Fighting Games Friday: Street Fighter V’s Going Out in (Saikyo) Style

The fifth and final season for Street Fighter V is about to begin, though it took longer than expected. It was originally planned to start at the end of 2020, the time when new seasons for this game previously began (following the end of the Capcom Pro Tour, which couldn’t traditionally happen in 2020). This was delayed thanks to the usual cause these days: The COVID-19 pandemic. Heck, it might be a good part of the reason why this season exists at all. Rumor has it that Capcom wanted to move on to the next Street Fighter game, but development was slowed thanks to this same pandemic. The fourth season did feel conclusive at the time. But there have been few complaints about more content for a fighting game fans have been playing for years.

The biggest focus of the Winter Update 2021 presentation was promised to be on the first character coming in the season, Dan Hibiki, and a new game mechanic. But it made sense for them to begin with one yet to be seen in action in SFV: Rose. She’s still a work in progress, but the developers showed enough to provide an impression of how she’ll play this time around. I also doubt she’ll change that much over the coming months.

Rose’s move set will consist of a mixture of older moves from Street Fighter IV and the game’s predecessors and a bunch of new ones, ensuring that she’ll play differently enough that fans will have to mostly relearn how to play her. She keeps the Soul Spark projectile, but also gains a diagonal air version. A new move called the Soul Bind replaces the Soul Throw, which involves Rose throwing up her scarf to catch an airborne opponent instead of leaping up there herself, likely due to protégé Menat stealing the original. Rose also still has the Soul Spiral, which looks similar to how it did in the SFIV games.

Her first V-Skill, the Soul Fortune, involves producing a card for buffs, a nice reference to her intro against Bison in Street Fighter Alpha 3. Her second V-Skill is the Soul Satellite technique from her first Ultra Combo in the SFIV games. Not all of her moves were shown thanks to how she’s clearly unfinished, but more of her will be shown shortly before she arrives in the spring.

Rose was shown with the “Marina of Fortune” stage, inspired by her Italy stage from Street Fighter Alpha 2. That should arrive alongside the character herself.

As I mentioned above: Dan was the real focus here. Like any character being added to SFV from previous games, he returns with old and new moves. My favorite among them involves a flurry of punches which serves as a not-even-subtle reference to Kenshiro’s in Fist of the North Star, especially the EX version. Both of his V-Skills involve making taunts that can also be used as extra attacks to extend combos, the potential for which makes him appear more technical than expected for someone traditionally a low-tier joke character. He could still very well be that, but he sure doesn’t look it from the preview.

His V-Trigger I is the Haoh Gadoken, which further resembles the Haoh Shokoken from the Kyokugen Karate crew in SNK’s titles, while V-Trigger II will strengthen the Gadoken and Koryuken fireball and uppercut attacks, respectively.

Dan’s arrival will mark the beginning of SFV’s final season when he arrives on February 22nd, a week from Monday.

Bonus character Eleven was also revealed, who’s not quite identical to Street Fighter III’s Twelve in terms of style despite being the predecessor. Instead of shapeshifting into the opponent during the match, it takes the form of different characters between rounds, more similar to Mokujin and Edge Master (and other characters similar to them) from the Tekken and Soulcalibur games, respectively. It was reported that this was the identity of the final DLC character for the final season when their existence was leaked by Twitch, but this is not the case. The final character is still a mystery, and perhaps they’ll remain that way.

The new gameplay mechanic is V-Shift, a new defensive maneuver that lets a character escape from an opponent’s pressure. It involves an invincible dash backward at the cost of one EX gauge bar, unlike the V-Reversal that consumes one bar from the Reversal gauge. A V-Shift can be followed up with a V-Shift Break attack that will cause an automatic knockdown. Unlike other features for season 5, this will be given to every player for free. It’s gutsy for them to provide a game-changing mechanic so late in the game, but it could help characters with few options to resist pressure from opponents. Thus, it could seriously, well, shift character balancing, in addition to the new balance patch coming.

The fourth season will begin on February 22nd, available with two purchasing options. The basic Season 5 Character Pass will include the six new characters (including bonus character Eleven), ten outfit colors, Battle Outfits for each character, and six new titles for player profiles. The $40 Premium Pass will include that content along with 26 new outfits for a variety of characters, two new stages, 100,000 Fight Money, themes for PS4 and Steam, and a total of eight titles for profiles. The Champion Edition version is on sale for anyone yet to jump in, and a free trial is available, both of which will last until February 24th.

In the meantime, Capcom will hopefully provide more fixes for the online play, still plagued with random connection issues. Or is it too late for that particular game changer?