Capcom’s decision to delay Street Fighter 6 to the Nintendo Switch 2 should be celebrated, as they succeeded in packing a big punch despite the Switch 2’s small package. It runs like a dream and lacks the graphical compromises that many Switch owners may be accustomed to seeing from AAA games. If you’ve been patiently waiting for a next-gen fighting title to take on the go, Street Fighter 6 is the breakout fighting game for the Nintendo Switch 2 launch.
It’s been two years since Street Fighter 6 launched on the PS5, XBOX, and PC, knocking out players’ expectations by solidly delivering an accessible fighting game experience for anyone. As some competitors like Mortal Kombat 1 and Guilty Gear -Strive- have released for the Nintendo Switch with varying degrees of success, Street Fighter 6 has been noticeably absent from Nintendo’s hardware lineup…
…until now. Right this minute, Street Fighter 6 is available on the Nintendo Switch 2.
To say that I’ve been simply satisfied with Street Fighter 6 would be glossing over the work Capcom has done to not only get the game up and running on the Switch 2, but also to the flawless degree on par with what I’ve come to expect from the PS5 version (barring the World Tour mode, but that’s another story). It features all of the content released thus far on Street Fighter 6 and then some, giving me some relief that I’m not dealing with a fighting game port that’s lagging behind in terms of content. I’m looking at you, Guilty Hear -Strive-; I’m still waiting for the newest season of content to make its way to the Switch version.
It was very easy to boot up and get into an offline match within a matter of seconds. I blew through the tutorials and some trials, getting quickly into online play and some of the single player arcade modes.
The only bug I would encounter on the Switch 2 version was a pesky communication error that would go away when I would switch WiFi connections (for reference, I have two connections in my household). For whatever reason, putting the console to sleep and waking it up would cause the error to occur, but I was able to reconnect just fine. I ended up playing in Offline Mode most of the time just so I could get in and out of matches in a speedy manner.
I played a handful of online matches and had little issue finding an opponent on my region’s server. I did not encounter laggy inputs or framerate skips from unstable connections. Online felt great, frankly, which is a welcome change from the typical Nintendo Switch online experience. Inputs remained just as snappy and satisfying as offline mode, so I can definitely see a world in which I could play and attempt to rank up down the line.
I won’t reiterate what fellow Chump Ben said in his initial review of Street Fighter 6, but I’ll add on a few elements worth sharing. Street Fighter 6 won me over on its accessibility. Despite some of its combos being complex, the “Modern” input mode made it so that I could pull off some, but not all, of the cool attack combos.
The World Tour mode is where the game falls short – it remains unoptimized all this time and is just as blurry/fuzzy as I encountered on the PS5 version. It’s a shame as Capcom was in a prime position to upgrade and optimize this mode to take advantage of the Switch 2’s hardware (let alone its higher-powered older console siblings). Most players wouldn’t opt for Street Fighter 6 for its World Tour mode, but it would have been nice to see some improvements on that front.
The new Joy-Cons are larger than the original Joy-Cons, but I still wouldn’t recommend using them as your default input method with Street Fighter 6. I frequently errantly nudged the joysticks with my thumbs and messed up some of my combos, making things slightly frustrating. I can still envision myself playing Street Fighter 6 on the Switch 2, but the new Joy-Cons are far from optimal.
Unique to the Nintendo Switch 2 port is a handful of exclusive modes. Gyro Battle utilizes the Joy-Cons’ gyro sensors to fight opponents. The Calorie Contest mode is a more extreme version of the Gyro Battle, instead relying on vigorously shaking a Joy-Con as an attempt to burn calories. Don’t get me wrong, I love the silliness of the Calorie Contest idea, but it feels more like a gimmick and less like a meaningful addition that highlights the Switch 2’s hardware features. Both of these modes claim to be Party Modes, but there needs to be a greater degree of replayability and chaos to make these games feel appropriate to play at my next Game Night. For now, I’ll stick with Mario Party.
I’ve become accustomed to Nintendo’s hardware struggling with supporting AAA-tier games, but this port feels nearly on par with the PS5 version of Street Fighter 6. Most textures and particle effects show up and are clearly visible in docked and handheld mode, speaking to the noticeable hardware bump in Nintendo’s newest little console that can. It’s not consistently hitting the 60fps framerate that some next-gen console owners have become accustomed to seeing, but it’s a noticeable graphical improvement that many Switch 2 owners will notice.
Capcom’s decision to delay Street Fighter 6 to the Nintendo Switch 2 should be celebrated, as they succeeded in packing a big punch despite the Switch 2’s small package. It runs like a dream and lacks the graphical compromises that many Switch owners may be accustomed to seeing from AAA games. If you’ve been patiently waiting for a next-gen fighting title to take on the go, Street Fighter 6 is the breakout fighting game for the Nintendo Switch 2 launch.
A Nintendo Switch 2 code was provided by the publisher for this DigitalChumps review.
