It’s quite possible that Street Fighter 6 is going to be a lot of player’s first time playing a fighting game properly, which can really be daunting for newcomers as fighting games in general can be quite overwhelming. Fortunately though, we’re on hand to guide you in the right direction when it comes to surviving on the mean streets of Metro City. If you’re a complete beginner looking for a few tips, this is what you’ll need to keep in mind when playing Street Fighter 6.
Street Fighter 6 General Tips
There’s No Shame In Modern Controls
Capcom has made the biggest change to Street Fighter yet in this sixth entry by introducing modern controls. This new control scheme simplifies the controls to just three attack buttons (light, medium and heavy), and special moves are performed by pressing the special button. Pushing a direction on the d-pad will lead to additional moves too, giving the control scheme an almost Smash Bros.-esque feeling to them.
Essentially, the modern controls are designed for newcomers to get to grips with the rigours of the game, and if you’re just starting out with fighting games, modern controls are absolutely the correct way forward. Think of them as a shortcut to getting into the meat of Street Fighter’s gameplay. Modern controls are your training wheels, basically, and you shouldn’t be afraid to use them, no matter what any online tryhard might say.
Pick Whoever You Like
In the early stages of a fighting game, you might experience a bit of choice paralysis when it comes to which character you want to learn. Usually, there’s a lot of options to choose from, and some might talk about if you’d prefer to play aggressively, defensively, combo heavy or as a grappler. If you’re just starting out though, the choice is simple: pick whoever you think looks cool.
That might sound like some dismissive “advice”, but if you’ve got no frame of reference to go off when picking your first main, you may as well pick based on vibes alone. From there, you can learn that character’s moves, playstyle and how they operate, and see if those elements are also to your liking. The benefit of being a newcomer is that you have no real attachment to a character, so if someone you pick isn’t actually working out, there’s always another character.
Of course, if you go through all 18 characters and you still don’t like any of them, maybe Street Fighter 6 isn’t for you.
Training Mode Is Your Friend
When it comes to actually knuckling down and learning a character, there’s no greater tool than the training mode. Here, you can really get to grips with a character, and the game as a whole, at your own pace. If you’re serious about putting the time into learning someone, you need to spend some time here.
Fortunately, there’s a lot of training tools at your disposal that’ll make you a force to be reckoned with. Along with the usual practice room, which lets you learn your moves against an AI dummy, there’s a general tutorial that goes over the basic mechanics of the game, along with specific character breakdowns that teach you how to use special moves and which situations are advantageous for your character.
Learn The Fundamentals First
After you’ve grown accustomed to your character and you’ve got a rough idea of how to behave in a neutral state, then you might start looking at the combo trials. These specific trials are designed to teach you ideal combos to use during a match, particularly after you’ve punished an opponent’s missed attack.
These trials are an important part of the learning process, but in general, these shouldn’t be the first port of call if you’re brand new to the game. Learning combos and ideal punishes means nothing if you don’t have a basic grasp of the fundamentals first. Once you’ve got a rough idea of what you need to do to succeed as your chosen character in a match, then you can start learning combos.
Using Drive To Your Advantage
The Drive mechanic is a new feature added to the gameplay of Street Fighter 6 that gives every character some universal tools to help bolster their offensive and defensive options. While features like Drive Rush and Drive Reversal are great tools in the hands of advanced players, beginners should concern themselves with these three basic moves: Drive Impact, Drive Parry and Overdrive Arts.
Overdrive Arts are enhanced versions of your special moves that take up two bars of your Drive Gauge, and they’re performed on modern controls by holding the right trigger/R2 and doing the special move input (classic controls use two attack buttons plus the motion input, similar to EX moves in other SF games). Overdrive Arts are a great way of dealing extra damage to your opponent, so they’re a useful tool you should always keep in mind.
Drive Impacts, which are performed by pressing LB/L1 on modern controls (heavy punch and kick together on classic), and cost one bar of Drive Gauge, are powerful attacks that are able to plow through an opponent’s moves thanks to their enhanced armor. If you’re on the receiving end of an aggressive player, Drive Impacts are great for cutting through their offense, but be warned: they can easily be countered by another Drive Impact from the opponent.
