell if all the changes together are for the better, but it seems to be good so far. Less turtling, more aggressive play. Pandora’s box(pun intended) has been opened again, and I can’t wait what characters the community embraces.
It feels that overall every character’s damage output has been increased. This means that we shouldn’t see so many time outs. I played online for about four hours so far. This showed me a few things: I am rusty as hell and need more practice, people are using different characters and are being more creative, throws are a viable option now(and they take away red life!), and I didn’t have a single time out. Not one. All these things combined create a much more enjoyable experience. There are things I used to do before that I don’t do now, because I know they will get punished. No spamming flash kicks to tag because it’s pretty safe, no turtling with Guile once the clock reaches 30 or so seconds if I have an advantage, never using option selects because throws were irrelevant, it’s a brand new game now.
I got my butt kicked online because I went in with the wrong mentality. I went into training mode with Guile and Paul to see the differences and took that online, thinking I can use the new advantages I had and win a lot. I didn’t. The flow of the game is different now, and we must figure out new ways to win, and this will require more thought than it did before. My time with Street Fighter X Tekken 2013 was enjoyable. All the changes I listed above, no camera angle changes when you connect a launcher, quicker transition after you hear “Fight!” at the start of a match, it all adds up to a better experience. In the end, the community will decide if this game will live on. IPL took this game into its line-up, and Evo re-instated it into its line-up as well. I like where this game is going, but whether you like it or not, Street Fighter X Tekken 2013 is here to stay for at least one more year, so get hype, go back to the lab, and start practicing.