World Tour isn’t just Street Fighter 6’s Story Mode – it’s also Final Fight 4

street fighter 6it’s new World Tour The story mode is a revelation for the series. Less of a “cinematic story” and more of an RPG experience that sees you adventure through an open-ended Street Fighter theme park, it’s a wonderful mode that pays loving homage to years of gaming history. But its secret weapon is that it’s not just a Street Fighter experience.

Truly, World Tour owes so much to final fight Like Street Fighter.

These two franchises have always been inextricably linked and have always shared a universe. The first Final Fight actually started out as a sequel to the first Street Fighter, trading one-on-one battles for street fighting against an endless cavalcade of bad guys. It eventually morphed into a hard-hitting new series, sitting alongside Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, and a number of licensed games, the most famous of which stars the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Despite the different genres, the connection between Final Fight and Street Fighter endured. Characters from Final Fight would make a cameo in the background of the arenas in Fighter, Metro City would be a frequent SF location, and finally, the characters from Final Fight would completely intersect to be able to play through the series one on one. So the link is not new; but Street Fighter 6 certainly deepens it.

About half of World Tour takes place in an open-world representation of a few city blocks in Metro City, the setting for the Final Fight games. Mad Gear, the criminal gang at the center of those games, plays the role of both an antagonist and an ally. And plenty of Final Fight alumni make appearances at all times, headlining side quests, as part of the main story, or just showing up for the hell of it.

These are some of the best moments from the SF6 World Tour, in fact. Each character you fight as in World Tour has a fighting style based on one of the other 18 warriors available to play in SF6’s other modes, but each fighter’s parameters are modified based on their size, shape, stats, and which moves. special have access. a, that can be mixed and matched with those of the entire cast. Additionally, some characters have unique moves, designed to give them a truly individual touch.

In a deep cut for hardcore fans, Retsu from Street Fighter 1 makes an appearance, for example. Retsu knows it’s a deep cut; he tells the player to google it. He leads an important side quest, but he’s basically built like a user-created character, except the developers have given him a unique special move. That move is a flying kick which he also performed in the original Street Fighter. And so when you fight him, it really feels like Retsu is back. The same is true for a variety of minor characters returning from both Street Fighter and Final Fight, and you’ll see some pretty cool unique moves from grabs to samurai sword slashes – it’s pretty cool.

It’s not just about the character and the world, though: World Tour also feels mechanically connected to Final Fight, at least on a spiritual level. Those types of games died out as games became more expansive and complex. It was no longer enough to beat people in the street. However, the lineage of those games led to other stripes of action/adventure/RPG games; it’s easy to draw a connecting line between Streets of Rage, Shenmue, and Yakuza. Such is the case with World Tour and Final Fight.

The way you traverse this world getting into trouble, getting involved in gang wars, and unraveling the mysteries of Metro City in a calm, non-serious way: It feels like a modern successor to those beat’em-ups. .

It’s also impressive that this is accomplished without summoning most of Final Fight’s biggest stars. Mike Haggar (who shares several moves with SF’s Zangief) is immortalized in a statue, but is otherwise missing, and neither are Abigail, Cody, Guy, Lucia, Maki, or Sodom. Hugo and Poison make some of their Final Fight teammates appear as super bosses, but they too are absent. However, since all of these characters have been playable in other SF titles, it seems like a fair bet that the developers wanted to retain them… should they join the roster proper at a later date.

Anyway. All of this is to say that it is quite wonderful. As I say in our SF6 review, World Tour is a bit bland and threadbare in places, but what it lacks in polish it makes up for in charm and heart. It’s a clever idea of ​​what a Street Fighter player can be, but also a successor to Final Fight. In fact, it’s a love letter to all of Capcom’s fighting titles.

In the middle of Metro City from Street Fighter 6 is a crude facsimile of Times Square known as Beat Square. In the middle of prominent Beat Square is a floor mural that’s like the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but for the Street Fighter lineage. Stamped together with a bold script reading ‘OUR WAY’, it lists, in order:

• Street Fighter
• final fight
• street fighter 2
• Saturday night teachers
• final fight 2
• Darkstalkers: Warriors of the Night
• Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters 2
• final fight 3
• alpha street fighter
• Night Warriors: Revenge of the Dark Stalkers
• cyberbots
• Red land
• plasma sword
• pocket fighter
• rival schools
• street fighter 3
• Vampire Savior: Lord of the Vampires
• Plasma Sword: Bilstein’s Nightmare
• Technological romantic
• final fight revenge
• street fighter 4
• street fighter 5
• street fighter 6

It is a statement. This is the Capcom way. This is the Capcom lineage. World Tour respects and loves it all. And for any fan, new or old, it’s a joyous celebration, history lesson and experience. Don’t sleep on World Tour, it’s worth checking out.

For more on Street Fighter 6, check out what we thought of the game in our Street Fighter 6 review. Plus, check out how the wifi wars surrounding the game have already started, and how Street Fighter 6 has achieved KO Mortal Kombat in terms of Steam registrations.