This is a light review of the twelve characters included in Street Fighter X Tekken’s August 1st $20 downloadable content pack. It is neither a commentary on the ethics of said content (for that, please look here) nor an overview of the balancing patch that comes with it (Shoryuken has a much better line on that). Instead, it’s a fairly casual look at the characters and content associated with them and intended to serve as a compliment to my proper Street Fighter X Tekken review from last March.
$20 gets you Christie Monteiro, Jack-X, Bryan Fury, Lei Wulong, Alisa Bosconovictch, and Lars Alexandersson from Tekken fame. On the Street Fighter side we get Cody, Blanka, Dudley, Elena, Sakura, and Guy. Playing through the arcade modes with any of these new characters results in new cut scenes and endings when contextually appropriate.
I don’t come equipped with the simultaneous asset and baggage behind decades of Street Fighter appreciation, but from the point of view of a Tekken guy the latter’s addition feel fresher than their counterparts. Minus Elena, all of the new Street Fighter entries made an appearance in Street Fighter IV. To uninitiated philistines like myself, they all seem to play exactly they did in my time with Street Fighter IV. I know that’s not true and, from the perspective of fighting game fans, completely insane, but to me Blanka, Dudley, Sakura, Guy, and Cody all felt like slightly altered versions of their Street Fighter IV’s Blanka, Dudley, Sakura, Guy, and Cody. It’s great that they’re there, and fans of their specific styles should be ecstatic, but it’s not particularly exciting from the casual perspective.
Tekken’s new six, on the other hand, sing to my sensibilities. It’s kind of criminal that some form of Jack wasn’t in Street Fighter X Tekken-proper, however the lumpy bruiser’s appearance as Jack-X (get it?) is better late than never. He has Cossack kicks and a move that ignores fireballs, which seems complete appropriate. Lei’s ground game isn’t as strong as one might expect, but ground is covered through his myriad of confusing stances and forms. Christie, despite visually replicating most of her wild moveset, isn’t as mash-friendly as her 3D form, which, in the context of Street Fighter X Tekken, is a good thing. I’m less familiar with Lars and Alisa, aside from the fact that the latter’s chainsaw arms and exploding head move are well in place. The lone casualty appears to be Bryan who doesn’t seem nearly as powerful as his namesake would have lead us to believe.
And there you have it. To me twelve new fighters serve as a finite means to extend a game I hadn’t played in a few months while hardcore fans whom salivate at the smell of fresh blood will obviously get quite a bit more out of them. In this regard these characters are both sufficient, necessary, and, hopefully, enough to power Street Fighter X Tekken until Capcom’s next fighting installment comes to light.
