Street Fighter X Tekken: Why Aren't You Playing King?

This is it.

I've babbled on and on about it. You've put up with me babbling on and on about it.

And now, it's finally here.

It's the review of Street Fighter X Tekken! Or, as I prefer to call it, Street Fighter X King: Play King.

King is clearly going to win here.

Street Fighter X King is the first in a duo of crossover fighting games by Capcom and Namco, bringing legendary brawlers such as Ryu and Chun-Li into the ring against King and his Tekken chums. Capcom's offering came first, bringing King and co. into the 2D arena of the Street Fighters, and we're going to have to wait a long time until we know how the Capcom characters will look in the 3D realm of the Tekkenites. But until then, this is the game we have, and as is befitting of the first chapter of gaming's greatest crossover so far, it certaintly does not dissapoint.

While this game looks very much like Street Fighter IV at first glance, don't let that put you off - there's a whole lot of stuff in there that makes this game a whole different set of combos. For starters, while characters are played in tag-teams, meaning you have to pick another fighter as well as King, they don't have individual life like in Marvel vs. Capcom - if just one character is K.O'd, then you lose the round, so you have to actually think about when to tag King out with his partner. Also, you can say goodbye to the stuffy old Ultra Combo and Focus Attack and say hello to the shiny new Cross Rush, Launcher and Juggle Combos - two systems designed to add more speed to the fighting and set up opportunites for nasty damage if you pick characters with the right moves (like King).

"But wait!" I hear you cry. "How can a realisitc, close-range fighter like King cope with the unending fireball spam from the Street Fighter side?" Fear not, my fellow gamers, for Capcom is way ahead of you - Each Tekken character has a unique move that allows them to dodge Hadoukens and other projectiles, as well as counter them in some cases. King, for example, has his Jaguar Step, which can then lead into an Elbow Drop that knocks the opponent to the floor. He also carries over many of his combo attacks from Tekken, so he still feels rather Tekken-y whilst on the 2D Street Fighter plane, giving him a large advantage in close combat.

"Sidestepping, dude. Look into it."

As is a staple of Street Fighter games, a Super Bar - called the Cross Guage here -  has found it's way in, and with it comes the usual plethora of special abilities, like Super Arts and EX Moves, which even King and his chums get. But with the tag team gameplay comes tag team abilities. Cross Arts are perhaps the most deadly - your point character attacks first, then sets the opponent up for King to marmalise with his Muscle Buster. Not only can you get massive damage from these, but they also delete any "grey health" your opponent has, ruining their chances of recovering while in reserve. The Cross Rush involves both characters attacking at once - while not the most effective in single-player, owing to your A.I. controlled partner being as thick as two planks, using them in a co-op match can result in instant death for anything that crosses King's path.

Two of the games most controversial elements are Pandora and Gems. Pandora allows you to sacrifice your current characters to boost King's power, as well as giving him an infinite Cross Gauge and making him look bloody terrifying to boot. However, if you can't kill the opponent before the timer runs out, you automatically lose the round. Secondly, Gems are equippable "power-ups" that allow you to improve a character's damage output, speed or whatever, often requiring certain conditions to activate. The argument against Gems is that they might give new players too much of an advantage against veterans, but in the end the effects are often so negligible that you might not even notice they're there. In the end, while they're good for patching up holes in your playstyle, they don't really detract from the fight.

I smell a Buddy Cop movie.

So Capcom has struck the first blow with their 2D fighter, and now Namco must respond with their own 3D fighter. It'll be interesting to see what Ryu and chums will look like in the photo-realistic style of King's world, and how the 6-button combat of Street Fighter will translate into the 4-limbed pummeling of Tekken. But until that time, expect King to be smashing in faces and reducing Ken's chances of future children with naught but his own two hands. That is, if he can get by Ogre and Akuma first.

The Good Bits

King. Also, the fact that the different styles of two of the world's biggest brawlers have been merged so well together. There's plenty here for both veterans and new players to get their heads around, and once you find the perfect team there's little to stop you from taking yourself online and pummelling anyone stupid enough to use Ibuki or Lili. Or Kuma. Also, if you were a good, games-industry-supporting lad like me and pre-ordered the Special Edition, you get a fancy prequel comic book, 45 DLC Gems to party with and a neat little arcade cabinet money bank for storing your loose change.

The Bad Bits

Right now, the community is having a bit of hoo-hah over the fact that twelve DLC Characters - Dudley and Bryan Fury among them - have been found on the discs by hackers. Without wishing to get involved in the giagantic debate over wherever on-the-disc DLC is a bad practice or not, allow me to clarify that as I have no XBox Live at the moment, I would not be able to download them anyway, so in the end this doesn't really affect me.

...except there's no Armor King. Why is there no Armor King, Capcom?

Scores

Graphics: 5/5 (It's the Street Fighter IV style you know and love.)

Gameplay: 4/5 (Hard to master, well worth it, let down a bit by the Gems.)

Sound: 5/5 (Akuma's theme has gone past eleven in this thing.)
Replayability: 4/5 (Go online, that's where all the fun is.)

King: 5/5 (*rawr, growl, roar*)

Final Verdict

PLAY KING YOU FOOLS

Seriously, play him or he'll Jaguar Bomb you out of existance.