Finally, Drive Parry is essentially an improved defensive option that allows the player to block most incoming attacks, with the Drive Gauge draining the longer you hold down the input. Activated by pressing RB/R1 on modern controls (medium punch and kick together on classic), Drive Parry also allows players to counter-attack with Drive Rush (double tap forward) after an attack is parried, opening up your opponent for big damage.
Avoiding Burnout
Constantly using your Drive abilities will put you into the Burnout state, which unfortunately has nothing to do with the excellent arcade racer. Burnout sees your character essentially weakened for a certain period of time. Moves will have more recovery frames, making you more susceptible to damage, while getting hit by a Drive Impact in the corner will stun you completely, leaving you totally vulnerable to any attack.
Think carefully when using your Drive Gauge, as burning through it all and leaving yourself in Burnout is a bad idea if your strategy doesn’t end the match immediately.
On top of the normal 1v1 fighting, Street Fighter 6 includes World Tour mode, a single-player RPG that’s a lot more involved that you’d expect for a single player fighting game mode. If you’ve arrived here after playing the likes of NetherRealm’s story modes in Mortal Kombat Injustice, or even Soulcalibur VI’s Libra of Soul mode, you might need a bit of guidance. With that in mind, we’ve got some more tips for those who might need a helping hand in the World Tour mode.
Street Fighter 6 World Tour Tips
Find A Master And Stick With Them
One of the main points of the World Tour mode is finding masters to train under. Every playable character on the roster is available as a master for your created avatar, with players starting out sitting under the learning tree of new poster boy Luke. Once you’ve obtained a new master, you can switch your fighting style and special moves in the Status menu on your in-game phone.
If you want to upgrade a master, the main way to do so is by equipping their fighting style. Special moves are inconsequential in this, as you could have all of Ryu’s specials while using Marisa’s fighting style. In that instance, you’ll earn EXP for Marisa and not Ryu.
For the most part, once you’ve found a fighting style you like, stick with it for a while. You can earn EXP for a master up until level 20, and then after that, you’ll earn leftover EXP that can be transferred to other masters, allowing you to level up everyone else and learn new special moves while staying with your “main”. The amount of EXP transferred over isn’t the full amount, unfortunately, but it’s still better than nothing.
Try To Keep Your Moveset Varied
As for your special moves, you’ll learn one or two from every master you gain, so even if you don’t level everyone up, finding masters is still imperative to unlocking new moves. Special moves are what will add new dimensions to your repertoire, so seeking out new masters is great, but one thing to keep in mind is the importance of keeping your options open during a fight.
What this means is that you can create some truly busted movelists by giving your character, for example, Dhalsim’s teleport, Ryu’s Hadoken and Zangief’s spinning piledriver. With those three alone, you have movement options, zoning capabilities and a short-range attack that you can use to punish an opponent’s missed attack. It’s worth experimenting to see what moves work for you and what don’t, but try to keep your movelist varied. There’s no point having both Ryu’s Hadoken and Guile’s Sonic Boom, for instance.
Side Quests Lead To More Masters
As for where to find masters, the vast majority of the masters in Street Fighter 6’s World Tour mode can be found by just following the story and interacting with the character in question when you encounter them, but there’s a few, such as newcomer Manon, that require you to actually complete some side quests. These quests will be clearly labeled on your in-game map, so at the start of every new chapter or sub-chapter, make sure to check the map for sub quests. Worst case scenario, you’ll get some EXP, but there’s always the chance you’ll earn a new master too.
Challenges Are Worth Doing
Earning extra EXP and loot from fighting goons in the street isn’t quite as straightforward as smacking someone until the goods fall out. Every enemy or challengeable NPC you encounter has at least one challenge that can be completed mid-fight, which you can see by either viewing their details by pressing X/Square before a fight, or pausing during a fight.
These challenges can be for anything from landing a five hit combo, performing a special move or using a Drive Impact. Rewards for these challenges can range from new apparel items, which can improve your stats, to healing items and EXP boosts for both your avatar and chosen master style. You can even unlock Fibres which are used to enhance equipment. Where possible, it’s always worth making sure you can complete your challenges.
