Hiya!

Look, Capcom. I gotta hand it to you. You really learned your lesson with Street Fighter 5 and put a lot of time and effort into redeeming yourself with Street Fighter 6. I honestly can’t really say anything really bad about your latest fighting game entry. The gameplay mechanics are fantastic. The new Drive System feels really thought out to give players a lot of expression on the battlefield. The graphics are gorgeous and everything animates smoothly. You even put a ton of effort into the single player experience, not only giving players an arcade mode to sink our teeth into, but also the weirdly addictive World Tour mode. Capcom, you deserve all the praise in the world for Street Fighter 6 as it’s an almost flawless game.

However, if I were to nitpick, there is one aspect of Street Fighter 6 which Capcom neglected to put a good amount of effort into. It’s something which fighting game enthusiasts don’t really complain about but more casual fans such as myself put some weight on. Capcom really needed to put a whole lot of more work into Street Fighter 6’s endings.

Before you read any further, I do have to put out the mandatory SPOILER WARNING here. After all, I will be going into some detail regarding Street Fighter 6’s endings, both from the Arcade endings for the individual characters and the game’s massive World Tour mode. So, yeah. SPOILER WARNING!

I do understand how, in the grand scheme of things, lore isn’t all that important in a fighting game. It’s not exactly an integral part of what makes a great fighting game. Things like game mechanics, precise control, good online netcode, smooth animations which can animate fluidly at 60 frames per second so you can pull off combos and the like all take precedent over a fighting game’s story. However, Street Fighter 6’s stories simply feel unremarkable and, sadly, unsatisfying.

Oh, I also do have issues with Street Fighter 6’s overall plot points. That’s becausea lot of context isn’t told in the game itself. It does appear the main plotline revolves around the game’s new antagonist, JP, taking over the country of Nayshall and framing Ken Masters by making him the patsy for a terrorist coup. To get the full story, you have to read the tie-in comic where this all happens. I don’t want to do homework to get the history of what’s been happening, even if it does involve reading a comic!

I still read the comic because I was interested in finding out why Ken is on the run and, as I did give a SPOILER WARNING earlier, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. In summary, Ken is eventually taken into custody but is eventually let go as he was proven innocent of all wrongdoing. However, he still can’t return to his family because, to the general public, he’s still a bad guy. Okay… but isn’t Ken Masters super rich? Why does he have to be on the lam? Why can’t he go into hiding, which he should be able to do with all his millions? Instead, he has the “brilliant” plan of hiding out in a construction yard so he can still be close to his son. It’s just weird and pretty dumb.

Street Fighter 6 also tries to act all mysterious with Lily’s ability to communicate with the spirits. If you play through Dhalsim’s Arcade story, the yoga master detects a very strong spirit and he decides to investigate it. He eventually runs into Lily, who can hear Toyno’Ikonoi, who speaks to her through the winds. After the two battle, Dhalsim can only feel a calm spirit surrounding Lily. Before the fight, however, he felt the presence of something more akin to the Satsui no Hado, the Murderous Intent which Ryu supposedly purged himself of during Street Fighter V. Anyway, Dhalsim seems to basically dismiss it afterwards, hoping he was mistaken. Really? No further investigation needed, Dhalsim? That seems anticlimactic.

In fact, this seems like a theme for all of Street Fighter 6’s Arcade endings. Nothing is really resolved nor do they have any semblance of finality. Luke and Jamie bump into each other and they become rivals and that’s about it. Both Marisa and Manon meet up and have a grand ol’ time fighting each other to prove who’s the strongest. Lily’s arcade ending is basically Dhalsim’s ending but from her point of view. No real stakes, which is fine because Capcom is introducing these characters in Street Fighter 6. The really terrible endings are the ones with stakes as nothing happens! Kimberly goes after JP to get answers about the bombing but she doesn’t get to ask him any questions after winning. Guile manages to find Ken but doesn’t really bring him back home. Cammy beats JP due to his connection with Shadaloo but, like with Kimberly, doesn’t ask JP anything and he gets away! This is pretty much how most of the Arcade endings go as there’s nothing resolved by the end or it just feels like there’s more story to be told later on.

I can’t help but compare these endings to the endings of previous Street Fighter entries as, even if they weren’t actual conclusions, they at least were setting up for future events in intriguing ways. For example, in Street Fighter II, Ken gets married. That at least gives a conclusion to Ken’s story, even if we just meet Eliza at the very end. In Street Fighter III, Dudley goes after Gill as he wants to get his father’s car. Guess what? In his ending, Dudley does get his car from Gill! An actual story arc completed! In Street Fighter IV, Balrog escapes Shadaloo headquarters but with a boy who has Psycho Power within him. This boy eventually grows up to be Ed. Sure, this ending is more like a “to be continued” but Balrog does get something out of it. See? Actual satisfying endings!

Even Street Fighter 6’s dedicated single player story, World Tour, ends without any clear conclusion. World Tour has your created character looking for true strength and this leads him or her to tour the world, learning techniques from other Street Fighter characters. You eventually get involved in international intrigue when your fellow recruit, Bosch, goes missing. It turns out Bosch is looking for a way to free his home country of Nayshall by taking out JP, who has become the defacto leader of the nation. Things happen, like Bosch getting imbued with Psycho Power somehow and you joining the Mad Gear gang to join the Nayshall fighting tournament.

By the end, Bosch, even if you do beat him, ends up as the champion. This leads to JP supposedly awarding him the championship belt, which has a bomb planted in it. JP knows it’s there so he gives the belt to Bosch’s sister. Bosch tries to take the belt/bomb away and dies in the explosion. This leads to the final fight with JP and, even after beating him, he gloats since defeating him changes nothing. Bosch is still dead. After that, you talk to Luke one more time to continue your search for true strength. The end. Boo!

Once again, this is a totally unsatisfying ending as, well, it can be considered as a bad ending! The hero of the story, your character, failed to save your friend and Nayshall is still in the grips of JP’s evil clutches. What does your character and the rest of the Street Fighter fighters do after this? Totally and utterly nothing! I couldn’t help but feel empty inside afterwards as nothing really changed except for your friend dying. Heck, you don’t even try to get revenge or join the resistance! You just shrug it off and continue on your globetrotting adventure. Some friend you are!

My hope is Capcom isn’t really done with Street Fighter 6’s story elements. It totally plausible Capcom will expand World Tour when the DLC characters are dropped into the game incrementally as there are some sections of Metro City and Nayshall cordoned off. Maybe these areas will become explorable when characters like AKI, Rashid, Ed and Akuma become available and you can meet them in World Tour mode then. Heck, I’m hoping Ed will factor into the story a little more as Capcom has to explain how Bosch got the Psycho Power implanted in him!

However, right now, Street Fighter 6’s story feels, at the very least, incomplete. Nothing feels resolved by the end of World Tour mode and the Arcade endings don’t really have any conclusion to any of the characters’ stories. I really hope Capcom still has some stuff up its sleeve because, even though not many people care for fighting game lore, there is that small percentage of people, including myself, who do.

Byee!

What do you think of Street Fighter 6’s stories? Did they satisfy you or not? Let me know in the comments section below!