7 Great Games That Inspired Street Fighter 6
Even though they weren’t part of the Street Fighter series, a number of video games were important sources of inspiration for Street Fighter 6.
Since it came out, Street Fighter 6 has been selling like hotcakes. It’s the most famous game in the series since Street Fighter 4, and it might even be as popular as the games were in the 1990s. Even before the game came out, fans liked the new characters, and the old ones got new moves and looks. Then, with its Classic and Modern control sets, the gameplay was able to please both die-hard fans and people who had never played before.
But nothing can come from nothing. There are references to past games, like how the Drive Impacts are like the Focus Attacks from Street Fighter 4, or how some of the super moves come straight from Street Fighter 5. In Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, even the Modern controls had been tried out before. But what other games did Street Fighter 6 look at to get ideas?Here are some thoughts.
King Of Fighters
Since the beginning, Capcom and SNK have been tied together, and this is most clear in their fighting games. Street Fighter 1 was basically the first game in the genre. It was made by Takashi Nishiyama and Hiroshi Matsumoto. But when Yoshiki Okamoto, Akira Nishitani, and others left Capcom, Street Fighter 2 and its new combo moves took fighting games to a whole new level. Not to be outdone, Nishiyama and Matsumoto made the Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting titles for SNK.
Both of them weren’t as good as SF2, but they did bring in the most impressive feature of the genre: Super Moves. At first, the player had to be close to death to pull them off. But in the first few King of Fighters games, players could pull off even more powerful super moves when they were close to dying. These moves were called Super Desperation Moves. Just like how SF6’s Critical Arts do more damage but only happen when the player has 25% or less health left on their life bar.
Darkstalkers
Capcom didn’t just copy what their competitors did to come up with new ideas. Their horror-themed fighting game Darkstalkers, which has been forgotten for a long time, had an effect on Street Fighter. There are a few references to it in SF6, like when Lilith from Vampire Savior shows up on Li-Fen’s laptop or when Luke stops working at Buckler’s Boot Camp to play the original Darkstalkers on his pad via pad.
The EX Moves were the most important thing that SF got from its scary sister show. Since SF3: Second Impact, the characters have been able to boost their special moves with a little super meter, or Drive Gauge in SF6. But they were first used in the first Darkstalkers games as ES Moves. Since then, they have been used in other games like Mortal Kombat and King of Fighters 15.
Tekken
The combo of Street Fighter and Tekken might remind fans of bad games like Street Fighter X Tekken or Tekken Vs. Street Fighter, which hasn’t been made in over a decade. But Tekken has been the best 3D fighting game since the first one sold more than a million copies on the PS1 when it came out. Even though its gameplay is nothing like SF’s (as anyone who has fought Akuma in Tekken 7 can tell you), Tekken’s DNA is still in SF6.
Tekken is mostly known for its single-player material. Before T7, there were a lot of different ways to play, but they were cut down in T7. There were modes like “beat ’em up,” “adventure,” “story,” and more. In Tekken 3’s Ball Modes, players hit each other with a ball. This was one of the game’s most crazy modes. It was famous, but since the Wii U port of Tekken Tag Tournament 2, it hasn’t been in the series. Party Mode in SF6 has a similar feature, and you can even toss more than one ball at once!
Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat‘s single-player content has also gotten better over the past 20 years, with crazy features like MK: Armageddon’s Motor Kombat kart minigame and MK: Deception’s Puzzle Kombat, a take on Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo (which was SF’s version of Puyo-Puyo). But fans of Mortal Kombat may recognize the odd fun of SF6’s Party Mode.
Its “Test Your Luck” mode let you add special rules to 1-on-1 battles. For example, you could take away your opponent’s ability to jump or block, make them dodge random objects, or even turn them into zombies and have them bite each other’s limbs off. One could also say that SF6’s World Tour mode is more like MK: Deception’s Konquest mode, in which Shujinko did weird jobs for people in Outworld, than Street Fighter Alpha 3’s World Tour mode, which was more like an RPG.
Shenmue
Still, some people didn’t think of MK: Deception the first time they saw the World Tour Mode. Last year, an IGN Japan reporter talked to SF6 director Takayuki Nakayama and Shuhei Matsumoto. He said that some parts of the mode reminded him of Shenmue. He was afraid to ask about it directly, so Nakayama brought up the comparisons himself.
“Shenmue has also had a big effect on me. Walking around in a world like that, and even having fighting game features as part of the game.” He didn’t say it was a direct influence, but he did say, “It’s quite possible it was in the back of my mind all along.” That’s right, and SF6 also has a Game Center where you can play classic video games, just like in Shenmue. Even though Sega’s series has been around for a long time, it’s great to see that Shenmue is still inspiring new games.
Saints Row
On the other hand, the link between Shenmue and the World Tour mode might be more obvious to older players or those from Japan or East Asia in general. Younger Westerners who didn’t play the classic Dreamcast game often link it to the Saints Row series, which is also an open-world game where the player does odd jobs and fights urban gangs. Only without SR’s guns, cars, and freedom to kill civilians and enemies for laughs.
Also, like in the Saints Row games, the player gets to make their own figure with a lot of sliders and options. Over the past few decades, character makers have also been used in Mass Effect, Skyrim, the WWE games, and other games. But World Tour mode has a more SR feel than its competitors thanks to the mix of the creator, urban environments, gangs, music, and tone. Johnny Gat and his friends would fit in well on the streets of SF.
Final Fight
But in the end, the urban feel comes more from the way SF is becoming more like Final Fight. Their classic beat-em-up game was supposed to be a part of Tunnel Rush and was called “Street Fighter ’89” at first. It got a different name when people pointed out that it didn’t play like SF. Even then, the two were never too far apart. Playable figures like Guy, Cody, Rolento, Sodom, Poison, and Hugo all made their way into SF.
SF6 builds on this by making Metro City from FF the first place players can explore and Mad Gear from FF the first thugs to fight and take jobs from. It also shows that many of the series’ best stages, like Remy’s club stage in SF3: Third Strike, come from Metro City.SF has kept Final Fight in people’s minds, but now that side-scrolling brawlers are popular again, it would be great to see a Final Fight 4 join River City Girls, Final Vendetta, and Streets of Rage 4.