Accessory Skills Are Worth Investing In
As mentioned in the last point, apparel can be used to alter your stats, giving you the edge in combat in Street Fighter 6’s World Tour mode, but one aspect of your equipment loadout you shouldn’t ignore is accessories. These accessories often come with perks that can really augment your abilities even further, so it’s worth equipping any accessories you find.
Unfortunately, at the start of World Tour, you can only equip one accessory at a time, but you can improve that number through the game’s skill tree in the Status menu. As you work through the game’s five skill trees, you’ll find skills called Accessorizer A/B/C, which can increase your accessory equipment load massively. If you want more perks and to become deadlier in combat, make sure to invest properly in your skill tree.
Master Skills Are There To Be Used
On top of learning techniques and moves that can be used in combat, becoming a student to a master will also unlock Master Skills which can be used outside of combat. Each master will give you one skill, and while the skills are different, they’ll typically have one of three functions: horizontal movement, vertical movement and initiating combat/destroying objects. For some moves, like the Shoryuken, it can scale low walls and start fights.
It’s worth using these Master Skills as much as possible. Using them to start fights is great, as it allows you to gain an advantage in a scrap, but the traversal moves are the most important. There’s a lot of secret chests and loot to discover while exploring both Metro City and Nayshall, and you’ll need to use your Master Skills in order to obtain them.
Something to keep in mind here though is that using Master Skills outside of combat will drain your Drive Gauge, which also governs certain moves and techniques you can use in battle. Having a depleted Drive Gauge will leave you in the Burnout state, which puts you at a major disadvantage, so try not to spam Master Skills too much.
Check All Shops & Merchants
The various nooks and crannies of both Metro City and Nayshall aren’t the only places hiding treasures in Street Fighter 6’s World Tour mode, as the shops and merchants you encounter often sell precious upgrade boosters that grant permanent upgrades to your stats. When making trips to smaller areas like Italy’s Colloseo, or the UK’s King Street, make sure to visit the local merchant.
Don’t Be Afraid To Heal Mid-Match
Look, this isn’t something you should rely on as a crutch if you’re planning on taking the game online eventually, but World Tour gives you one key advantage over your AI enemies, as it lets you use healing items mid-match to restore your health and even boost your abilities. If you happen to have irked a particularly tough opponent, don’t be afraid to down a few energy drinks to heal up. A win is a win, after all.
Beware The Night
Explore both Metro City and Nayshall comes with the additional caveat of a day and night mode. You can switch between both day and night in both areas at the hideout for either area, which is unlocked through the World Tour story, and there’s some differences between the two times that you should know about.
For the most part, the biggest difference between night and day is that the night time period features the stronger enemies, meaning you should be more prepared if you’re planning to explore when the sun goes down. On top of that, certain areas that are blocked off at one time of day will be open during the other time, and masters will only appear during their set time of day too. Who knew being able to tell the time would be important for a fighting game?
Modern Vs Classic Controls
Now, at the start of these beginner’s tips, we said that modern controls are the right way to go for new players, and that’s still true, but after you’ve put some time into the Fighting Ground and World Tour modes, it’ll be time to ask yourself whether modern controls or classic controls are right for you. Capcom themselves actively encourage newcomers to try and learn the classic controls eventually, as World Tour mini-games like Ka-Ra-Te and Hado Pizza teach players about quarter circle motions and charge motions, core parts of the classic controls experience.
Modern controls are designed to give players easier means of executing what they want to do, particularly with special moves and combos, but the trade off is that you only have three attack buttons and a limited selection of special moves. Meanwhile, classic controls offer six attack buttons and more special moves, giving you more options in a fight.
There’s no wrong answer here, as both modern and classic controls have been deemed acceptable for Capcom Pro Tour events. If it’s good for the pros, it’s good for the proles. Really, it’s about which means more to you during a match: easier controls or more tools.
READ MORE: Street Fighter 6 (Xbox Series X) REVIEW – Return of the King
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site.
