Roughly a year ago, I wrote a blog about what Street Fighter V’s Season 2 needed to add to the game. Well, it looks like some of my suggestion will be coming to fruition next year! It was announced a few weeks ago that Capcom will be kicking off Season 3 in a big way as they’ll be re-releasing the game with Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition. This does seem like more than just a simple patch and update to the game as Arcade Edition will be adding a slew of new content.

By the name, it’s obvious that Capcom will finally be adding a traditional Arcade ladder and, apparently, you’re going to see different endings based on how well you play. Arcade Edition will also add new V-Triggers for the fighters and even something called Extra Battle Mode, where you can gamble using your Fight Money to take on extra challenges to win exclusive costumes and such.

As much as I bellyached regarding that Arcade Edition will bring a lot of heartache to me as someone who bought the game on Day 1, that doesn’t make me any less excited to finally get the “new” version of Street Fighter V. But there are still a few things I feel Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition still needs to have. They covered a couple of the things on my old list, but  Capcom hasn’t announce everything it has slated for this upcoming release. But I do have a few ideas that I hope they’ll announce or add…

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1) Faster load times

Booting up Street Fighter V on your PS4 or PC? Wait for a minute for the game to load. Going to character selection? Loading screen again. Finally get an online challenger? Loading screen again. Selecting a character after getting into a match? Waddaya know, another loading screen! Street Fighter V’s current load times are frequent and long. I will say there are mods for the PC that will reduce the load times greatly but, since I have the PS4 version, that doesn’t help me. And even if I got myself a new fangled PS4 Pro, it would still take me almost a minute and a half for the game just to boot up!

I’m not really sure what’s the hold up. Is it because the game has been patched multiple times that it’s just getting longer and longer for Street Fighter V to start up? Is it reading the data on the disc? Is the startup menu really that intricate that it would take that long to boot up? Whatever the case, I hope the folks of Capcom manage to find a way to ease up on the load times and their duration by the time Arcade Edition rolls off the assembly line.

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2) More Stage KOs

When Street Fighter V initially came out, there was only one stage, Bustling Side Street, that had special Stage KOs. It took Capcom a while but they eventually added Stage KOs to the rest of the original stages. They weren’t important or add anything integral to the overall gameplay but I did appreciate these new mini-cinematics as they were fun little distractions and added a little variety to just pummeling your opponent into submission.

The game has received additional stages since then as well as theme and holiday variations of some of the current ones. These new stages haven’t gotten the same treatment as the original stages as they don’t have any Stage KOs. This is a really minor nitpick but there were some stages where I would’ve wanted to see some fancy new KO animation if you knock your opponent into the edge of the screen. I love the really fancy stages like Kanzuki Beach and Skies of Honor where there’s a lot of things to marvel at. But I would love them even more if you can actually knock your opponent into a net that’s just on the right side of Kanzuki Beach or knock your opponent off the wing of Skies of Honor and then just grab hold of the edge of the wing before they plummet to the ground.

There are also the nostalgia stages which pay homage to the veteran characters old stages like Vega’s Flamenco Tavern, Cammy’s English Manor and Guile’s Air Force Base. Capcom did a marvelous job transitioning these old stages but they would’ve been better if they also added new Stage KO’s just to give us something new. I would also love to see the holiday themed ones get them as well. Capcom should let their imaginations go wild and just think up of some crazy stuff for these Stage KOs if they do add them.

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3) Switch to a Secondary Character when you lose

While tier lists are generally someone’s personal opinion, you can’t deny there are some really bad matchups in each and every fighting game. Street Fighter V is balanced for the most part but there are just some characters that will have more difficulty when matched up with some characters. This is why, in every fighting game tournament, the loser of the first match has the option to switch to a secondary character. This can allow for some really hype moments as seen during EVO 2013 when Infiltration switched from Akuma to Hakan, of all characters to make a dramatic comeback against PR Balrog. But there is a benefit to switch from your main character to a secondary character as, well, as I said, there are simply bad matchups.

However, Street Fighter V’s online matches, which do follow the “first to 2” tournament standard, doesn’t allow this. You have to stick with your main character for better or worse. I guess this makes sense because of all the loading that would probably have to happen if you could switch to another character. Still, if Capcom manages to fix the loading problem, they could maybe find a workaround for this as well.

I’m not even asking to be booted back into the character select screen. I’m asking Capcom to add a “main” and “secondary” character slot to the online match component. When you start a match, you will going in with your “main” character. If you lose, that’s when you’re given the option to switch to your secondary. You don’t have to, of course and you can just bounce right into the next match. But, if Capcom really wants to follow traditional fighting game tournament rules, switching to a secondary character would have to be standard.

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4) More Challenges and ways to earn Fight Money

There are two ways to get some DLC items in Street Fighter V. The first one is the traditional manner of using real money to buy them. The second way is to earn Fight Money, Street Fighter V’s in-game currency that you can earn by winning online matches and fulfilling various tasks, like accomplishing all of a character’s trials, finishing each character’s Story mode, going through Survival mode and completing the daily and weekly Challenges. Initially, it’s incredibly easy to get Fight Money as there’s a lot of benchmarks that are easy to achieve. Completing each character’s Story mode is ridiculously easy that a baby can finish it!

You can only do most of the things once. Eventually, the only way to really earn Fight Money is to win online matches and complete the challenges. The problem is that you don’t really earn all that much from them so it can be a slog to get enough Fight Money to buy the newer characters in the future as well as all of the stages. This is probably intentional on Capcom’s part because they do want you to buy their stuff with real money instead of the fictional Fight Money stuff. But I do hope Capcom does give us more ways to actually get enough of the fictional cash to make purchases. Hopefully, completing the new Arcade mode will give you some coin.

Also, I do wish there were more actual challenges. The daily and weekly challenges rolled out a year ago and Capcom hasn’t added any new ones. As such, dedicated players are stuck completing recycled challenges day in and day out. I would like it if Capcom create a few more of them to give us some variety and not be so repetitive. It would be easy to add something like “Get a Stage KO 10 times in a Ranked match” or even something more complicated and insane like “Win 10 straight online matches without losing” just to up the challenge.

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5) Preview characters before buying colors or costumes

One of the things you can purchase using the aforementioned Fight Money are new colors for your character’s different outfits. It may be tempting to use Fight Money to unlock these extra colors but some of them do cost a pretty penny so there were many times where I held off from actually buying them. Maybe I would be more receptive to purchasing extra colors if I actually knew what the color scheme would look like in the Shop area. But, no. Capcom doesn’t give you a preview of what the colors would look like on the character!

This is a really minor gripe as you can go online and do a little research to see how those extra colors look like on your favorite character. But this does look like a gross oversight on Capcom’s part. The in-game shop looks unfinished and haphazardly inserted into the game because you can’t even see what the finished product looks like. At least give us a still image of the character in the color scheme you want me to buy!

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What other changes would you like to see in Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition? Let me know in the comments section below!